Ethics complaints & fossilized butter

Wow.  Today's paper is the most interesting they've published in quite some time.

On page one you read about the ethics complaint filed against Dave Weigand and Tim Stephanski for their stance on the proposed charter school.  Then flip back to the opinion page and we are treated to a crazy letter from Dave's wife, Mary, rambling on about how fossilized butter is proof the earth was created 73 years ago.  I think I'm gonna clip the articles along with the masthead and have it framed!  Beautiful!


Today's paper also taught me that it doesn't take a year and a half to file an ethics complaint.  Ginny, where all the "numerous" ethics complaints you had planned for everyone on the library board who disagreed with you?

Ginny Maziarka gets it wrong. Again.

Despite this comment made here on Boots and Sabers (which Dan Kleinman will no doubt claim was not made by Ginny), I am not Jason P.  Or at least I wasn't last time I checked.  You don't do clever well, Ginny:

"

@Mike:  Fear, and maybe even a little loathing, was instilled by our WEAC friend, Jason. ;) Instead of “kinda odd,” I would look at it as “kinda sad.”  The parochial schools drank the Kool-Aid.  While I expected that from the Catholic Schools, who, in an of their own right, are known for their Saul Alinsky-style money laundering, it was a sad testimony on the part of our other local religious leadership who fell for Penterman’s fire alarm.

Posted by GAMazy on December 15, 2010 at 0315 hrs"

And while we are here - wow Ginny, who DO you like?  That was a pretty harsh attack on Catholics right there.  We know you don't like them, gays, people who don't hate gays...  Should we actually make list?

Why doesn't Ginny Maziarka have her own Wikipedia page?

Can someone please fix that?  Let's get the ball rolling!  Please send screenshots.

Letter to the editor from actual common-sense citizens!

Ginny attacks Holy Angels' principal, Cabrini's reverend and St. John's pastor - all in one post!

If anyone needed further evidence of just how far out on the wacko fringe Ginny is, just click here. Ginny, you realize that if you take out all the West Bend residents who aren't afraid of homosexuals, who don't think gay kids should be bullied, don't think magic should be taught in science class, thinks a charter school proposal shouldn't be a cut-and-paste job and don't think taxpayer dollars should go to a school that teaches magic as fact, you will end up with like, a dozen citizens left, right?

Anyone think maybe her whole blog was hacked in an attempt to make her look like a 9/11 Truther? Dan, can you please ask her? I know she doesn't come here too often ;)

Oh and Ginny, why didn't you post video of Mary Weigand talking last night? I thought I saw you taping her as well. Can you please post it? It was flipping amazing.

Common sense FTW!

It was great to see the community come together last night and call the proposed charter school what it is - a baptist school in public school clothing. Everyone from regular-joe parents to Mike Sternig from Holy Angels came out to call it like it is. I really can't wait for Ginny to post her video from last night because, holy crap, Mary Weignad was ON IT! Enough with spending tax dollars on stuff like this. If there really was a market for Bruce to start a school he should invest his own money, not come looking to the already tapped out taxpayers of West Bend looking for religious welfare.

And shame on you Tim Stephanski, Dave Weignad and Randy Marquardt for trying to slide this by the taxpayers of West Bend. How dumb do you think we are?

Well done, West Bend! You got'r done!

This is for you Ginny

Please watch with an open heart.

Finally someone who makes sense on the charter school issue

Posted by Charlie Hillman over on B&S:

"This is a parochial Baptist school.

One can make the very legitimate argument that the money should really follow the child and should be able to be used at any parochial school. If that were true, I’d much rather my tax money go to Cabrini, St. John’s, or Holy Angels, who are not only more representative of our community, but also have proven themselves capable of providing a good education at a bargain price.
I also think we don’t need another organization that uses public money but has no accountability to the taxpayers. The governance of this school could not be recalled, unelected, or subjected to open records.
Any chance this can be put to the voters in some sort of referendum?"

If there is a market for a parochial Baptist school, why doesn't the church invest its own money in one? Where are all our CSCWC with their "free market" signs now?

Proposed charter school curriculum would include "Intelligent Design"

So here we go. According to the paper "Ted Caucutt, curriculum consultant for Crossroads Academy, said Intelligent Design would also be taught, but only along with other theories of origin...".

Also from the paper today: "Christian themes appear in reading and language arts, as well as social studies... Proposed reading includes "A Certain Small Shepherd" for third graders and "Joel a Boy in Galilee" for seventh graders. Subject matter covered in social studies includes "Religion and the Rise of Christianity," "The Roman Church," and "The Heathens Become Christians" in seventh grade".

I'm sure Ginny will fight to make books by ex-Christians available too, right?

Read the story here.

Ginny Maziarka just can't stop!

In a pretty much incomprehensible post on her blog today, Ginny (in a leap that would make Evel Knievel proud) jumps from a story about someone soliciting sex in a library bathroom in Washington State to how the "West Bend Library Board "stick[s] it" to the parents of West Bend's children"

Ginny in her own words

Now, I'm assuming this wasn't posted during an hour when Ginny's other Facebook account was hacked, but I'm sure Dan Kleinman will be here shortly to claim otherwise. Her post below is more interesting than ever given the current debate about the proposed charter school. Ginny is after all, besties with Mary Weigand, her husband and school board member Dave Weigand and a huge Tim Stepanski fan. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Reader Submissions

I've gotten a bunch of emails lately asking me to address certain topics. Fact is I'm busy and can't address everything I'd like to. That said, I'm more than happy to post guest submissions. Just email your piece to fearandloathinginwestbend@gmail.com and I'll post it.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster comes to West Bend

Excellent column today by Mark Peterson illustrating the folly of the proposed charter school in West Bend. Read it here.

Why do these people even act like they care about education? They call anyone with a college education an ivory-tower elitist...

Ginny speaks... kind of.

At the risk of Dan Kelineman calling the act of posting Ginny's own words on this blog as "harassment", I will anyway. Ginny actually allowed a few comments on her recent paranoid post about the library. Read them here. Ginny in her own words:

"This display by the West Bend Library lends credence to one thing only, and that is that the only support a gay person could possibly want is affirmative. Do you see books or materials that assist homosexuals who want to leave this lifestyle? How about books about the ramifications/dangers of homosexual activity? "

Ginny also seems to address a comment left by Maria Hanrahan, but she didn't actually post Maria's comment. Stay classy, Ginny!

dankleinman.com

A reader has registered the domain dankleinman.com and has emailed me wondering what they should do with it. Any ideas?

Ginny, I thought you had no problem with homosexuals?

But you just can't resist, can you?

I'm eagerly awaiting Dan Kleinman's comments about how, you know, Ginny's whole crusade has *nothing* to do with homosexuals.

A Charter School grows in West Bend?

First off - sorry about the lack of posts lately. I have been busy with my day job, but things do seem to have been pretty quiet lately.

That said, I have gotten a few emails asking to post about the proposed charter school in West Bend. I must admit I don't know much about the situation. While I digest all the long emails I have gotten and do research into the situation, please feel free to use the comments in this post to discuss the issue.

Mary Weigand is back!

She hasn't updated her blog in well over two months, but thank God she is still at it.

From the paper this morning:

Responding to schools’ evolution teachings

Another school year is under way. I’d like to share some thoughts to help parents.
I host a booth at fairs throughout Wisconsin. We educate folks in interpretation of scientific data. Parents come to my booth for help. I hear comments like: “Help! My son is losing his faith because of evolution being taught in school.” and “I’m sick and tired of evolution and millions of years being shoved down my daughter’s throat.”
After my son took biology at East, I began this outreach. He told me kids are confused about creation/ evolution and don’t know where to get answers.
Space allows only a few points:
Don’t confuse small observable changes in plants and animals to mean they change into other organisms. Perhaps we can say, “Microevolution does not mean macroevolution.”
Evolutionists highlight one organism, i.e. daisies or finches. Small variations are shown, but never a new organism. There’s tremendous variation in plants and animals, color, beak size, length of petal, etc. The fairy tale begins when those small changes are extrapolated to mean more than that. A new organism arising from small changes has never been observed and is therefore not scientific.
When “millions of years” language is heard/read, our kids should ask, “Were you (or anyone) there?” After all, science is supposed to be testable, observable, repeatable. One can claim that, “given enough time anything can happen.” But, really? A great deal of faith is needed to believe that. Children in our schools shouldn’t be subject to such unsubstantiated ideas.
Dinosaurs aren’t really a mystery. Evidence of man with dinosaurs includes:
Drawings, clay dinosaur figures, architectural designs, legends, Chinese calendar, and surprisingly to evolutionists, unfossilized T-rex bones uncovered, having soft tissue and red blood cells. Do students learn these facts?
Good resources are: icr.org or answersingenesis.org.
Mary Weigand, town of Trenton

Who is Bob Glodowski?

Do any of you know him? His letters always make me smile. Thanks Bob!

From the paper today:

Tea Party attackers need to examine Dems

Radical, Washington ideologues are, by their own policies, shifting politics back to common-sense, free-market wisdoms except for socialistic numbskulls who label all Tea Partiers shotgun rubes draped in festering provincialism. Even Mike Castle’s non-endorsement and envy of Christine O’Connell didn’t turn out to be the left press corps and Democrats serendipitous relief anticipated.

Many American’s perceived the aura around the Obamas as the second coming of John and Jackie Kennedy and were suckered by Obama’s pre-inaugural centrist campaign facade. Mob-style, socialistic minions and their grand larceny of free-market prosperity and job growth soon followed with a corrupt agenda.
If U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel ethics violator can pull off a primary with party praise while covered in flaunting corruption, then O’Connell should be Christopher Dodd’s and Barney Frank’s foreclosure poster child. Rangel didn’t win wearing a Black Panthers costume outside a polling station; it was simply malfeasant exemption by a bootlicking constituency.
If you’re a Tea Partier or now disapprove of Obama’s whacky policies, you’re racist, but you can actually violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a Black Panther and unbelievably have the backing of the Department of Justice and Eric Holder. House Financial Services Rep. Frank commended Obama’s recent SEC protection by incapacitating FOIA, but Democrats were quick to welcome Wiki-leaks liberal Julian Assanges’s leftwing, information release as if they uncovered a couple of unpaid GOP parking tickets.
Besides Washington’s dirty deals, Obama’s cabinet corruptors includes Kathleen Sebelius who didn’t report accurate contribution figures from murdered abortion doctor George Tiller. Ron Kirk owed $10,000 in back taxes. The EPA’s Lisa Jackson was connected in the New Jersey DEP kickback scheme. It goes on and on.
The November countdown nears, and the donkey incumbents are running aimlessly.
Bob Glodowski, West Bend

Please read this Ginny. Then read it again.

From the latest advice column by Dan Savage at Savage Love:

I just read about a gay teenager in Indiana—Billy Lucas—who killed himself after being taunted by his classmates. Now his Facebook memorial page is being defaced by people posting homophobic comments. It's just heartbreaking and sickening. What the hell can we do?

Gay Bullying Victim Who Survived

Another gay teenager in another small town has killed himself—hope you're pleased with yourselves, Tony Perkins and all the other "Christians" out there who oppose anti-bullying programs (and give actual Christians a bad name).

Billy Lucas was just 15 when he hanged himself in a barn on his grandmother's property. He reportedly endured intense bullying at the hands of his classmates—classmates who called him a fag and told him to kill himself. His mother found his body.

Nine out of 10 gay teenagers experience bullying and harassment at school, and gay teens are four times likelier to attempt suicide. Many LGBT kids who do kill themselves live in rural areas, exurbs, and suburban areas, places with no gay organizations or services for queer kids.

"My heart breaks for the pain and torment you went through, Billy Lucas," a reader wrote after I posted about Billy Lucas to my blog. "I wish I could have told you that things get better."

I had the same reaction: I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.

But gay adults aren't allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don't bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.

Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don't have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids.

So here's what you can do, GBVWS: Make a video. Tell them it gets better.

I've launched a channel on YouTube—www ­.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject—to host these videos. My normally camera-shy husband and I already posted one. We both went to Christian schools and we were both bullied—he had it a lot worse than I did—and we are living proof that it gets better. We don't dwell too much on the past. Instead, we talk mostly about all the meaningful things in our lives now—our families, our friends (gay and straight), the places we've gone and things we've experienced—that we would've missed out on if we'd killed ourselves then.

"You gotta give 'em hope," Harvey Milk said.

Today we have the power to give these kids hope. We have the tools to reach out to them and tell our stories and let them know that it does get better. Online support groups are great, GLSEN does amazing work, the Trevor Project is invaluable. But many LGBT youth can't picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can't imagine a future for themselves. So let's show them what our lives are like, let's show them what the future may hold in store for them.

The video my husband and I made is up now—all by itself. I'd like to add submissions from other gay and lesbian adults—singles and couples, with kids or without, established in careers or just starting out, urban and rural, of all races and religious backgrounds. (Go to www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject to find instructions for submitting your video.) If you're gay or lesbian or bi or trans and you've ever read about a kid like Billy Lucas and thought, "Fuck, I wish I could've told him that it gets better," this is your chance. We can't help Billy, but there are lots of other Billys out there—other despairing LGBT kids who are being bullied and harassed, kids who don't think they have a future—and we can help them.

They need to know that it gets better. Submit a video. Give them hope.

An open letter to Dan Kleinman

Dear Dan,

What is the status of hackergate?

Best,

Miss West Bend

If you don't bring your guns to Starbucks the terrorists win.

Ugh. Nothing typifies the fear in West Bend more than the idea that you need to carry a gun around for your own personal "protection". I'm not a gun owner, but I have shot guns. Lots of them. Somewhat frequently. The idea however, that ANYPLACE in Wisconsin is so crime-riddled that you must carry your gun on you for fear of little Hannah growing up without a daddy is just fucking nuts. I assume these are the same people who had a well stocked Y2K bunker.

And by the way, if Ginny is really worried about masturbation in public she really oughtta stop this event.

Details here at Boots and Sabers.

We MUST stop all the people masturbating in the library!!

Sorry all - I've been traveling a bit and have tried my best to stay away from the internet and cell reception.

Some of you have seen Ginny's post about the PORN in the library and the problem of guys playing with themselves at the WB library. She actually allowed a few comments - read them here.

Truth be told, I just don't know what to say about this anymore. Why does she invent things to be afraid of?

Ginny is also afraid of Muslims?

1.6 billion Muslims inhabit the planet, but apparently the 19 of them who took part in 9/11 speak for all of them. Good thing not all Christians are tainted because of the actions of a few...

Where would we be without Dan Kleinman?

Our favorite self-promoter & part-time lawyer Dan Kleinman has a post about the recently revived West Bend library issue over on his blog.

Framing this as "Ginny vs. Maria" is just silly.

Maria Hanrahan responds

Maria Hanrahan responds to Ginny Maziarka in the paper today.

Click here to read it.

As Rush Limbaugh would say, "words mean things"

Ginny sure is into the word "bribe" these days. Too bad she doesn't know what it means. First she took to the local newspaper and accused the founder of West Bend Parents for Free Speech of accepting a bribe for simply accepting a $1,000 grant to continue the fight she had already been fighting. See Ginny, a bribe would have been if you paid her $1,000 to stop challenging you.

Today she calls a it a bribe when a woman gives $300 to another woman to be put towards an abortion. Forget the fact that the woman who wanted the abortion already decided to have one when she called asking for the money. Again Ginny, a bribe would have been if you paid the woman $300 not to have the abortion.

"Bribe" is a pretty serious word to be throwing around when you are unclear of its meaning.

Dan Kleinman weighs in

In case any of you haven't seen, Dan Kleinman AKA "SafeLLibraries" has joined us and has been commenting on this thread. This is as close as we will probably ever get to Ginny Maziarka defending her own views, so please take this opportunity to talk to Dan. Maybe he can answer why Ginny tags post about the local YA librarian with "gayporn".

Wikipedia Update

Looks like my little post here set off a flurry of edits to the West Bend, WI Wikipedia page, specifically the "Library Controversy" section. The section currently reads much better than it ever has, with a fair and balanced account of the incident. Sorry Ginny.

Here is how it currently looks:

Library controversy

In 2009, a controversy arose after a local couple, Jim and Ginny Maziarka, sent a letter to the West Bend Community Library complaining about books on a list entitled "Out of the Closet: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Fiction and Non-Fiction" that was published on the Young Adult section of the library's website.^{[5] [6]} The couple then amended their complaint to include objections to the presence of books depicting sex and homosexuality in the young adult section of the West Bend Community Memorial Library.^[7][8] The Maziarkas circulated an online petition ^[9] that called for the books to be labeled as explicit and moved to the adult section, as well as for the library to install Internet content filters and purchase books that represented "a balance of materials related to heterosexuality and homosexuality," complaining that the library had only gay-affirming books about homosexuality.

In the midst of the controversy, the West Bend Common Council, on a 5-3 vote, refused to reappoint four trustees whose terms were ending.^[10] One councilman complained that the board was stonewalling the complaint, while another councilman stated his belief that the board members were not serving the interests of the community “with their ideology.”^[11] The council's actions were widely criticized, and local citizens unsuccessfully sought to have the vote rescinded.^[12][13][14]

On June 2, 2009, the library board held a public hearing to take comment on the Maziarkas' petition.^[15] Following the hearing, the library board voted to uphold its policies and reject any restrictions on young adults' access to books in the library.^[16][17]

The Christian Civil Liberties Union also filed a claim against the West Bend library, asking that Francesca Lia Block's book Baby Be-Bop be "burned or destroyed", drawing further media attention to the local library dispute.^[18][19][20]

On July 30, 2009, the Pew Research Center reported that the library controversy was the third most blogged about topic from July 20–24, behind news about President Barack Obama's first six months in office and gossip about the TV show Doctor Who, but drawing more attention in the blogosphere than the controversial arrest of Henry Louis Gates.^[21]