Deborah Lipp

I wake up to morning news on WCBS AM. (I find that if I wake up to music, there is considerably less “waking up” involved.) I am often bemused by how conservative a CBS station is—you know, the network of Dan Rather and all that. But today takes the cake.

Yesterday, I woke up to the story of the NSA tracking millions (!) of American phone calls. CBS presented me with two “person in the street” voices (for “balance”), one was mildly concerned, the other was a man saying “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about” (only with a New York accent) (moron) (y’think his name was Winston Smith?).

So today, the headline is that everyone is exploding about these revelations, both ordinary people and politicians. This time, three sound clips:

• The same moron saying he had nothing to hide (presumably they could only find one person that stupid)
• A politician (sounded like Hastert, can’t be sure) saying that breaches of national security (i.e. the story itself) were of grave concern, and
• A woman with a Hispanic accent saying she was concerned about her privacy.

Your lesson, boys and girls? Real Americans think this is okay. Suspicious brown people with accents worry about (sniff, snort, hehehe) “privacy”.

That funny odor you smell is the Constitution burning.

31%.

Mr. Bush’s overall job approval rating hit another new low, 31 percent, tying the low point of his father in July 1992, four months before the elder Mr. Bush lost his bid for a second term to Bill Clinton. That is the third lowest approval rating of any president in 50 years; only Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter were viewed less favorably.

Mr. Bush is even losing support from what has been his base: 51 percent of conservatives and 69 percent of Republicans approve of the way Mr. Bush is handling his job. In both cases, those figures are a substantial drop in support from four months ago.

Can I hear an Amen?

This story caught my attention (initially because it’s local: I have friends with kids in this school district). In sum, a high school art teacher (and we can pause to be briefly amused at the name of Peter Panse) has been suspended for telling his advanced students that they could further their skills by taking drawing classes that include nude figure studies, and for suggesting he might teach such a class, which chaperoned students could attend. (By the way, I have no idea why this guy was suspended in December, but I heard it on the news today.)

Pete Panse is a talented and popular high school art teacher in Middletown, NY who uses traditional techniques to to train his students. In December 2005 Mr. Panse was suspended from his job for recommending that some of his advanced students consider taking figure drawing courses that included nude figure drawings. Mr. Panse is suspended from his job pending hearings after which he may be permanently fired, ending a 25-year teaching career. In the meantime, his students are sitting in study hall learning nothing and failing to prepare the materials necessary for their receiving scholarships.

This blows my mind. Do people think that high school students don’t understand that beneath our clothing there’s nekkidness? Are they unaware that art education requires teh nekkid? Do they think their art student teens haven’t already drawn teh nudie?

Did you know that “prude” has three letters in common with “stupid”? Coincidence?

Whatever. The current wave of pseudo-religious prudery is perhaps the dumbest and most ignorant in the history of pseudo-religious prudery. It rivals the Scopes trial for sheer dumbass head-up-assity. Meanwhile, a man’s career is at stake and art students ain’t learning art. My high school art classes were the highlight of my day. In fact, I was just reminiscing about them yesterday. The teacher focused his efforts on Art as Meaning, “what is art,” and art’s connection to life. We drew constantly, and we often posed for each other to help capture an angle or a shadow. We often discussed that we would need nude figure study education to further our abilities, and wasn’t it a shame that wasn’t available in high school. But, y’know, we were allowed to discuss that.

There’s a petition you can sign.