Friday, October 14, 2005

Are you sure this isn't The Onion? 

And I thought our celebration of Columbus Day was bad. From the University of New Hampshire's student newspaper, a commentary:
The holiday has been celebrated on various dates throughout the world, but here it will be observed on Monday.

In one second-grade classroom in Springfield, Penn., for example, Judith Bloomfield teaches one of her favorite lessons, the story of Columbus' discovery of the New World.

"Did you know Columbus is personally responsible for the oppression and misery of thousands of natives of the Caribbean?" asked the teacher. The students, all energetic young children roughly seven or eight years old, ooh and ahh in amazement. The class was similarly impressed and delighted to learn that, in addition to "Sailing the Ocean Blue" in 1492, Columbus also "Murdered By the Score" in Fourteen-Hundred Ninety-Four.

"I want to be an explorer when I grow up! Maybe there are Martians I could put into forced-labor settlements and cow with my superior technology and ruthlessness?" one student said while discussing Columbus' many merits.
(h/t: reader Roger Lewis.)

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