I don't normally quote George Wallace in this space, or talk about religion, but two stories in today's New York Times are too juicy to ignore.
First, this one about the way Montana resorts are dealing with a shortage of affordable worker housing by buying motels and operating them for travelers as well as resort workers and contractors. The "public relations" manager of Big Sky Resorts, Dax Schieffer (that is not a typo, it is the first clue that there's something wrong with this chuckle-head) wins the clueless quote of the day--twice. And for good measure,he posed in heroic profile for the Times photographer himself, a big P.R. no-no.
Quote #1:
Who gets those discounts and how much they amount to depend on what a worker’s “job is and how much we need them,” Mr. Schieffer said.
Quote #2:
Mr. Schieffer said he did not think that guests would mind sharing space with employees.
“I’d like to think everyone can get along,” he said. “You don’t say, ‘Employees, don’t go here,’ or, ‘Don’t go there.’ ”
Instead, he said: “It’s self-segregating. It works itself out.”
Thank goodness for that. While the naive and no-doubt by now unemployed Mr. Schieffer seems genuinely mean-spirited, the cracker state legislators quoted in this story sound just pig ignorant. Like the priest I once heard at a wedding say "and now some holy water for the Jew" I suspect they'd never met one before. The story begins with an introduction to the two lawmakers who presumably now wish they'd never heard of each other:
A leader of the Texas House of Representatives apologized Friday for circulating an appeal to ban the teaching of evolution as derived from “Rabbinic writings” and other Jewish texts.
“I had no intention to offend anyone,” said the lawmaker, Warren Chisum, a Republican from the Panhandle who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Mr. Chisum said he had received the information from Ben Bridges, a Georgia legislator, and “I never took it very seriously.”
What information could that be?
The one-page memorandum, marked “From: Representative Ben Bridges,” declared that “tax-supported evolution science” was based on religion and therefore unlawful under the United States Constitution.
It continued, “Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called secular evolution science is the Big Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion.”
“This scenario,” the memorandum stated, “is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings on the mystic ‘holy book’ kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”
The memo cited a website called fixedearth.com as its source:
The site features items belittling the Holocaust and portraying Earth as stationary as depicted in the Bible, with Jewish thinkers like “Kabbalist physicist Albert Einstein” responsible for contrary scientific theories.
Representative Bridges, a five-term Republican from Cleveland, Ga., northeast of Atlanta, did not return calls to his legislative office on Friday.
By Monday, I'm sure Rep. Bridges, like his friend in Texas, will have "engaged" a Jew of his own:
In a letter to Mr. Briskman, Mr. Chisum wrote, “I sincerely regret that I did not take the time to carefully review these materials and recognize that I may have hurt or offended some groups including some of my dear friends.”
Mr. Chisum said he had “engaged” a Jewish colleague, former Representative Steven D. Wolens, a Democrat, to intercede on his behalf.
Mr. Wolens, a lawyer who is married to the mayor of Dallas, Laura Miller, confirmed that he would. “I always found him respectful to me and people of the Jewish faith,” Mr. Wolens said.
You can't make this stuff up...
