It’s hard to tell if Caleb Crain is mocking the book “Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature” or agreeing with it in his Essay – Children of the Left, Unite! in the NYTimes.com. (The more I read it, the more mocking it seems). He starts:

“As Julia L. Mickenberg and Philip Nel document in Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature (New York University, $32.95), Marxist principles have been dripping steadily into the minds of American youth for more than a century”

Actually, Mickenberg and Nel are wrong. Since children have been taught from the Bible, they have been learning about sharing, caring for the sick and the downtrodden of society, not to mention how the rich man will have a hard time getting into heaven. So perhaps these stories have been teaching Christian principles to young children, not Marxist principles.

Not since the Right went after the Teletubbies have I seen such silliness on their behalf.

This seems to me to be a classic case of what not to do if you are a service provider: spam your customers. It’s even worse if you are a high tech company: you should know better. 

Whatever benefit AT&T hoped to gain from this, I think they lost much more. But you can judge for yourself:

A Text Arrives. Oh, It’s Just an ‘Idol’ Ad. – NYTimes.com