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... just cancelled. |
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Monday, March 30, 2009
Ayers & Naperville
5 comments:
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bustoff said...
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My letter to the Naperville North Principal:
Mr. Truemper,
I am writing to you in regards to your decision to allow William Ayers to appear and speak to students at Naperville North High School.
What in God's name are you thinking?!
Is there no one without a criminal history as an unrepentant domestic terrorist available to address your students? What did you hope to gain from this, and what will be his message to our young men and women? The use of extreme violence, at any cost, to achieve your political objectives? To use academia as a refuge to continue spreading your ideology of hate? That the passage of time will ultimately mitigate any and all of our actions -- even when we conspire to commit murder?
Open a window, let the vapors you are inhaling escape, and take a deep breath of this community's well-founded moral outrage. Boston College had also recently scheduled Mr. Ayers to speak to their students, but they had the presence of mind to cancel his appearance before that could happen. What's next on your agenda of scholastic enlightenment? A roundtable discussion with prison inmates convicted of murder? A foreign exchange program with members of Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan?
Put an end to this disgrace, cancel Mr. Ayers' appearance, and get back to the job of being a teacher instead of a political gadfly. Do your homework on vetting your speakers in the future, before you invite them to speak to our children.
Here's a little light reading for you about Mr. Ayers' organization, The Weather Underground. I daresay you would not want him to appear at your school, if anyone you knew or loved had been the victims of their terrorist agenda.
http://www.usasurvival.org/lg03.12.09.html -
3/30/09, 5:43 PM
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bustoff said...
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What I received in reply:
Thank you for writing.
Such a controversial issue involves a problem about which different individuals and groups urge conflicting courses of action. It is an issue for which society has not found a solution that can be universally or almost universally accepted. It is an issue of sufficient significance that each of the proposed ways of dealing with it is objectionable to some sector of the citizenry and arouses protest.
The following message from our Superintendent, Dr. Alan Leis, was sent via email to our community through Talk 203 and is also posted on our District 203 website.
“The appearance by Dr. Bill Ayers at Naperville North High School next week has been canceled.
On Friday, it was announced through a Talk203 email that we were reviewing the decision to invite him and that we were also exploring the possibility of moving the appearance to another venue. Initially, many people were upset about his appearance in a school building, even though it was to have been with a select group of students with required parental permission. Several people offered worthy suggestions about how to make the event more meaningful by concurrently inviting someone that would provide an equally strong opposing viewpoint.
Over the weekend, however, it became clear that this issue was not really about where Dr. Ayers was speaking, but that he was speaking at all. Each day, the level of emotion and outrage has seemed to increase, along with the number of emails and phone calls received. What was most unfortunate was that a few directed their anger toward an outstanding high school and at a well-regarded, award-winning teacher who encourages students to think for themselves.
While parents and others have written urging us to continue with the event because they want students exposed to diverse viewpoints, Dr. Ayers’ appearance has clearly become a “lightning rod,” both inside and outside the District 203 community, because of his past actions. It is clear that any value to our students would be lost in such a highly-charged atmosphere, and that any debate of issues or viewpoints would be overshadowed by media coverage and anger over the event itself.”
Ross Truemper. Principal
Naperville North High School -
3/30/09, 5:45 PM
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Rodger the Real King of France said...
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You're a barn army hero bustoff
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3/30/09, 6:49 PM
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Anonymous said...
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You'll notice, though, that nowhere in the reply was a, "Holy CRAP!! I didn't know that about him. We'll definitely cancel because of this." That means they knew exactly what this MFCSPOS is, and they wanted him to influence other people's children.
Anyone see another way to read that?
--Anonymous2112 -
3/31/09, 1:28 PM
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Rodger the Real King of France said...
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That's a fair reading. I think it's not presumptive to say that no living soul in Chicago with an ounce of learning is unaware of who Ayers is, and what he did.
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3/31/09, 5:08 PM
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