Food, Playsets, Houseguests, Housework

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

Mendacious and Malevolent.

Why should I be surprised? Courts have always made exceptions for "memorials," so Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the Mt. Soledad cross, which is on public land, is a "veteran's memorial" (whether it was ever intended to be such or not) and therefore is protected from court assessments of First Amendment issues. The activists don't even acknowledge the First Amendment, they just call this a "very difficult battle." Against the law of the land, I suppose.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives, in a 391-3 vote, condemned public criticism of the Boy Scouts. Apparently, 391 members of the House were upset that the Department of Defense chose to uphold the Constitution and not grant federal aid to an organization that discriminates against young boys on the basis of their religious affiliation.

And in an absolutely stunning reversal (not!), Karen Krueger, who was initially upset that her child was exposed to a book in which other kids her age discussed drinking and sex (gasp! shock! horrors!) has now fessed up and admitted that the book's removal from the library and restriction within a modern literature program requiring parental concent is just not acceptable: "Now I want it banned."

We are not surprised.

Laura Ingalls is turning over in her grave.

Last night, Omaha, Kouryou-chan and I stopped by the public library to pick up some books for Kouryou-chan since she is now reading at a first-grade level. We found a pair of Stuart Little books and something called a "My First Little House" book, "adapted from The Little house books by Lauga Ingalls Wilder" [sic capitalization], entitled A Little House Birthday.

And the tension of the story is contained in this paragraph:

Now they were all clean for Sunday, and on Sunday mornings Laura and Mary dressed in their best clothes with fresh ribbons in theit hair. On Sundays they could not run or shout or be noisy. They must sit quietly and listen while Ma read stories to them. They might look at pictures, and they might hold their rag dolls nicely and talk to them. But there was nothing else they could do.

Laura Ingalls is turning over in her grave.

I am a secularist and I admit that, but the last thing I want is some multiculti editor in a fit of... what? political correctness? focus-group-marketing?... taking the spiritual heart out of an author's work. Laura Ingalls was a Christian, and so were the characters in her story. To turn a Sunday service into some namby-pamby "just because" takes all the meaning out of the text.

And, c'mon, kids know when an author is lying to them. There is something very creepy about the elision in this book, the avoidance of words like church or bible or Jesus. The lack of any mention of prayer-- at breakfast, at dinner, at Laura's birthday-- is glaring and ugly. It is a tragic edit, and I mourn for the sacrifice of Laura Ingall's intensity in name of creating insincere pablum that a broad but undiscerning audience looking for "kid's books", as opposed to children's literature, will swallow.