1. New British Petition: Stop the Nightmares

Comment #191821 by Godless Savage on June 11, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Interesting....in looking at the wikipedia entry and others, the book seems much shorter than I remember. Mine is about 80 pages, and has many more stories. (It looks exactly like this: http://www.blueharvestfarm.com/pic/136a4197.jpg except mine is sort of an olive green.) Then I found this:

SLOVENLY PETER OR CHEERFUL STORIES AND FUNNY PICTURES for good little folks
Philadelphia & Toronto, Winston Co. N D Colored illustrations to each page ...(80pp but unpaginated) titlepage supplied in facsimile. ....First 23pp have Hoffman's stories and pictures; 24-90 are NEW but IMITATIVE stories depicting gluttony, liars, thief, Laziness, cry baby, envious, dirty, cruel, slovenly, proud, discontent, idleness, heedlessness, simplicity, prying etc. The last 5 stories are less like Hoffman though one is about truancy, all illustrated. In total 40 Cautionary poems. Seems never to have been issued in England and not in the British Library.

Looks like we Americans found new horrors to inflict on our kids. Go figure. :p

2. New British Petition: Stop the Nightmares

Comment #191816 by Godless Savage on June 11, 2008 at 10:19 pm

Maybe I'm lucky - parents not too religious. But all the Goddites had nothing against what i got as a child.....Struwwelpeter!

I was truly shit-scared of those stories, especially the fat kid who was fussy about food and just wasted away to nothing, and of course the boy who has his fingers cut off.....was it 19th century?

YAAAAYYYYY! One of my most treasured possessions EVER is a copy of Slovenly Peter (the English version, obviously). I even took it to school when I was about 8 for Show and Tell. It was given to my mother when she was young (as a used copy)...and I used to look at the stuff in that book as a kid and go 'WTF???' The long-legged scissor man that came after the suck-a-thumb kid was scary, but my favorites were the cry-baby girl (eyes fell out on the ground) and the girl who was too playful and broke her leg...literally! (with her brother bearing the bleeding, severed limb behind her stretcher). The best part was the notation in the front that only good boys and girls would be able to read these stories. No doubt because the bad ones had no eyes and were crippled in bed, or dead.

I adore that book. It's so very demented, and really, only a less subtle version of what kids are fed today via religion.

I think I must go pull that one off the bookshelf and have a look....classic!

3. The day of judgment

Comment #189636 by Godless Savage on June 6, 2008 at 8:07 pm

Damn, these people are nuts! But we all knew that. :)

I liked the bit about curiosity:

And yet it is curiosity, scientific curiosity, that has delivered us genuine, testable knowledge of the world and contributed to our understanding of our place within it and of our nature and condition. This knowledge has a beauty of its own, and it can be terrifying.

Which reminds me of another quote by Eugene O'Neill:

Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought him back.

My cat has resurrectory powers, by virtue of curiosity. Can I aspire to anything less? I'll take my chances by being curious, rather than sheep-ish, thanks. :)

4. Six 'uniquely' human traits now found in animals

Comment #184167 by Godless Savage on May 23, 2008 at 8:15 pm

One trait I wish anamals would have is being embarrased when farting.

They're no different from my husband, actually. ;) And I've always thought horses took an inordinate amount of joy in farting, loudly.

I really like this article. I have no doubt that animals feel and act much they same as we do, in many ways. It's just a matter of recognizing our similarities. I've known many animals over the years, and they enjoy deep emotional and psychological lives just as we do...of that I am sure.

5. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104875 by Godless Savage on December 29, 2007 at 9:09 pm

If the article didn't horrify me, the picture sure did! Seriously, the man(?) looks utterly evil.

Diacanu #35...Loved your comment. :)