Wait Until They Find Out Numbers Are Called Arabic Numerals

We're coming to you today from the Department O' Book Learnin' here in the marbled halls of IM Central. DoBL is a division of the Readin' Is For Frenchies Corporation, a wholly owned subsidy of Education Must Confirm Our Prejudices, NA.

It seems the good people of Tennessee have taken it upon themselves to wrest the education of tomorrow's leaders from the east coast elite and return it to the backwoods and hollers where it rightfully belongs.

About two dozen tea party activists held a news conference, then met with lawmakers individually to present their list of priorities and “demands” for the 2011 legislative session.

"This whole educatin' the young'uns is gettin' outta hand," said Fayette County attorney Hal Rounds, the group’s lead spokesman. "The other day my daughter told me she hadda take a whole class in Al Gebra. First of all, when did the mooslims take over our schools, and secondly, why does the the law make girls go to school in the first place?"

Regarding education, the material they distributed said, “Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students in Tennessee the truth regarding the history of our nation and the nature of its government.”

When asked what kind of "truths" were being withheld from students Rounds replied that, "for too long these northern, egghead, ivy league intellectuals have been doing "research," reading in the "archives" and studying "documents" about the Founding Fathers. Then they write all these "books" and "papers" and we're just supposed to believe what they say, but I think our kids should hear the real truth from patriots like Sarah Palin, or Pat Buchanan, or Glenn Beck. He's got his own school you know."

The material calls for lawmakers to amend state laws governing school curriculums, and for textbook selection criteria to say that “No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.”

When asked to explain what that meant, Rounds pointed out that "it's a well known fact god gave the North American continent to white people. Now, I got nothin' against the duskier hues, but Manifest Destiny, man. It's right there in the bible.

Rounds said the group wants to address “an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another.

"Intruding" on the Indians? So that's what they're calling it these days. Well, that is a better word,  we guess. Avoids giving northern, egghead, ivy league intellectuals the opportunity to make up criticisms about, you know things like the Sand Creek Massacre, or Wounded Knee, or the Yontoket Massacre, or the Achulet Massacre, or the Wiyot Massacre, or the Marias Massacre, or the, oh wait, sorry. We mean the Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, Yontoket, Achulet, Wiyot and Marias intrusions. Our bad.

“The thing we need to focus on about the founders is that, given the social structure of their time, they were revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it hadn’t existed, to everybody — not all equally instantly — and it was their progress that we need to look at,” said Rounds.

When it was pointed out that the Founding Fathers were greatly influenced English writers like John Locke and Thomas Hobbes and indeed Jefferson may have cribbed parts of the Declaration of Independence from the writings of Locke, Rounds replied that he knew for a fact that wasn't true because of a historical special hosted by Sean Hannity he had watched on Fox News.