The politically correct chickens are coming home to roost in the Orwellian world of the organized left’s free-expression-stifling speech codes.

To paraphrase Martin Niemöller’s famous admonition about complacency with totalitarian fascists:  “First they came for Rush Limbaugh and called his satire racist, and I didn’t speak out because Rush Limbaugh is a conservative.  Then they came for Dr. Laura and called her commentary racist, and I didn’t speak out because Dr. Laura is a conservative…”

Well, this time they came after a high school drama program in far-from conservative Westbury, CT.  The Arts Magnet School in that city planned a production of August Wilson’s 20th century classic “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” until the district’s Superintendent, David Snead, tried to pull the plug because the play’s characters use the word “nigger”. (more…)

Thank God civility is returning to literature! Thanks to some faceless editor at New South Books and alleged Twain scholar Dr. Alan Gribben, a new sanitized versions of “Huckleberry Finn” will be published. The word so offensive that it can’t even be printed here has been removed. All is now safe.

Dr. Gribben is afraid that the language in the book has stopped people from reading Twain. I am sure this brilliant move will encourage students everywhere to put down the video game controller. It will also save overworked teachers from actually having to teach the context of the use of the word. In order to do that, they might have to do some research and, heaven forbid, read the books themselves. What teacher has time for that when there are condoms to be distributed and prayer circles to be broken up?

Of course, elitists who have jumped up to protest this censorship. Movie reviewer and social gadfly Roger Ebert made the mistake of using the word that shall not be spoken or written in a tweet opposing the new edition. He thought because of his lifetime of liberalism and marriage to an African-American woman he was on the white guys allowed to use the word which shall not be spoken or written list, but alas he was not and was roundly “critweeted.”  (This is a new word I have invented to describe the criticism of a tweet by tweeting.)

Now that the looming “Huck Finn” controversy is finally behind us, we can get to the business of creating jobs. Think of all of the unemployed and underemployed English majors we can busy doing the task of politically “correcting” the rest of the great and not so great works of literature. We could hire half a Bryn Mawr graduating class just to edit the works of Toni Morrison. (more…)

Reality demonstrates that people act on their basest needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs says that basic needs are things like food, shelter, safety, and security.  If one progresses up the scale, needs like love, belonging, esteem, and respect become important.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Hollywood is a competitive place to live and work.  People who live and work there know that it might be the most competitive place to live in the entire world.  The drive to succeed, to find an edge that propels you to the next level can be very compelling for those who are weak.  Of those who crave the sort of attention that might compel them into the snake pit that is Hollywood, psychologists could agree that components in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are lacking in key areas such as confidence, friendship, and even morality.  All of these mid-level needs should be met for healthy development of creativity, intellect, problem solving, and other high-level needs.  Maslow might reason that in the desperate setting of Hollywood, the underdevelopment of needs like morality, confidence, respect of self and from others might lead to the malformative finding of one’s self at the top of the triangle, with many of the more basic needs still lacking.  In Abraham Maslow’s terms, this is a recipe for disaster of philosophical incorporation. (more…)

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. -Mark Twain

Just as bad as the news contained in the story itself is that the person reporting on it — Entertainment Weekly’s Keith Staskiewicz – actually uses the phrase “on the other hand” to excuse the censorship and outright vandalism of one of the all-time classics in American literature.

This is what happens when no on watches the pop culture Watchmen, they become as corrupted as those they’re charged with holding accountable:

According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books’ upcoming edition of Mark Twain’s seminal novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will remove all instances of the “n” word—I’ll give you a hint, it’s not nonesuch—present in the text and replace it with slave. The new book will also remove usage of the word Injun. The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it. “Race matters in these books,” Gribben told PW. “It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”

Unsurprisingly, there are already those who are yelling “Censorship!” as well as others with thesauruses yelling “Bowdlerization!” and “Comstockery!” Their position is understandable: Twain’s book has been one of the most often misunderstood novels of all time, continuously being accused of perpetuating the prejudiced attitudes it is criticizing, and it’s a little disheartening to see a cave-in to those who would ban a book simply because it requires context. On the other hand, if this puts the book into the hands of kids who would not otherwise be allowed to read it due to forces beyond their control (overprotective parents and the school boards they frighten), then maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge

Staskiewicz wouldn’t think of judging, but he’s sure not above the snark that’s come to define his profession — not above the snark employed to immediately dismiss and make light of those who might disagree. After all, we just don’t understand how this is all for the greater good, how timeless classics must be edited and altered in order to be more appropriate and appreciated  in these sensitive times of ours. (more…)

When in 1918 D. W. Griffith asked Lillian Gish to star in a tragic story of love, opium, dreams and death, all set against a Dickensian backdrop of poverty and despair, she was intrigued. But when he told the twenty-six-year-old actress that she would be playing a twelve-year-old girl, she was incredulous. Gish was a grown adult now, and fairly tall –  what possible trick of camera or posture could create the pixyish physique and innocent features that such a part would demand?

After much arguing, Griffith grudgingly agreed to raise the character’s age from twelve to fifteen, while still insisting that she play the part as a child. Lillian wasn’t convinced she could pull it off: “Virgins are the hardest roles to play. Those dear little girls — to make them interesting takes great vitality.” But seven years together had given the director full confidence in her abilities: “I gave her an outline of what I hoped to accomplish, and let her work it out in her own way. When she got it, she had something of her own.”

Sometimes events that look like setbacks prove to be fortuitous. On the way home from being fitted for her costumes, Gish collapsed with Spanish Influenza, a deadly pandemic then spreading throughout the United States which ultimately killed over thirty million worldwide. By the time she rallied and recovered, her already svelte frame had degenerated so dramatically that her costumes had to be refitted. But in hindsight, this pathetic and emaciated look proved perfect for the role. (more…)

Mark Twain’s famous quote, “Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,” resonates loudly in my mind as I finish Sarah Palin’s captivating story, Going Rogue.

But Palin ain’t buying it by the barrel, she’s got a whole pipeline of pure grade indigo flowing from the North Slope as she pumps up the volume on her NY Times #1 bestselling memoir.

When I got about halfway through the book I set it down, stepped outside of my Washington, DC townhouse and went for a run around the U.S. Capitol. Listening to the Outlaws, Marshall Tucker Band, and Lil Bow Wow (my daughter slipped that one in there) on my iPod, the recurrent thought in my mind was that this woman is far more qualified to be president of the United States than the current occupant of the White House. (more…)

For the last few years, we have been treated to a bevy of columns and articles lionizing John Updike. It is certainly a tragedy that he is gone – he had massive literary potential. But since the media has been busy writing his eulogy for years, it does not seem unfair to add a note of reality: Updike was not a great writer. He was not even a very good one.

It has always puzzled me how the media selects “great writers.” I, for one, would consider Frederick Forsythe’s driving, brilliant action novel “The Day of the Jackal” far better literature than Don DeLillo’s pointless and meandering “Underworld.” I think Leon Uris’ “Mila 18″ is far more compelling than the Cormac McCarthy’s purposefully obscure “Blood Meridian.” It isn’t that I don’t enjoy the occasional psychological novel – it’s tough to argue with either Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. But the gauge of authorial greatness shouldn’t be the ability to pen 600 pages of plot-less description of characters who would bore you to death or repulse you in real life. (more…)