{"id":27050,"date":"2009-09-04T15:20:46","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T15:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2009\/09\/04\/an-open-letter-to-the-prior-la\/"},"modified":"2009-09-04T15:20:46","modified_gmt":"2009-09-04T15:20:46","slug":"an-open-letter-to-the-prior-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/04\/an-open-letter-to-the-prior-la\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to the Prior Lake\/Savage School District Superintendent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Gruver,<\/p>\n<p>I was utterly floored to learn that your school district has expressed (by strong implication) concern over the value and appropriateness of a message from President Obama to the school children of our country.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I am equally flabergasted that you would bend to pressure from what really amounts to a small minority of &#8220;astroturfers&#8221; and &#8220;dittoheads&#8221; (as they are called) who scream bloody murder every time our democratically elected president utters a word.<\/p>\n<p>If this was your decision, I question if you are fit to be in your job, and I say that with a heavy heart.  It is your place to stand up FOR, not against rational thought and civic duty.  You should be ashamed.  If, on the other and, this was the doing of your school board, then they should be ashamed, and at the next opportunity, replaced.  I assume that over the coming weeks we will learn who is behind this preposterous, embarrassing decision.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Greg Laden<\/p>\n<p>Note:  This is the letter sent out and placed on the district&#8217;s web site:<\/p>\n<p><strong>President Obama Address<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Many of you may be aware that President Obama plans to address America&#8217;s children with a back-to-school message on Sept. 8th. This live broadcast will not be aired in our schools. The address will be recorded and the use of portions of the presentation will be evaluated by building administration and teaching staff to determine if the message is appropriate for curriculum and instruction. If taped portions are shown, students may opt out of hearing the broadcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Gruver, I was utterly floored to learn that your school district has expressed (by strong implication) concern over the value and appropriateness of a message from President Obama to the school children of our country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[183],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-72i","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27050"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}