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2005-10-16 Home Front: Culture Wars
Devil went down to Georgia, told to shut up
After the devil went down to Georgia, it seems, he got censored in Prince William County.

In preparation for a guest appearance at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, the marching band at C.D. Hylton High School had a logical and seemingly innocuous idea: play a Georgia-themed song. They decided on "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," by the Charlie Daniels Band.

But early this month, a local newspaper, the Potomac News, published a letter by a Woodbridge crank resident who, after having seen the C.D. Hylton Bulldawg Marching Band perform the country-western hit at a football game, wondered how a song about the devil could be played at school events, because of the separation of church and state.

Fearing bad public reaction, Hylton's longtime band director, Dennis Brown, pulled the song from the playlist. "I was just being protective of my students. I didn't want any negative publicity for C.D. Hylton High School," he said. But Brown's strategy backfired. The decision has created a furor, and even Charlie Daniels has weighed in.

"I am a Christian, and I don't write pro-devil songs. Most people seem to get it. It's a fun little song," Daniels said Friday in a telephone interview from Mokena, Ill., where he was scheduled to perform a concert. "I think it's a shame that the [marching band director] would yield to one piece of mail. If people find out that he can be manipulated that easily, he's going to have a hard way to go."
Next target: Edith Hamilton's Mythology
Christine Heeren, whose daughter Sandrine, 17, is the band's color guard captain, said many parents are frustrated that the song won't be performed but are unanimous in their respect for Brown as a thoughtful and popular band director. "I am quite in a dilemma," she said. "The children were more disappointed because they spent a lot of hours in marching band camp. It takes a lot of patience and drilling."

Residents, alumni and parents have been fulminating in the Potomac News and on its Web site against censorship, the values of the media, the band director and, perhaps not surprisingly, the writer of the letter, Robert McLean. In the paper's online forum, people have written about a range of topics -- abortion, presidential politics, whether Daniels rocks or not-- that show how testy emotions have become.

To paraphrase from the song, fire has flown from their fingertips:

"God have mercy. How did we become a country full of weenies who give into the cranky nonsense of 1 voice?" one person tapped out on a computer. "I guess I need to go back to school. I thought the idea behind our country was that the majority ruled? You know, like the majority of people voted for the President's re-election and now the ruling party is knuckling under to every left wing nut out there? I give up!"

A person identified as Ticked Off Parent chimed in: "What's next? School Book Burnings because someone finds To Kill a Mockingbird offensive? Whoever started this should be banned from the school, NOT THE SONG!" Another wrote in: "So what if the song does actually 'revolve' around Satan? Satan has its rightful place in history as does Women's suffrage, slavery, and every other subject bad or good!"

Daniels's song, which won a Grammy Award in 1979, is a tongue-in-cheek, tale about a devil heading down to Georgia and challenging a young man named Johnny to a fiddling duel. The stakes are high: If the devil plays a better tune, then he gets to keep Johnny's soul. But Johnny is too talented and beats the devil, winning a golden fiddle, and making Daniels's song a metaphor for the triumph of good over evil.

Brown said the Bulldawg Marching Band has been practicing "Devil" since early summer and one student even purchased an electric violin for the routine. The band played the song during the pregame show of the state football championship in 2003, he said, and no one complained.

As for that nettlesome letter writer, Robert McLean? The defense contractor, whose children are home-schooled, said he went to Hylton's football game just because he enjoys the sport. His letter, he said, was meant to start a philosophical debate, not to wreck any student's marching band experience. Besides, he said, he loves "Devil." "It was one of the first 45s I had as a kid," he said.
New Grad, 2008: "I am looking forward to college so I can finally learn something about this Michelangelo guy. My art teacher said he was way cool, but she couldn't show us his stuff or even talk about it cos' it's, like, religious.
Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2005-10-16 17:27|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Yet another data point for "too stupid for words / too stupid to live".

It's over. PCism has made this world unlivably insane. It's time to cull the herd.
Posted by .com 2005-10-16 18:10||   2005-10-16 18:10|| Front Page Top

#2 They just don't like Duke in Georgia cause they whoop 'em in basketball all the time.

Edith Hamilton would be a good friend of Ellen DeGeneris and Hillary Cliton.
Posted by Flosing Crineger4153 2005-10-16 18:13||   2005-10-16 18:13|| Front Page Top

#3 I cannot blame the band director. That a single determined idiot can disrupt a high school with his rantings is a fact of life. However, I look forward to the day when "interfering with public education" is seen as a misdemeanor offense.

A very straightforward law--any person who interferes with a public school with intent to disrupt, interfere, coerce, intimidate, harass or prevent their lawful activities, or interfere with students, faculty or administration, would be subject to criminal prosecution.

The law right now comes pretty close to having such a statute.
Posted by Anonymoose 2005-10-16 18:31||   2005-10-16 18:31|| Front Page Top

#4 I think it's a shame that the [marching band director] would yield to one piece of mail. If people find out that he can be manipulated that easily, he's going to have a hard way to go.

I have just become a Charlie Daniels fan.
Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford  2005-10-16 19:12|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/]  2005-10-16 19:12|| Front Page Top

#5 If writing new laws is the answer, you'll be writing a LOT of laws. Every day we discover new intrusions that lack even a whiff of common sense. Intrusions that serve no one - save the bottomless egos of well and truly sociopathic publicity hounds, such as Michael Newdow. Intrusions that contribute nothing to our society, but demonstrably detract. Our tolerance of this twisted newthink creates the niches and hernias where the specialty whores, such as race-baiters of the Jackson, Sharpton, and Farrakhan ilk, prosper.

This shit must be stopped before it infects everything - and it already exists, a hovering Sword of Damocles, in every conversation, every relationship, in the workplace, in your emails and diary scribblings and website bio, in inane dating rulebooks issued by the most inane of the intelligentsia at our universities - everywhere we go, everything we see, hear, read. We can see clearly where it is taking our cousins and ex-Allies on the continent, no?

Just my take after chewing on it a little while. This is a perversion of good intentions which has taken on a life of its own. A joke that stopped being funny and entered the realm of farce and tragedy quite some time ago.

An interesting "contest" might be to see who can come up with the earliest example (in the modern era - I claim Alley Oop anecdotes as my specialty, lol!) of obvious PCism run amok.
Posted by .com 2005-10-16 19:15||   2005-10-16 19:15|| Front Page Top

#6 Political Correctness Delenda Est
Posted by DMFD 2005-10-16 19:25||   2005-10-16 19:25|| Front Page Top

#7 I'm afraid the gleeful obstructionist PC environment will lead to vigilantism from what would otherwise (is a sane functional society) be non-offending majority. Celebrate nd push too far and expect the backlash on your backs from those who would willingly sacrifice to do it
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2005-10-16 19:49||   2005-10-16 19:49|| Front Page Top

#8 "in" not "is"
Posted by Frank G">Frank G  2005-10-16 19:51||   2005-10-16 19:51|| Front Page Top

#9 I believe that PCism is the amok phase of attempting to codify common sense / common decency. Since our families have largely fragmented and many "parents" have obviously abdicated to the school system the role of parent (the culture of no rules and instant gratification has many costs, mostly hidden) and our school systems are run, for the most part, by Moonbats whose eyes sparkle at the very thought of social engineering, we find common sense and common decency are not only misnomers, but endangered values. They have gleefully filled that vacuum with shrill rules of insane design.

Nothing unique or particularly profound, just my little theory on how this slide into insanity was born.
Posted by .com 2005-10-16 20:00||   2005-10-16 20:00|| Front Page Top

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