It's a pretty extraordinary thing when religious leaders (especially in Texas!) demonstrate more common sense and clear judgment than the state governmental officials do. Yet that is exactly what we're seeing here, and I have to say, it's refreshing as hell.
But here is the real question: once the law goes into effect, how many school systems will actually USE it? My hope is: not bloody many.
If schools don’t do it, or enough schools, the legislature might make a new law to force the schools to do it. One that says that there must be a certain number of chaplains to counselors in each school. They just can’t jump right into that law because it’s too obvious now that it’s unconstitutional, but allowing schools to make the choice softens up folks to ignore the unconstitutionalness of their next steps.
1. Remember the second prong of attack: underfund schools. So I'm sure many of these fundies will volunteer to work without pay, just to get into the school. And I'm sure there will be some well-meaning schools who will decide that it's better to take a 'volunteer' fundie than have nobody in a counselor spot they have no funding to support.
2. This being Texas, I'm sure there are plenty of school districts with fundie school boards who will push it and schools with fundie Principals who will happily do it.
Wait, you didn't check out any of Christian XXX's videos when I mentioned his prolific body of work? I love the irony of a guy who specializes in trans porn going by the name Christian. Btw, you seem to have forgotten Batman.
Had to google him. Watched them with my nephew a few years ago, they didn't left a lasting impression. My favorites are those with Michael Keaton (For Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer).
Conservative religious nutters always assume forcing their religion into the public schools will have a happy ending. I can see kids with real problem going untreated because they won't talk to anybody who is going to tell them to pray their problems away. The religious-right in this country needs to be permanently disabused of the notion the public schools are a mission field. It is never the job of the public schools, paid for with everyone's tax dollars, to backstop anybody's religion.
I wonder if such religious nutters even care about happy endings. So long as they can insert themselves into the process and manipulate it to their own ends, frankly, I suspect that that's all the more "happy ending" they are interested in.
And the primary reason why they need to be STOPPED.
And also, the way things are structured, any unhappy ending can forever be fobbed off on the person experiencing it.
God obviously can't be at fault for harm done, so it clearly must be the fault of the person in crisis just not Jeusuing Hard Enough.
If - as we are so frequently told - god never gives you something you can't handle, then being unable to handle something must by definition be your own failing. It must be weakness. It must be something you did wrong. A lack of courage or moral fiber or whatever.
Maybe I'm off base here, but to me it smacks of questioning skirt length after an assault.
Good question. I doubt they have much genuine concern for others. A common delusion among the religious-right is the assumption their religiosity entitles them to a say in other people's personal choices. Texas Republicans pander to the preachers, while viewing human decency as a character flaw.
I think some of them are interested in the kids having a happy ending, but that comes after they're dead and have suffered enough to earn the unconditional love of their omnibenevolent Sky Toddler.
Sure they care. But their 'happy ending' is # of heathens converted/baptized. Not # of healthy or happy or well educated or even alive kids. Conversion is everything.
I thank the flying spaghetti monster for organizations such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation who have the legal means and skills to go after these people.
“despite having a budget surplus of roughly $32.7 billion.”
If they have a surplus this large, they can make every public school better than any private school, yet they push for vouchers. Don’t tell me the GOP isn’t trying to defund public schools. They certainly shouldn’t be claiming poverty when it comes to hiring or supplies. Republicans make me sick.
As a psychotherapist, I generally didn't counsel teens. They're very challenging and very vulnerable. I admired my fellow counselors who did work with them. My daughter is an LCSW for a middle school, and she's superb at it. Constant drama and trauma. She has prevented deaths several times.
Untrained persons in the role of school counselors will not just be ineffective. They can do serious harm, and untrained persons who think that God is their all-purpose magical fix-it tool can cause disaster.
Imagine kids with abuse at home, or substance abuse, or sexuality issues, or being bullied, or clinical depression, or personality disorders, or combinations of those, coming to or being forced to come to a "school chaplain" who doesn't know his or her ass from a hole in the ground about such things, but babbles on about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...
Texas is going to have an epidemic of child suicide and child homicide.
I want to ask them what their god has actually fixed in the world. Ever. He can't even stop shootings in his own houses of worship.
Where was he during the Holocaust? He couldn't prevent Hitler and the others from being born? Yet he kills a man who was only trying to right the Ark of the Covenant to keep it from touching the ground. This phantasm has the worst priorities.
And of course any LGBT kids who show up complaining about bullying can be told that it is all THEIR OWN FAULT for going against god swill. FFS, any straight girl who complains about sexual assault will likely be told it is her own fault for being a temptress. And let us NEVER forget how useless all the tots and pears are at preventing shootings.
It is not intended by the Republicans for chaplains to "counsel" for the student's mental or emotional needs, it is so they can further brainwash them, threaten them with their hateful, vengeful god to do as they say; to believe if they don't, they will go the hell and damnation forever. I am really sick and tired of these folks forcing their damn beliefs on the rest of us, especially our children and they are all our children, they are our future. Kudos, to those chaplains who wrote the letter, but let us please not they are not all Christians.
We hear Christian complaints that we have somehow kicked their deity out of the schools. Is that sky pixie so weak that he needs humans to try and bum rush him into those schools?
I don't remember God hanging out in my public schools in Midland, Michigan when I was there in the 60s and 70s. I do remember learning "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."
This conformed to crunchy mainline religion I grew up with. We had churches to pray in back then, we did not believe in praying in school. My mom had a fit when my third grade teacher told us to pray to Mary, because Jesus was too busy!
Joseph Biggs, a member of the Proud Boys who led the way into the Capitol on Jan. 6th, just received a 17-year sentence for his crimes- the second-longest thus far. He, naturally, cried a few not-so-prideful crocodile tears in front of the judge, claiming that he was not, at heart, a violent person (sure, Joe- you 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 attempted to violently overthrow the government while serving as a ringleader for a violent hate group. 𝘛𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘭 fluke).
The only school districts that are going to listen to these chaplains are the ones who weren't going to do it anyway. Most school boards in Texas are gonna think "great this will be cheaper." You might get a few who will keep *ONE* licensed professional, maybe even one per school, but most are going to go all in on Christian chaplains and the 'weirdos' who aren't cishet, white Christians and are likely the students who need help the most won't even try.
When I was in HS, the school counselor wasn't who you saw about your problems, they were the person you went to for help with your college applications.
Yeah, "help" with college applications, if you were rich, white, etc. Otherwise, the counselors at my high school (this was when public schools in Calif were well-funded, in the late '60s) basically were of the opinion that "yer on yer own." I did go to a school counselor once, after surviving the Mexico City massacre in October '68, because nobody believed me. She looked at me blankly, said it hadn't been in the paper (so didn't happen) and to get back to class. No idea what her qualifications were, if any. Result: 50+ years of living with undiagnosed and untreated PTSD. Finding someone who actually believed me didn't happen til about 4 years ago.
But new information has come to light through the release of official documents. They reveal that the Presidential Guard — a branch of the military — had posted snipers in the buildings surrounding Tlatelolco Plaza on the day of the massacre. The idea was that the snipers would shoot at the troops posted around the square, and the troops would think student snipers were shooting at them — and then they would open fire.
Hadn't heard that. All I know is that we students were so disoriented at the time that it was hard to tell where the shots were coming from. What I do know is that my best friend died in my arms. I'll never forget the blood on my shoes and my skirt, and the light dying in Beto's brown eyes. I don't remember how I got home that day, and when I went back to the square a week or so later I couldn't figure out where I'd been standing. What I do know is that if whoever it was that shot Beto had aimed less than a foot to his left, I would have died that day too. And, yeah, there was a lot of official denial that the massacre had happened at all. Were it not for Beto's funeral (his family was close to my adoptive family) I might have questioned my memory of the whole thing, too. As far as people here in the US, well, it didn't happen. As far as they were concerned I was just crazy or lying.
Yes, I'm glad too. Just hearing "Yeah, that really happened" from my social worker went a huge way to letting me know that I wasn't crazy then and I'm not crazy now. Recovering from PTSD apparently can take a while (what do I know? I'm a botanist) but it can and does happen. I still wonder about all those people that day who lost loved ones and never did find out what happened to them. My friend Beto's family was lucky, I guess. They had a body, a funeral, and nobody denied that their son had been killed. Beto could have been disappeared like some other students were. I was lucky to survive with at least some of my memories intact.
We were upper middle class and white, and both my sister and I's counselors essentially tried to lowball us when we transferred into our new HS. By lowball I mean recommending remedial courses we had advanced beyond, least challenging college choices, etc. Why? Because they were literally too uneducated to read our transcripts and understand them.
This is not directly related to the issue of *social* counseling, but indirectly it's the same problem: you need trained professionals in these positions, otherwise the kids they are intended to help don't get help and may instead get hurt.
My assigned counselor in high school was one of the two "men of God" who sexually assaulted me. I'd have turned to a hobo sleeping under an overpass for counseling before I'd have ever gone to him. What he actually helped kids with is anybody's guess; I never knew and never wanted to.
Why they give it to Jeeesus! He's their money launderer from the Sinola Cartel. Allegedly. In my opinion. Look, people are saying it, I'm just repeating it! ;)
The first involves those background checks. As I recall, there's some question about how churches tend to handle people when they've been fired for cause, more specifically, churches don't usually let anyone know about it when there was a suspicion that someone was abusing the kids they should have been caring for. We've seen that a few times here on FA, where the term 'youth pastor' has been a younger adult who then got passed around between churches after being caught with the kids he was supposed to protect, so I'm a shade skeptical that a background on these chaplains would catch much.
Secondly, I noticed that we're talking about the Houston public school district, and there was a story about that same district last night on NBC Nightly News. I'm more than a bit confused as to what Houston is doing with their schools right now; but this might provide some additional background for those interested.
There's some very interesting information at the beginning of the story, I think it's at the 16:08 mark or so, hopefully it linked directly. Be warned, however, this part of the news cast made me very angry last night, and you might find it upsetting as well.
TX resident here (and former Friendly Atheist poster from back in the day - hi again!) and father of a high schooler in the public school system. I've heard about this and it is deeply concerning. If the indoctrination aspect is not concerning enough, counselors are one of the bulwarks for kids in crisis. Not a counselor myself, but clearly there is specialized training needed here for recognizing the signs of crisis, and knowing how to respond. But the thing I've learned about TX in particular, is that further up the leadership chain, there is literally no humanity at all. If it results in a few dozen more teen suicides per year but furthers the goals of the church, Abbott and the like would be no more moved by it that they were about the kids who died in Uvalde.
Too many Texans love their guns and don't care about the 'weirdos' who die to vote for anybody but a Republican. The other member of my team at work (an immigrant) thinks Trump had a wonderful immigration policy.
Will someone tell me why any public school would have a chaplain to begin with? If Christian students need pastoral care services, let them take their concerns to their pastors off-campus.
I was a pastor, "educated" in theology. hermeneutics, and apologetics. I was also a trained suicide prevention counselor with the Marin Suicide prevention center (across the GG Bridge from San Francisco) I was also in the right place, at the right time, to ease several teens and their families with their coming out. I was also a decent grief counselor and hospital chaplain.
Outside of those parameters, I was primarily a listener. For anything that required actual mental counseling or treatment, I had extensive referral lists.
With stories like this, I sometimes wish I still could believe the old hymns, like: "This world is not my home, I'm justa passing through ..."
It is a cool, breezy morning in the MidSouth region of the USA. Wishing everyone well, today!
Folks like you who are a qualified/certified/licensed/whatever counselor AND a pastor could already be hired. This legislation is intended to open the door for folks who are NOT qualified and a pastor. Which is bad for the schools and the kids.
Texas: "we need surgeons to do open heart surgery! But can we find someone who is also a pastor? Oooh, actually, forget the "also" - if they are pastors they don't need to be surgeons. Cut away!" Madness.
I saw that on the Guardian this morning, and I thought it was some sort of papier-mâché statue or something. But it was real. Actually, what the hell – you have to admire the guy to be honest. Admittedly I do come from an agricultural country.
It's a pretty extraordinary thing when religious leaders (especially in Texas!) demonstrate more common sense and clear judgment than the state governmental officials do. Yet that is exactly what we're seeing here, and I have to say, it's refreshing as hell.
But here is the real question: once the law goes into effect, how many school systems will actually USE it? My hope is: not bloody many.
Rational schools won't. I am afraid those whose board is infiltrated with conservative christians will jump on the occasion.
If schools don’t do it, or enough schools, the legislature might make a new law to force the schools to do it. One that says that there must be a certain number of chaplains to counselors in each school. They just can’t jump right into that law because it’s too obvious now that it’s unconstitutional, but allowing schools to make the choice softens up folks to ignore the unconstitutionalness of their next steps.
Of course they'll jump on it. It's as several people have said on here and elsewhere: It's about the cruelty.
1. Remember the second prong of attack: underfund schools. So I'm sure many of these fundies will volunteer to work without pay, just to get into the school. And I'm sure there will be some well-meaning schools who will decide that it's better to take a 'volunteer' fundie than have nobody in a counselor spot they have no funding to support.
2. This being Texas, I'm sure there are plenty of school districts with fundie school boards who will push it and schools with fundie Principals who will happily do it.
It can be a disaster for LGBTQI+ students but I wouldn't ne surprised if it was one of the goals of this fucked up law.
beat me to it.. great minds etc etc
It's just a question of time 😏
Of course it was. With Texas Republicans, it's ALWAYS about the cruelty.
Well, I don't listen to people I don't know and I don't know anyone named Christian 😁
Wait, you didn't check out any of Christian XXX's videos when I mentioned his prolific body of work? I love the irony of a guy who specializes in trans porn going by the name Christian. Btw, you seem to have forgotten Batman.
?
Christian Bale.
Had to google him. Watched them with my nephew a few years ago, they didn't left a lasting impression. My favorites are those with Michael Keaton (For Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer).
Conservative religious nutters always assume forcing their religion into the public schools will have a happy ending. I can see kids with real problem going untreated because they won't talk to anybody who is going to tell them to pray their problems away. The religious-right in this country needs to be permanently disabused of the notion the public schools are a mission field. It is never the job of the public schools, paid for with everyone's tax dollars, to backstop anybody's religion.
I wonder if such religious nutters even care about happy endings. So long as they can insert themselves into the process and manipulate it to their own ends, frankly, I suspect that that's all the more "happy ending" they are interested in.
And the primary reason why they need to be STOPPED.
And also, the way things are structured, any unhappy ending can forever be fobbed off on the person experiencing it.
God obviously can't be at fault for harm done, so it clearly must be the fault of the person in crisis just not Jeusuing Hard Enough.
If - as we are so frequently told - god never gives you something you can't handle, then being unable to handle something must by definition be your own failing. It must be weakness. It must be something you did wrong. A lack of courage or moral fiber or whatever.
Maybe I'm off base here, but to me it smacks of questioning skirt length after an assault.
Good question. I doubt they have much genuine concern for others. A common delusion among the religious-right is the assumption their religiosity entitles them to a say in other people's personal choices. Texas Republicans pander to the preachers, while viewing human decency as a character flaw.
I think some of them are interested in the kids having a happy ending, but that comes after they're dead and have suffered enough to earn the unconditional love of their omnibenevolent Sky Toddler.
Sure they care. But their 'happy ending' is # of heathens converted/baptized. Not # of healthy or happy or well educated or even alive kids. Conversion is everything.
You know, like the inquisition.
I thank the flying spaghetti monster for organizations such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation who have the legal means and skills to go after these people.
“despite having a budget surplus of roughly $32.7 billion.”
If they have a surplus this large, they can make every public school better than any private school, yet they push for vouchers. Don’t tell me the GOP isn’t trying to defund public schools. They certainly shouldn’t be claiming poverty when it comes to hiring or supplies. Republicans make me sick.
As a psychotherapist, I generally didn't counsel teens. They're very challenging and very vulnerable. I admired my fellow counselors who did work with them. My daughter is an LCSW for a middle school, and she's superb at it. Constant drama and trauma. She has prevented deaths several times.
Untrained persons in the role of school counselors will not just be ineffective. They can do serious harm, and untrained persons who think that God is their all-purpose magical fix-it tool can cause disaster.
Imagine kids with abuse at home, or substance abuse, or sexuality issues, or being bullied, or clinical depression, or personality disorders, or combinations of those, coming to or being forced to come to a "school chaplain" who doesn't know his or her ass from a hole in the ground about such things, but babbles on about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...
Texas is going to have an epidemic of child suicide and child homicide.
That's the point. Then it'll be 'we need God back in our schools'
I was thinking the same thing and hoping it was just me being overly pessimistic.
I want to ask them what their god has actually fixed in the world. Ever. He can't even stop shootings in his own houses of worship.
Where was he during the Holocaust? He couldn't prevent Hitler and the others from being born? Yet he kills a man who was only trying to right the Ark of the Covenant to keep it from touching the ground. This phantasm has the worst priorities.
He was busy fighting of an alien invasion. If the Greys or Reptilians would have come by at that time, no telling what would have happened!
Earth's defense rests in the ghostly hands of a specter who can't keep his own churches from going bankrupt and closing up shop?
He spent it all on the spaceship.
What does god need with...well, you know the rest.
https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/21s7fy/south-park-pat-robinson
I have it on good authority that he was fixing Sam's Mum's cataracts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8HT6Ux8FM
Been watching 𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝐴𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑛?
And of course any LGBT kids who show up complaining about bullying can be told that it is all THEIR OWN FAULT for going against god swill. FFS, any straight girl who complains about sexual assault will likely be told it is her own fault for being a temptress. And let us NEVER forget how useless all the tots and pears are at preventing shootings.
Tots and pears might be useful. A bushel of pears might stop a bullet and both could be used to throw and distract the shooter. ; )
Make me think it's dinner time.
Lunch. : )
Bon appétit.
It is not intended by the Republicans for chaplains to "counsel" for the student's mental or emotional needs, it is so they can further brainwash them, threaten them with their hateful, vengeful god to do as they say; to believe if they don't, they will go the hell and damnation forever. I am really sick and tired of these folks forcing their damn beliefs on the rest of us, especially our children and they are all our children, they are our future. Kudos, to those chaplains who wrote the letter, but let us please not they are not all Christians.
We hear Christian complaints that we have somehow kicked their deity out of the schools. Is that sky pixie so weak that he needs humans to try and bum rush him into those schools?
Certain types of theists apparently have so little actual faith in their god that they think so.
"Well, sure, god's all-powerful and stuff, but without me and my Amazing Prayer Warrior Power, where would he be?"
Form of a cross.
Form of rosary beads.
Prayer warrior power, activate!
Not sure that would work. Aint most 'prayer warriors' against the evil of the catlick church? Aint the catlicks the ones with the beads?
One more nit to pick, it was "Form of... " and "Shape of..."
OK. Shape of a menorah...... no, that doesn't work either.
Buddhists have prayer beads too.
You nailed it...[insert Jesus joke here].
Jesus puns are a cross we have to bear. :)
Could be worse - could be a bear we'd all have to cross. 😱
42 kids crossed the path of 2 female bears after mocking a prophet.
It did not go well for them.
Oh, but Yahweh LOVES us ... right? 🤪
I believe you are thinking of "Shirley, the cross-eyed bear"
(Note to Bhm and others without a background in US American Protestant
hymnology there is a hymn called "Surely the Cross I'd Bear" Yes, I know, don't call me Shirley!)
I don't remember God hanging out in my public schools in Midland, Michigan when I was there in the 60s and 70s. I do remember learning "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."
This conformed to crunchy mainline religion I grew up with. We had churches to pray in back then, we did not believe in praying in school. My mom had a fit when my third grade teacher told us to pray to Mary, because Jesus was too busy!
He was out back, smoking behind the storage shed.
Is that what they call what he was doing with the disciple whom he loved?
I thought he loved all of his apos...
Ohhhhhh, you mean "loved." As in knowing someone in the biblical sense. ;)
OT- Try to overturn one Presidential election... spend the next four in a concrete box: https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riot-proud-boys-sentencing-seditious-conspiracy-5c8bf8a8e5dc6381e7387e31e554cee6
Joseph Biggs, a member of the Proud Boys who led the way into the Capitol on Jan. 6th, just received a 17-year sentence for his crimes- the second-longest thus far. He, naturally, cried a few not-so-prideful crocodile tears in front of the judge, claiming that he was not, at heart, a violent person (sure, Joe- you 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 attempted to violently overthrow the government while serving as a ringleader for a violent hate group. 𝘛𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘭 fluke).
Can hardly wait to see if ex-Proud Boy Poohbah Enrique Tarrio manages to beat that 17-year sentencing after the judge recovers from his illness.
Well, the king fuckhead of the Oath Keepers got 18 years, so I'm guessing Tarrio will wind up with something in the same range.
Looking forward to September 5th. May have to post a happy dance GIF. 😊
that is some great news.
The only school districts that are going to listen to these chaplains are the ones who weren't going to do it anyway. Most school boards in Texas are gonna think "great this will be cheaper." You might get a few who will keep *ONE* licensed professional, maybe even one per school, but most are going to go all in on Christian chaplains and the 'weirdos' who aren't cishet, white Christians and are likely the students who need help the most won't even try.
When I was in HS, the school counselor wasn't who you saw about your problems, they were the person you went to for help with your college applications.
Yeah, "help" with college applications, if you were rich, white, etc. Otherwise, the counselors at my high school (this was when public schools in Calif were well-funded, in the late '60s) basically were of the opinion that "yer on yer own." I did go to a school counselor once, after surviving the Mexico City massacre in October '68, because nobody believed me. She looked at me blankly, said it hadn't been in the paper (so didn't happen) and to get back to class. No idea what her qualifications were, if any. Result: 50+ years of living with undiagnosed and untreated PTSD. Finding someone who actually believed me didn't happen til about 4 years ago.
For the others like me who'd never heard of it:
But new information has come to light through the release of official documents. They reveal that the Presidential Guard — a branch of the military — had posted snipers in the buildings surrounding Tlatelolco Plaza on the day of the massacre. The idea was that the snipers would shoot at the troops posted around the square, and the troops would think student snipers were shooting at them — and then they would open fire.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97546687
Hadn't heard that. All I know is that we students were so disoriented at the time that it was hard to tell where the shots were coming from. What I do know is that my best friend died in my arms. I'll never forget the blood on my shoes and my skirt, and the light dying in Beto's brown eyes. I don't remember how I got home that day, and when I went back to the square a week or so later I couldn't figure out where I'd been standing. What I do know is that if whoever it was that shot Beto had aimed less than a foot to his left, I would have died that day too. And, yeah, there was a lot of official denial that the massacre had happened at all. Were it not for Beto's funeral (his family was close to my adoptive family) I might have questioned my memory of the whole thing, too. As far as people here in the US, well, it didn't happen. As far as they were concerned I was just crazy or lying.
There's nothing to really say, except I'm glad you're finally able to get help.
Yes, I'm glad too. Just hearing "Yeah, that really happened" from my social worker went a huge way to letting me know that I wasn't crazy then and I'm not crazy now. Recovering from PTSD apparently can take a while (what do I know? I'm a botanist) but it can and does happen. I still wonder about all those people that day who lost loved ones and never did find out what happened to them. My friend Beto's family was lucky, I guess. They had a body, a funeral, and nobody denied that their son had been killed. Beto could have been disappeared like some other students were. I was lucky to survive with at least some of my memories intact.
We were upper middle class and white, and both my sister and I's counselors essentially tried to lowball us when we transferred into our new HS. By lowball I mean recommending remedial courses we had advanced beyond, least challenging college choices, etc. Why? Because they were literally too uneducated to read our transcripts and understand them.
This is not directly related to the issue of *social* counseling, but indirectly it's the same problem: you need trained professionals in these positions, otherwise the kids they are intended to help don't get help and may instead get hurt.
My assigned counselor in high school was one of the two "men of God" who sexually assaulted me. I'd have turned to a hobo sleeping under an overpass for counseling before I'd have ever gone to him. What he actually helped kids with is anybody's guess; I never knew and never wanted to.
"despite having a budget surplus of roughly $32.7 billion. "
OK ... what do they DO with all that money then????????????
Not so damned late now, am I? :)
Some college football coaches are no doubt due for a raise...
Why they give it to Jeeesus! He's their money launderer from the Sinola Cartel. Allegedly. In my opinion. Look, people are saying it, I'm just repeating it! ;)
No idea but we know what they don't do with it. Fixing their electrical grid problems.
To buy and place mines in the Rio Grande.
OT- Hey, Republicans, look- it's another case of voter fraud!
https://apnews.com/article/alabama-lawmaker-voter-fraud-749b9ec26ab9c693cf51379a1b0a4b36
...by a Republican legislator.
I am shocked, shocked shocked I tellz you
It's Chelsea Biden Harris' smartphone fault.
Butter emails.
So two things here, really.
The first involves those background checks. As I recall, there's some question about how churches tend to handle people when they've been fired for cause, more specifically, churches don't usually let anyone know about it when there was a suspicion that someone was abusing the kids they should have been caring for. We've seen that a few times here on FA, where the term 'youth pastor' has been a younger adult who then got passed around between churches after being caught with the kids he was supposed to protect, so I'm a shade skeptical that a background on these chaplains would catch much.
Secondly, I noticed that we're talking about the Houston public school district, and there was a story about that same district last night on NBC Nightly News. I'm more than a bit confused as to what Houston is doing with their schools right now; but this might provide some additional background for those interested.
https://youtu.be/bbcpP_zDW2g?t=965
There's some very interesting information at the beginning of the story, I think it's at the 16:08 mark or so, hopefully it linked directly. Be warned, however, this part of the news cast made me very angry last night, and you might find it upsetting as well.
Why go through the trouble of banning books when you can just eliminate the whole library?
They would have set fire to the whole library like what they did at Alexandria, but the fire department frowns on that nowadays.
Hostile takeover of a school district. Yeah that's Abbott's style.
TX resident here (and former Friendly Atheist poster from back in the day - hi again!) and father of a high schooler in the public school system. I've heard about this and it is deeply concerning. If the indoctrination aspect is not concerning enough, counselors are one of the bulwarks for kids in crisis. Not a counselor myself, but clearly there is specialized training needed here for recognizing the signs of crisis, and knowing how to respond. But the thing I've learned about TX in particular, is that further up the leadership chain, there is literally no humanity at all. If it results in a few dozen more teen suicides per year but furthers the goals of the church, Abbott and the like would be no more moved by it that they were about the kids who died in Uvalde.
Too many Texans love their guns and don't care about the 'weirdos' who die to vote for anybody but a Republican. The other member of my team at work (an immigrant) thinks Trump had a wonderful immigration policy.
Will someone tell me why any public school would have a chaplain to begin with? If Christian students need pastoral care services, let them take their concerns to their pastors off-campus.
I was a pastor, "educated" in theology. hermeneutics, and apologetics. I was also a trained suicide prevention counselor with the Marin Suicide prevention center (across the GG Bridge from San Francisco) I was also in the right place, at the right time, to ease several teens and their families with their coming out. I was also a decent grief counselor and hospital chaplain.
Outside of those parameters, I was primarily a listener. For anything that required actual mental counseling or treatment, I had extensive referral lists.
With stories like this, I sometimes wish I still could believe the old hymns, like: "This world is not my home, I'm justa passing through ..."
It is a cool, breezy morning in the MidSouth region of the USA. Wishing everyone well, today!
Folks like you who are a qualified/certified/licensed/whatever counselor AND a pastor could already be hired. This legislation is intended to open the door for folks who are NOT qualified and a pastor. Which is bad for the schools and the kids.
Texas: "we need surgeons to do open heart surgery! But can we find someone who is also a pastor? Oooh, actually, forget the "also" - if they are pastors they don't need to be surgeons. Cut away!" Madness.
OT- Move over, Florida Man... Nebraska Man wants in on the wackiness: https://apnews.com/article/bull-riding-shotgun-car-nebraska-66fae470523cf1f45739773c6ae2a820
Power steering at a whole new level.
Talk about taking a bull by the horns.
BULL: "Dude, just honk the horn." (pause) "No, stupid. Not mine."
I saw that on the Guardian this morning, and I thought it was some sort of papier-mâché statue or something. But it was real. Actually, what the hell – you have to admire the guy to be honest. Admittedly I do come from an agricultural country.
He should know that's blatanly illegal; horns protruding over three feet out of the car need to be properly marked with a red safety flag.