- 100% Injury Rate reveals the language restrictions issued by Major League Baseball for the 1898 season. The language is definitely earthy, but nonetheless I love the shocked, prissy exclamation of the league committee:
“In response to nearly one hundred communications addressed to umpires, managers and club officials, soliciting definite, positive and personal knowledge of obscene and indecent language upon the ball field, the committee received a deluge of information that was so appalling as to be almost beyond belief…”
- The
SovietsRussians acquire Livejournal, stirring concern among freedom of speech advocates. Interesting move, but will it truly strangle the liberty of Livejournal’s users to write about their feelings, furries, stolen scans of comic books, and politics any more than Six Apart already did? - Book banning continues: The Calgary Catholic School Board is the latest to dump The Golden Compass, after local stupid parents started making angry phone calls about a book they probably haven’t read. I actually sympathise with these school districts who, even while libraries are struggling for funding, find themselves under pressure to take books off the shelves. I ritually lump reactive religious thinkers together, but good for Calgary Bishop Fred Henry, who’s quoted in the Globe article as saying “there are more pressing issues facing Catholics than debating a children’s fantasy novel.” Too right.
- “Hurricane Hugo Weakens.” God, I love The Economist sometimes. Not only does it give me something to read at the airport when I want to pretend I’m smart, but they have the amazing power to report news, make a pun and still completely articulate their editorial stance. See also: “Fox Entertainment, part of the NEWS CORP conglomerate, bought BELIEFNET, a rapidly expanding website that hosts content on anassortment of faiths and spirituality. There was no revelation about
the terms of the deal.” Ba-dump-bump! - Vivendi Games buys out Activision, creating a rival to the demonically-huge Electronic Arts in news that is exciting to very few people I know, and yet is on the scale of roughly $4 billion. I remember a day when Activision was going bankrupt, so isn’t it funny how fortunes change?
- In honor of the newly-dubbed Activision Blizzard, my favorite World of Warcraft machinima:
Comments (2)
As a product of the Catholic school system, I have to say I support the school boards decisions to yank TGC. I’m not sure if your opposition is ethically or financially motivated (Mr. Book-pusher) but a catholic education is more than just producing good students but they are trying to produce good catholics. They are less successful on the latter but kudos for trying.
I would be in favour of it being on a reading list in a catholic english class where it could be properly debated however.
There. I just raised the IQ of your blog another 5 points.
You know what though? I don’t see how suppressing material breeds good Catholics — sheltered Catholics, maybe. If I were to use a library at a Catholic school to teach anything, it’s how to apply the tenets, history and articles of the faith to a diverse body of discourse. If kids can learn early how to absorb criticism and counter-arguments of their faith, how can it do anything other than breed thoughtful, reflective Catholics as they move into adulthood?
The alternative, to eliminate anything remotely hostile, would at best produce to people completely unprepared to debate without defending, and at worst produce the kind of closed minds who cannot conceive of a “valuable” literary body outside of their moral viewpoint.
Or, worse yet, it would represent a brittle and insecure set of traditions, whose conservatism is easily interpreted as oppressiveness.
Honestly, have we learned nothing from Footloose?