(no subject)

[rymenhild]

I haven't posted anything genuinely interesting in far too long.

Today is not going to be the day I write something creative for LJ. It is, however, the day I post all the links that have kept me amused for the last week.

Courtesy of angevin2, The Stuarts*, South Park style. lynnoxford and muchabstracted might be especially amused by the rendition of Charles II and Nell Gwynne.

schiarire has written a lovely story about what really happened to the girl with jewels on her tongue. It's very carefully written, and full of beautiful awkwardnesses.

Slate links to a NYT article on John Roberts as a brilliant copy editor obsessed with minutiae of spelling, word choice and grammar. Perhaps I will like Roberts as a Supreme Court justice after all.

ajhalluk pointed out that parents in Missouri attempted to ban Lois Lowry's The Giver from being taught at a local middle school. According to the Columbia Missourian article, The Blue Springs District Communication Arts Committee unanimously voted to keep the book, noting that ninth graders in the same school district "read 'Romeo and Juliet,' a work featuring gang violence, disobedience to parents and teen suicide." Cerise Ivey, the mother leading the campaign against The Giver, says she

doesn’t know why people bring up Shakespeare when discussing “The Giver.” To her, there is “no comparison.” She is not against “factual, historical violence” being taught in schools.

Let me repeat that. This crazed mother thinks that the violence in "Romeo and Juliet" is all right for students because it's historically accurate.

In any case, ajhalluk's discussion of literature taught to children includes an excellent list of lessons we all should have learned in high school English. From Jane Eyre, for instance, ajhalluk extracts the moral, "Always check the attics before accepting a proposal of marriage from the proprietor of a Gothick pile."

ETA: I have just received spam purportedly sent by Freud. The subject heading of said spam is "Men's essentials. All in one place."

*That's what I meant, anyway, when I typed "Tudors" the first time around.

Comments

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

pssssst...wrong dynasty! ;)

But thanks for the plug, all the same. :)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I knew that. *goes to correct*

[woodwindy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the story link -- that's a keeper.

[wildblueyonder2.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised that some school district is trying to ban The Giver. It seems some folks are opposed to anything that makes you think. (Speaking of which, there was a NYTimes editorial about how the movement to teach intelligent design is basically a bait-and-switch intended to trick people who don't understand the scientific method. Worth reading, but I don't have time to find the link.)

Back to The Giver ...

So, quite a few years back, the high school for my elementary school bought a bunch of copies of "Night" by Elie Wiesel. A few days later, a staff member decided that Night was inappropriate reading. Why? Because within the book -- which is basically an autobiography of Wiesel's experiences in WWII -- Wiesel questioned the existence of God because God had allowed his family to be slaughtered.

Needless to say, the teachers at that high school didn't want the students reading anything which questioned the existence of God. thus, the book was instantly banned. In the end, I didn't go to that high school, at least partly because my parents didn't like the philosophy of the place.

Fast forward a few years. Guess which book showed up in at least three of my undergrad classes? Night, by Elie Wisel. In fact, it's in the curriculum for many college literature or religion surverys around the country.

You'd'a'thunk that some teacher at that high school might have possibly pondered the possibility that after graduating high school, those same kids who weren't allowed to read Night at a religious school might read it in an environment that was much more hostile to religious thought. Perhaps it might even have occurred to them that teaching Night -- blasphemy included -- might be a good idea precisely because it would allow those kids to raise those kinds of tough questions in a safe environment.

But hey, isn't censorship easier to manage?

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

[T]here was a NYTimes editorial about how the movement to teach intelligent design is basically a bait-and-switch intended to trick people who don't understand the scientific method.

That sounds accurate to me. Clearly, hideous misrepresentations of scientific method are what we need to be teaching in our nation's schools. Here's to an educated populace!

I wonder if your former school system assumed that all of its students would go on to institutes of higher education that shared its political and religious philosophies.

Also, hello and welcome. I'm Rymenhild. Out of curiosity, how did you find my journal?

[wildblueyonder2.livejournal.com]

Hi. Nice to meet you :-)

I found you via six degrees of separation, blog style. That actually means that there is a slight chance we've met in Real Life (tm), though since I have absolutely no idea who you are in Real Life, I can't be sure.

And to answer your other question: I'm not sure whether or not my former elementary school had a care in the world whether its students would go on to higher education. As a right-wing Orthodox school, I suspect they privately didn't approve of it, though they would never have said so out loud because they needed the financial support of a much more heterogenous community to survive.