School Lunch Essay
This short essay on the topic of “school lunch” is being passed around the internet as an example of the failure of the public school system. Apparently, it was authored by a sixth grader in “an inner city public school in Philadelphia.”
Sharswood lunch Discrase
Sharswood lunches are so nasty some people be pukein. Some people be talking about school lunch. Some time the school lunch be trucky niggets. The trucky niggets be the worst. And the pizza be half done. The cheese buger be the best. When we was taking the pssa they had rice and chickhen for lunch. That be the nastyes lunch in the world. The corn be with the trucky niggets.
Original source at You, Sir, Are Going to Summer School garnered hundreds of lovely comments. All I can say is that I wish it weren’t plausible for an eleven or twelve year old American educated child to write something this bad.
Michael Crichton Dead
Noted American novelist Michael Crichton, MD (October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) died at the age of 66 of cancer.
Having sold over 150 million books intentionally, he is best known for sci-fi action novels The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, Rising Sun: A Novel, Timeline, State of Fear, Prey, and Next. Crichton also dabbled in television and movies, creating TV show ER, and the movies Jurassic Park, its sequel The Lost World, Twiser, and others.
Criticisms of Crichton’s work revolve around two themes: scientific inaccuracies around his portrayal of climate change, and his general hostility towards technology and industrial systems. On the issue of global warming, Al Gore said on March 21, 2007 before a US House committee: “The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor [...] if your doctor tells you you need to intervene here, you don’t say ‘Well, I read a science fiction novel that tells me it’s not a problem’.” This was an obvious reference to State of Fear.
The other problem with his work is hatred for technology–all kinds of technology, from standard aircraft construction, to genetic engineering, to computer systems, and even nanotechnology. In a Crichton story, anything that can go wrong in his mind will go wrong, even if the scenarios are ludicrous in actuality. Some would go so far to classify Crichton–although he denies the charge–as a luddite.
