I don’t know whether to be appalled or amused. I suppose a little bit of both.

Once upon a time, people actually read books. They went to plays, artistic performances, and celebrated the arts and the intellect. Today, people get excited over shows like “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?”

So I suppose it wasn’t too surprising to see the following news item the other day:

Woolworths stores in Britain have stopped selling “Lolita” beds for young girls after a parents’ organization complained because of the name’s association with the famous novel about a pedophile.

Something tells me there’s someone in the Woolworths marketing department desperately in need of a Great Books curriculum, immediately. Item #1: Nabokov, obviously.