Our older son, Matthew, is a high school teacher in Piedmont, S.C. He occasionally reads "The Answer Sheet," a WaPo blog by Valerie Strauss. A couple of days ago, a California teacher wrote an essay that appeared in the blog in which she laid out her case for not teaching Shakespeare to her high school students. That post fired up Matthew's teacherly instincts, and he responded with his own statement.
Then Fox News phoned him.
The phone call requesting an interview came to our home number first, a surprise since Matthew hasn't lived at home for years. My husband answered and gave the caller Matthew's number. Since we'd already read the blog posts, we knew what was going on. What none of us know yet is how Fox happened upon the posts and tracked Matthew through us, but never mind that.
Naturally, being who we are, we all would have preferred that the call had come from the staff of Jon Stewart or Rachel Maddow, or almost anyone else. But never mind that either. A car picked Matthew up at his home this morning and drove him to the Charlotte affiliate for a 7:40 a.m. segment with Brian Kilmeade.
We don't have cable, so I had to wait until Fox had loaded the video onto their playlist, which they did shortly after the segment aired. To say we were proud of our son is, of course, an understatement.
Naturally, Fox wanted him on because, as the caller told Matthew, they thought his message would resonate with their viewers. Um, perhaps not. The commenters to the blog pieces who disapprove of the California teacher's position and therefore implicitly approve Matthew's reveal themselves to be right-wing thinkers who pretty much believe liberal teachers are destroying students' lives. And I imagine that Fox figured that the South Carolina teacher must be a conservative. How wrong-headed of them.
I hope you'll read both blogs and enjoy the video.