Tathagata

Tomorrow a court in Burma (Myanmar) is expected to find Aung San Suu Kyi guilty of violating the terms of her house arrest. She will most likely be sentenced to five years in prison.

The "violation" was caused by an American man, John Yettaw, who evaded guards and came to her home uninvited to warn Aung San Suu Kyi that she would be assassinated. The government of Burma seized on the incident as an excuse to lock the Nobel peace prize laureate in prison before elections are held next year.

The government of Burma is warning its citizens not to protest the verdict. Burma's leaders no doubt fear a reprise of the 2007 "saffron revolution," in which thousands of Buddhist monks marched in the streets to denounce Burma's cruel military regime.

The identified man takes part: the unidentified looks on! Open Secret by Wei Wu Wei...

Americans for decades have struggled over religion in public schools. Today's battleground is Texas, where six "experts" are making recommendations that could affect the religious content of textbooks sold in all 50 states.

The six experts hired by the Texas State Board of Education to review social studies textbooks used in the state include an evangelical Christian minister and the president of a Christian heritage advocacy group. These two, and another conservative Christian on the panel, are urging that Texas textbooks place more emphasis on the influence of Christianity in American history. They also want students to be taught that American government is rooted in religion, a claim that is historically inaccurate.

If you don't have children in the Texas public school system, you may think you don't need to be concerned. However, what Texas wants in its textbooks can have subtle and not-so-subtle influence in what is written in everyone else's textbooks.

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