Modern Moralists

Comments

• Buddy1

  December 2004 edited December 1969

  Mike Reiss, children's author & Simpson's writer, had an essay a few months back entitled 'The Filthy Minds of our Modern Moralists' published in national newspapers. In it, he expresses his disbelief and disgust at the flak he received for his book 'The Kid who Looked like Lincoln." It's about a kid who resembles the 16th President, and thru the course of the book, learns that everyone is different and special in their own way.
  What upset some readers (and I use the term loosely, surely they move their lips when they read, or more likely only look at the pictures), was at the end the title character gets a newborn brother who looks like Richard Nixon...those who recall Nixon know he had a rather prominent, ski slope shaped nose...some 'readers' mistook this feature for a penis, and complained.
  How they could miss the obvious signs is beyond reason. None of the book is in any way pornographic.
  
  What this taught him, Reiss wrote, is that the self appointed watchdogs of modern morality suffer from 3 things:
  1. they have no sense of history
  2. they have no sense of humor
  3. they have filthy, filthy minds
  
  -Thought this fit in with all the talk of "how terrible it is that everyone sleeps together and oh my, what might papa do, etc :x ..."
• Ms. Frizzle

  December 2004 edited December 1969

  I'm so glad you posted that. I wanted to say something about it, but I'm not good at getting my toughts down on paper.
• Buddy1

  December 2004 edited December 1969

  I'm very good at getting other people's thoughts down on paper...