Quotes of the Moment II

[Juana]

I see.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I see.

Mark Twain is the fucking MASTER, the GREAT-GREAT-GRAND-DADDY and GODFATHER of ranting.  Everyone since - Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce, HL Mencken, HST, Warren Ellis, Stang, everyone - has derived from Twain.

[Don Coyote]

I see.

Mark Twain is the fucking MASTER, the GREAT-GREAT-GRAND-DADDY and GODFATHER of ranting.  Everyone since - Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce, HL Mencken, HST, Warren Ellis, Stang, everyone - has derived from Twain.

I wonder if that is at some level partly responsible for censoring or removing Twain's works from schools.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I see.

Mark Twain is the fucking MASTER, the GREAT-GREAT-GRAND-DADDY and GODFATHER of ranting.  Everyone since - Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce, HL Mencken, HST, Warren Ellis, Stang, everyone - has derived from Twain.

I wonder if that is at some level partly responsible for censoring or removing Twain's works from schools.

No, that is the left-winger set that want to purge our libraries of anything considered a slur by TODAY'S standard.  And Twain DOES in fact use the terms "Injun" and "Nigger"...Which he himself thought were kind of dumb, but where ACCURATE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE SPEECH COMMONLY USED AT HIS TIME.

But, hey, destroying all accurate records or representations of bad things in history can't have any negative reprecussions, can it?  Of course not.  If the kids don't SEE the word, it can't hurt them (as opposed to seeing the word and being taught why it was bad and why it happened or anything), right?

Pigfucking censorship assholes.  I hate their as much as I hate the teabagger's ideology of thinking that the words themselves are acceptable in common use in this day and age, because BOTH OF THEM ARE DUMB.

[Aucoq]

I've always respected Twain as a giant in the American literature world, but I never realized he was such a badass.  I think I'm going to have fun researching him some more and reading more of his works.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Puddinhead wilson, man. Great shit.

[Salty]

Letters From The Earth saved me from, well, being Saved.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Wikipedia has a bunch of his shit now that it's public domain, including some of his newspaper and magazine articles.

To The Man Standing In Darkness is the best essay ever written.

[Juana]

The Mysterious Stranger is one of my all-time favorites by him.

I see.

Mark Twain is the fucking MASTER, the GREAT-GREAT-GRAND-DADDY and GODFATHER of ranting.  Everyone since - Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce, HL Mencken, HST, Warren Ellis, Stang, everyone - has derived from Twain.

I wonder if that is at some level partly responsible for censoring or removing Twain's works from schools.

No, that is the left-winger set that want to purge our libraries of anything considered a slur by TODAY'S standard.  And Twain DOES in fact use the terms "Injun" and "Nigger"...Which he himself thought were kind of dumb, but where ACCURATE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE SPEECH COMMONLY USED AT HIS TIME.

But, hey, destroying all accurate records or representations of bad things in history can't have any negative reprecussions, can it?  Of course not.  If the kids don't SEE the word, it can't hurt them (as opposed to seeing the word and being taught why it was bad and why it happened or anything), right?

Pigfucking censorship assholes.  I hate their as much as I hate the teabagger's ideology of thinking that the words themselves are acceptable in common use in this day and age, because BOTH OF THEM ARE DUMB.

Oh, the Right is just as bad. They got Shel Silverstein's book, Where the Sidewalk Ends removed from a library in Pennsylvania because they argued it encouraged cannibalism (and, uh, that guy was a staple of my childhood reading lists). They're also responsible for why so much American history is not taught or taught properly in schools.
Bowdlerization from either the Right or the Left is not the answer to objectionable content. Explaining the context and the history of the words/concepts is, as I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone here. There's a good book on this, Roger, called The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, by Diana Ravitch. You might like it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The Mysterious Stranger is one of my all-time favorites by him.

I see.

Mark Twain is the fucking MASTER, the GREAT-GREAT-GRAND-DADDY and GODFATHER of ranting.  Everyone since - Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce, HL Mencken, HST, Warren Ellis, Stang, everyone - has derived from Twain.

I wonder if that is at some level partly responsible for censoring or removing Twain's works from schools.

No, that is the left-winger set that want to purge our libraries of anything considered a slur by TODAY'S standard.  And Twain DOES in fact use the terms "Injun" and "Nigger"...Which he himself thought were kind of dumb, but where ACCURATE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE SPEECH COMMONLY USED AT HIS TIME.

But, hey, destroying all accurate records or representations of bad things in history can't have any negative reprecussions, can it?  Of course not.  If the kids don't SEE the word, it can't hurt them (as opposed to seeing the word and being taught why it was bad and why it happened or anything), right?

Pigfucking censorship assholes.  I hate their as much as I hate the teabagger's ideology of thinking that the words themselves are acceptable in common use in this day and age, because BOTH OF THEM ARE DUMB.

Oh, the Right is just as bad.

Think I said that.

They got Shel Silverstein's book, Where the Sidewalk Ends removed from a library in Pennsylvania because they argued it encouraged cannibalism (and, uh, that guy was a staple of my childhood reading lists). They're also responsible for why so much American history is not taught or taught properly in schools.

The left is also guilty on the history thing.

Bowdlerization from either the Right or the Left is not the answer to objectionable content. Explaining the context and the history of the words/concepts is, as I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone here. There's a good book on this, Roger, called The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, by Diana Ravitch. You might like it.

I'll have to look it up.  Censorship in almost any form gets up my ass.

[Aucoq]

The sad thing is I bet if you asked people about Twain the only answer you'd get from most of them would involve the Huck Finn controversy (unfortunately, myself included).  Most people were never taught about the incredible person behind the books (again, unfortunately, myself included).  What does it say about our society/culture that we've boiled such a powerful, creative, witty individual into just another controversy to fight over?

With that said, I'm definitely going to read Puddinhead, Letters from the Earth, To The Man Standing In Darkness, and The Mysterious Stranger.  Those are moving to the top of my reading list.

[Cain]

What does it say about our society/culture that we've boiled such a powerful, creative, witty individual into just another controversy to fight over?

That Texas has too much say over the American education system.

[Juana]

What does it say about our society/culture that we've boiled such a powerful, creative, witty individual into just another controversy to fight over?

That Texas has too much say over the American education system.

THIS.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What does it say about our society/culture that we've boiled such a powerful, creative, witty individual into just another controversy to fight over?

That Texas has too much say over the American education system.

That's the fun part about Jefferson.

Up to 1990:  Everyone loves Thomas Jefferson.

1990 or so:  The left suddenly hates Jefferson, because he owned slaves, the right calls the left a bunch of America-hating hippies.

2001: The right suddenly hates Jefferson, because he was against indefinite detention and torture, and for public education (way before it actually happened.  The Left calls them America-hating fascists, then starts arguing amongst themselves over the "having sex with his slaves" thing.  The right laughs at them, and then decides to show them a thing or two by taking Jefferson out of Texas schoolbooks and replacing him with John Calvin (founder of Calvinism, for those of you who don't understand weird fucking Americans), and mortal enemy of Thomas Jefferson.

Current Day:  Everyone pretends that 1990 to 2008 never happened.  Saying Jefferson's name at a party gets a long silence and dirty looks from everyone.

Doktor's diagnosis:  People are dumb, and believe that humans come in pure varieties (exception for RWHN, obviously), and will kill anyone who shows feet of clay, in public or otherwise.

[Richter]

Richter - ::Response to the potential "augementation" of the punch for the work holiday thing::  - I don't do any of my drinking at work.  I find it unprofessional and inefficient.  No, I do all my drinking in the car on the way here."