Reading into the comments section regarding the Tennessee school district removing Maus from the curriculum unless it finds nothing better, I see stray comments that it is damnedable that a comic book or picture book in entered into this Literature class where all focus ought be on the written word. Word that Maus won the Pulitzer or that this represents a breakthrough for the comic book medium into the field of literary endeavors has not reached everyone, or have been shoved aside for greater currents of educational theory.

To be sure, Harvey Pekar found fault with Maus, the Aesopian or Animal Family trope of creatures making wrongheaded ethnic divisions whether Spiegelman likes it or not. Ted Rall, meantime, either shares some of the assessment or simply finds Spiegelman and his New Yorker clique obnoxious gatekeepers.

I have no opinion on whether Maus should be in this school’s curriculum, and even find some credence in the “stick to the written word” thought. I gather that that Toni Morrison book ought be on that Virginia “smart kids’ class” list, and doubt that the parents objecting have a better option. In both cases the cries of “censorship” and headlines shouting “banned” fall apart — though I suppose Morrison has a firmer claim for the “spirit” of the concept.

Funny thing, I recall the Jason Lutes’s book Berlin getting a negative review in The Comics Journal with the snide observation of “what you are looking for in your bookshelf comic book.”. Maybe the great ” comics as art” journal itself drags the comics field back. But, somehow I turn into a 1962 (or is it 1963?) Archie comic book story that shows how some concerns in the educational curriculum wars land in a wash.

So the big star athlete, lunkhead Moose, was unlikely to make The Big Game because he was unlikely to pass the math test that would grant him academic eligibility. Hijinks ensues as Archie tries to take the test for him, but gets beaten to a pulp by the athlete who was mad at Moose for beating him in a previous football game. In the end Moose surprisingly passes the test and leads the team to this overwhelming victory. And here the math teacher (or History, or English, or home ec — all very arbitrary) Ms. Grundy (probably still Mrs. — or is she an old maid and it is Miss?) divulges to Mr. Weatherbee that she committed academic fraud and loosened the standards to allow Moose to play — and lead the school team to its rousing victory. To which Mr. Weatherbee responds by leading a crowd cheer for Ms. Grundy (which, would imply letting the school student body know that this happened, as too the opposing school team — but they probably do the same thing.)

All might be evidence that Riverdale is located in Texas, where “Friday night football is Sacred”, and such acts are codified and required in law.
Or, one of the ways Archie Comics does not represent reality — at my high school (and this appears a pretty routine arrangement) they solve this problem by having an unofficial class for the athletes taught by coaches.
I suppose there is one virtue to this narrative, as later decades the amorality of the Vaudeville sketches Archie and the gang enact on the page turn to a preachiness and After school Special lessons — and so a reader now suffers there multiple accounts where Grundy takes a stern approach to a failing athlete to grumblings of students and coach, then a lesson is taught when she shows a past graduate let by in lax standards now making a living pumping gas or whatnot, as opposed to the flatlined realpolitick from the first half of the 1960s.

And I guess I overstate the spot in my high school. I only noted one class that was an obvious club spot for jocks (probably not enough of a sports’ program to really and seriously clear anything out) — a Senior year History course by a teacher largely despised by the students who took him in a Sophomore history class, teachers standing by seeming to silently nod an ascent. There is one bizarre note with his class — on some day where a superintendent was in attendance supervising he acted like a serious teacher — and on that one day the class turned to group discussions leafing through various materials — the first time we touched Anne Frank since reading her in sixth grade (and who the He’ll knows what we needed to grasp out of her diary?), ad he made high minded educational and political to the superintendent wholly out of character. The next day we all slid back to the routine which, to be sure, did lazily followed the textbook curticulum enough.

Literature did present a problem. I gather one teacher did think we needed exposure to Wuthering Heights, but — and I can’t guess which — that we were either too deficient in education to read the thing or there wasn’t enough time to read it, so… naturally we watched the movie. Cute and common short cut.

Network tv in the third decade of the twenty first century, and political positioning.

During a taping of The Masked Singer’s season 7 last week, one of the contestants was reportedly unmasked and revealed as past New York City mayor and personal attorney for former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, according to Deadline. In response, judge Ken Jeong reportedly stormed off the stage with fellow judge Robin Thicke following to check on him, according to PEOPLE.

“Ken was super upset and indeed stormed out,” a “source close to the set” told PEOPLE. “Robin actually followed him because he and Ken are very close friends and he wanted to check on him. Robin didn’t storm out because of Giuliani.”. […]

Jeong’s background as a doctor reportedly fueled his anger at Giuliani, who previously served as the personal attorney for Trump and therefore part of the administration that mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic from the start. In June 2021, Giuliani was banned from practicing law in New York after making false statements about Trump’s 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

Fine and dandy and all that. But then I stare at this.

According to the initial Deadline story, the show’s other two judges — Jenny McCarthy and Nicole Scherzinger — stayed behind and briefly chatted with Giuliani after the unmasking.

All this time he’s been sitting next to, and not getting upset by, Jenny McCarthy? Did he just figure Giuliani had more power than spokes-nuttery work of McCarthy?

Peering into the future Republican House and we see news items defining the divisions of the party. In a past iteration we kind of see markers of “social conservative”, ” fiscal conservative”, “defense hawk”, tending to be able to coalesce around tax cuts, court appointments, and saber rattling. In the current alignments we run into a bit of a dinger with the last one, and see some articles on the troubles of liberal anti-war Democrats and shaky alliances with loathsome isolationist Republicans — the problem being they tend to be the most aligned with Trump and viewed as his ” advance team”, and… Didn’t Putin practically handpick ‘im? As too there was always the more conciliating “moderate” versus “conservative” game and battling whatever this entails.

Today it appears that the lines now get redrawn. Because — okay, there is that defense division, sure. And maybe we even still have some mod v con thing going. But on this right flank, things become dicey. You have social conservatives arrayed alongside fiscal conservatives, and as always the questions of educational curriculum get sliced into the former’s raison d’etre. But then, flanking to their right, meehaps with blurred divisions — trolls. Not social cons, just… Trolls. Throw out things from qanon message boards for the Hell of it. High driving each other for any outrageous statement that gets mocked on SNL. Despite the fact that some narratives hold that the other divisions lack policies, that isn’t really true — but it is with the troll division.