Tuesday, October 03, 2006

BOOKS: Dear Sweet Fucking Merciful Crap

So, Rusty just forwarded me this article.
"It's just all kinds of filth," said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read Fahrenheit 451. "The words don't need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class."
Is it just me, or has everyone forgotten to take their irony pills lately?
Alton Verm's request to ban Fahrenheit 451 came during the 25th annual Banned Books Week. He and Hines said the request to ban Fahrenheit 451, a book about book burning, during Banned Books Weeks is a coincidence.
Irony pills? What are irony pills?

But don't fear. This matter is in the capable hands of the Conroe Independent School District. This is the same district that banned Draw Me a Star three years ago, a book written by award-winning children's book writer -- and noted Satanist -- Eric Carle, the same guy who also brought us such subversive texts as The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Grouchy Ladybug.

Won't someone think of the children?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the best bit of that article - "If they can't find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn't have a book at all."

Exactly. They shouldn't have a book at all.

People make me want to cry sometimes.

Anonymous said...

irony pills are very large and tend to cause constipation of humor

Anonymous said...

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!

Thank you for pointing this out.

I think I have to go lie down now.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure she's a sweet girl, but if that was my daughter I'd be most concerned about the fact that she seemed incapable of critical thinking or independent thought. But that's me.

You know, the hungry caterpillar benefits off others' free food to better himself on his way to becoming a beautiful butterfly. Is that really the message we want to send to our kids?

Anonymous said...

Wait...What's the problem with the eric carle book?

Anonymous said...

That happened in the great state of Texas. So did this and this. This happened in Georgia.

Is there any room for me in Canada?

Candice said...

i grew up in harris county which is right next to montgomery county. porter and new caney are like running jokes, the people who don't wear shoes to walmart and only have a few teeth. whenever i was little and i was acting ridiculous my mom would say "do you want people to think you're from new caney?" and it would always shut me right up.

Corey said...

You see, an appreciation of irony would negate what occurs. Texas is an irony-free zone, one of the last pure examples of the 'death or irony' we all heard about after 9/11.

On the bright side, we can make fun of them all we want, and they will never, ever get the joke.

Anonymous said...

Corey, I'd just like to clarify some of us in Texas do get the joke, and we would laugh, it's just that we're too busy weeping softly because we're surrounded by these people.

Anonymous said...

And, as is the case with so many of these book banning proposals, the guy DIDN'T EVEN READ THE BOOK!!!

Corey said...

Point taken, Katy. Apologies for the over-generalization. I, too, weep for your situation.

Anonymous said...

What bothers me most about this is that no one is making his daughter read this book- it was made clear that all students have the option to request a different book, which she did. So her father isn't doing this so that HIS child won't be exposed to something he doesn't like. He's doing it to control what *everyone else's* kids may read. This frustrates me beyond words.

Doppelsis said...

My cat's breath smells like cat food.