Pandagon Blog

Today I read the past few days of posts on Pandagon, an obviously liberal blog which features outrageous political stories. A few of the posts from the past few days stuck out to me. The first was about an abstinence educator named Keith Deltano. It remarks on how abstinence only education does not work, but money is still being given from the government to fund these programs. The post includes a video of a Keith Deltano conducting his abstinence only routine for a group of students. The post is clearly mocking the routine and implies that Keith Deltano is having a negative impact on students, reinforcing gender stereotypes and insulting the intelligence of females. The author, Pam Spaulding, uses a very informal tone in the post, which appears to be aimed at getting a rise out of people by explaining that, as outrageous as this program is, it is funded by United States taxpayers. I know I am offended that any of my money would support the programs of this "cinder block wielding lunatic."

The next post that caught my attention was by Amanda Marcotte and is about the controversy over President Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame. This post is also informal in tone. Ms. Marcotte states that there really is no controversy, and that only a small number of right-wing "wankers" are objecting. The post says that those who are creating the problem say it is a relgious issue because President Obama is Pro-Choice, which goes against Catholic teaching. However, Ms. Marcotte cites the inconsistency that Notre Dame had no problem with President Bush who initiated the Iraq War, but war is also against Catholic teaching. The post insinuates that is really a race issue, but then does not address that for the rest of the post stating that discussing it would result in "bunch of pearl-clutching faux outrage of the sort we’ve seen from Donna Barstow or Byron York." The author seems to dismiss this as a non-issue, implying that the right wing minority at Notre Dame will not have any impact whatsoever.

Another post that really stood out to me was written by Pam Spaulding and described a school in Kentucky's new policy of banning homosexual students from the restrooms. Allegedly, an Assistant Principal of Franklin County High School in Kentucky sent an e-mail to teachers directing them to not allow homosexual students out of the class to use the restroom. This e-mail came as a result of two female students being caught kissing in the restroom. Ms. Spaulding states the obvious health issue, and also points out the laughable irony that the word of the month at Franklin County High School is tolerance. I agree that there is no need for students to be making public displays of affection in High School entirely, whether it be heterosexual or homosexual, but this Assistant Principal went way too far in her attempt to prevent this specific type of incident. I can only wonder what her policy is on the heterosexual students (who, if my high school is indicative of what other schools across the nation are like, do the same thing). In this instance, I really hope that this report is mistaken, because I would like to believe someone who could be an Assistant Principal would not be that ignorant.

I was very entertained by reading Pandagon. The authors of the blog use the shock factor to their advantage, taking any outlandish story and addressing it as you would if speaking to a friend. The informal tone of the blog tied with the type of posts they write makes it a fun read. However, I am not sure how informative the posts really are, because they seem to be more aimed at getting a reaction than explaining both sides of the story. I heard about things I had not heard about elsewhere, so I suppose it is informative, and I was annoyed that people could be so ridiculous when I read them, but I can not help but suspect that in some instances there is probably more to the story.