Video and other tasty tidbits

Hmm...Did you know that President *Washington* authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale that W? Gonzalez said it so it *must* be true....

Reverend Dr. Joseph Lowry speaking at Coretta Scott King's funeral. If church was like this, I might actually want to go.

A Colorado music teacher will seek legal redress after she was put on administrative leave after a meeting with school officials where it was determined that she was "not a good fit." Why?

The controversy began after Waggoner, who teaches elementary, middle and high school students at the K-12 school in a small town about 25 miles east of Denver, tried to pique the curiosity of the first, second, and third graders in one of her classes about opera. She chose a video of Gounod's [I]Faust[/I] (which she found on the classroom shelf) to teach the children about bass and tenor voices, the use of props, and "trouser roles" in opera.

The latter, she says, led to accusations that the married mother of two was a lesbian promoting homosexuality; the plot of Faust, where the title character sells his soul to the devil to recapture his youth, led to her being labeled a devil worshipper.

The uproar began about a week later, when Waggoner was contacted by a mother asking why her daughter had watched a video on the devil. Waggoner believes that the incident was a catalyst for parents to express their frustration about the school's December 9 annual concert. According to Waggoner, the parent said, "I don't understand why you wouldn't let the kids sing Christmas songs, but you'll show them a video on the devil." Ironically, Waggoner says, she had chosen a diverse repertoire for the concert in order to avoid offending the community's non-Christians.

I thought it was Christmas that was under attack, not opera....