As a change of subject...

[HStorm]

Not to highlight something good, but to demonstrate something bad in the world of US literatrue.

www.worldahead.com/titles/lumb.php

Now I don't claim to have read it, and I don't intend to, but the book advertised on the above link is aimed at children. The description sounds like ferocious anti-Liberal propoganda, and this is the sort of thing that is regularly being used to 'educate' American children.

This is what I hate about the American right wing. Rather than allowing a dispassionate, objective appraisal of facts, and then allowing the children to grow up drawing their own conclusions, they are effectivel being brainwashed with the usual "America can do no wrong", "God is a scientific fact", "Belief without proof is noble", "A-rabs and moo-slims are all evil", and "it's evil to build inclusive societies that try to take care of people because that's Communism" (it isn't by the way - it's socialism) patriotic and pious aphorisms that teach kids to grow up Nationalistic, arrogant, and unconsciously racist.

Now I'm not saying leftist or secular books are necessarily impartial either, but at least they don't aim this kind of grotesque propoganda at kids below the age of 10, when they'll be too impressionable to realise that there may be two sides to these sorts of arguments.

[Naselus]

"Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed combines an ingenious story with hilarious illustrations to teach kids about the value of hard work and the threat that taxes pose to the American Dream."
--Grover Norquist, president, Americans for Tax Reform

The threat that taxes pose to the American dream? Is that actually a serious quote? The terrible danger posed by having a publicly-owned healthcare system can NEVER be overstated, obviously.
It's apparently written by a "Security Mom for Bush". What, may I ask, is a 'security mom'? Does she take her kids to school in an armoured car, with an M-16 in her (obviously very large) handbag? And if so, do we really want people like that writing books for kids?

It seems that the story is about two kids in Liberaland setting up a lemonade stand, and then being forced to pay tax, provide healthy food with each lemonade glass, and take down their image of Jesus from the top of their stand.

I just hope the long-awaited sequel, "Help! Mom! As a black woman you work for sixteen hours a day in sweat-shop conditions for minimum wage and our house has just been annihilated by a hurricane due to flood defences not being properly maintained by our Conservative government!" contains the following notes:

The two (now homeless and orphaned) kids find that their lemonade is actually highly toxic due to the total lack of clean water in the ruins of New Orleans.

They also discover that the supposedly lower tax that they'd pay in Conservativeland is actually the same for most of the lower tax brackets, and much higher for them as they fall in the lowest bracket of all. Luckily enough, it doesn't matter as the entire enterprise is forced out of business by a larger lemonade corporation, taking advantage of deregulation to mercilessly crush all opposition.

One of them is drafted into the army and is then injured in Iraq. Unfortunately, lacking medical insurance, the wound goes gangrenous and he dies in agony.

The other finds himself with five kids by the age of 18, as his girlfriend can't get an abortion.

He's then incarcerated in Guantanimo bay for five years without trial, on suspicion of having once met a muslim.

He's then burned by the KKK for being black.

His kids, without a father and with almost no social security available, all starve to death in abject poverty in the richest country in the world.

I think the main reason leftist books aren't aimed at the under-tens is because you can't write them unless they're horror stories