After posting my latest blog, I decided to relax by watching a bit of television. There wasn't much on so I was just going to skip it. Instead I turned on the David Letterman Show. It turns out that Sen. John McCain had cancelled his appearance on the show. Although Letterman was upset over this and it didn't affect me, I became appalled to hear that he wants to cancel the presidential debates. To top things off, he wants to cancel the ONLY vice-presidential debate and replace it with a presidential debate.
As teacher-librarians, we are advocates for not only literacy but also the pursuit of knowledge. We know that part of the key to learning and growing is through seeking information and the discussion about various issues, which is why we create these blogs and participate in our discussion postings. So I pose the following questions: How can a major election be determined without any discussion or debate of all candidates? Can anyone be truly informed about an issue without proper discourse much less without any information given at all? I am not saying that I am for anyone per say, but I do believe in the freedom of information and when many people base their votes on the ideas expressed in forums like debates, it is preventing the flow of information.
We are educators. Our jobs and passions are based on the education of those who are still learning to think critically and evaluate information. By preventing the expression of ideas, we are halting the process of considering all sides to a problem/issue and making an uninformed choice.
I hope that I am not just overreacting and that you can see how this is a problem. In fact, I hope that the American voters see this and understand the importance of not cancelling these debates instead of falling into complacency over this issue.
All I can say is that it's all absolutely and unequivocally "ridonculous!"
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