DON'T LET THIS GET BAYOU

At the request of Michael Zimmerman of the Clergy Letter Project, I am passing along the following alert to those who care about science education in this country, particularly in the 'Sportsman's Paradise', the Pelican State of Louisiana:

Please support Barbara Forrest and the Louisiana Coalition for Science in opposing SB 733, a bill which amends Louisiana law to allow a foot in the door for the promotion of the Discovery Institute's 'Wedge Strategy'. As they correctly point out in this press release, if Governor Bobby Jindal fails to put the kibosh on this legislation, then sooner or later they are going to end up in federal court as the DI's catspaw, and it's going to cost them. Unfortunately, given Jindal's public expression of sympathy for ID (and thus, indirectly, for the DI), I don't think that's going to happen.

ARSON!

(EXPURGATED)

I've just learned that, yesterday, someone appears to have set some of our classrooms undergoing 'modernization' at Bullard ablaze!

I don't know anything more, I will have to go to my site today to see for myself.

*************UPDATE*************

Fires were set in three locations in two adjoining classrooms (N-61 and N-63). The fires along the west wall and storage room of N-61 seem to be superficial in damage, not penetrating the gypsum wall board:












The third fire, in N-63, appears to have damaged a cabinet of a lab station and that will probably cost thousands to replace, though the resistant lab surface on top would probably have survived a room-wide blaze and still be useful:


Still, this is disturbing and, if news accounts are to be believed, could be linked to gang activity whose sole purpose is to demonstrate the relative strength of a given group of hoods to damage public property as compared to their rivals. And the news media are here:

Here's a video, from Channel 47, On Your Side

One more thing: I saw some people give me funny looks over the last few days, that I was taking pictures of science classrooms in the process of being disassembled ('modernization'). Obviously, I had no idea anyone was going to intentionally vandalize the classroom, but I have to say I now have the feeling I wish I had taken more pictures. The good news is that my colleague's teaching materials and personal possessions seemed to have been moved out before this happened. I can only imagine how I would feel if I lost all of the curricula I've generated over the years.

MODERNIZATION

In the going-slightly-crazy department:

One of my colleagues at Bullard had cabinets and other items which should've been preserved accidentally destroyed by the demolition team. The same thing, as far as I can see, may yet happen to my classrooms if I don't supervise.

So, I'm headed back to Bullard this afternoon to make sure everything is properly stored as I will be teaching out of a trailer next semester. And this is called (ahem) "modernization", which based on yesterday's experience seems almost Stalinist. Hopefully the trailer won't be a five-year plan!