5/16/03

Eclipse last night was nice at 11:30-midnight. Fun to watch it go from silver to gold to deep orange. Fascinating stuff, thinking about these huge masses and how they’re related. It’s a pity my digicam just isn't up to taking good moon-shots.

Brother got a job on a fishing boat, a week's pleasure cruise for $700, and a possibility of more depending on how this one goes. I'm happy for him. He's also got a gig lined up at Target, should the boat thing not work out.

Network at work is down, so I'm doing my thing without the umbilicus to the system there. Not too hard, really. I suspect things are being shaken up because of the move to the building with the mezzanine.

On my list of books to read: THE LANGUAGE POLICE: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn.

"[The book] shows how publishers are squeezed by pressure from groups on the right (which object to depictions of disobedience, family conflict, sexuality, evolution and the supernatural) and the left (which correct for the racism and sexism of older textbooks by urging stringent controls on language and images to weed out possibly offensive stereotypes)"

There is no shortage of colorful examples: a scientific passage about owls was rejected from a standardized test because the birds are taboo for Navajos; one set of stereotype guidelines urges writers to avoid depicting "children as healthy bundles of energy"; editors of a science textbook rejected a sentence about fossil fuels being the primary cause of global warming because "[w]e'd never be adopted in Texas."

Appendixes include "A Glossary of Banned Words, Usages, Stereotypes, and Topics" as well as a recommended reading list for students.

To what exactly do the censors object? A typical publisher’s guideline advises that

• Women cannot be depicted as caregivers or doing household chores.
• Men cannot be lawyers or doctors or plumbers. They must be nurturing helpmates.
• Old people cannot be feeble or dependent; they must jog or repair the roof.
• A story that is set in the mountains discriminates against students from flatlands.
• Children cannot be shown as disobedient or in conflict with adults.
• Cake cannot appear in a story because it is not nutritious.

Lawsey knows I hates me too much political correctness and censorship, I do!