So Much More Than a Book-Burner

It's bad enough that one of the applicants for a vacancy on the Howell school board is a would-be book-burner. She also seems to think school employees are nothing more than "hired help" and that the way to help schools is to cut taxes.

Yes, I'm talking about Vicki Fyke, the founder of LOVE (Livingston Organization for Values in Education), whom the Livingston Press and Argus says in an article Friday (Oct. 5, 2007) has applied for the vacancy created by the resignation of Mary Jo Dymond.

The newspaper notes that Fyke "objected to profanity and sexual content in books assigned in an advanced English class at the high school." The books were not trash, but ones by Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Wright. And her complaint to U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy III ended up absurdly triggering an FBI investigation.

But there's so much more (or less) to Fyke than that.

On a blog, The Suburban Voice, Fyke has written such gems as "Cutting taxes increases revenue" and referred to school employees as "the hired help."

And in an interview on WHMI radio March 2, Fyke complained that one of the English teachers isn't married and doesn't have any children so shouldn't be teaching books that have sexual references.

She's also pushed putting posters reading "In God We Trust" in school classrooms.

In another posting titled "You Worry Me," Fyke approvingly reprints a supposed letter from an airline pilot who says he's "worried" when he sees Arabs. "Read, absorb
and pass this on. This same concept can also be applied to other immigrant groups who
cross our borders. Hope you consider the intelligence of this pilot," wrote Fyke.

She worries me.