If you were wondering if anti-Muslim hysteria has hit fever pitch in America yet, wonder no longer. Feast your eyes on the good -- OK, actually not very good at all -- people of Augusta County Virginia. Now, we are not really sure how we missed this a couple days ago -- probably because we were drunk and/or busy tracking down a different passel of Fox News lies and hysteria -- but it seems that a well-meaning teacher in a World Geography course in Riverheads High School in Augusta County had some students copy an example of Arabic calligraphy.
Turns out that the example -- which appears to be from a regular old textbook ...
... rather than Jihad for Teens or Fun With Dick and ISIS or something -- was an Islamic statement of faith, which meant that merely by writing it, all the students cast themselves into the pits of hell.
Of course a bunch of students refused and of course a bunch of parents protested and of course one of the parents said something ridiculous like “She gave up the Lord’s time. She gave it up and gave it to Mohammed" and of course people wanted the teacher to be fired and of course Todd Starnes found out about it and approached the whole matter with his trademark mixture of rectitude and reasonableness.
Parents told The Schilling Show that their children were not given the translation of what they were writing.
In other words, there were more than likely a few Christian teenagers in that room who had no idea they were writing, “There is no god but Allah.”
But the school district doesn’t seem to think that’s a problem. [...]
Perhaps the next time the kids at Riverheads High School practice their calligraphy skills they can learn a new word — “indoctrination.”
Well, at least he didn't make this incident up out of whole cloth, as he usually does. He and his ilk did, however, whip the mouth-breathing denizens of the county into enough of a frenzy that the entire district had to close early Thursday and will be closed all day Friday.
Augusta County schools closed their doors Thursday and canceled all sports and activities for the day.
All the county’s schools are closed Friday, December 18, too. Meanwhile, all school sports and activities scheduled for the weekend are also canceled.
The school system says it's received so many phone calls and e-mails following that controversial assignment that they felt they had to close the schools as a precautionary measure.
Well, the schoolkids are probably pretty hyped about this result, but the rest of us are clutching our heads in headache- and rage-fueled dismay and yelling WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU PEOPLE at our computer, so maybe we need to take today off as well.
[ Think Progress / Fox News / NBC29 ]
I have never heard that before. Interesting. Thank you.
To say nothing of the Phoenician alphabet.