This time around, it’s all kids’ stuff.
First item: Vancouver School Board superintendent Steve Cardwell “has issued a letter to all parents and guardians warning of potential rotating school closures across the province should a settlement not be reached,” according to a CBC report.
Would that outcome count as a success for the government? In February of this year, the Alberni Valley News reported that B.C. government lead negotiator Paul Straszak “admitted in court that his strategy in 2012 negotiations with the B.C. Teachers’ Federation was to provoke a full-scale strike.” The supposed intent was to further alienate the public to the union.
Straszak reportedly shared this notion in a briefing with Premier Christy Clark’s deputy minister John Dyble before a cabinet meeting.
Since February, this intriguing item seems to have disappeared down the local media memory hole. All the more reason that we should watch this ongoing conflict between our “families first” government and the B.C. Teachers’ Federation with this nearly-forgotten factoid in mind.
Second item: for the past few years, Dr. Seuss has been taking a beating across Canada. In 2011, a line from the author’s classic 1958 title Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories was deemed inappropriate political content after a Prince Rupert teacher included the quote in material for a meeting with management.
In the book, Yertle has a habit of climbing on top of turtles, which causes consternation to those at the bottom of the heap. The offending line in question: “I know up on top you are seeing great sights, but down here on the bottom, we too should have rights.”
The B.C. Public School Employers’ Association rescinded the Yertle ban in October 2013.
Also last year, a UFO (Unidentified Flaming Oddball) lodged a formal complaint against Seuss’s 1963 book Hop on Pop with the Toronto Public Library because it “encourages children to use violence against their fathers.”
Seuss, obviously intending a parental bloodbath from crayon-wielding insurgents, wrote in 1963: “HOP POP We like to hop. We like to hop on top of Pop.”
“STOP You must not hop on Pop,” says the yellow bear to his energetic cubs, with little effect.
Wisely, the Toronto Public Library rejected the request to ban the book. (They will also hang on to the good doctor’s lesser know titles Goin’ Medieval on Mom and Poppin’ a Cap in Grandpap.)
Seriously now, that’s not the end of it. Suess’s 1950 book If I Ran The Zoo is among books that local patrons have formally asked the Vancouver Public Library to remove, in part because of a stereotyped illustration of Asians who “all wear their eyes at a slant.”
Theodore Geisel was obviously a man of his time, but you’ll find far worse portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in today’s action films and video games.
Third item: fast food spokesclown Ronald McDonald has undergone a makeover. The pants are less baggy, the jacket has lapels — all in an apparent effort to make him look more, you know, serious. But from my perspective, the McNugget-flogging jester now resembles a children’s entertainer on a fixed budget. Or worse: in the eyes of a friend, he looks like “a pervert.”
At least Ron finally got the memo about stripes. Fashion-wise, they are known to be slimming, but this idiot wore them horizontally for decades.
Fourth item: it’s well understood that everything kids post online will follow them through life. But this week Europe’s top court ruled that Internet companies can be made to delete problematic or irrelevant search engine results, after a Spanish man protested Google results highlighting a 1998 newspaper article about the repossession of his home.
In other words, people have the right to be forgotten, at least in Europe.
Alas, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and lined with driverless Google cars.
If this decision catches on in the U.S., you can imagine how it could play out. Corporations would petition the courts to have past indiscretions forgotten, because under the 14th Amendment they are people too.
Of course, corporations are no more “people” than Seuss’s Star-bellied Sneetches — but their lawyers and lobbyists frequently pass as human in Washington.
geoffolson.com
