Oh, Facebook... What Were You Thinking?

Clearly, Mark Zuckerberg owns stock in Google. Why else would he make inconvenient, non-intuitive, annoying changes to Facebook on the day after Google Plus goes public?

G+ has been invitation only for 3 months. I've been on for a good portion of that time, and honestly, it's pretty great. It makes sharing to groups and individuals easy and has plenty of features. It's only drawback was that there were limited people to share with. Well, that obstacle was removed yesterday.

Today, I woke to a new FB. I keep getting lost in my own page, trying to figure out how the site has determined what it thinks might be important to me. I have to click to see new posts or "stories" as it says. There's some kind of streaming update thingie on the side that I have no clue what to do with. Nobody can figure out what the Hell these changes are supposed to achieve other than drive us over to G+.

Go check out G+ today. See what you think. Look me up there. Drag me into a circle and I'll return the favor. Let's just give it a try.

Now, if you play those games over on FB, I wouldn't worry. I expect  those will show up on G+ soon enough. Let the crops die. Seriously. It's a game, people.

Seriously?

I might have (okay, I did) admitted to burning one book and recycling another, but I have to say that Wesley Scroggins is an idiot. If you don't know who Scroggins is, you can do one of two things. You can click on this link  to read about it or just read on here. Oh, or you can close this page and go on about your merry way and leave the whole censorship thing to the rest of us.


Here's the gist: Scroggins is speaking out against Speak, a young adult novel by Laurie Halse Anderson, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. He cites softcore porn, language, and promiscuity to be the "problems" with these works. As an aside, he is also miffed about the inclusion of homosexuality, oral sex, anal sex, and use of a condom being taught in 8th grade sex education and reproduction in 4th grade sex education.


First of all, Mr. Scroggins is an associate professor of management. He holds no degrees in education, psychology, sociology, or medicine. For some reason, he seems to feel that the rape in Speak is sexually exciting, the "f" word in Slaughterhouse Five is excessive, and the flirting and dating in Twenty Boy Summer is glorifying drunken teen parties and sex. 


I don't know anything about Twenty Boy Summer, so I can't comment there, but on the other two? He's dead wrong. Speak is the story of a girl trying to move on and deal with a horrible rape. It has helped so many kids deal with situations and has helped others come to understand those circumstances and empathize. For those of us parents who read it with our children, it opened the door to communication about some tough topics. It is for High Schoolers, and that makes sense as far as the subject matter.


Slaughterhouse Five swears no more than the average 15 year old on the school bus. Yes, it's a lot, but Vonnegut is brilliant. Depriving High School students of his prose because of words they hear every day is idiotic. Just because they hear it doesn't mean they have to say it... at least that's what I have always told my sons. 


Censorship is wrong. Our children are going to face all kinds of situations and language in their lives. It's up to us to teach them what to expect and to give them the tools to respond. I feel sorry for the children of the Republic School District in Missouri. We need to challenge people like Scroggins who scream about banning books. We need to use controversial literature to spark conversations with our children. 


All I can say is this: Don't want your kid to read a particular book? Whatever. Just don't try to stop mine from reading it.