Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The state of Texas is taking a second look at a German textbook because it contains nude pictures.
The picture in question is apparently of a newsstand which is displaying adult titles. The funny thing is that Texas is very tough on textbook review and no one noticed it.
Europe is a lot more relaxed about this sort of thing than we are. In fact, back when I was in high school our library took Der Spiegel. Back in the day the Playgirl die Woche was prominently displayed on the contents page. I think you can translate that and figure out for yourself how much clothing she was wearing. Of course, we found it amusing for the first couple of weeks, then realized that it must be pretty cool for a culture to be more open about that sort of thing. (But why was there no Playboy der Woche?) (And pardon me if my German is rusty. After all these years I'm lucky to remember how to order a beer and ask for the bathroom.)
Of course, no one told the school librarian about it. Even at that time we had parents up in arms over government classes that had the script for 1776 on the required reading list. I found that amusing because back in the eighth grade we went on a field trip to see the play. Our teachers didn't seem to think the language was a problem because of the context.
I just find the whole thing highly amusing.
Tags: Life