The woke works of William Shakespeare are the last casualties in the state's ongoing battle against education.

The state of Florida is still under the nominal political control of its meathead governor, Ronald DeSantis, who currently is wandering the gentle hills and green pastures of Iowa, rehearsing his Homo sapiens imitation. (It still needs work.). But his spirit rocks on in the effort to make sure the state produces a generation of historical and literary illiterates. The latest target— that woke bastid William Shakespeare. From the Tampa Bay Times:

Students will be assigned pages from the classics, which might include “Macbeth,” “Hamlet” and the time-honored teen favorite, “Romeo and Juliet.” But if they want to read them in their entirety, they will likely have to do it on their own time. School district officials said they redesigned their instructional guides for teachers because of revised state teaching standards and a new set of state exams that cover a vast array of books and writing styles. “It was also in consideration of the law,” said school district spokeswoman Tanya Arja, referring to the newly expanded Parental Rights in Education Act. The measure, promoted and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, tells schools to steer clear of content and class discussion that is sexual in nature unless it is related to a standard, such as health class.

What on earth does this leave us with? Romeo and Juliet never going past first base? A eunuch Macbeth and his sexless wife? Benedick, hanging his actual bugle in an actual — not invisible, not metaphorical — baldric? No rape in Titus Andronicus? No woodland canoodling in A Midsummer Night's Dream? No cross-dressing in Twelfth Night? Perhaps the greatest writing in the English language parceled out to students piecemeal?

There are ways that students can read these works in their entirety, district officials said. If a student can obtain a copy of one of the books or plays, perhaps with the help of their parents, they can do so. But teachers are advised, during class lessons, to stay with the approved guidelines, which call for excerpts. If not, in extreme circumstances, they might have to defend themselves against a parent complaint or a disciplinary case at their school.

I don't know what this is, but it's not education. And neither is this, god knows. From Slate:

Despite its name, PragerU isn’t a university—or any kind of accredited educational institution. It was founded in 2009 by Dennis Prager, a conservative talk show host previously known for being a less inflammatory voice of the right. Prager, convinced that the key to a brighter future was to instill college students with conservative values, first dreamed of an actual university. But he and his co-founder soon realized that the venture would be prohibitively expensive. Instead, PragerU, a nonprofit, pivoted quickly to creating free, slickly produced educational videos as conservative counterprogramming. Its “5 Minute Ideas” videos proved particularly popular, relying often on misleading or even outright false claims about U.S. history, and racking up millions of views on YouTube. High school and college students across the country meet on campus in support of PragerU content and gather at annual conferences. A host of prominent right-wing figures, including Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro, have supported PragerU, either by speaking out in support or appearing in the content itself. It earned some $20 million in net revenue in 2021—largely from contributions.

I am in the wrong damn business. In any case, the heirs to Frederick Douglass probably have a cause of action here.

In another video, Frederick Douglass teaches the children the virtues of patience and compromise in activism. The children get upset when seeing activists call for abolishing the police and protesters destroying cars on TV. (Leo also complains that his math teacher has given him a social justice assignment.) Douglass—another person born into slavery—reassures the children that “our founding fathers knew that slavery was evil and wrong and they knew it would do terrible harm to the nation” but that they were forced to be patient. “I’m certainly not OK with slavery, but the founding fathers made a compromise to achieve something great: the making of the United States,” Douglass says. He, like Washington, boasts of America’s role in ending slavery worldwide and complains about “radical” abolitionists. “Our system is wonderful, and the Constitution is a glorious liberty document,” he says. “We just need to convince enough Americans to be true to it.”

In what we like to call reality, Douglass was nothing like this. He did business with John Brown, who was as radical as abolitionists got prior to the Civil War. In 1881, Douglass delivered a memorable address in Brown's memory at Harpers Ferry, which is where Brown's most famous act of abolitionism took place. Douglass said,

"Did John Brown fail? Ask Clement C. Vallandingham, one other of the inquisitorial party; for he too went down in the tremendous whirlpool created by the powerful hand of this bold invader. If John Brown did not end the war that ended slavery, he did at least begin the war that ended slavery. If we look over the dates, places and men for which this honor is claimed, we shall find that not Carolina, but Virginia, not Fort Sumter, but Harpers Ferry, and the arsenal, not Col. Anderson, but John Brown, began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic. Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy and uncertain. The irrepressible conflict was one of words, votes and compromises.

"When John Brown stretched forth his arm the sky was cleared. The time for compromises was gone - the armed hosts of freedom stood face to face over the chasm of a broken Union - and the clash of arms was at hand. The South staked all upon getting possession of the Federal Government, and failing to do that, drew the sword of rebellion and thus made her own, and not Brown's, the lost cause of the century."

Hell, Afro-Sheen treated Douglass' memory with more respect than Prager's poisonous intellectual history porn does. And certainly with more respect than Hillsborough County is treating Shakespeare. Once more into the ditch, dear friends.