crazy school stuff

[Arden]

What these companies are doing is completely immoral and should be illegal. They are altering someone's thought-out, well-chosen vocabulary pickings just to try to be PC. They are not taking into account the fact that many authors, especially Hemingway, choose their words very carefully because they have much more meaning than just "an old person." Besides, how is "older person" better than "old man?" It wasn't a grandma on that boat, it was a geezer.

According to Ravitch both the right wing and the left wing get what they want in American textbooks, for example an emphasis on family values and equality among ethnic groups.

Yeah, and literature in general gets castrated! What is the point of discussing a piece of literature if it's been altered to remove the symbolic imagery? There's nothing to analyze when you remove anything "offensive."

In my county, some parents are causing controversy over some of the books advanced English students have to read. For my AP English class, I had to read Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. Parents objected to it because it contained a (brief) passage about a black (as in negro) girl (as in underage female) trying to seduce the main character, Inman. They don't get that this scene shows the corruption of the house that he's staying in, and he needs to cleanse himself of this corruption. Also, another book they object to is House of Spirits (though I can't remember what it's about (therefore why)).

[cfleck]

quite frankley i think that the example of "old person and the big body of water" is rubbish. i'm a few years out of high school and we read the original work as far as i can tell.

i have mixed feelings about the situation. on one hand i'm pissed that such a thing could go on. while at the same time i have a hard time believing anything that book lady has to say.

i think someone needs to find a copy of "the old person..." so i can be pissed at these companies. until then, i think i'm just going to be pissed at the author of the book about this crap.

oh, and in regard to parents throwing a tantrum. a lot of it has to do, i think, with parents (a) not appreciating what the work actually portrays, and (b) being afraid that their child or a "lesser" child could be corrupted by such a thing. some people are convinced you have to play to teh lowest common denominator even at the cost of advancement.