Grinchy remark sends kids home in tears

[Livingston]

@#%*^&*%^$**)($^&%!%!$*(^

Now that that's out. Why has no one in the last 55 years told ME that Santa died!?! I hope neither of my sisters or my parents hear about that. We ALL believe there is a Santa....and he's part of each and every one of us helping to spread happiness and joy at this time of year.

On another note.....Moore did not write it, he claimed it was his. It does not match the style of anything he ever wrote. It was written 15 years earlier by Major Henry Livingston Jr.

http://www.iment.com/maida/familytree/henry/summary.htm

[GlassMan]

Okay, I just read the teachers letter in the paper, and I guess I was wrong. It is about parenting and also about an uptight, overly-zealous, grumpy, nasty, mean old women intent on pushing her personal beliefs on everyone around her.

It reminds me of my sophomore year in high school. In my English class near the end of the first semester we were all supposed to do an independent research project and then give a persuasive oral presentation on the topic to the class. The goal was to teach us that we write one way when we are preparing a written presentation but in a different manner when we are engaging in oratory. (In an aside, I wish that more children had the good fortune of being blessed with extremely competent teachers who go far beyond the minimum requirements!)

Anyway, one of my classmates decided that she would do her presentation on why it was impossible for Christ to have been born on Christmas. She brought up how it was originally a Pagan festival for Mithras, and how the winter solstice festival was also common among many other European societies. Then she tried to claim that because Isreal is at the same latitude as DC that it would have been cold and snowy at the time so there would be no shepherds out with their flocks (remember, we were in South Texas where the far side of the planet Mercury is considered cooler than our own climate). And of course, she then went on to attack the nature of the modern Christmas celebrations and ended it with a statement of her religious beliefs that there was no Christ, was no Christmas, and that we were all damned for not being true believers in the One True God. (I omit her religion but I think you can figure it out).

Our instructor told her that her topic was innapropriate since our assignment specifically told us to stay away from topics that were too controversial, and that she had also failed to do proper research. For example, because of the Mediteranean and the North Atlantic Current, European and Middle Eastern lattitudes are much warmer than their North American counterparts. I.E. It never snows in Isreal unless an industrial snow maker is employed.

But she felt that it was her mission to convert the Christians, Jews & everyone else. She defiantly stated that it was her faith that was important and that she didn't care what grade she recieved.

People like that will never be reasonable or pay attention to the needs of others.

Oh wait a second, I just realized, it all does go back to parenting. If either my classmate's or that teacher's parents hadn't been narrow-minded fools with poor parenting skills they would have raised such thoughtless children.