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Virginia schools ban To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn...

GK4Herd

GK4Herd

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Aug 5, 2001
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...for use of racial slurs.

Goodness...that's the whole point of Mockingbird. It is a book that explores gender and race in the Deep South. The whole presentation of the book shows the unfairness of racism.

And Huck Finn...come on. Huck's father is a white drunken deadbeat who abandons him to fend for himself. Huck befriends Jim...an escaped slave who takes care of him.

As far as the language...what do we want to teach kids? Some sanitized version of reality where they never get a true picture of a historical period?

Man...I don't like book banners.



http://www.wpxi.com/news/trending-n...d-huckleberry-finn-for-racial-slurs/472065098
 
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while we are at it we might as well ban Canterbury tales since Chaucer advocates sodomy with a hot iron poker
 
...or The Diary of Anne Frank for the violence against Jews.
 
Here's the passage that causes the concern by the way...

"Until I was 11 or 12, I didn't realise there was a second set of labia on the inside, since you couldn't see them. What's even funnier is that I thought urine came out of the clitoris," wrote Frank. "When you're standing up, all you see from the front is hair. Between your legs there are two soft, cushiony things, also covered with hair, which press together when you're standing, so you can't see what's inside. They separate when you sit down and they're very red and quite fleshy on the inside. In the upper part, between the outer labia, there's a fold of skin that, on second thought, looks like a kind of blister. That's the clitoris."


I'd use an abridged version for grade school if I were to use this book, but for middle school and certainly high school I don't see a problem. Honestly...Americans are way too uptight about the human body.
 
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Man you guys are missing the boat. SJWs don't fight for Jews and they love sodomy, believe periods are beautiful and empower women, and want to legalize all drug use. Do you guys even PC?
 
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Rock98Dog said:
Man you guys are missing the boat. SJWs don't fight for Jews and they love sodomy, believe periods are beautiful and empower women, and want to legalize all drug use. Do you guys even PC?
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They only love periods when the trans men get their first period and trans women stop having theirs
 
GreenDuke said:
Or Beowulf because who knows what the hell thats all about. :D
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Ain't that the truth. I nominate Finnegan's Wake for the same reason. For example...

“And whowasit youwasit propped the pot in the yard and whatinthe nameofsen lukeareyou rubbinthe sideofthe flureofthe lobbywith Shite! will you have a plateful? Tak.”
― James Joyce, Finnegans Wake



I mean...why can't we ban that?
 
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GK4Herd said:
Ain't that the truth. I nominate Finnegan's Wake for the same reason. For example...

“And whowasit youwasit propped the pot in the yard and whatinthe nameofsen lukeareyou rubbinthe sideofthe flureofthe lobbywith Shite! will you have a plateful? Tak.”
― James Joyce, Finnegans Wake



I mean...why can't we ban that?
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Now I know why they named a bar near Duke's East Campus the James Joyce. Joyce wrote that like he was blasted.:confused:
 
Hell, it's not like anybody reads this stuff anymore anyway. I never did and never will. Certainly today's flunkies won't either.

The books they did make us read sucked and were a big waste of time. If I had it my way, they would have taught me how to be an engineer when I was 14, I'd have started at 15 and have almost 20 years in now. Not to mention the money I'd be sitting on.

School. Bunch of bullshit that cost me money and wasted my best years.
 
Walden Pond said:
Hell, it's not like anybody reads this stuff anymore anyway. I never did and never will. Certainly today's flunkies won't either.

The books they did make us read sucked and were a big waste of time. If I had it my way, they would have taught me how to be an engineer when I was 14, I'd have started at 15 and have almost 20 years in now. Not to mention the money I'd be sitting on.

School. Bunch of bullshit that cost me money and wasted my best years.
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I have to agree at least 50 percent of school or more is a complete waste. College is a big fraud.
 
Walden Pond said:
Hell, it's not like anybody reads this stuff anymore anyway. I never did and never will. Certainly today's flunkies won't either.

The books they did make us read sucked and were a big waste of time. If I had it my way, they would have taught me how to be an engineer when I was 14, I'd have started at 15 and have almost 20 years in now. Not to mention the money I'd be sitting on.

School. Bunch of bullshit that cost me money and wasted my best years.
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I'm the opposite. I didn't read these when I was younger but now I'm going from one classic to another. Young people reading these books in high school and college may be a waste as far as preparing and advancing a career, but it does provide insight into historical eras.

Read Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck if you want to know about depression era struggles. I finished the book and literally sat in silence for an hour. It was that impactful to me. Read 1984 by Orwell or Brave New World by Huxley if you want a dystopian look into an over reaching government. Read Catch 22 by Salinger if you want a humorous look into the dysfunction of the military. Hell...read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for insight on the topic of this thread...book banning.

Maybe a waste in your estimation but not any more so than sitting and watching sporting events...which I do a lot of.

I guess I'm saying that building a career is important but education, especially when you're younger, needs to expose students to a broad range of experiences.
 
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Why does it need to?

Seems like with how rich this country is, there isn't much need for anything. I've learned when people say need, they really mean want or nice to have, but don't really need it.
 
Walden Pond said:
Why does it need to?

Seems like with how rich this country is, there isn't much need for anything. I've learned when people say need, they really mean want or nice to have, but don't really need it.
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Maybe because not everyone shares your fatalistic view of life. I don't need to read, but I do because I enjoy it. Anything we do, if viewed through the filters of hopelessness the way you see things, is an exercise in futility. But without these items that enrich our lives we're no better than the soma idled workers of Huxley's Brave New World who deaden their life of drudgery of menial labor through government issued recreational drugs. And I can call on that imagery with understanding because I've read these great books and it enriches my life with a broad range of experiences and unique ways of viewing things that makes me step outside my own little world.

But in your world we'd march the children into careers that they are incapable, because of youth, of knowing if it's what they even want in life. They may never find out because their experiences are too narrow to even know what choices they might have. Hell...lets spit out plumbers and doctors and teachers at 15 years old lest we waste ten years of peak income potential. All we'd have to do is eliminate all that other useless stuff they make us do in school.Then they have the world licked by the time they're 40 because they got a little money in the bank. The only problem is they find themselves approaching middle age , viewing life without hope, all because they have no understanding of how to enrich their life because they have only driven their train down one track and only know a singular landscape.
 
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GK4Herd said:
they find themselves approaching middle age , viewing life without hope
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What do you need hope for at that point? Hope is when you don't have what you want and you're hoping somehow it magically falls into your lap. Hope is for losers. If you want something, go get it.

School and most everything else sends this message that everything is so hard, so terrible, it takes such a struggle to get what you want that you might as well forget it. All lies to get people to depend on hope and lottery tickets.

I wanted some pop this morning so I drove to Kroger and got it. There it is, four 12 packs. I'll guzzle those down in a few days and go back for more. It's been a while since I've discussed how much of it I drink with people and see their reactions. They were amusing. Just like I'll be to them when I have 41 stomach ulcers, but that's life.
 
I've read "Portrait," "Ulysses," and "Finnegans Wake." They all suck. I mean, these are supposed to be top 10 fiction novels (at least 2 of them), and they are garbage. I almost stopped reading Ulysses and Portrait half way through them. Even worse, "Tropic of Cancer." I did stop reading it. F*cking awful.
 
ThunderCat98 said:
I've read "Portrait," "Ulysses," and "Finnegans Wake." They all suck. I mean, these are supposed to be top 10 fiction novels (at least 2 of them), and they are garbage. I almost stopped reading Ulysses and Portrait half way through them. Even worse, "Tropic of Cancer." I did stop reading it. F*cking awful.
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I have no clue about Tropic of Cancer, but I know this...I'll never read any Joyce either. But Steinbeck and Vonnegut...I'm slowly knocking off all of their work. Using kindle you can download a sample and get a chapter or two for free and decide whether you want to read it or not. But Joyce...just reading a few if his quotes were enough to know that I'd never give him a shot.
 
I don't see how anybody can think that 4 years of college is not a waste of time and money. 20 plus years later I look back and say damn they could have done that in at least half the time. I have learned far more on the job than I have in some waste of a class. Would have been easier to hand someone 20 grand and said pass me that piece of paper. I don't even know where my diploma is. I really don't care.

At least then Marshall was affordable. Now not so much(or any college for that matter). What a fraud. People paying 100 grand to get some useless degree.

Plus, too many people went to college. We need more plumbers and HVAC guys.

College and global warming are the two modern day frauds.

And, just wait until this college loan thing comes home to roost. This country is going to be hurting. Coming down like a deck of cards.
 
I bet WP is immersed in a good Willa Cather offering right now. His wife and kids are probably voracious readers and he doesnt drink anything harsher than designer fusion water.
 
i am herdman said:
I don't see how anybody can think that 4 years of college is not a waste of time and money. 20 plus years later I look back and say damn they could have done that in at least half the time. I have learned far more on the job than I have in some waste of a class. Would have been easier to hand someone 20 grand and said pass me that piece of paper. I don't even know where my diploma is. I really don't care.

At least then Marshall was affordable. Now not so much(or any college for that matter). What a fraud. People paying 100 grand to get some useless degree.

Plus, too many people went to college. We need more plumbers and HVAC guys.

College and global warming are the two modern day frauds.

And, just wait until this college loan thing comes home to roost. This country is going to be hurting. Coming down like a deck of cards.
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The only thing I take from this is that when you're sitting on your couch drinking coffee at 6:30am and a push notification pops up on your phone that herdman responded to one of your threads...well...you gotta like the fact that some people still enjoy the solitude of early morning. As for the rest of the post...




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i am herdman said:
People paying 100 grand to get some useless degree.
College and global warming are the two modern day frauds.
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I can't imagine how pissed I'd be had I wasted that time for a useless degree. My goal was getting a decent paying job as quickly as possible. No masters or doctorate garbage. What kind of 4 year degree could I get to make some money with it?

There aren't many. Fortunately, I had sense enough to choose one of the few. It was no picnic. I gave up at one time, but went back. In the real world, you use 10% of what was taught total. Not just my job. All jobs in this field actually practicing engineering.

The only way you use that stuff is if you're going to spend your whole life doing research at a university, where maybe 1 in 10,000 results in something groundbreaking while the other 9,999 just piss away their entire adult lives biting their fingernails hoping for government funding to continue their elaborate wild goose chase.
 
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