Not a prayer - or maybe there is

A ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery banning the Medina Valley Independent School District (Texas) from using specific religious words in their high school graduation ceremony on Saturday has been lifted by a Federal appeals court.

Unreal.

Does Judge Biery seriously believe that Medina Valley High School valedictorian Angela Hildenbrand's desire to say a prayer during her commencement speech constitutes a dire threat to the Republic?

In my career as a teacher, I have heard a lot of speeches at school graduations. Some have been good, more have been bad, and the rest have been downright ugly. One or two of them were so boring they should have been classified as a menace to public health (just kidding).

Is this the sort of thing we want a Federal judge - or any judge, for that matter - to concern himself/herself with? There is such a thing as overreaction.

As for those who are offended by a valedictorian's prayer, I say: suck it up and get over it. Right now, in addition to teaching a college algebra class in the local prison, I am enrolled in a graduate level education course. The course is supposed to be about curriculum and instruction, but in reality it is nothing but a bunch of left-wing activist claptrap. Both the textbook's author and the course instructor are narrow-minded obnoxious bores. So what? Life sometimes dictates that we must listen to those whose ideas and opinions we do not value. In order to graduate with a masters degree in mathematics I have to have this course. There is no escape.

If I have to suffer through five weeks of politically-motivated crapola, then opponents of a valedictorian's prayer at a graduation ceremony can likewise suffer a few moments of indignity. Deal with it.

UPDATE (6:10 PM): In Little Rock, Arkansas, there is a controversy about a high school yearbook. It seems that the yearbook from Russellville Middle School lists the "5 worst people of all time." President George W. Bush and Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, are listed right after Adolph Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and Charles Manson.

I breathlessly await Judge Biery swooping in to save us from this terrible peril.