Bingo.
Posted on 10/31/2002 8:48:55 PM PST by Burkeman1
Everyone has their horror story about some PC or Left Wing book they were forced to read in High School or College. My worst book was in High School. It was "The Fixer" by Bernard Malamud. It was the tale of a Russian Jew being falsley accused of the rape and murder of a Christian Russian girl just before the Communist coup of Russia. He was innocent of the crime and the book details his time in prison and the torments he was subjucted too. OF Course during his time in prison he becomes a Marxist and hopes for revolution! The entire book was one giant communist propaganda piece. Since I had already read Solzenitsyn by that time and questioned the book in class I was told to shut up by the teacher. I did- to my shame- and got my "A".
What is the worst piece of Left wing crap that you were forced to read in school?
So many people have never heard of this delightful man. My godmother gave me his little book of "Japanese Fairy Tales" when I was very, very small, and I have loved his work ever since. "Chin Chin Kobokama" and "The Boy Who Drew Cats" are my favorites from that tiny book. I told "The Boy Who Drew Cats" and "Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi" to my daughter's seventh grade class. Not exactly - I memorize high points and certain turns of phrase and fill in the gaps (I can't remember Hearn word-for-word). Even the boys' eyes got big and round at the story of Hoichi. "Oh, forgive me! It was my grievous fault! For in my neglect I trusted my acolyte to write the holy texts upon your ears!"
That and the story of the people without faces on the high road are about the creepiest to tell . . . the boys loved the story about the samurai who became a priest and met the houseful of demons whose heads left their bodies and flew about to kill people -- and he took a head with its teeth clamped on his sleeve from the house as a "housewarming gift" (gotta love that sang-froid!)
Have you read any of his New Orleans sketches? His West Indian work is beautiful too - "Les Porteuses" is the most atmospheric story of a fragment of culture that vanished when Mt. Pelee blew up and wiped out St. Pierre in a few seconds -- sad, in retrospect, but a beautiful story.
Is he still remembered and respected in Japan?
Mr. Joe Bailey and his wife are out riding on his motorcycle. [brrrrrummmmmm sound effects here). After awhile Mrs. Bailey taps her husband on the shoulder and yells, "Honey! Stop!" [screeeech! he stops. "What's the matter?" "I'm COLD!" "Well, here, put on my motorcycle jacket." They go along awhile longer [brrrrrrrrruuummmmmm sound effects again.) Mrs. Bailey taps her husband on the shoulder again, [screeeeech! he stops the bike again. "What's the matter now?" "Honey, I'm STILL cold." "Well, you jus' turn that jacket around an' put yo' arms in backwards like." "O.K. honey." So along they go again. [bbrrrrrrrrrrrrrruummmmmmmmmmm. Forty mile an hour, sixty mile an hour, eighty mile an hour, they come to a big curve and he misses it, and WHAM!
A crowd gathers, and after a little while the Parish PO-leece show up in their pickup truck with the big ol' antenna in the back goin' ker-SCLUNK, ker-SCLUNK! PO-leece get out of the truck, walk over to the crowd. Officer asks, "What has happen' here to these FINE young people, hein?"
Somebody in the crowd say, "Well, Mistah Joe, suh, he was kil'd OUTright, but Miz Bailey she was all right 'til we turn her head aroun'."
(Sorry).
The only man in the book portrayed in the positive light is...
An illegal immigrant...
who doesn't speak English...
and might not speak any language at all, because he never says anything, he just follows his wife around like a whipped, subservient, feminist man.
The rest of the book just pushes left-wing values and man-hatred.
It was total crap, total crap, total crap, and even the left-wing guys in my class said it was a man-hating book. The hostility towards males is inescapable.
There's a tunnel up in the N. Ga. mountains that's supposed to be haunted. The tunnel on the Smoky Mountain Railroad, right above the Tuckasegee River Gorge where we kayak frequently, is supposed to be haunted by the ghosts of eight convicts who were working on the tunnel and drowned in the river, chained together, when their boat capsized. Supposedly if you walk through the tunnel you meet them in the dark. (I've got enough to do keeping my 'yak upright or hitting my Eskimo roll without worrying about walking through a tunnel - but I can see why a boat capsized in this river, I do it a lot!)
The CEO who made RJ Reynolds-Nabisco work was accused of greed for wanting $100 million to organize a leveraged buyout. The parasitical lawyer who outmaneuvered him got $600 million, but was portrayed as the unselfish hero.
It should surprise no one he thinks the Diary of Ann Frank might be a fraud.
The insufferable and unbelievable commie propaganda doesn't come in until the very end.
Bingo.
Yep. Read this junk, too.
Yes, this one stuck in my mind, too. I was in 5th or 6th grade when I read it, probably too young to get too brainwashed.
The most recent piece of Lefty nastiness that stuck crosswise in my craw was "Fast Food Nation," by Eric Schlosser. What barf. This guy could hardly write a paragraph that didn't have a phrase like "When Ronald Reagan was President..." followed by some fiendish piece of legislation that presumably put all the marbles on the fast food companies' side of the ring. "Under Ronald Reagan..." etc. Sigh... it might have been a good book, but I'll never know, because I couldn't finish it.
You did exactly the right thing.
I continually question my kids about the liberal slop they are being fed in school. We talk about the liberal / socialist propaganda they invariably get from some of their teachers, and I carefully explain the truth about these things. I am happy to report that my kids are now very adept at recognizing crap when they hear it.
However....
A very important part of coaching my kids involves how to deal with these scumbag teachers and their liberal propaganda. I have instructed my kids to smile and agree and to simply puke back on their papers and tests all the liberal garbage the teacher wants to hear. Just get 'A's. Laugh to yourself knowingly, and just get the 'A's....
LOL! I had the same experience with this one! But I read it all the way through. It was like running down a steep hill...if you try to stop, you'll go a** over teakettle, so you just keep going faster and faster till you get to the bottom.
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