Catching the Hacks in Action, Picture posting:

[jomoco]

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When I was a kid my parents bought me many illistrated books, and I would spend long periods reading. Anyway...two of the books were by Dr Suess, one was about the Lorax and the other was about a Cat in a Hat.

There was something inherently depressing about the story of the Lorax, not only was it a sad story but the physical appearance of the Lorax made me feel generally unhappy. After reading the Lorax I would spend long periods of time pondering my existence and wondering why Dr Suess had made the Lorax look so odd. As an adult I realised that Dr Suess may have been partaking in the consumption of illegal substances.

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Lewis Carrol copped to it, along with Arthur Conan Doyle, Sigmund Freud and a host of others.

Listing the alcoholic authors would tax the computers at NASA!

jomoco

 

[AxeKnot]

The Lorax has sparked significant controversy.

In 1989, a small school district in California kept the book on a reading list for second graders, though some in the town claimed the book was unfair to the logging industry. Several timber industry groups sponsored the creation of a book called The Truax, offering a logging-friendly perspective to an anthropomorphic tree known as the Guardbark. Just as in The Lorax, the book consists of an argument between two people.

The logging industry representative emphasizes their efficiency and re-seeding efforts whereas the Guardbark, a personification of the environmentalist movement much as the Once-ler is for big business, refuses to listen and repeatedly lashes out.

The Lorax was actually banned in some schools and libraries in regions with timber economies for its anti-forest industry content.

 

[tomthetreeman]

Very intereseting, Axeknot. The book indeed doesn't tell both sides. It does, however, depict maknind's voracious appetite for the unnecessary, which in the book, happens to come from Truffula sp. I imagine it would be difficult to explain these concepts to a second grader, but I'm not sure censorship is the answer. Better to tell the kids what's going on, I think. The truax thing is like a pee-ing contest LOL.

-Tom