Ironic "Accuracy" (... and another SCLM moment)
Not to speak ill of the deceased, but I somehow expect that the subjects herein would appreciate the irony ...
Note how the (allegedly liberal) Chronicle allows this incredibly passive description of the Gabler family's ativism:
Gabler fought for textbook accuracy
She helped change the way books are adopted
By JO LEE FERGUSON
Longview News-JournalNorma Gabler dedicated much of the last 46 years of her life to the facts and to making sure textbook publishers get them right.
The 84-year-old Longview resident died Sunday in Phoenix after serving for decades as the public face of an effort to ensure accuracy in public school textbooks. She and her husband, Mel, who died in 2004, began their work in 1961 in Hawkins after finding errors in one of their sons' textbooks.
They founded the Longview-based nonprofit organization Educational Research Analysts, which describes itself as a conservative Christian organization.
They founded the Longview-based nonprofit organization Educational Research Analysts, which describes itself as a conservative Christian organization. Educational Research Analysts is dedicated to finding factual errors in textbooks, as well as to "pointing out censorship of conservative political or social views," said Neal Frey, president of the organization who has worked with the Gablers since 1982.
"which describes itself"??? Is that just a kinder, subtler way of suggesting that maybe - possibly - the Gablers themselves saw their activities (through a group THEY founded) as a conservative Christian organization? And, as anyone who's followed the Gablers over the years, it was not censoring of conservative views that they concerned themselves with. Rather, it was the intended insertion of their own conservative understandings.
The obit actually does an amazing bit of ironic justice in getting Gabler's life incorrect, glossing over the point that they based their critiques on a conservative critique of modernism they objected to with each passing year. Wikipedia at least notes the ERS as "controversial" - something the (allegedly liberal) Chronicle refuses to offer. Even on the rightwing side, an obit of Norma's husband at least notes: "They saw the decline in both accuracy and moral probity that began after 1960."
That the Gablers' hometown paper might be generous to a fault in describing the activities of the Gablers is one thing. Why the Houston Chronicle sees fit to leave it in theirs is another. A more accurate description might have been more appropriate.
UPDATE: Maybe the Chronicle could have had someone sift through their archives for a refresher on the Gablers. Here's a 1985 entry (excerpted in the extended portion).
You'd think maybe someone at the Chron would put in a call to that reporter maybe. Who wrote it, you ask? Clay Robison. I'd guess it wouldn't be impossible for the honchos at 801TX to get ahold of him seeing as he still works for them.
Mel Gabler said the history books show some improvements over previous offerings, but he insisted they still fell short of reflecting "mainstream America.""What he (Hudson) calls right-wing extremism is mainstream America because he's representing a minority viewpoint," Gabler said.
Gabler believes too many of the history texts, for example, are out-of-step with most Americans because the books give more attention to the Equal Rights Amendment than to pro-family issues and give labor unions too much credit for improvements in working conditions.
"Generally, they cover very thoroughly the push for the ERA, but the other side of the issue, the pro-family side, which represents two-thirds of the women in the United States, was ignored or given short shrift," Gabler said. "It was as though there was only one side of the issue."
The Gablers also made many of their concerns known in written comments filed with the Textbook Committee. Comments on all the textbooks from the Gablers and other parties total 1,125 pages.
In an apparent reference to the Americans attending medical school on the Caribbean island, the Gablers wrote that one book should have used the word, "rescue," rather than "invasion," to refer to the U.S. military action on Grenada in 1983.
They wrote that the text's "slanted" discussion "censors the discovery there of documented proof of Soviet plans to dominate the island, the full support of leaders of neighboring islands for U.S. intervention there, and Grenadans' own enthusiastic welcome of U.S. deliverance."
I believe they may be using "which describes itself as a conservative Christian organization" because every time they just use "conservative" as a description they get complaints from the right wing nuts they are characterizing a person or organization that should be called mainstream or not have an adjective.
The right has played the media like bad refs for years until they are afraid to make calls against them. I am surprised how often they can threaten to cancel a subscription or quit reading and show up next month in letters and comments and yet it still works.
Good post, Greg. I was wondering who'd be the first blogger to take on the LNJ's "obituary."
KLTV, the local right-wing TV station in the Tyler/Longview market did a story on them some years back. I seem to remember that a room in their house was full of file cabinets and scattered papers and it looked like something out of one of those movies like Conspiracy Theories or the garage in A Beautiful Mind.