I got this from beliefnet.com.  I had mentioned it on another blog and decided I would just post it  since one individual couldn't get to the article.  I thought maybe others had the same problem, so here it is....an interesting and enlightening read....

Check out this article that appeared in the recent issue of THE PROGRESSIVE magazine.....SCARY STUFF! 

October 16, 2004

Three Teachers Evicted from Bush Event for Wearing "Protect Our Civil Liberties" T-Shirts

About 20 years ago, the former editor of The Progressive magazine, Erwin Knoll, wanted to make a point about the lack of free speech in shopping malls. So he and a few colleagues and friends distributed copies of the Bill of Rights in a mall in Madison, Wisconsin. They were arrested for doing so.

A recent action by three teachers in Oregon reminded me of that perfect snapshot of lost freedom.

On October 14, they decided to attend a Bush rally at the Jackson County Fairgrounds near Medford, where they teach. They wanted to see their President, and they also wanted to stand up for First Amendment rights, since they had heard on NPR that the Bush campaign was curtailing such rights all along the trail.

So they came up with an ingenious idea. They obtained tickets for the event, and they made and wore T-shirts that said, "Protect Our Civil Liberties." Alas, they were not allowed to hear the President. In fact, they were threatened with arrest.

I talked with two of the three teachers, Tania Tong and her sister, Candice Julian, both of whom teach special education to elementary school children in Medford. The third is a student teacher named Janet Voorhies, who works with Tong.

"We didn't want to come up with anything that was offensive or antagonistic," says Julian, who says it was her idea to have the shirts say, "Protect Our Civil Liberties."

"We were concerned about stories we had heard about people trying to go to participate in rallies and being denied access because they had paraphernalia that said something about Kerry," Tong explains. "We wanted to voice our opinion in a way that wasn't degrading to anybody. The shirt was really kind of benign."

They picked up their tickets the day before the event, but even there they had a hard time. The woman handing tickets out raised a question about Julian being from Ashland, a liberal town. "She asked me if I was going to protest or whether I was going to vote for Bush," says Julian. "And she said, 'I'll give you the ticket if you don't protest.' "

Julian agreed that she would not disrupt the event.

On October 14, they proceeded to the fairgrounds. They showed their driver's licenses and tickets at the first checkpoint. Campaign officials "were scrutinizing our T-shirts," Julian says, but they let the three in.

At the second checkpoint, which consisted of a metal detector staffed by the Secret Service, more questions arose.

"People came up and said, 'Do you know this is a Bush rally? We're concerned about your T-shirts,' " recalls Tong.

"We asked them why.

"They said, 'We don't want anything that's going to cause a disruption.'

"Then they asked, 'Are you going to vote for Bush?'

"And I said that I was undecided and my sister Candice said she was choosing not to answer because it's a personal decision."

The campaign officials said they could go in if they could guarantee they would not make a scene, Tong says. "We assured them that we did not come with any intention of being disorderly, so they said fine and said they respected our differing opinions," she recalls.

At that point, the three teachers assumed they were in, and that they could take their seats and listen to the President.

No such luck.

"As we were walking over to sit down, a woman grabbed me by the arm from the back and grabbed my shirt," Tong says. "She said she would have to look under my shirt for offensive language. I told her she wouldn't find any there. She still looked. Then we walked about two more steps and a man came up and asked to see our IDs again and then made a comment abut my sister living in Ashland. But he gave us our IDs back, and we proceeded to sit down."

Campaign officials did not leave the three alone, however. They followed them to their seats, and when Janet Voorhies got up to go to the bathroom, she was tailed, Tong and Julian say.

When Voorhies did not return promptly, they became concerned and got up to see what was going on.

"A guy had Janet by the elbow and was leading her away," says Julian.

"And he said to us, 'Give us your tickets.' "

"We said, 'Why?' And I put the ticket behind my back, and one of the guys who had been following us ripped it out of my hands."

Seeing what happened to her sister's ticket, Tong put hers down her pants, she says.

Campaign officials then told all three women to leave.

"They said it was a private event, for invited guests," Tong recalls.

"We said we were invited because we were given tickets.

"One said, 'You don't have tickets anymore.'

"We said, 'We did until you ripped them out of our hands.'

"And we asked him, 'Are you offended by our shirts?'

"He said our shirts were 'obscene.' "

Tong and Julian say that about ten men, including Secret Service officers and sheriff's deputies, proceeded to surround them.

"They weren't letting us move anywhere," Tong says. Campaign officials told law enforcement, "These people need to leave," she recalls.

"We asked what would happen if we didn't, and the police said we'd be arrested for disorderly conduct," Tong says.

So the three teachers headed away.

"They walked us out past the parking lot and said if you come back, we're going to arrest you," Julian says. She told one of the men, "I just wanted to see my President." And he said, "You're just going to have to watch him on TV,"

"The more and more I think about it the more and more I'm really ticked off," Julian says. "I should have the right to exercise my First Amendment rights. We were of no risk. The Secret Service had already screened us, and they had let us through. It had nothing to do with security. It had everything to do with us having differing views."

Tong is equally angry. "I'm just shocked that the statement on our shirts is even controversial," she says. "I thought that was one of our founding principles and that we have certain rights and freedoms that should be protected."

The Bush campaign and the Oregon Republican Party did not return calls and e-mails for comment.

Deputy Michael Hermant of the Jackson County Sheriff's Department says he doesn't know who was involved in this incident. "There were so many agencies there you couldn't believe it," he says. "Agencies from out of state, out of county, every available agency within the county, plus Secret Service. I have no way of knowing" who escorted the women out of the event or why.

"I can't imagine why the campaign would have asked them to leave," says Dave Fidanque, executive director of the Oregon ACLU, who stresses that the event was on public property at the county fairgrounds. "For a Presidential campaign to eject people who are not being disruptive seems out of character with the America I know."

--Matthew Rothschild

a recent study (as reported by Nation Public Radio) shows that Alabama has the highest percentage of overweight people in the nation.  It says that more than 28% of the state's residents are obese.  13% of our high school students are overweight!  That's just amazing!

Now, just to give you an idea.  The term obese means "very fat", not just a little chunky.  I have a scale that shows where a person falls on the scale by their height and weight.  For example, a person who is 5'7" and weighs 155 or below, that is considered acceptable weight.  That same person at 5'7" who weights anywhere from 155-188 would be considered overweight.  Between 190-220 lbs.would be obese.  And between 220-250 lbs. is severly obese.  Anything over that is considered morbidly obese.

I'm 5'9", and according to my scale, I can weigh up to 165 and still be acceptable.  I can't imagine gaining 20 lbs, but the Depo shot did it to me once!  Never say never!  So, by looking at this scale, for me to be considered obese, I would have to weigh over 200 lbs!  Holy cow!  I can't imagine!  And don't want to! 

Anyway, that's my tidbit of news today.

Does it just seem odd to me....that America can't handle getting flu shots for Americans, and Bush's plan is to get them from Canada....the very government he ridicules from their health care system....how it's not as good as ours....but yet, Canada is the one we turn to for help.  hmmmmmm, interesting.....