Bloodless Coup

Arizona Politicians Take Up the Fight Against Rick Moody

The war on class assignments that one or two college students find icky continues.

Sen. Thayer Verschoor introduced the bill after a community college student complained to him after he was assigned to read Rick Moody's The Ice Storm, which contains scenes of sexuality and drug use.

So why doesn't this little whiner do what all other students do instead of read the book - watch the movie. It's superb! Eh, well, there's drug usage in that too, and I suppose seeing a film depiction of drug use might be even more scary and threatening than reading about it. And we wouldn't want to threaten this poor dear by exposing him to something he personally doesn't like. Better not to acknowledge the existence of something - I mean that's what education is all about, right?

On a more practical note for all the profs out there - can you imagine the administrative nightmare and work overload that would result if every single student in all of your classes demanded a syllabus that only fit with their own preexisting beliefs? Quite apart from that gutting the very notion of education, if this were to actually become policy the Arizona state senate better be ready to support huge spending increases in its education budget to pay for all the new professors that will be needed to carry this silliness out to its logical end.