MSNBC featured two very bright high school students on Hardball and then on Lawrence O'Donnell's Last Word and seeing these kids stand up to the history revisionists like Michele Bachmann or these people trying to push creationism into our school kids as science gives me some hope for our future.
In the video above -- Andy Kopplin's son takes his anti-creationism campaign to 'Hardball':
Zack Kopplin, the son of Andy Kopplin, Mayor Mitch Landrieu's chief of administration, was featured on a segment of "Hardball with Chris Matthews" this evening.
Kopplin, a high school student, discussed his efforts to combat the Louisiana Science Education Act, a 2008 law that governs how local school systems can introduce supplemental materials into science lessons on topics such as evolutionary biology, global warming and cloning.
During the segement, Kopplin expressed his belief that Gov. Bobby Jindal, who graduated as a biology major from Brown University and signed the act into law, in his "heart of hearts" knows "how vital evolution is to biology."
And the subject of the threats did not come up on O'Donnell's show, but here's a reminder of what this student put up with after challenging Bachmann that Dave wrote about last week -- Right-wingers flood teen who challenged Bachmann to a debate with threats of violence.
Not one single example of a threat made to the teen was listed in his post of the article to which he linked which the post was based on. There were allusions to, but no documentation of, nasty comments made in blogs.
Commentary in blogs is hardly flooding a teen with threats. If anyone wants to disagree I will link to a thread here not so long ago about a teenage boy speaking to CPAC and you can direct your remarks to those who wrote nasty things here.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
her info out there and made the threatening emails as something to just be blown off? You put someone's personal information out there where they know how to find them at home, and you're hoping some nut job does harm to them. I think it's sad that you're willing to defend the people that did that to her and to her family as something to be brushed off because no one followed through on it. Are you willing to defend the likes of Michelle Malkin who did the same thing to that poor kid who dared to do a commercial for Democrats? Your remarks here disgust me.
'Flying Monkey's?'
And Ricky, you could have gone to the site and checked for yourself. If they weren't documented here, they were in other places. All you need to do is check around.
And if people did go off on the teen here, then shame on them. I don't think anyone made any death threats here, and if they did, then even MORE shame on them - I also think the comments would have quickly been deleted if that did happen.
But calling that kid an ignoramous in a comment thread isn't the same as sending people out to check out what countertops some kids parents have in their kitchen, finding our their school, giving out the home address, or sending death threat via 'e' and snail-mail.
the fact that I said there was no documentation of any single threat, much less a flood of them. Further, if you look at the orginial article, her daddy said her school
got threats. The school denied it.
When someone disagrees with the quality of the work here it does not mean they agree or disagree with the subject of the post. It means they disagree with the poster. That makes three mistakes for you Heather in my book.
In the post I said I could link to here at C&L I objected to the offensive, many of them sexual and violent, comments made about a conservative 13 year old boy. Many "progressive posters attacked me for it. I don't defend any violent expressions against anyone.
Here is one such exchange from that days' post,
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
Ricky defend such behavior, nor is he doing so now. He is probably one of the most consistent people who post here in refraining from that sort of behavior. Certainly more so than me. We are all given to hyperbole from time to time but I think you are seriously mistaken in interpreting his comment as any sort of support for misbehavior such as you suggest.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
If there was ever a comment that made me want to perform aberrant acts of universally recognized violence and sexuality it is this. But only because, taken as a whole, Canadians may prove to be a despicable people capable of amazing deceit masked by cunning politeness. It depends.
Yours,
Sisters in Snark
(We like Obama because he remains a convertible soul)
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
the principles office received threatening mail and her dad was so shaken up he canceled an interview. Must be over-reacting to nothing, I guess. The rightwing response always seems to have the whiff of a lynch mob. Is it just me?
quoted. Dad told the reporter the school told him they got threats. The school told the reporter they did not.
This article appeared on May 23. The reporter said her Dad cancelled an interview with the paper because of fears for her safety. He apparently got over the fears because here we get to see video of her appearance on MSNBC on May 27.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
Totally hip and with it.
For doing something my generation is petrified to do and that is to make a statement against the status quo. I'm 59 years old.
A spokesperson to express their unified terror at speaking out!
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
...petrified to make a statement against the status quo just because you're in your 60th year? I'm in my 60th year and the prospect of me NOT challenging or commenting on the status quo for the sake of others my age and the youth of America is absurd.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Go figure, at this age she's aleready smarter than Bachmann. Though I think even I am...
I have a house plant that is smarter than Bachmann. At least as far as being human goes
I actually wrote a brief blog about the whole Bachmann/Myers thing. Forgive the plug, but I feel like it's a point of view people aren't really considering, regarding the whole challenge scenario:
Linky
In any event, the presence of these bright, young, eager minds always gives me some hope for the future. It gives me a little bit more hope that my yet-to-be-born daughter isn't coming into a world completely beyond saving. I just hope our horrifically backwards system doesn't beat every last ounce of enthusiasm out of them.
Read your blog post. Of course the crazy lady from Minnesota is not going to debate a high school sophomore, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.
From what I can tell, I don't think the typical, politically active progressive actually believed that such a debate would, could or should take place until the typical, politically active Bachmann supporters began to threaten the life of the student.
What Bachmann should be doing (besides putting herself in a box and FedEx-ing herself to the moon) is saying, "Naturally, as a U.S. Congresswoman with myriad responsibilities, I cannot take the time to debate a high schooler just because she challenges me. However, I appreciate that young people are involved enough to write to me with their disagreements, and I applaud this young lady's political enthusiasm. I also condemn strongly anyone who would threaten her just for calling for a debate with me. Anyone who does so is not someone I want supporting me for any office in this country."
Since there seems nary a peep from Bachmann condemning the threats of violence made in her name, it doesn't seem all that bad to try to corner her into actually debating the student. As you mention, it's a lose-lose situation for the Minnesota Moron, and she deserves to be boxed into it.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
Bachmann, dumber than a high schooler.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
bachmann only has a single digit IQ.
On a normal day I wouldn't grace Rickey's comment with a reply but I'll just say, peddle your crap to the GOP, they have a penchant for ignorance !
TJM
I am glad to see that the right wing war on education, has not gotten to all of our young people. These two are very bright.
Motivated in Ohio http://motivatedinohio.com/
reading history of the Middle Ages. The parallels are too depressing.
On behalf of all Minnesotans - well, OK, the sane ones - I hereby invite Amy to relocate to Minnesota with her family and run against Michelle in 2012.
The party of flag pins, birth certificates, man on dog sex and creationism. What a motley crew of silly blunderers!
Professor Beery eviscerates this bunch with a bit of a judicial SMACKdown on his outstanding blog today ...
http://waronignorance.net/index.html
Ouch!
beeryblog
Fighting a War on Ignorance
In the day and age of man-made and/or man-altered life forms, I think we should consider that there might well-be evidence of man-made organisms. In other words, can't we look at the genetic markers in something like genetically-modified corn and proclaim that the corn was modified -- without being labeled as 'unscientific' and religiously-oriented?
At a more philosophical level, the more we learn about the origin of life, the closer we come to actually being able create such life 'ex nihilo' ourselves. And if and when we reach that stage, how will we differentiate between man-made and 'nature-made'?
Have a fish, silly creationists. Now kindly bugger off.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
These kids are great! - if we had more of them in this world I would have actual hope for our future.
I hope these kids are prepared for the vile personal attacks, obscene phone calls and death threats to come if Fox news has anything to say about it.
...I thought she was taken last saturday. Isn't her 15 minutes up yet?
We can't get an extension of unemployment insurance but bachmann and palin can stick around longer than 15 minutes? Its a world gone mad, I tells ya'?!
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
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