Some years ago, my mother-in-law, a theatre director, staged a production of South Pacific at a high school whose students were about 80% Asian, including many of Japanese heritage. Because it made no difference to the plot, she changed or eliminated the derogative term “Jap” from the script. Now, a new edition of Mark Twain’s classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is about to get the same treatment.
Archive for January, 2011
Mark Twain Gets Cleaned Up
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011Daddy’s Day Off
Monday, January 3rd, 2011
As a parent, one gets used to the idea that if you’re not working, you’re taking care of your kids. It is a very rare event to have more than a few minutes to oneself without some sort of activity taking place or task that needs to be accomplished. Sure, you can get a babysitter now and then or take turns having a mom’s and dad’s night out, but, really, one’s life is, for the most part, put on hold when one has kids. So when I found myself in the odd position of having a day off with no kids and nothing I desperately needed to do, I began pondering the many options I had to amuse myself for the day.
Naturally, it didn’t quite work out the way I’d planned it.
A Parent’s New Year’s Resolutions For 2011
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011
At the start of the New Year, it’s traditional for people to make sweeping statements about how they plan to improve themselves or their situation in the coming year. I could certainly do that — I definitely need to lose weight, I’d like to yell at the kids a little less, I really ought to work more on getting my book published — but that would only benefit me or, at most, my family. So I thought I’d take a look at the big picture and come up with some resolutions that will help kids all over.
So with that in mind, here is A Parent’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2011:
Anti-Vax’ers Lose In California
Saturday, January 1st, 2011
Remember the bit I posted a while back about autism causing whooping cough? Some parents, afraid that vaccines caused autism despite plentiful evidence to the contrary and even outright debunking of the original “study” that first made the claim, have been deciding not to get their children immunized, including opting out of the whooping cough vaccine. Not surprisingly, that resulted in an increase in the incidence of the disease. That won’t be happening in California any more, however, thanks to a new law going into effect.
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