We needed to make a trip to Boise this last week. It was beautiful driving weather for the trip south. But we needed to wait for the wrecked propane tanker truck to be cleared from the two-lane road that connects our expansive state. All north south traffic goes through Riggins, the little town at the confluence of the Main Salmon and the Little Salmon Rivers.
But the bomb of 8000 gallons of propane didn’t explode and somehow everything got cleared up so traffic could resume. As we made our way at 25 mph through the hamlet of Riggins, I saw a new billboard on the east of the road. It looked kind of homemade, but I’ll bet there’s some money behind it. Yellow background for what looked like fluorescent blue all cap letters: “Get porn out of Riggins schools”.
Overturned propane tankers stop traffic unless they explode. Porn bombs wreck schools.
I found myself wondering just who would throw this porn bomb. I thought of public figures. Let’s not name any names, but we have the video of a freshman Idaho State Senator at his local school board meeting throwing rhetoric and disruption bombs. So, I get it. Idaho has adopted the bomb throwing model of statesmanship. And who more would want to bomb our public schools than the Idaho Freedom Foundation? Their Washington-based leader (oops, geographic bomb?) Wayne Hoffman is on record exclaiming government should have no role in education. So why not lob a porn bomb at every passing north south transient in Idaho? But I doubt Wayne paid for the billboard. But, given the intricacies of the obscure out of state funding funneling into our political cesspool, we’ll probably never know.
So, I drove on past the billboard and kept wondering.
Just what porn should we be getting out of our public schools? Bible verses refer to incest, sodomy, private parts, but we all know the Bible isn’t a threat to our children’s moral compass, is it? There could be folks taking offense at Chaucer’s saucy language in The Canterbury Tales. Maybe that old classic should be eradicated. I think I would have paid better attention in High School English is I’d known there were naughty bits.
I’m sure Walt Whitman’s poetry will get chopped, since he does “Sing the Body Electric”. And Marquez would have to go. Jeez, we’ll only have advertising copy left maybe.
But this porn bomb thrown at our public schools is more a logic bomb. If the Freedom Foundation and its subservient legislators are so bent on blowing up the public school system, what vision do they have for education? Oh, I know their mantra, I’ve heard it forever. Give the money to the parents, they are the best guardians of their children’s education. The market forces unleashed will remake education into the well-oiled machine of industry.
If the billboard’s author lived in Riggins, and if the author was indeed worried about porn in the schools, why didn’t they go to a school board meeting and ask? Why didn’t they run for a school board seat? Why didn’t they use the governance system to address their fears? Bomb throwing, berating people, disrupting boring meetings might just be more fun, huh?
If you want to “send the money to the parents” and you think our education system will be solved, just read Tara Westover’s Idaho story, Educated. Her memoir will open your eyes to the possibilities of parenting models in Idaho.
And that’s where you think taxpayer money should go?
The twisted, convoluted, even pornographic nature of this attempt to porn bomb our public schools lies in the duplicity, the devious nature of the proponents’ actions. Throwing porn bombs is a lot easier that sitting on a school board and trying to serve a community. Is that what you want your kids to learn?