Trump’s Health
I’m not so amoral as to hope for Donald Trump’s death from a disease that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans while he looks on with complete indifference, but I do admit to switching on MSNBC the moment I wake-up secretly hoping to see a message crawling across the screen: ‘President rushed to hospital, placed on ventilator. Vice president reportedly wets pants…’
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Trump’s Boys
If Miller died, it would take Trump weeks to notice. “Where’s What’s-his-face, that loud Jew who is still a virgin and would suck my dick if I let him? What do you mean he’s dead?”
Trump’s and Pence’s Mansplaining
Hey Pence and Trump, the next time you think it’s a smart idea to interrupt women, talk over them, assume you are entitled to more time than them, ignore the rules to favor you, and force them to remind you constantly ‘I’m speaking now,’ you might want to recall women vote more than men and will, quite literally, decide if you win or lose.
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Banned Books
Yeah, I know, nobody really fights over [classic banned] books anymore. They just ignore them. Now progressives and Christians fight over second-rate novels about wizards (the occult!) and girls kissing (!) and boys wanting to be girls (!!). And, sure, all kids should have access to stories about themselves.
But, alas, those books do little to sharpen young minds, to make kids think and understand the power of great art—no matter who they are.
You can’t be a literate American—you can’t truly understand this art form we call the novel or what it means to be an American—unless you can answer the question ‘How does Huck know he can’t turn in Jim?’ If you don’t cry over that passage, you are missing out on one of the great reasons to be be alive and you won’t be able to fully appreciate any later American literature, by authors of any color. Huck is the root of it all.
And, yes, you have to walk in Winston Smith’s shoes after you ride along on Huck and Jim’s raft. To be able to think critically about politics and language, you have to know George Orwell and what the word derived from his name—Orwellian—means.
Many of these other classics—even Lee—aren’t in the same category, but they should be read.
Alas, no one much bothers fighting over Huck and 1984 anymore and, if they do, it’s for the wrong reasons. (The n-word! Communism!)
Even our culture wars over what kids read are dumb now.
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