18 Comments

9 out of 10? This settles the question on the difference between coincidence and irony!

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Mar 5, 2021Liked by Bill Murphy Jr.

Let me ask you Bill... did you look at the pages that are considered offensive? "A chinese man that eats with sticks"..... hmmm.. when you go to Asian countries or Asian restaurants (or our house on Chinese or Japanese dinner nights) what do you see? people eating with chopsticks. That's not offensive, that's reality. Was it the picture then? A man, in cartoony fashion as all Dr Seuss people are, wearing an Asian sun hat, and eating from a bowl with chopsticks. Do you think that is racist or inappropriate? What about 1 fish 2 fish red fish blue fish. Should we be offended that the fish are identified by color? THIS IS CRAZINESS !!!! Y'all gonna have to stop perpetuating division like this... you know what they're doing right? Divide and Conquer. We're all just human. Quit being so damn sensitive... SMH.

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Mar 5, 2021Liked by Bill Murphy Jr.

Love the clarity on the Seuss books.

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Mar 5, 2021Liked by Bill Murphy Jr.

So sad that money is the basis for everything. Instead of calling out what could be a teaching moment, we are again hurled into an overdramatic and silly spin that those who have not really thought about it, latch onto for their own purposes. Publishing company is laughing all the way to the bank. As you said, they give up 2 titles to promote tons of others. Win win for them. Any author/publishing house who wanted to make scads of money would be thrilled.

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Mar 5, 2021Liked by Bill Murphy Jr.

The slew of sales reminded me of the days that Disney would announce a movie was going into the vault forever? Maybe they didn’t say forever but it was the 90’s and we’d rush to buy the $25 VHS tape. I still have said VHS tapes in the attic because it was a lot of money in the day. Sitting beside those VHS is a shelf of Dr. Seuss.

I know none of the books that were pulled and I can probably recite all the ones on the best sellers list.

Current day does anyone know if Baby Shark is a book? 🙃 Have a great day Y’all!

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Mar 5, 2021Liked by Bill Murphy Jr.

Do you share the same sentiment with the likes of Jay Z too? His work along with other rap stars doesn’t seem to concern “the cancel culture.”

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Mar 5, 2021Liked by Bill Murphy Jr.

I have to weigh in on the Dr. Seuss book ban. I have worked in elementary school libraries and I do not believe in book bans. However, in this case I think it is appropriate to reevaluate the books we share with our children.

Many classic children's books are filled with stereotypes and verbiage that are not appropriate. We have learned and we need to apply that to what we expose growing minds to. We read to our kids to help them learn about the world, choices and consequences. So why would we have those lessons be mixed with hurtful images and out of date ideas?

I think the addition of a disclaimer on The Muppets show is great. Kids can learn to evaluate the evolution of our culture. The key is parents and kids have conversations about that evolution.

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It is not that different than when Charles M. Schulz decided to add Franklin to his Peanut cast. It was pointed out that the cartoon was missing an important representation of a culture. He got with the times and evolved his cartoon. While we do not have the ability to ask Geisel if he would approve changes/updates, his goal was to create books for children that created positive messages.

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