UNCLE REMUS is from the rabbit stories of Africa, as reframed in the southern US. They're trickster stories, like the Blackfeet Napi. I have two favorites.
The story of the tar baby, which I suppose you can't call that nowadays since the "tar" part came from this baby being black. Maybe you could call it the "pitch baby" which is also sticky. The point is that this sticky little fellow is left out where Br'er Rabbit comes to it. Br'er Rabbit is kind of irrepressible (I identify with him) and greets the baby. 'Course the baby don't reply. Br'er Rabbit keeps coaxing for a while, then loses his temper and socks him. 'Course he sticks to that rude baby. So he hits him with the other fist and kicks and . . . I forget how he gets loose.
Well, Google is my tar baby. I've been trying for an hour to get loose from this little function and that supposedly existing delete. I've managed to dump some blogs but not yet the things like the "reading list." I've looked at directions and forums but pieces of the puzzle are just missing. I don't think that's an accident. Google has been slippery from the beginning, like when I signed up for advertising payments, but all I got was a card that said I could have $100 of advertising on other people's blogs. It's so very easy to start a blog. But then you hit what some people call "the Nudge" and others call "architectural guidance." A locked door.
Google + is a little harder, but I never could tell whether I were in or out anyway. I haven't found a story to match that.
The story I like best is when Br'er Fox did indeed manage to get his paws on that rabbit. Right away the hoppy critter started saying, "Oh, Br'er Fox, I know you're intending to eat me and I say go right ahead and do it. Just don't throw me in that there briar patch over there. I'd just suffer so much if you threw me into that briar patch."
So Br'er Fox began to get the idea that it would be more fun to throw Br'er Rabbit in that briar patch than to eat him after all. So against the rabbit's screams of protest, that's just what he did! Wheeeee! Br'er Rabbit went sailing right into the thickest part of the middle of that huge welter of thorny bushes.
Br'er waits to see if he can hear a thud, but there isn't any. Instead there's a whistle, and Br'er Rabbit bounces up through a hole in the top of all that impenetrable thorny stuff. "Thank you, Br'er Fox! Thank you very much! I was born and bred in a briar patch, Br'er Fox. It's my favorite place!"
Foiled again, is Br'er fox. Saved again, is Br'er Rabbit.
And Google? It never was born, never was bred, is now being shredded a bit at a time by its own hubris.
I suppose this is probably a little too explicit for them.
In the past, community morality has been a guide to what is or is not objectionable. In Portland, the prudes went to court to bring down "Deep Throat" which had been running for three years without objection. The court said that was clearly an indication that no one gave a shrug about it. It wasn't even a very good movie. (I know because I went to see it.) So I reckon, that means "Game of Thrones" is the limit of what the internet can show. Meaning lots of naked women but no pricks.
Uncle Remus, he laughed and laughed. But I'm still mad.
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