Brilliant, Terry!! I'm sure MT would approve heartily! 

Ben Wise 


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Terry Ballard" <[log in to unmask]> 
To: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: Thursday, January 6, 2011 11:01:55 AM 
Subject: Re: a new Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 

I'm not a Twain scholar either - just a Twain enthusiast. Looking over the = 
messages from the past few days, I can't help but wonder what Twain would s= 
ay if we could magically transport him to our world. May it would go someth= 
ing like this: 

"I see that Professor Gribben has succeeded in improving my book so that pe= 
ople will not be offended when they read it. I will grant that the professo= 
r did this project with the best of intentions - just as the Good Lord did = 
when he created black widow spiders, electric eels, cobras, mosquitoes and = 
the Human Race. The professor thinks that the Human Race has evolved into s= 
omething more genteel than what we had in the 19th century. If he feels tha= 
t way, he should spend some time watching the news. If your modern humans m= 
ust be protected from my book, who is to protect them from seeing the misad= 
ventures of Mel Gibson and Lindsey Lohan? What a world you have created her= 
e - it goes far beyond anything I could have ever predicted, but it must be= 
protected. Congress should pass laws. People should Tweet about this. Look= 
around you - America needs me more than ever. Today's youth can read Huck = 
Lite and come away with the idea that slavery was a darned bad thing and we= 
were better off without it. Maybe that's enough for a nation where 50 perc= 
ent of the population believes that the world is six thousand years old in = 
the face of all scientific knowledge to the contrary. I must go now - I'm c= 
atching up on American Idol." 

Terry Ballard 
Assistant Director of Technical Services for Library Systems 
New York Law School, Mendik Library 
185 W. Broadway 
New York, NY, 10013 
Telephone: 212-431-2106 
Web: www.terryballard.org 
Blog: librariansonedge.blogspot.com 
Tweets: twitter.com/terryballard