Politics

• So, apparently, some democrats in Georgia and Alabama have introduced legislation that supports public schools teaching a "Bible as literature" course, and the intended text book is entitled The Bible and its Influence. My initial reaction is a good one. I'm not sure its revolutionary, a I know some schools that have been doing that for years. One person, in the New York Times article that I read, objected to it because, "It should also be noted that the so-called Bible bill doesn't use the Bible as the textbook, and would allow teachers with no belief at all in the Bible to teach the course." Um, yeah, so why is that a problem? This notion that the Bible is a textbook in and of itself seems kind of silly to me. If it's going to be taught as literature, there's so much that students would need to know. Anyway, I'm interested to hear how folks feel about that.
• This Palestinian election has me thinking a lot about the democracy we're supposedly commited to spreading around the world. I know there have been reports of violence on election day, and I'm sure fear played some role in these elections, but it looks like the Palestinian people have made a choice for a party that openly supports violence to attain its goals in the world. I find it interesting that our government is posturing as if to deny the legitimacy of Hamas unless they renounce violence. Are we all about that power of the people to elect who they want to elect as long as they elect governments that see things the way we do? How can we really call for Hamas to cease violence, when we're in the midst of a campaign of violence in Iraq? Are we really commited to democracy? It's such a messed up situation over there, and these recent developments don't seem to shine much hope on things. Help me think about this.