Like tears in rain...

There was a lead headline in the Cedar Rapids Gazette this morning, about CR public schools taking Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer off the 8th grade required reading list. They haven't gone so far as to ban the book altogether (funny, it's usually Huckleberry Finn that people get up in arms about), but it may be a sign of times a-passing, regardless. Just when you thought The Great Dumbdown couldn't get dumberer, this happens.

Mark Twain, who stands pretty high in the abolitionists' pantheon, melting away from public schools "like tears in rain." A pity? Or, in this YouTube age, about time?