Comment Re:Where was this class for me? (Score 1) 1021
Problem is most parents freak out. I was in an advanced Lit class and was introduced to Heinlein, Vonnegut, niven, EE Smith, and Ben Bova as writers and the sex scenes and outright violence in some of the books would have the moronic prude parents today suing everyone in sight for every reason.
You have me scratching my head here. I'll play the prude parent here for a moment (because I am one in Real Life), but if you are reading these authors for their sex scenes then you missed the boat. Heinlein (e.g.) keeps coming back to sexual topics, but if you are reading from his most influential works you aren't going to find much that is explicit. And Doc Smith? Maybe I just read the wrong books
Violence of course is another thing, but the Christian Conservatives I assume you are alluding to do not get worked up over violence the way they do about explicit sex. (If they did, their Bibles would be significantly shorter.)
Hell reading a clockwork orange today in a high school would get most teachers fired.
I really feel bad for teachers today. They have to basically give high school kids nursery rhymes instead of exposing them to real writers gritty stories that make the kids want to read with a passion.
Hah, Nursery rhymes would hardly cut it. I can just see a teacher trying to read "Ding, Dong, Bell" to a class and try to get around the tittering.
Anyway, taking a shot at "moronic prudes" puts you in fine company on slashdot, but I can't help but be amused from my vantage point. Yes, prudes do get worked up over class room material, but the reasons why they complain are seldom simple. E.g., when I complained about my high school daughter watching Scrubs and Casino Royal in school, it wasn't about the material per se but because she was watching them in English (no subtitles, nothing) in Spanish class. You see, they took two weeks off because the teacher couldn't bring herself to put together a lesson plan. I'm sure I'll go down in the school history as just another local religious nut job though.
Or, another example: I just finished reading to my youngest son. The language was occasionally vulgar so I balderized as I read. The book:A Night in the Lonesome October, one of my halloween favorites by Zelazny.
Anyway, pigeon-hole us as you will, but the prudes hardly have a monopoly on idiocy and closed-mindedness. Just something to bear in mind as you wind back to huck that stone. You may be guilty of, if nothing else, unintentional irony.