I need a show of hands. How many of you were outraged to learn that Alan Gribben, professor of English at Auburn-Montgomery, has edited an edition of Mark Twain’s Huck Finn, due out next month from NewSouth Books, that substitutes the word “slave” for the word “nigger”? This event sure has generated a lot of heat. The New York Times editorial board doesn’t mince words about this act of word mincing: “We...

The following entry is the “SFW” (i.e., PG-13) version of: This Blog Entry Has Been Rated NSFW What is “age appropriate” viewing? Who determines when you can see what? Let’s begin with some representative vignettes. The first from the print-centric paradigm of my youth. When I was a teenager in the seventies, growing up in the South, there were visible, physical boundaries marking what was fit for consumption by...

What is “age appropriate” viewing? Who determines when you can see what? Let’s begin with some representative vignettes. The first from the print-centric paradigm of my youth. When I was a teenager in the seventies, growing up in the South, there were visible, physical boundaries marking what was fit for consumption by those who were “under aged.” At the back of the local used paperback bookstore, a curtain...

Hacktivism is in the news, if not exactly grabbing headlines. When major service providers pulled the plug on WikiLeaks, temporarily cutting off access to the site via its domain name, “WikiLeaks.org” in hopes of hobbling financial support the venture, the boys at anonymous sprung into action, unleashing their anarchic, anti-corporate rage in the form of a series of attacks on a host of websites across the globe. What does this mean,...

At this point in the discussion, it should come as no surprise to learn that an account has surfaced on the free online dating service, OKcupid, that appears to have belonged to Julian Assange back in 2006-2007. There’s nothing particularly startling in the profile of the person who self-identifies as Harry Harrison–it’s a dating site after all, so the convention is braggadocio. The profile pictures are definitely...