Dispatch from Normalville

Following the Podunk County school board meeting Tuesday evening, it appears that the American education system's long dalliance with Newtonianism is coming to an end. For close to ninety minutes, board members saw and heard a procession of concerned parents line up to demand equal time in science classes for alternative theories of what they call "things falling down."

"Anyone who's as big a basketball fan as me can tell that no coincidence could ever bring about the wonderful balance between the bounciness properties of a basketball and the falling-down properties. And don't even get me started on golf!" This from Seth Straitlace, the father of three pupils in the county schools and an advocate of a theory called Intelligent Attraction. "Clearly, somebody smarter than me had to design the properties of the world so that things work the way they do." He moved on to Astronomy, "Also, did you ever consider that if the earth was alot farther from the sun or alot closer, life as we know it would be impossible! It hadda be designed. QED."

After forty-five minutes of discussion, the board voted 7-3 to require that earth science and physics textbooks used in the district have stickers placed in them to read:

"This text includes discussion of gravitation, which is only a theory, not a fact. There are other theories that attempt to explain these phenomena. You should study this material critically and make your own decisions. "

After the meeting, Straitlace said he was pleased, all in all. "This just leaves our campaign against Copernicanism. But that'll wait till next month's meeting."