When I was a kid, Mark Twain was a great writer. Slavery was wrong. Books in school talked about family, love, and devotion to one’s nation, support of the ideals of Jefferson, Washington, Franklin and others.

We were given reading lists that included Tom Sawyer, Wizard of Oz, Little Women (hated it), Huck Finn, and we were often given the choice of making up our own reading lists. Mine was dominated by Robert Heinlein, Harry Harrison, Keith Laumer, Twain, Kipling, Williams, and I can’t remember how many others.

I remember reading about drugs in Cruz’s “Run Baby Run”, about patriotism in “Guadalcanal Diary”, and about love from “Lad: A Dog”. I still can’t read that book without tearing up.

The point is, I was given the chance to READ. It was pushed on all my school friends and me. Sure, a bunch of them never liked to do it. They felt it took important time away from stuff like getting ran over on the football field or running sprints for Gym. Go figure.

But me, I wanted to read. I tried to go through as many books as I could. And I was never told by a teacher that something I wanted to read was not ‘good for me’ or that ‘it would harm me’.

Heck, I had a teacher catch me with a copy of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ and all they did was set me down and try to explain that 12 years old was a bit young to be reading porn. I still finished the book. Thank god they didn’t find the other stuff I had hidden in the shed. I wonder if it is still there? Oh, well.

In our history classes, we learned about the Indian wars (Native American) and about their culture, how they tried to work with the European when he first arrived, how the European gave the Indian disease infested blankets and started scalping. We learned about The Little Big Horn, and Wounded Knee. We learned about WW2 and Korea.

We read about Pearl Harbor, and learned that not all Japanese were evil. And we also learned about the horrors we inflicted on Americans of Japanese heritage during that time.

We found out about Hitler, and his insanity. We heard about Nazism from those that experienced it firsthand.

We learned about slavery, and that it existed long before Col. White Man started bringing Africans over here to pick cotton.

We learned about the horrors of lynch mobs, and the KKK. We learned, often as we watched on TV about the women’s movement, Civil Rights, and Martin Luther King.

Schools tried to teach us. It was their job to mold us, to try and make us into responsible citizens, ready and prepared to take over the reins of this nation, and this world. We were to be the bankers, Presidents, CEO’s, Teachers, Doctors and (god help us) the Lawyers of tomorrow. At least back then that was the idea for us.

Today, we seem more interested in ‘protecting young minds’ from differences. In culture, language, geography, ideology. Our schoolbooks gloss over the European history and accomplishments as racist, or discriminatory.

We teach our children about acceptance, and not about accepting history. We teach them that they are all the same, without teaching them to strive to be better. And most of this comes from our schoolbooks, and what we allow our children to read.

Parents don’t take the time anymore to work with their kids to find out what they are reading or if they even want to read. Many kids would rather look into a computer screen then hold a book in their hands.

And who is the cause of all this? We are. My generation, mostly. We got so mixed up in the ‘I’m ok, your ok’ syndrome that we forgot that once in a while we have to say to our kids “No, that is not what happened”.

We forgot that history is not always pretty. So we covered it up. We tried to hide some and over expose others under a guise of ‘Equality’. We decided that the books we read, the authors we had and admired could be brought down to new readers and shared with them.

We forgot that our parents and teachers worked with us, so we stopped working with our kids, and started to tie the hands of the teachers. We decided to correct the injustice of the past by destroying that past. And we have been trying real hard.

Take a look at a kid’s modern history book. See what all is missing from them, and what is different from what you learned. Look through a dictionary sometime, and see the words that have been removed because they are ‘insensitive’.

And that is the point of this Soap Box.

"The Language Police" by Diane Ravitch is a very interesting book. Someone on one of the groups I am a member of mentioned it, and I went looking for it. So, I just read through it at the library. Yes, I was too cheap to buy it. But I was able to jot down some things before I was thrown out for making a ruckus. From what I could find out from my reading, I figured that a simple book burning would be fine.

Most of what I read, I thought was ridiculous. It had to be some sort of joke. So, I hit Google and did a for ‘language police’. You should try it.

Anyway, the main idea of the book is that both the right and left on the Political Spectrum have completely undermined the textbook use and production policies to the point where children really can't learn anything and may not even be supposed too, as long as the books meet the censors’ official guidelines.

By the use of what is known as a "Bias and Sensitivity Panel", certain things are forbidden for use in textbooks. Stuff like this…

Women are not to be shown as doing housework or as caregivers. Period. This includes all school Lit Classes. So, anything that shows women doing stuff like washing clothes or doing housework is either removed completely or re-edited to show a man doing it.

Mom doing the work fixing the roof must replace mom-making sandwiches for a father as he fixes the roof.

Men are not to be portrayed as lawyers, doctors, or plumbers. They cannot be hunters or providers for their families. They must be only nurturing helpmates.

In fact, boys playing games with girls watching must be changed to coed teams with boys watching. And where you live can apparently be discriminatory as well. According to Ravitch, "The Friendly Dolphin" was rejected because it discriminates against students not living near the sea.

God help us hillbillies.

Old people are not to be seen as elderly. They must be given active roles such as jogging, repairing a car, painting a house or working outside the home. The ambulance taking them away after the heart attack is also kept off the page, I guess.

Non-nutritious foods can't be shown. No cake, candy, or any other sweet. Peanuts can't be seen since some children are allergic to them.

"The Little Engine that Could" was rejected because the engine was Male <gasp>.

And, "Fahrenheit 451" was edited to remove 75 sections!

Frankly, I think this was the greatest irony of all. Does anyone know what "Fahrenheit 451" was all about?

And yes, even history books are getting into the act. Take a look at some of the recent comments about the enslavement of Africans. It turns out that when the West did it, it was a great crime. But, when slavery was thriving in the Middle East or Africa, it was a path to upward mobility and an opportunity to join a new family. I was always taught that slavery was wrong anywhere it was done and should be said so.

Just to help us know what words and phrases to avoid, pages 170-201 (31 PAGES!!) are used to list the banned words phrases, concepts, etc. This glossary includes such words as "manly"; "maven"; Navajo"; "Gringo"; "handyman; "maid"; "actress”; "regatta".

“Adam and Eve" is to be replaced with "Eve and Adam” showing that men are not over women. Any word with the deadly three-letter word "man" in it is to be tossed; use "it," not "him" or "her" in referring to animals.

There is to be no mention of Jews depicted as diamond cutters, jewelers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, classical musicians, tailors and shopkeepers are stereotypical images to be avoided.

Words like mulatto, sambo, oriental, niggardly, old maid or even massacre are being removed from our schoolbooks. But, take a look sometime at history books written 30-40-50 years ago or more. Even our contemporary news articles or older translations or sources, these words are still there. Go look up “Mestizo”. “Mulatto” is an Arabic word meaning mixed. Slave originally meant a northern European and the word itself knows no color or ethnicity.

Other images and ideals to avoid are women who are not team players; men or boys in active problem-solving roles; people abandon their own culture or language to achieve success; American Indians as primitive or warlike; Asian Americans as working in a laundry or as musical prodigies or class valedictorians; Latinos who are lazy or passive; Mexicans grinding corn or riding donkeys; Jews always wearing business suits, glasses, and carrying briefcases.

Forefathers. Victim. Snowman. Warrior. Boys expressing anger. Caucasians living in upscale areas.

Among the topics to avoid are: Conflict with authority (parents, teachers, law); crime; dialect (most especially black); children cannot be in conflict or disobedient to parents or adults. Mark Twain, Helen Gurley Brown, Joseph Heller, Rudyard Kipling, Truman Capote, and Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams would all be gone.

Evolution cannot be taught as fact instead of scientific theory; guns and shooting; lying or duplicity of any kind; physical violence; unpunished transgressions; or winter holidays.

Continuing the list of Banned Words, usages, stereotypes and topics:

Anchorman (sexist, replace with ‘anchor person’ or ‘newscaster’) Bitch (reference to female dog), Bookworm or Egghead (offensive, replace with ‘intellectual’), Cro-Magnon Man (sexist, replace with ‘Cro-Magnon people’), Dirty old man (sexist and ageist…. Think we could just replace it with pervert?), Fat (replace with ‘heavy’ or ‘obese’… apparently, people are too stupid to know ‘obese’ actually MEANS fat), Fellowship (sexist, replace with ‘Friendship’), Founding Fathers (sexist, replace with ‘the founders or the framers), Journeyman (sexist, however, no one could come up with something to replace it), Midget (offensive, replace with ‘person of short stature’), Satan (banned), but don’t worry, God is also banned, and finally…

Niggardly (replace with ‘frugal or cheap’).

By the way… the history of this word can easily be found with a little search. The origins of 'niggardly' date back to the 1300's, and its original meaning was "miser" in Middle English. There is no connection of the word to any race or ethnic culture. That still did not prevent a Caucasian aide to the mayor of Washington, D.C. from being fired for using the word.