When the only Homer they know is Homer Simpson.
Fox should sue those lazy Greeks for stealing the name.
The world doesn’t revolve around America, but you’ll see idiots in Bumbfuck, Romania talking about Soros and wokeism. It’s got to be exhausting.
Soros is a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust and moved to America afterwards btw, so when someone from the Balkans is complaining about him it’s not ignorance, it means something very specific.
Even more of a Nazi dog whistle than when the American right does it? I guess that would make it a Nazi Air Horn
More that it’s not just an idiot complaining about things supposedly happening in a different country.
“The Jews are trying to replace us.” ?
Orban / the party in charge were saying Soros was using his money and power to flood Romania with immigrants.
Still exhausting!
As an American, I am going to dine on this single example as if it disproves the idea that we are insular and provincial hicks for the next decade.
Certainly stashing it away in the ammo belt.
The problem is, I have this big bag of stones in my glass house, and I want to throw them at the UK for being dumb, but if I do, I also have to admit the US education system is trash.
I’ll throw that stone for you
The British education system is almost as bad as the American education system. The biggest difference between our cultures is that a lot of Americans are willing to point out how incredibly racist our country is
It’s not just slavery minimization. A lot of far right Americans have taken over local school boards to ban books that talk about gay people existing or the fact that sex is something that happens, among other nefarious purposes. And a religious organization in Texas writes pretty much all the textbooks used across the country. It can’t be this bad in the UK can it?
So much broken glass, was it worth it? Now I have to go get the broom.
The amazing part is you somehow broke France and the Netherland’s glass too? Just so much to clean up.
Both can be true. We can be trash in different ways!
I can do both. I’m ot gonna let some backwater pit like the UK insult my home, especially since the UK is essentially completely dependent on the US at this point.
To be fair, the only people left on Xitter are idiots
The world is awash in morons and they aren’t localized to that venue, although by way of it’s very structure, it’s a venue that strongly attracts people incapable of holding two thoughts at the same time.
As G Carlin would have said, think how stupid the average person is and realize 50% are stupider than that. This is the world we live in - where the trivial thoughts emerging from society’s dreck take have equal stage and prominence to expertise and wisdom
You haven’t experienced The Odyssey until you’ve read it in its original Klingon.
The Illiad and the Odyssey are classics and hardly American culture. They are western culture as a whole. No idea what the drama is about but some dude not knowing what the Odyssey is, is the same as not knowing any other classic. (There are too many to count, but not knowing the most popular ones are is like not knowing the titanic sank.) (Spoilers)
That’s the joke.
I have to admit that I have not read the Illias or the Odyssey in school, either. We were made read books in school intendet to make children shy away from books, so they won’t touch any of them after school ever again.
Luckily I had read loads of good books by that time, so I knew that only a few are as horrible as the ones they made us read in school.
There are basic versions of these stories with big drawings, mostly made for kids. Basically manga. When i was a kid(in Greece), 35 years ago, i had this
https://www.stratikis.gr/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/iliada-nea.jpg
This is Iliad and it was cooler than Odyssey. Badass dudes with almost divine powers fighting other dudes and entire armies on their own, while Gods are taking sides and fucking things up. Isnt that shonen.
Odyssey’s ending was cool though, even if it was a bit sad.
I first read the classic translation by Schwab when I was ten or eleven.
It does feel a lot like that, doesn’t it? Why else would the Bronte sisters be on the curriculum if not to snuff out any interest in literature?
It could be worse. We read Brecht and Kafka. Several works of them. I’ve never encountered worse waste of paper and ink than those idiots. And the rest was not much better.
Just because it was wasted on you doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, Kafka’s short stories especially (Die Verwandlung, Ein Landarzt etc) are accessible for teenagers and a good gateway drug to get interested in other things. Which is really important for kids that don’t have natural access to literature at home.
Sorry, but I experienced “Die Verwandlung” as written diarrhea of a person with severe mental problems. “Der Prozess” didn’t improve my opition of him, either.
Well, lead a horse to water etc, doesn’t mean we should stop making teens read books in school they wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise. At least now you have both read and formed an opinion on two of the most influential and well regarded works of world literature. (And hopefully they also made you read a lot of other literature in diverse styles and genres.)
The problem is not about “reading books they would not read otherwise”. Sadly, many, if not most, kids don’t get exposed to books anymore except in school. And then they are confronted with unlikable stuff that makes them shy away from ever touching a book again.
I still hope that one day the people who decide what children and teens should read in school get their elitist heads out of their asses and actually try to get kids to read because they enjoy reading a book. Problem is that most people in that area seem to hate books that actually sell in the shops because people like to read them. Like I said about Reich-Ranizky once: he would not notice a good book if it bit him.
So the obvious solution is they should read more books, more varied stuff, not less. Popular, niche, basic, normative, weird, etc.
Of course, your assumption that all teens hate Kafka just because you do is demonstrably false. The assumption that books sell simply because they are actually better and more enjoyable to read is also false, there are a lot of other factors at play.
The kids that enjoy reading will find what is pushed in the book shops anyway, but kids from working class homes will never be exposed to anything else - and therefore have no chance to decide if they like it or not.
Only boring kids would find Wuthering Heights & Jane Eyre boring. Both books would be excellent choices in any curriculum. If you wanna talk boring early 19th century authors, Jane Austen is the name you’re looking for.
I found Wuthering Heights more miserable than boring.
The Illiad was like the Bible before the Bible.
Only in that it was widely published but there are others too like the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Illiad was like the ancient Greek Bible because it was used to provide behavioural guidelines and views common to all Greeks. It was a text central to any Greek’s education. How does a leader act? Read the Illiad. How are battles waged? Read the Illiad. What is the relation between humans and gods? Read the Illiad.
Alexander the Great was known to carry a copy of the Illiad with him at all times, and many philosophers routinely used excerpts from it to illustrate their points. And people would reference it like we reference things from the Bible in the west (Judas, turn water into wine, cross to bear, turn the other cheek etc)
I have not read the Iliad and I’ve only read a few excerpts from the Odyssey. They available as an audio book anywhere that isn’t Audible?
If you are going to delve into that, you could also try the book “Circe” by Madelleine Miller. Loved it.
Iliad was not a religious text(or even a text for many centuries). It was just a story of a dude trying to get back home.
I know you know this and likely just mistyped, but for clarity, the Iliad is about the war itself. The Odyssey is about the dude trying to get back home.
They weren’t religious texts per se, but they were certainly cultural touchstones which contain important lessons about the human condition, death, love, and what’s truly important in life. They would fill a role similar to histories in the Old Testament, probably, like the book of Ruth.
You are right, i wrote a comment about iliad before and mistyped iliad here too. And you are right, it was a cultural touch stone for ancient Greece.
is this why the miniseries is trending on some torrent sites?? haha!
It was also just announced that Christopher Nolan’s next film will be the Odyssey
simpsons did it first
Wasn’t that the Minivan Homer rented? So many cup holders
Probably trending because of the musical tbh , it’s been pretty popular in some circles.
Wait… some people don’t know the Odyssey?
They don’t teach it in my country. I read it on my own.
What! He never saw Wishbone’s the Odyssey?
"the world doesn’t revolve around your country"country Said the user from UK.
Silly anglophone countries, the world actually revolves around the chad mediterranean
Just play “Age of Mythology”. Duh.
Its not even that great of a mini van. You can get better for cheaper!
The Honda Odyssey fucks hard
Like that Kia, right?
