The Erickson Report, Page 2: Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid category

The Erickson Report, Page 2: Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid category

So now we have our Clowns of the Year for 2019. The reason I say Clowns, plural, is that for the Clown of the Year, there are two categories: Basic Stupid, for those cases that are just mind-numbingly dumb, and Total Jackassery, for those cases that involve some level of venality.

So under Basic Stupid, our second runner-up is Americans - all of us, or at least a majority. In May, CivicScience, a Pittsburgh-based market research firm, released a new poll they had done of more than 3600 Americans on the issue of mathematics instruction.

In response to one question, 56% of the respondents said Arabic numerals should not be taught in American schools; jst 29% said they should be part of the curriculum; while 16% offered no opinion.

And if you don't get why that is some Clown combination of ignorance plus a soupçon of bigotry, these are Arabic numerals: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.

And before you start going "Oh those stupid right wingers again," know that when respondents were sorted into three categories, GOPper, Democrat, and Independent, not one of those three showed a majority in favor of teaching those numerals in American schools.

Our first runner-up is an unnamed woman in Lincoln, Nebraska. That city has more than 50 sculptures installed in various places as a public art project called "Serving Hands Lincoln."

The sculptures each consist of a pair of hands, open and holding something like a butterfly, a field of grain, flags of the world, the moon, whatever.

One sculpture, however, so offended our clown that she wrote to the mayor, demanding it be removed. She described it as "two hands open, painted Red and Black, and formed into Devil Horns."

She claimed it to be anti-Christian, demonic, ugly, perverse, and a "hate crime against the church."

The picture on the right shows the sculpture. Yep, the hands were those of Spiderman.

Footnote: The city said no, we are not removing the sculpture.

But our winner would have to rank among an all-time top 10 if I ever were to make such a list.

Rev. Dan Rehill

Rev. Dan Reehil is a pastor at the St. Edward's Roman Catholic grammar school in Nashville, Tennessee. In early September he sent an email to parents of the students telling them that the Harry Potter books have been removed from the school library because they "risk conjuring evil spirits."

Seriously.

Quoting the email: "These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text."

Personally, I think that's just Riddikulus.

Rev. Dan Reehil of St. Edward's Roman Catholic grammar school in Nashville, Tennessee: Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid category.