Did anyone hear about this last week? Why would they ever think this was interesting enough to put on a T-Shirt? -- Steve ********************************************************************* "Wednesday August 8 10:04 PM ET Penney Pulls 'Home Skooled' T-Shirts

DALLAS (AP) - T-shirts emblazoned with a decrepit mobile home and the words ''Home Skooled'' were pulled from J.C. Penney stores Wednesday because of customer complaints.

Some customers said the T-shirt demeaned home-schooling and threatened to boycott the company. Tim Lyons, a spokesman for J.C. Penney, said he did not know how many of the T-shirts had appeared in stores.

''It wasn't our intent to sell an item that is offensive,'' Lyons said.

Upset home-schoolers and other customers called and e-mailed the retailer's customer service centers, Lyons said. In response, a notice was sent to J.C. Penney stores late last week advising them to remove the T-shirts.

According to a study released this month by the Education Department, about 850,000 of the United States' 50 million schoolchildren are being taught at home." **********************************************************************

-- Steve in So. WI (Alpine1@prodigy.net), August 13, 2001

Answers

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin had a good column today on this topice. It should be on www.Townhall.com, but I haven't checked yet.

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), August 13, 2001.

What is amazing to me is that it didn't occur to them before they printed those shirts that they would be offensive!!

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), August 13, 2001.

I can just imagine the type of person who designed that shirt, probably some socialist-liberal who thinks it's a crime for a parent to not put their childs education in the hands of the govt. by the way, I love Michelle Malkin's commentaries. It's great to see national syndication of someone with her mindset and it blows out of the water the socialist-liberals theories of conservatives only being white fundamental-christian men. She has her own website at http://www.michellemalkin.com/

-- Dave (something@somewhere.com), August 13, 2001.

I consider myself a liberal - mainly due to the fact that I don't think I have a right to inflict my views on anyone else, and don't appreciate it when others try to do so to me. I think everyone has the right to choose how they want to live their life, and God bless 'em. I also have chosen to home school both of my girls. And I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms. So, I'm a liberal, gun-toting home-schooler stay-at-home mom. And while I would never buy one of those wretched t-shirts mentioned above, I would defend JC Penney's right to sell them if they chose to do so. It goes back to the idea of, if you don't like it, don't buy it! If you don't like what's on tv, turn the channel, or turn it off. BUT, there are people out there, God love 'em, who DO like those sort of things, and they have the right to partake.

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), August 13, 2001.

That's funny, Dave. When I was homeschooling, the right wing reactionary conservatives all called me a liberal socialist for refusing to send my son to Public School to be indoctrinated .... errr, that is, EDUCATED ... properly.

Just can't win sometimes, it seems.

-- Sojourner (notime4@summer.spam), August 13, 2001.

I don't have kids of my own, but if I did I would probably choose to homeschool. In fact, my mom said just last week that she wished I could homeschool my 9 yo nephew- when I took him to orientation last week we learned that there are 37 students in his 4th grade public school class. One teacher! In spite of that, I saw someone wearing one of those shirts a few weeks ago. My friends and I all thought it was kind of funny. Stupidly so and not really my kind of humor, but I was not offended by it. (please don't let me get kicked off the forum for saying that!)

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), August 13, 2001.

Yep, it's J.C. Penney's right to sell those shirts if they so choose and it's my right as a customer not to buy them. It's also my right as a citizen to attempt to persuade others not to buy them and even not to shop at J.C. Penney's if those shirts offend me enough.

My daughter's only two so perhaps I can't say we've begun her homeschooling yet (though I think we have) but that's what we are going to do and at great personal cost. Near as I can tell homeschooling is not not a liberal or conservative thing at all. If anything it's a libertarian thing for folks who want to think for themselves and take control of the important things one of which is the education of their children. My extended family runs from hardbitten conservative to mushy liberal and my wife and I have had to fend off all and sundry from both sides when we let it be known we are going to homeschool our children. Funny thing though, we've got a number of school teachers in the family and everyone of them thinks homeschooling is a wonderful idea.

To be sure, homeschooling is not for everyone and there is a major cost factor to be considered but for those that can do it and are motivated to make it work it's a great idea.

Mr & Mrs Oak are proud that their little seedling is one of those 850,000 homeschooled kids.

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), August 14, 2001.

Well, what to say! There is freedom of speech, and then again there is something called taste, which whoever developed the t-shirt obviously didn't have, in my opinion. Yes, I would consider that offensive and would never buy it, but neither would I boycott the store selling it. We have home-schooled for 4 years, experienced acceptance, support and debates over the 'wisdom' of not being in the public system. I could go on, but I'll keep this short. I have to look at the bright side of this: at least home-schooling is getting more public acceptance now, you think?

-- yancee in Texas (rnanning@comwerx.net), August 16, 2001.