From gymnast's view
Re "Cartwheel compromise best,' (Your View, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Nov. 21):
The reason I refused to stop (doing cartwheels) was because I was not given a designated area even though my parents had asked for it. Also, the school never made it an issue at the beginning of the year. There are many sports out there and you can get hurt by playing all of them, but they did not allow my sport.
My dad helped me because there are many people in the past who made great changes such as Luther and Galileo and Rosa Parks that stood up to stubborn unfairness. If you do not go against something that is wrong how do you expect to fix your problems?
It is a good thing my dad will home-school me because education these days is not as good as it should be. I will not miss my friends because we have one another's phone numbers and we can see each other any time. Also my dad says that anyone not using the schools should not have to pay for them.
Deirdre Faegre
West Covina
My daughter's 'Letter to the Editor' rests on the quintessential points. Allow me to elaborate. This is about an educrat who has exhibited another disgraceful episode of abuse found in Government Schools endemically. Should the American revolutionaries have not challenged the tyranny of King George III?
Here are the facts and this is the timeline:
09/28
After picking up my daughter, she divulges that she was admonished for doing cartwheels at lunch on the playground. I considered the event anomalous and probably involving extenuating circumstances.
09/29
After picking up my daughter, she explains that she was admonished once again and without leaving the campus, investigated by finding the instructor involved. Learning that such intransigence originated from Patton and finding her gone for the day, I emailed her the following day expressing incredulity at such repressive behavior.
09/30
My wife meets with and Electronic mail correspondence sent to Patton. No compromise is offered.
10/28
Nearly a month later, she responds perfunctorily by electronic mail without offering any compromise. A phone call from Patton offers no compromise and I dutifully warn her that I have already alerted the media about this episode.
My daughter begins to receive detention time at lunch for her civil disobedience. A model student and citizen who has never questioned authority heretofore, believes she has a compelling case and dutifully and politely accepts her punishment for approximately two weeks leading up to her suspension on Wednesday, 11/10.
If Patton had sincerely concerned about Deirdres safety and the safety of others," she would have found an area that accommodated her passion as any decent person would have. But safety was only a ruse--a distraction to her predilection towards pathological control of these authoritarian, psychotropic medication, indoctrination and incubation facilities that are known as public schools.
I made one stop to my local newspaper. I never chased or manipulated the development of what became, an international media frenzy. It wrote itself. This pathological priestess in the tradition of Eva Peron has now been disgraced by her arbitrary arrogance, been forced to recognize Deirdre's Cause of the Cartwheel for posterity and has, wait for it. Are you sitting down? Set aside an entire football field for her to be herself. Why could that have not been arranged at the end of September? Maybe you should reread the facts stated herein.
It would be easier to compromise philosophy and integrity and gain the notoriety that has been claimed as our purpose. It would be relatively easy to be elected as either a Democrat or Republican, receive campaign bribes from the teachers unions and ignore the comprehensive malfeasance found in Federal Education. Back in 1983, members of the Reagan-era National Commission on Excellence in Education wrote that, "if an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might have viewed it as an act of war."
So if this episode was about my Libertarian activism, why has there been so little attention made about it? I have insisted to the media that my Libertarianism not be mentioned. This is about children being children and nothing more. Remember, I had alerted Patton in a phone conversation that I had discussed this with a local reporter regarding her 'mother may I' paternalism prior to her suspension. Though forwarned, she huddled with the collective intellectual genius of Edison Schools and the West Covina Unified School District and drank the poison anyway. She thinks as any government goon; she cares only about her own. It is their school, not ours, as this nanny of nonsense protects her own rather than our own. She is counterfeit.
Free education for all children in public schools
---Plank 10 of the Communist Manifesto
I have never, ever concealed my contempt for the gulags of government education. The commissars of the state indoctrinate these 'Stepford Children' to insure their own control of our destiny without the slightest knowledge of the general population, which obviously includes this High Priestess of Handstands.
Originally heralded as innovative, San Jose Edison Academy assumed the mantle of the typical incubation centers that have harmed all children to some degree whether their ignorant parents know it or not; and do so with our money.
Unfortunately and lamentably, it was and remains our best option though I implore my fellow citizens of a much better way--alas one that is competitive, conducive to greatness and remains beyond the pale of the Federal Leviathan; The separation of school and state. It can be found here:
http://www.honested.com
The only relevance of this episode is that my daughter was denied the right to be herself. My daughter was never told to violate this arrogant and arbitrary edict. I just never insisted that it be followed. So much for what one critic has called my evil master plan; adherence to and affection for the US ConstitutionArticle One, Section Eight where no mention of government schools can be found.
As one blogger put it, Of course, we all know that cartwheels are just a gateway activity to harder actions, such as round-offs. And another put it so succinctly, "go revolutionary cartwheelgirl..."
"First, God created idiots. That was just for practice. Then He created school boards."
---Mark Twain
So the next time you hear about something as remotely abusive as thong underwear inspections [in San Diego] or vulva examinations [for genital warts without parental permission in Pennsylvania], I hope you think of me as something other than an irresponsible parent. And if not, please stay home on election day, and let me help you with a legal excuse from jury duty.
When cartwheels are outlawed, only outlaws will do cartwheels
As far as I know this is the only state in Oz which has this rule. 
Anyone would think Evil witch Mum is making them walk for 30 km's in the outback with no water! 
