11 August 2011

Slaughterhouse-Five: soft pornography, says professor Scroggins

This post was triggered by a Reuters piece Vonnegut library offers banned book to students:

Up to 150 students at a Missouri high school that ordered "Slaughterhouse-Five" pulled from its library shelves can get a free copy of the novel, courtesy of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, library officials said on Thursday.
I thought initially that it's an aftereffect of some older ban that hasn't been rescinded yet. Apparently not:
The Republic School District took the move at its April 18 meeting following a complaint lodged by local resident Wesley Scroggins in the spring of 2010.
So the inane censorship attempts are still a malady that pops up here and there.

One more detail that draws one's attention: according to this AP article, Mr Scroggins is "A Missouri State University professor who home-schools his children petitioned successfully to ban the books." Why a person who home-schools his children gets a say in the question of what books the school students can or cannot read, is beyond me.

I am not going to defend the late Kurt Vonnegut against drivel like this. My only hope is that our good professor doesn't intend to write any books. Because I don't want to say here what he should do with his manuscripts. Since I surely don't call for anyone to ban them.

Bleh...

More on Mr Scroggins' censorship here and here and here. And, oh well, here too.

4 comments:

jams o donnell said...

FFS..... Lets declare war on Tralfamadore too

SnoopyTheGoon said...

No worries, just wait a day or two.

Katie said...

If you homeschool you have no say what is in a school library except for the one in your own home.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Yup.