"Wayne Wightman - The Attack Of The Ignoroids" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wightman Wayne)

"What are they complaining for? That's enough to graduate, isn't it?"

"To get out of high school they have to read at fifth grade level. It could cost
the school a lot of money -- and cause a reevaluation of the staff. Outside
school, in the real world, all you have to do is pick up the paper."

She leaned over the arm of the sofa and pulled a sheaf of newspaper from under
an end table.

"`Burglar Caught Napping -- Beaten Into Coma.' He broke into a house with the
apparent intention of stealing the refrigerator shelves but stopped, to eat and
went to sleep on the sofa. The owner came back and nearly killed him. Owner's in
jail now." She turned a page. "`Teen Gives Birth In Class, Thinks Baby Alien
Parasite.' After it was explained that it was a baby, her baby, she became quite
maternal."

"You think these people are stupid? They sound like degree candidates to me."

She raised an eyebrow at me. "Okay. How about this." She pulled out a half-size
section of newsprint. "`What's Hot, What's Not.' It's part of a teen-oriented
insert the paper does. You might need something to bite on for this one."

"I've lived with insects, remember."

"According to this, branding is hot. `As a gesture of bonding, young adults now
use soldering irons and decorative branding irons to mark each other at branding
parties. Popular patterns include pitchforks, flames, hamburgers, and the Nike
swoosh.'" She smiled. "They do it on tender parts."

I felt my nostrils involuntarily flare. But what the hell. Kids will be kids.

"What's also hot-self-surgery. `Popular operations include removing the last
joint of the little toe, drying it, and giving it to a loved one to wear around
the neck.' You'll appreciate this one: `And what could be more intimate than a
sealed jewel of your loved one's intestinal effluent inserted sub-cutaneously
between the eyebrows.?"'

"That's hideous! Even Cleetis would be repelled."

"That's fashion. Also what's hot -- cranial transducers."

I must have looked blank.

"Sixteen kids in my health classes have cranial transducers. They jack their CD
players right into this thing that's screwed into their skull. Makes their
skulls vibrate. They say the bass is excellent After a few hundred hours of
that, they need friends to wipe their chins. That's STS."

The whole thing gave me the creeps--self-mutilation as a party sport, purposeful