Thomas Disch's LJ (RSS Feed)
11-30-2007, 07:27 PM
My friend Dana Gioia, the head of the National Endowment for the Arts, just sent me a booklet (which you all can get for free by going to www.arts.com and asking for it) about how unbelievably illiterate and dumb the whole country has become in a very short time. I imagine the visitors here are an exception (though sometimes I must wonder) in that so many are connected to the business of writing and selling books--and presumably reading a few in the process. One little bar graph as a for-instance: percentage of college freshman who read little or nothing for pleasure: 65%. There are many related trends that don't get mentioned. The ever-ongoing effort to rid libraries of such Public Enemies as Darwin and Rowling. Or anecdotal evidence: I know of a man who systematically addicts his pre-teen son to violent video games to keep the kid addicted and a willing visitor during his weekends of visitation.
Cut to the Sudan. The teacher who is to be flogged forty lashes for naming a teddy bear Mohammed is a British volunteer in the Sudan teaching seven-year-olds to read. No coincidence. A country like the Sudan can only maintain its power by keeping its captive population dirt-ignorant--and unable to love or imagine the lives of other people (thus, teddy bears are their enemy, and not just Israel and the US). British teachers with teddy bears are their mortal enemy.
That's why (Mortlake explains) something must be done to bring down the Evil Government of the Sudan and reestablish Imperial rule. If we can't bring back the White Man's burder, how about the Rainbox Coalition's burder?
If not, to hell with all of them. Let everyone in Darfur kill everyone else. We've still got books on our selves (those who do), and in that regard Mortlake highly recommends what we've been reading at bedtime: Steven Runciman's History of the Crusades. Did you know there was a Children's Crusade? Which is kind of a precedent, isn't it, for a Teddy Bears' Crusade. And that poor teacher in the Sudan might be its causus belli. Mortlake isn't sure of the spelling, but he'd be happy to carry the oriflamme into battle. Like a teddy bear Joan of Arc!
He'll tell you where to send your donations once the Foundation is on its feet.
More... (http://tomsdisch.livejournal.com/162788.html)
Cut to the Sudan. The teacher who is to be flogged forty lashes for naming a teddy bear Mohammed is a British volunteer in the Sudan teaching seven-year-olds to read. No coincidence. A country like the Sudan can only maintain its power by keeping its captive population dirt-ignorant--and unable to love or imagine the lives of other people (thus, teddy bears are their enemy, and not just Israel and the US). British teachers with teddy bears are their mortal enemy.
That's why (Mortlake explains) something must be done to bring down the Evil Government of the Sudan and reestablish Imperial rule. If we can't bring back the White Man's burder, how about the Rainbox Coalition's burder?
If not, to hell with all of them. Let everyone in Darfur kill everyone else. We've still got books on our selves (those who do), and in that regard Mortlake highly recommends what we've been reading at bedtime: Steven Runciman's History of the Crusades. Did you know there was a Children's Crusade? Which is kind of a precedent, isn't it, for a Teddy Bears' Crusade. And that poor teacher in the Sudan might be its causus belli. Mortlake isn't sure of the spelling, but he'd be happy to carry the oriflamme into battle. Like a teddy bear Joan of Arc!
He'll tell you where to send your donations once the Foundation is on its feet.
More... (http://tomsdisch.livejournal.com/162788.html)