What ch'you readin' for?

From the NYT article:

"It makes it sound that every woman west of the Mississippi was a prostitute," said Grace Shore, the Republican chairwoman of the Texas State Board of Education. "The book says that there were 50,000 prostitutes west of the Mississippi. I doubt it, but even if there were, is that something that should be emphasized? Is that an important historical fact?"

Apparently she doesn't like two paragraphs out of a 1,000 page book. Since when did history become something you had to like? I thought history was supposed to be a factual representation of the past. Of course, I know, that the history books are written by the winners, but this seems a bit silly. Perhaps if she had done some fact checking of her own and came up with different figures I could understand the opposition. Ah, but that would require effort now wouldn't it. But surely she isn't trying to imply that there were only 50,000 women west of the Mississippi. It's very poor argument for getting a book tossed from the list in my opinion.

Of course coming from a state that co-opted an anti-littering campaign to mean that they will shoot you if you look at them funny, it shouldn't really suprise me.

I'm sure Bill Hicks is looking at this, shaking his head and is about to scream, "Haven't you people figured it out yet!"