Huckleberry Finn

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a Philadelphia Quaker High School, Friends Central School, has decided that the “community costs” of reading Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn outweigh the literary benefits.

I was about ten years old when I read Huckleberry Finn.  The part of the book that had the most impact on me was when Huckleberry, who had been raised in the South, knows that if he doesn’t turn in Jim, a runaway slave, he will go to hell.  That’s what he has been taught.  He weighs turning in his friend against going to hell.  

I don’t remember the exact words (it was a long time ago), but Huck decided not to turn in Jim and exclaimed, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell.”  

That made a deep impression on me.  You do what you think is right.  I think a good teacher can explain the racial slurs, and I also think 11th graders are smart enough to deal with them.

Guns and abortions

Gail Collins today reported on a bill recently introduced into the Missouri House of Representatives by Rep. Stacey Newman.  Missouri has put so many restrictions on abortion that it has only one clinic remaining in St. Louis.  Ms. Newman’s bill would put the same restrictions on gun purchases that Missouri currently imposes on women who want an abortion.

For example, there is a 72 hour waiting period before you can purchase a firearm.  You must travel at least 120 miles from your home to purchase a firearm.  You must listen to a lecture about the medical risks associated with firearms.  You must view pictures of people with firearms wounds.

In Missouri most legislators call themselves “pro-life.”  Interestingly, both Kansas City and St. Louis are ranked in the top ten American cities for firearms deaths.

Ms. Newman does not expect her bill to pass. 

Why fighting ISIS is so difficult

Thomas Friedman wrote an excellent explanation of why the U.S. will have a problem defeating ISIS.  All of our potential allies in the region would like to get rid of ISIS, but it is not their first priority.

The Kurds:  They want their own country.  They aren’t about to help liberate the rest of Iraq to benefit the Iraqi government.

The Turks:  They have been bombing the Kurds more than areas held by ISIS.

The Iranians:  They don’t like ISIS, but they worry more about moderate Sunnis take over ISIS territory; they could threaten Iran’s allies in Syria.

Putin:  He doesn’t like ISIS, but he is even more interested in keeping Assad in power.  Russia bombs moderate rebels as much as ISIS.

Saudi Arabia:  doesn’t like ISIS, but right now is involved more in Yemen, trying to crush the rebellion there.

Iraq:  has lost territory to ISIS but is still divided between Sunnis and Shiites.

The one thing we don’t want to do is get into a big war with U.S. troops.  We did that in Iraq, and the repercussions have not ended.  And if we did get into a war on the ground, guess who will fight it.  They won’t be troops from the 1%.  Ted Cruz and Donald Trump won’t be going.  Men and women from the bottom of the U.S. economy will be doing the fighting, just like they did in Iraq and Vietnam. 

Just once I’d like to hear these tough-talking war mongers call for a universal draft.

Nun shoots deer

Sure, there rare more important things to post about.  Obama’s speech on ISIS.  Trump’s racist remarks.  The climate summit.  Clinton’s economic proposals.

However, I don’t think there is any one group of people, including people who fly confederate flags or anti-abortion fanatics, who annoy me as much as animal rights idiots. 

A nun in the Erie Diocese of Pennsylvania shot a ten-point buck on the first day of this year’s buck season.  She posted a picture on Facebook of her holding the deer by the antlers on the back of a pickup truck.  

According to a front page article in today’s Morning Call, “animal rights” people took offense and post comments, some of which were vulgar.

These are the same idiots who oppose Australian efforts to reduce the feral cat population.  They think in terms of individual animals rather than species preservation.  They have no understanding of ecology.  They don’t get that an expanding deer population means the extinction of both plants and animals that depend on those plants.  

The nun who shot the deer understands.  She says she views hunting as a spiritual endeavor and a form of conservation.  I don’t get the first part of that, but as an environmentalist, I certainly understand the second part.  Animal rights people just don’t get it.

The New York Times v. Sullivan

Did you ever wonder why I can say all those mean things about Jerry Knowles and Doyle Heffley and Lou Barletta and not get sued.  OK, first of all, in a libel suit, truth is always a defense, so when I say that Knowles is the dumbest representative in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, he would have to prove otherwise.  (He can’t.)

More importantly, I have New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) on my side.  Today the Times ran an obituary for an attorney on the losing side in that case.  Prior to Sullivan, Southern states had libel laws that allowed public officials to sue newspapers that reported on their activities.  Sullivan was the Montgomery, Alabama, Public Safety Commissioner who said he was defamed in an advertisement that ran in the Times.

Sullivan won in Alabama courts, but the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Court ruled 9-0 (this was decades before Scalia, Roberts, and Thomas) that “the First Amendment protects the publication of all statements, even false ones, about the conduct of public officials except when statements are made with actual malice (with knowledge that they are false or in reckless disregard of their truth or falsity).”

Spotlight

One of the most depressing features of modern American society is the decline of the daily newspaper.  Whenever I hear someone say, “I get my news on the Internet,” I wince.  Many students told me this during my last few years of teaching, and they knew almost nothing of current news.  Cat videos, yes.  Facebook posting, yes.  Hard news, not so much.

I was reminded again of the importance of investigative journalism when we saw “Spotlight” tonight.  It follows a group of print reporters for the Boston Globe who uncovered the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in which church officials knew about pedophile priests and did nothing except move them around and hush things up.

Boston is a very Catholic town, and most of the Globe’s subscribers were Catholic, but the paper did the job newspapers are supposed to do, which is to uncover the truth and make it known to the public. 

Incidentally, the Boston Cardinal who knew all about the pedophile priests was promoted to a position in Rome.

Ted Cruz, Wartime President?

So here is brave Ted, telling us the country needs a “wartime president.”  He’s not afraid of ISIS.  Unfortunately, the little weasel is afraid of the N.R.A., as are Christie, Rubio, and the whole pathetic lot of them.