Somehow, perhaps because Ramadan moves around and I've gotten to be more effiecient at teaching (now I actually get to Watergate instead of just Pearl Harbor... this year I'll get to September 11th if it all works out) I seem to teach The Age of Reform during Ramadan.
This is perhaps one of my favorite things to do because I get to read this:
"All day long the blazing midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of abominations: upon tens of thousands of cattle crowded into pens whose wooden floors stank and steamed contagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad tracks and huge blocks of dingy meat factories, whose labyrinthine passages defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them; and there are not merely rivers of hot blood and carloads of moist flesh, and rendering-vats and soup cauldrons, glue-factories and fertilizer tanks, that smelt like the craters of hell-there are also tons of garbage festering in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the workers hung out to dry and dining rooms littered with food black with flies, and toilet rooms that are open sewers."
-Upton Sinclair, The Jungle
To a room full of Muslim students.
Then I get to inform them that their cereal has x numbers of fly legs (or is likely to), and that their pasta has x grams of feces.
Consider it my act of understanding their faith, and helping this whole fasting thing.
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Clay: a moldable material that is plastic when moist but hard when fired, best sculpted in the hands of an experienced potter. Romans 9:21. Friar: member of a mendicant order, distinct from monks in that they do not shut themeleves off from the rest of the world.
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Today I stopped in to our town library during what turned out to be the beginning of "Banned Book Week." Like most libraries, they're very proud to carry "banned" books, which are usually books like A Separate Peace or A Boy's Guide to the Changing Body, that some PTA parent once protested against during a meeting, were shouted down, but gave the book the privilege of being "banned" for the rest of its life, which increased its readership greatly.
While picking up a few of these books (heck, I'm a sucker for anything that looks like it might be going up against "The Man," even if it's government-supported), I picked up a graphic novel version of Sinclair's The Jungle. It's quite graphic. I can't imagine any book less suited to being a graphic novel than The Jungle. You could certainly use it for demonstrative purposes if you wanted. It should get your point across.
You are nothing if not altruistic Kate. Everytime I think of going back to meat, I read stuff like that. The PETA website would do Upton proud. Can you imagine actually having the name Upton????
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