You probably have never heard of Ryan Vanderwiel. He is a 7^th grader at Prairie View Jr. High in Tinley Park. He lives in the same town as I did and attends the school district where not only my children but myself also attended.

At District 140, there is a huge influx of Muslim students. A mosque was built close to our area and with it came many Muslims. My kids, one of whom is graduating high school this year and the other of whom is in college, both went to school with Muslim kids. They had Muslim friends. Everyone got along.

Recently, things have changed. There seems to be more Muslim kids at the school. The high school is now about 40 percent Muslim. The grammar schools also have a lot of Muslim kids as well.

For the past 10 years, we have slowly stripped away any mention of Christmas or any other Christian holiday from the school. There are no more Christmas pageants. No more parties. At the high school, Christmas trees are called “Festive Ferns.” Any mention of Christmas or Easter or even Halloween is not allowed in the schools.

Why, then, is there a Ramadan Table for Muslim students only during this season? Yes, during Ramadan, the Muslim holy holiday, the students requested a Ramadan Table. This was granted by the school board right away. Apparently, it is okay to mention Ramadan in the school.

Ryan Vanderwiel is no ordinary 13 year old. He is a smart kid who understands that it his civic duty to question elected officials. He asked the principal of the school, Joel Martin, for a Lenten Table. This would be for the Catholic kids who cannot eat meat on Fridays. Apparently, the excuse for the Ramadan table was so that the Muslim kids would not be tempted to eat. Well, since the Catholic kids are not supposed to eat meat on Friday during lent, they should get a special table, too.

The principal ignored his request. And he continued to ignore it until the 13 year old wrote to a local paper that allows online letters. There are two papers in our town. One of them ignored Ryan’s letter. The other allowed it. The first paper, not wanting to be outdone by a weekly freebie, then called the school. All of the sudden, the issue was addressed. Much to the chagrin of the school board.

I covered the meeting of the school board. They decided beforehand to grant the request for the Lenten Table prior to the meeting. They announced this at the meeting.

At the meeting was a copy of an editorial. The editorial was from the Daily Southtown, not the paper I work for, but the other paper. It was copied from the paper’s website and also listed the anonymous comments that are allowed on news websites. The editorial called request for the table “silly,” and questioned the motives behind the request. The anonymous comments were all negative (but anonymous) about this kid.

Now Ryan Vanderwiel is being labeled a “racist” because he dared to speak up against what he saw as a clear violation of church and state. After all, as one parent put it, the school has done everything it could to remove any mention of religious holidays except the Muslim holidays. At the grammar school where my niece attends, a teacher said “Happy Eid and Happy Holidays” to the kids.

I did the ultimate no-no when acting as a reporter and actually spoke up at the meeting. I work for this paper part time and it really doesn’t pay any big bills. I like it, but I was willing to lose my job when I saw a father being berated by the arrogant school board president, Thomas Martelli, for questioning the fact that this editorial was handed out at the meeting. I stood up and spoke. As a resident of the district, I have the right.

This wasn’t the only editorial. There were others. Our paper did one that called this practice what it is - segregation. Yet the board felt compelled to actually put out copies of an editorial that derided the young man. Then at the same time, out of the other side of their face, praised him for his enacting his civic duties.

And let’s just be frank. This isn’t because of lent. It isn’t because of Ramadan. The Muslim kids wanted a table because they don’t want to sit with any non-Muslims during Ramadan. If this had started with Catholic kids it would be all over the news now. Instead, it is yet another story buried by the media.

The school board was outraged that we covered this story. The board president actually asked why we didn’t cover the “cup stacking championship” with such vigor. They wanted to know how this got into the papers.

I want to know why this didn’t get national coverage. The kid asked for the table in February. He was ignored for months. Finally, after he wrote to two papers, the school gave him an answer (after they consulted with their attorney). Then, at the meeting where the 7^th grader spoke in front of a packed room full of adults, they handed out a derogatory editorial pulled from the internet along with comments from people too cowardly to post their names and got angry when they were questioned.

And they don’t think that this is news?

Let’s see - Hillary Clinton decided to be “one of the boys” and take a shot of whiskey with a beer chaser in some rowdy, blue collar bar. Barack Obama decided to go bowling. And liberals are worried about a photo of what appears to be the reflection of a naked woman in Dick Cheney’s sunglasses?

They really should be worried about the fact that their hopes for getting one of their own in the Whitehouse depends upon people who would be dumb enough to fall for either Clinton or Obama’s charade of pretending to be “one of the guys.”  Does anyone besides me find this behavior somewhat insulting to the intelligence of the average person?

Eight years later and they’re hoping enough people will be able to punch holes correctly into paper.

Because Obama is even himself getting tired of preaching his “time for change” platform, he is now going to change his mantra to “to serve man.”

Obama’s campaign advisors are telling him that more people will blindly follow him if he chooses a more tried and true slogan such as “to serve man.” The advisors were inspired by an old “Twilight Zone” episode with the same title.

That “Twilight Zone” episode has many similarities to Obama’s campaign. In the episode entitled “To Serve Man,” aliens land on the earth. People are a little wary of them at first, but then they seem to be very friendly.

This is somewhat reflected in the beginning of Obama’s campaign. At first he seemed to “come out of nowhere” and quickly began skyrocketing into politics, first with being elected as US Senator and then conquering the primaries. No one ever heard of this guy but all of the sudden, he was everywhere. People were a little wary about him at first (psst….he’s black) but were soon overcome by his charm.

The aliens tell the earthlings that their sole purpose in life is to “serve man.” They have a book about it. Some scientist figures out the title of the book and ascertains that it is, indeed, entitled “To Serve Man.”

Obama has told everyone it is time for a change. Change is good. It is about time for a change. Then he threw in a little Bush bashing and continued with the change mantra.

People are a little upset over the economy, the price of gas and the crash of the housing market. Everyone wants a change from this. They were eager to follow anyone who promises “change.”

Just like the people in the Twilight Zone episode were eager to follow anyone who promised “to serve man.”

Now some people are questioning the change that Obama proposes. Even though it is rare for a politician to say things that people want to hear to get elected, Obama is starting to get pinned down. He will stop advocating change and start vowing “to serve man.”

Unfortunately, his advisors turned off “The Twilight Zone” episode before the end. Before the scientist had time to figure out a little bit more about the book entitled “To Serve Man” that the aliens were touting as they led the eager earthlings onto their spaceships and to their alien paradise.

It was a cook book.

But hey, anything is better than Bush, right?

Despite the fact that oil prices are climbing, jobs are becoming scarce and the housing industry is virtually in the toilet, I think McCain is a shoo in for president. I’m happy about this, as both Obama and Clinton scare me.

It shouldn’t be this way. I go back a little bit. I can remember the “Watergate” scandal and my grandfather, who was a very wise man, saying that “Mickey Mouse” could run on the Democrat slate in 1976 and would win since the Republican party was so vilified. And he did. He just used the name Jimmy Carter.

A lot of people are disillusioned with the government, especially at the federal level. Unemployment rates are going up and the housing market has crashed. Actually, neither of these things have to do with President Bush, but he will be blamed. The housing market crashed largely because of overzealous investors creating a false demand for a product and rising interest rates. More supply than demand equals lower prices. And when the housing industry crashes, it takes a lot of other businesses with it.

Bush is blamed for the economy because most people are too busy thinking about “American Idol” than the principals of economics. Even if he was a democrat, he would be blamed.

Clinton was lauded for the great economy in the 1990s. It wasn’t his fault, either. This can largely be attributed to Alan Greenspan and the lowering of the treasury bond rates. It caused a housing boom. What goes up, must come down.

But most American people don’t understand about economy, know who Alan Greenspan was, know what the federal reserve is or about the real estate bubble. They just know that they hate Bush because (pick one):

He is shoving religion down their throats;

He is a warmonger who is killing innocent Iraqis with his bare hands;

He is personally torturing people to get them to confess to terrorism;

He is spreading AIDS throughout the world;

He is against gay marriage;

He is racist;

He is responsible for killing all those nice death row inmates in Texas by allowing executions when he was the governor;

He plotted 9/11

He is dumb (this goes against the whole 9/11 plot, but do liberals ever really plan out their arguments?)

He is controlling the media (my personal favorite);

He was on the grassy knoll (I’m just waiting for this one).

President Bush has something like a 29 percent approval rating. People are concerned about oil prices, the state of the economy and things like Christmas being mentioned in schools.

This should have been a slam dunk for the Democrats, but it won’t be. The reason being is that the Democrats, which once were supposed to represent the welfare of the common, working man, now represent anything but. It is the lunatic fringe party. The frontrunner in race for nominee on the Democratic ticket has the support of the following:

Louis Farrakhan (I hate whites, Jews and am the leader of the Nation of Islam)

Jesse (Hymie Town) Jackson

Ted Kennedy (Too much material to even list here)

The fact that, after 9/11, someone would be considered a front runner who refuses to salute the flag and who attends a church where hate speech is part of the sermon (but that’s okay, you have to understand where the minister is coming from, after all, slavery just ended last week) and gains support from those who blame us for 9/11 because whitey kept the black man down, is amazing enough as it is. The fact that the Democrats are arrogant enough to believe that 9/11 is all but forgotten is even more amazing and a testament as to how out of touch they really are. With the common, working stiff who they used to represent.

Many ultra leftists are very vocal when it comes to voicing their opinions. I know this just for making political commentaries like this and I’m certainly no expert or professional when it comes to talking politics. But despite the fact that many on the internet spend a good part of their day vilifying Bush and everything in the party, there is another group of people who agree with what I’m saying.

They watch Fox News. They listen to talk radio. They understand what is going on an how the Democratic party has been used by virtually every lunatic fringe element around. And the majority of Americans don’t buy into the mantra of the ultra left. They are silent, but they vote.

Oh, and they know how to punch holes into ballots, too.