Whippersnappers for Melville!

Massachusetts is engaged in an epic political battle over whether Herman Melville's Moby-Dick should be the state's official book.

According to an AP report, The state's House of Rep's recently passed just such a bill, but the state's Senate and governor have yet to sign off on it. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Christopher Speranzo, who claims he did so at the urging of elementary school students in his district.

Ri-ight. I fondly remember reading Moby-Dick in second grade; of course, it was an "annotated edition."

Some politicians have debated whether there are more deserving Massachusetts authors whose work deserves this distinction. For example, both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott might qualify. But referring to my third-grade English notes, I would disagree; those two authors were, respectively, a "poop head" and "some boring lady."

But I wonder: What Queequeg would make of all this?