I feel like I'm buying hay for a dead horse every time I pontificate on the insanity of some people. Notwithstanding that fact, I just can't help myself. Some people should be institutionalized. In fact, they are so insane that they've somehow managed to pull the wool over our eyes and trick us into thinking that they're so highly educated, so highly skilled and just so scholarly that the nonsense they propose and, scarily, that they act on, is somehow good or beneficial for society. What's more, we might be catching onto their insanity because we start to believe the garbage that comes out of them.

            Case in point: Alan Gribben. This guy is a kiwi short of a fruit salad. You'll soon come to learn that this fool is spearheading a movement that will "update" classic literature. His first victim is the seminal novel, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. In the upcoming version published by NewSouth Books, all instances of the N-word will be replaced with "slave". Further, the use of the word "Injun" will also be removed.

            From the outset, I'm obviously neither a proponent of nor do I condone the use of the N-word. But come on! There is so much wrong with his attack on classic literature. Where do I even begin?

            Given my English literature degree, I'm a literary purist. This bastardization and attempt at purification of a novel that has such literary significance, if only for its glimpse into the history of the period, is inexcusable. If ever there was cause to burn a book, it would be for this act and it would be Gribben's version. This quack of a professor is essentially trying to sanitize history and apparently spare the fragile, delicate feelings of the politically correct and their children. Through the elimination of the term, he thinks he will somehow "clean up" this part of history. This is preposterous. The mere unease and discomfort that the reader feels in reading this novel is exactly the emotion and the historical lesson that is to be gleened from reading the novel. There's simply no way to white-wash this book. It's powerful. It's disturbing. But it's real. It's what people during that time period lived and were exposed to on a daily basis. Gribben commits such an injustice, not only to the book itself, but to the readers of this new version. He essentially rapes this novel of its poignant meaning and its painful historical memories.

            The N-word is used so prevalently in today's society still. Take for example rap music. Ought not Gribben re-focus his efforts to eradicate the word from today's vernacular? It's certainly more painful and more harmful in its existence and use today than it is in its place in Huck Finn. Certainly, his efforts would be more highly beneficial today and might actually cause society some good.

            Finally, if we not only permit this buffoon to do this editing of classic novels, what else lies in peril? This is a classic slippery slope situation. What's next, will someone edit out nudity in famous paintings or censor love scenes or murder scenes in classic movies?