Alabama Ends School Yoga Ban

“Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has signed a bill to allow public schools to offer yoga, ending a ban that stood for nearly 30 years. Christian conservatives who back the ban said yoga would open the door for people to be converted to Hinduism.

The new law allows yoga to be offered as an elective for grades K-12. While it erases a ban that, over the years, some schools had not realized existed, it also imposes restrictions on how yoga should be taught. Students won’t be allowed to say, ‘Namaste,’ for instance. Meditation is not allowed.

‘Chanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, induction of hypnotic states, guided imagery, and namaste greetings shall be expressly prohibited,’ the bill states. It also requires English names be used for all poses and exercises. And before any students try a tree pose, they’ll need a parent’s permission slip.”

— “Alabama Will Now Allow Yoga In Its Public Schools (But Students Can’t Say ‘Namaste’),” Bill Chappell, NPR News

________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-xaK

Image (“Zoom Yoga, after a 19th century Joga Pradīpikā manuscript”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

 

Alabama Doesn’t Decriminalize School Yoga

Zoom Yoga Lesson

In 1993 the state of Alabama outlawed yoga classes in public schools, fearing the exercizes would turn young Christian children into Hindus. School regulations specifically prohibit use of the greeting “Namaste.” If only students had started class by saying “How-do, y’all ….”

State Rep. Jeremy Gray, who also teaches Yoga, recently introduced a bill to legalize K-12 Yoga, and the Alabama House of Representatives approved it last month. The bill went to Alabama’s upper house, but state senators upheld the ban.

More:

“Alabama fails to reverse ban on school yoga as conservatives say they fear rise in Hinduism,” Akshita Jain, The Independent

“Yoga can leave you injured, psychotic and a Hindu, Christian groups claim,” Ed Pilkington, The Guardian

________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-wZM

Image (“Zoom Yoga, after a 19th century Joga Pradīpikā manuscript”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Deportation Force!

President Trump seems bent on fulfilling his campaign promise to round up millions of your neighbors and deport them. But how? The administration can appoint more administrative judges to rubber-stamp deportation orders, and private contractors can make a buck from imprisoning millions in new concentration camps, but who will round up all those people? Where’s the promised Deportation Force? How can you quickly recruit and hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents?

Easy. Just lower the standards. A Department of Homeland Security memo suggests ending polygraph and physical fitness tests and eliminating Spanish language skills from the entrance exams.

More:

“Trump administration moving quickly to build up nationwide deportation force,” David Nakamura, Washington Post

“To Detain More Immigrants, Trump Administration to Speed Border Hiring,” Vivian Yee and Ron Nixon, New York Times

Related:

“ICE immigration arrests of noncriminals double under Trump,” Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post

___________________

Short Link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-pyQ

Image manipulated by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Un-American. Unconstitutional. Unacceptable.

Making people from a minority group wear identity badges, registering them in a database and tracking them. Denying sanctuary to refugees due to their faith traditions and returning them to deadly war zones. Closing houses of worship. Barring valid travelers from entering this country due solely to their religion.

That’s not America.

A man who grew up across the street from his German-American immigrant grandmother should know better. Even one who is an egocentric, bigoted, billionaire bully.

_______________

Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-mA1

Image (after a Leytonstone Tube Station passenger) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Kristallnacht

On November 9, 1938 Germany and Austria saw their worst pogrom in centuries. Streets were littered with glass shards from the shattered windows of stores with Jewish owners on what became called Kristallnacht, the night of crystal.  Synagogues were burned, Jewish shops and homes ransacked, a thousand German Jews beaten and killed, 30,000 rounded up and sent to isolation centers. The nations of the world did what most German Christians did: Nothing. Today Germans marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

More:

“Kristallnacht still casts a long shadow on Europe,” Abraham Cooper, Washington Post blog

“Kristallnacht,” America and the Holocaust, PBS

“Bearing Witness To Nazis’ Life-Shattering Kristallnacht,” Esme Nicholson, NPR

Texas Congressman Sees Another Conspiracy

The Honorable The congressman representing the First District of Texas, Rep. Louie Gohmert, the hero who saved the Republic from The Attack of the Terrorist Babies, has found a new covert menace:

“… this administration has so many Muslim Brotherhood members that have influence that they just are making wrong decisions for America.”

— “Tea Party Congressman: Muslim Brotherhood Is Guiding Obama In Boston Bombings Investigation,” Igor Volsky, Think Progress

But just how many Muslim Brotherhood members have infiltrated the Obama administration, anyway?

Arizona Immigration Policy Evolves

“If you know Middle Easterners, a lot of them, they look Mexican or they look, you know, like a lot of people in South America, dark skin, dark hair, brown eyes. And they mix. They mix in.

 And those people, their only goal in life is to, to cause harm to the United States. So why do we want them here, either legally or illegally? When they come across the border, besides the trash that they leave behind, the drug smuggling, the killings, the beheadings. I mean, you are seeing stuff. It’s a war out there.”

— Gabriela Saucedo Mercer, Republican Candidate for Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District

More:

“Arizona GOP Favorite Doesn’t Want Middle Easterners In U.S. ‘Legally Or Illegally,’” Nick R. Martin, TPM Muckracker

“Arizona Pol: Middle Easterners Look Like Mexicans And Don’t Belong Here ‘Legally Or Illegally,'” James King, Village Voice

___________________
Short Link:  http://wp.me/p6sb6-e2d

Image (“Arizona Tourism Campaign”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Proven: The Terror Baby Menace!

 

At last, scientific vindication of the Terror Baby menace, the wave of pregnant terrorist tourists coming to our country and dropping their evil spawn amongst us to bomb us into oblivion. This threat to National Security was first brought to our attention by Congressman Louie Gohmert (R, TX-1) . Mr. Gohmert discovered this phenomenon through the actual chit-chat of an actual foreign woman during an actual overseas airline flight.

Now the Center for Immigration Studies, America’s most official-sounding xenophobic “think tank,” has released a scientific study, based on scientifically-selected editorials, which expresses Islamic Infant Terror Tourist Tactics in actual Arabic Numbers. It reveals that millions of fecund foreign females cross our borders to study and vacation in our fair land and, given their unAmerican high fertility rates, they undoubtedly eject infants before departing. Simple arithmatic shows that as many as 200,000 infant invaders can be be born here under the flimsy cover of legitimate tourist and student visas. These baby bombers can claim U.S. citizenship after a mere 21 years and dissappear amongst us to menace our precious malls and McDonald’s.

Christine O’Donnell Foils Commie Invasion!

Thank God Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell used her secret classified knowledge to stave off a Chinese Communist attack on the USA the last time she ran for the U.S. Senate, back in 2006. We don’t know exactly how she discovered that the heathen hordes were poised to pounce, but she did. How can we be sure? Because the candidate said so, and she never lies.

That was 2006, and China’s “carefully thought out and strategic plan to take over America” never materialized. How did Christine O’Donnell avert the Asian invasion? Was it … witchcraft?

Whatever. A grateful nation thanks you, Ms. O’Donnell.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Sharron Angle Defends USA From Muslim Invasion!

“… we’re talking about a militant terrorist situation, which I believe it isn’t a widespread thing, but it is enough that we need to address, and we have been addressing it.”

“My thoughts are these, first of all, Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don’t know how that happened in the United States. It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States.”
— Sharron Angle, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.