When being responsible is called "banning books"

 Removing a pornographic title from the school library isn't banning a book, any more than removing a book on torture or how to build a machine gun is banning a book. It is not appropriate behavior to provide guides on gay sex techniques and positions for 11 year olds--it's grooming to desensitize them.  If the taxpayers are expected to pay for them and the staff who selected them, they have a right to say what are the community standards. Librarians, even school librarians, have selection standards that are probably left of the ACLU. The hysteria about "banning" is whipped up by the ALA so they can whine about a parent who expects professional, rational thinking. In fact, what the staff are doing is guaranteeing a fail for the next bond issue.

Have You Looked Inside Any of These Books? | City Journal (city-journal.org)

ALA again touts banned books

 The ALA is The American Library Association. LJ (Library Journal) is its publication. It's one of the many professional and non-profit organizations on the left that drum up support by claiming the USA is racist and corrupt and only their members can save it. ALA is right up there with ACLU and George Soros' Open Society. Once a year ALA does a Banned Books week/month (I've forgotten) in the fall, but now with all the trans and LGBT hoopla, it's expanded to Winter. No books are ever banned by a public library except by their own staff in the back room, even if parents parade and riot, they wouldn't do it. Plus there are many ways to get books in this country--just ask a drag queen, for instance, or even local churches sponsor pride events. I picked up a card game at Marc's this morning and put it back when I saw it was promoting rainbow LGBT values on the box cover. It's not like it's a hidden topic. It's 2% of the population getting 30% of the news, art, school curriculum, movies, fashion and advertising/graphics for packaging and selling everything from tooth paste to dog food.

What does happen at the library is something like this: a tax paying parent or other adult may ask why such a book or subscription has been purchased when Christian books are excluded. Or why when a pornographic title is taking up shelf space is patron's favorite hobby considered too esoteric or little used for purchase. The one title most consistently "banned" is the Bible.

Complaining is not banning. Asking for proportion or fairness is not banning. Advocating for children not to be abused with surgery or hormones is not banning information. Requesting that U.S. history not be defamed and ridiculed is not racial discrimination. And right-wing activists have the same rights as the Green-go climate activists, the BLM supporters, and the remove the borders advocates. They pay taxes too.

"Brooklyn Public Library’s Nick Higgins, Amy Mikel, Karen Keys, Jackson Gomes, and Leigh Hurwitz have been named LJ’s 2023 Librarians of the Year for their work on Books Unbanned, providing free ebook access to teens and young adults nationwide to help defy rising book challenges across the country. In 2022 Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned Team began providing free ebook access to teens and young adults nationwide, defying rising book challenges across the count. In the past year, book challenges became part of the national discourse. Efforts to censor what materials U.S. kids, teens, and young adults can access—primarily content about race and LGBTQIA+ issues—are increasing, often in the places those resources are needed most. From January to August 2022, the American Library Association (ALA) logged 681 attempts to ban or restrict access to 1,651 unique titles—the highest number of challenges since ALA began tracking them. From July 2021 to June 2022, the freedom of expression nonprofit PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans listed 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 titles. It has become increasingly clear to many that these censorship efforts go beyond complaints from individual concerned parents. Libraries and classrooms have become the targets of coordinated political campaigns frequently led and/or funded by right-wing activists. As a large and well-resourced institution in the relatively liberal jurisdiction of New York City, Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is well positioned to ensure access to the full range of books it deems valuable for its community of readers. The library also provides free digital cards to New York State residents, and previously offered out-of-state cards for a fee. But several staff members, as well as President and CEO Linda E. Johnson, felt that BPL could—and should—do more for those beyond the borough’s borders.” (Library Journal, Jan. 3, 2023)

How to lie with statistics. 2022 showed a 23% decease in Black characters in children's "best sellers." Duh. Look what happened in 2020. All the publishers (that's the key--it's money) and all the librarians (they can make or break a publisher's decision) rushed to stock up on titles with black face/black characters, no matter the quality of illustration or writing style. After the media began running other stories (like hate Trump, or Covid), the choices dropped as did demand. So by 2022, the unusually high number had dropped.

Here's another one: Only 12.12% of children’s books are about black or African characters. Hmm. 18.7% of the population are Hispanic/Latino. Black is between 12% and 14% depending on how mixed race is counted. White is between 60-70%, depending on how mixed race is counted. Also only about 7.64% of children's books have black authors; so that means white authors are incorporating more black characters. White authors of children's books write about all topics, but black authors write over 91% about back characters, Is that good or racist? (Wordsrated. com Mar. 22, 2022).

Unpopular truths about education by Michael Smith, Utah

Here are some truths unpopular with the Democrats, the media and all their left-wing allies:
Preventing a third grader from reading pornography at school under the watch of a radical teacher is not “banning books”. If parents want their children to read such “literature”, they can check Amazon or a local bookstore and buy the book to read at home, under parental supervision - just as if they want their kids to see drag shows, there is nothing preventing parents from taking their tender age children to them. No law prevents it.

Teaching “Black History” is not banned from school curricula. What is banned is a radical, pseudo-historical agenda that teaches whites are evil and responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened, thereby advancing a leftist, anti-religion, anti-capitalist agenda.

J6 was not an “insurrection”. It was thousands of Americans upset by a government unresponsive to their concerns about the 2020 election. Democrats love to say that there was no evidence of fraud or corruption, which is easy to say after the agencies duty-bound to look decided not to look – the Supreme Court, the DOJ and even Congress refused to even consider how laws passed and executive actions taken at the state level, some in direct violation of their own state constitutions, could change the outcomes. So, this was a constitutionally protected “redress of grievances” that, based on information we now have about FBI informants imbedded long before the crowd formed, the fact Capitol Police were at least tangentially involved and President Trump’s requests for additional security was ignored, was ALLOWED to become a riot.

Overturning Roe and Dobbs did NOT ban abortion. It returned the issue to the states because the Supreme Court does not have the power to decide state issues. Some states will legalize abortion up to birth, some will ban it entirely – as is the right of the people of those states.

There is no “white supremacy”. Democrats have redefined “white supremacy” as anything that arose from the same Western civilization and culture that produced the ideas, ideals, principles, and philosophy that created America by declaring that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

There is no white supremacist pogrom against Asian, LGBQ, or transgender people. Almost all violent attacks on these classes are by members of non-white groups.

LGBTQ, transgender and minority characters are overrepresented in the entertainment and advertising industries. Studies have shown that the characters presented in advertisements and in entertainment programming are represented in excess of their percentage of the population. In fact, most minorities promoted as spokespeople were selected and promoted by white liberals in the media/entertainment management structure (MSNBC, the View, CNN, etc.) for political effect. No straight, cis-gendered, successful black conservatives are allowed.

The border is NOT secure (or even a concern for the Biden administration). An influx of over 5.6 million illegal aliens in the past two years, plus another estimated 1 million “getaways”, is simply a matter of government reporting. It is happening every day because this Administration wants it and has turned the Border Patrol into tour guides and paper processors.

The Great Replacement is not a conspiracy. Here it is Chuck Schumer’s own words from yesterday (note that Schumer unequivocally supports abortion of American citizens):

“Now more than ever, we’re short of workers. We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants - the DREAMers and all of them — cause our ultimate goal is to help the DREAMers but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million, or however many undocumented there are here.”

Crime is rising. Specially, but not limited to, minority dominated inner city areas, criminals are being returned to the streets with incredible velocity. That’s not an opinion, that is merely a statistical fact, state and federal statistics prove it.

The economy is not “strong as hell”. The unemployment statistics touted by the Biden Administration fail to note that there are still over a million fewer people in the active workforce than in March of 2020, that many of those people who are employed are working two lesser paying jobs, median family income has fallen drastically and what savings or retirement funds people have been able to squirrel away are being eaten by inflation created by the massive debt-based spending of the Biden Administration and the Democrat controlled Congress.

Inflation is real. It is not transitory, it is not a figment of our imagination, it simply costs more just to live today than it did two years ago, and the rise in inflation is directly correlated with the Democrats taking control of government.

Biden did not “cut the deficit”, nor did he create a historical economic turnaround. This bunch of prevaricators based their claims on the economic disaster created by the pandemic lockdowns that ran for almost a year after March 2020. These actions were mostly enacted by Democrat governors, and many of the “temporary” restrictions continue today, so they are claiming record success in recovering from disasters they caused. It may be mathematically true, but it is most certainly a lie of omission.
“Green” is a scam. “Green” energy simply cannot replace fossil fuels in the global economy, at least for the foreseeable future. We have decades of data to prove its ineffectiveness. Germany is a case in point. Perhaps more than any other country, Germany went all in on “green” energy only to face a cold winter now that its natural gas supply from Russia has been cut off. Sri Lanka is another. Government mandated “organic” farming was a disaster and Sri Lanka is now forced to import food to feed its people.

The GOP is not fascist or authoritarian, but the Democrat Party is. In almost every case, the real fascists are Democrats who, as in the case of abortion, want to take the decisions out of the people of the states as mandated by the Tenth Amendment, and “nationalize” them, forcing people in Texas, Florida, or Mississippi to accept the same limits as people in New York, California, or Pennsylvania, when the those are markedly different from cultural perspectives. The same in schools when they attempt to mandate the mainstreaming of subjects to which parents object. The Democrats are, and are doing, exactly what the accuse the GOP of doing and being.

This is the reality.

And this is what Republicans should be shouting to the heavens.

Banned Books Week

Oh darn.  I missed Banned Books Week.  It was last week and I was in the hospital (briefly) and paying attention to bigger issues. Yes, BBW is a hoax. You can get these books anywhere. What the American Library Association calls a ban really means someone complained about a book--it wasn't banned or burned. No American author in the USA was threatened--that's for Europe and the Middle East. We have the right to complain, too. It's covered in the First Amendment.  We pay for our public libraries and schools--should we be thrilled with every selection? Can we say, "Why so many Martha Stewart?" What about poor quality binding or illustrations? Is that OK to complain about? Or price? Or disrespect toward a race, gender or religion? Or new books on the occult outnumbering new titles for a religion a bit more common in the neighborhood, for instance, Christianity? Banning of sorts does exist, but it starts in the back room where decisions are made on what to buy. And the library field is overwhelmingly liberal.

New photo for ALA's banned book week (BBW)

Eventually, when the noise dies down about the May 1 killing of Osama bin Laden, and leftists and anarchists in ALA get some composure, maybe they could use this photo in their next BBW poster?

Banned books are not banned at all, so it is a big hoax--maybe to draw people to the American Library Association site, or to make librarians look good, protecting your freedoms. Frankly, I complained about the children's librarian reading aloud "Little Black Sambo" at UAPL when my children were little back in the 1970s. Wouldn't you? According to library stats, a complaint equals a ban. Everything from Huckleberry Finn to Harry Potter are on the ALA's list--and when was the last time you couldn't get them from a public library? And just try to get the "young adult" title about a transgendered werewolf 12 year old who murders her/his step mother because she turned down oral sex. It won't happen--i.e., it won't be removed from the shelf. But it might make the list!

Banned Books Week doesn't roll around until the fall, but stay alert. I'm sure they will have resurrected OBL by then, and the U.S. will be the worst of the worst for taking out this murderer, not just of Americans, but of thousands of Muslims also.

Of course, not buying Christian or Conservative titles is definitely NOT BANNING. I've been told that, too. It just means not many people want to read them. Just remember this tip. Banning begins with the book budget, not with your complaints.

No brainer Book Talk

Glancing through the paper copy of OnCampus yesterday I came across "Book Talk," an interview of Tanya Erzen, author of "Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement," which received the 2008 Gustave Arlt award from the Council of Graduate Schools. Despite the intriguing title, there was no doubt in my mind that this wasn't an evangelical Christian book about gays finding freedom in the love of Christ. It would be highly unlikely that such an author could make her way through the arduous promotion and tenure process, or even get hired in a Department of Comparative Studies (religion, folklore, ethnography) at a major university if she were a conservative Christian with historic, traditional views on marriage or even a liberal Christian with traditional views like I was for 35 years.

But if I'd had any doubt, Prof. Erzen, who says she doesn't believe in censorship or banning books, said:

What book would you most want your kids to read? What would you want them NOT to read?Since my daughter already likes Dr. Seuss, she’s off to a good start, and I have books by Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury and Madeleine L’Engle waiting for her. I hope she’ll read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States when she is older. I wouldn’t mind if she never wanted to read The Purpose Driven Life or the Left Behind series.

Lots of conservative Christians don't recommend Rick Warren's book because of its lack of a straightforward message about sin and forgiveness, but I suspect she dislikes his traditional capitalism and marriage views. No tender, inquiring mind will be damaged by reading its happy, sweet message of comfort. I'm not into dispensational theology either, or any Christian fiction for that matter, but Left Behind is no more fanciful than Bradbury.

Banned Books Week

BBW is over for another year (wasn't that the name of a magazine for large women?). Banned books goes on all year at my library because banning begins at selection by the staff, not complaints from the patron. Today, I picked up a magazine, AudioFile June July 2007. Glancing through it, I noticed it had a religious section, so I decided to see if my public library had any of the religious audiobooks reviewed in the issue. The first one I tried was a James Dobson, Focus on the Family issue. Didn't surprise me that they didn't have it. Even though his company produces top-notch audio and video, he is politically a conservative--an anathema at this tax supported, public library**. So I read the review of R.C. Sproul's audio book The Holiness of God read by Grover Gardner (6.5 hours, unabridged). Reviewer noted that the print version published 20 years ago had become a standard work, and that the audio did justice "to a deep work on a subject often taken for granted."

I bring up the catalog again (which doesn't work well and is an aggravation) and punch in "Sproul, R.C." One item--a contribution to a King James Bible version. A search of Amazon.com brings up over 200 titles, because Sproul, a Presbyterian, is extremely prolific (note: his son uses "R.C. Sproul, Jr," although they don't have the same name). Although he focuses on theological themes, he has also written for children and youth, and I think has tried his hand at fiction. He has written books on home schooling, cultural issues, biography, Bible studies, The Westminster Confession, marriage, apologetics, the reformation, death, and the life of Jesus. He is a well known as a Christian author, teacher and speaker. There are a few duplicates on the Amazon listing--some titles are published both in Spanish and English; several have audio; some are both paperback and hard cover.

However, I counted 46 distinct titles with publication dates between 2000 and 2008 (it's possible some could be his son's--hard to tell). Forty-six titles in eight years, and Upper Arlington Public Library couldn't find a spot on the shelf or in the budget for even one! Richard Dawkins, the non-religious bigot who sees religion as a human construct and the source of much evil in the world is much more acceptable at UAPL. His Blind watchmaker has 3 copies; The God delusion has 7 print copies and one audio.

And this, dear readers, is what I call banned books.
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** If you check the UAPL catalog by publisher, you will find Focus on the Family, all from the early to mid-1990s--the library staff was a bit less "focused" and rigid in those days.

1033 Blogging about Libraries, Librarians, Books and Readers

Here is a collection of my blog entries that concern libraries, librarians, and books/literature. Sometimes I wander and wonder, but I eventually get to the point. I will add more as I come across them.

Bossy Librarians

How many Lutherans?

Banned Books Week

Anti-Bush books at UAPL

Time to think about privatization?

Librarians and nurses

WSJ includes 2 articles on libraries and I comment

What's on the library shelves

American Archives

Women's Building at the Chicago Columbian Exposition, 1893

Cybils award for children's literature

Damage from photocopying

Oregon Illinois Public Library

Department of Athletics donates to library renovation

Social Capital in Librarianship

Samuel Hodesson and the Vet Library

Gay Book Burners

Dude! What have you done with my library?

Walt and Meredith Survey Librarian Bloggers

Laura Bush

1991 White House Conference on Library and Information Science

Dear Donna Sapolin [inquire at your local library]

Acknowledgements to librarians

The Hungarian

If there were no ALA

Libraries aren't for everyone

Fecal count

On reading

Biased Book Reviewers

When work is no fun--Andy Geiger

Viruses in the library

Hunter Thompson

Harold Bloom

The Real Nancy Drew Author

William T. Coggeshall and Abraham Lincoln

Got Game?

Calico Cat

Library Cats

Librarians, Left and Right

Library snacking

What do librarians do?

Why I became a Librarian

Who has more fun than a librarian?

Myths about librarians

Top library job goes to non-librarian

The Librarian's Job--a poem

What is your librarian buying?

Shush

My Life imitates the Internet

Digging deep, piling high

Librarians wonder about this

Mt. Morris Public Library

How to Run a Bookclub

Two librarians recall childhoods with books

Ag Econ Bibliographer

Stop Setting Goals

How to donate books to your library

Are you prepared for retirement?

Tribute to a Mentor

If I were the library director
Part 1;
Part 2;
Part 3;
Part 4;
Part 5

Librarians as babysitters

My bio: I began my library career in high school working at the Mt. Morris, Illinois Public Library, continued at Manchester College and the University of Illinois as an undergrad student employee. Sometimes tragedy points you in the right direction, and after the deaths of my two oldest children I returned to graduate school and got an MLS from the University of Illinois and worked in Slavic Studies there. I worked briefly as a Slavic cataloger at Ohio State University and then stopped working to raise my children.

I returned to professional work in the late 1970s with part time and temporary contracts in a variety of subject fields at The Ohio State University Libraries including agriculture, user education and Latin American Studies. This allowed me always to be home when my children were there. In 1986 I settled into a wonderful tenure track position in the Veterinary Medicine Library, retiring as Associate Professor in 2000. My career included publishing, attending professional meetings, teaching, lots of one-on-one contact with the patrons and students and planning a new library which opened after I retired. For the last 11 years I've been the "staff" for my architect husband of 45 years. One of his designs will be appearing in a book later this year (2005).

My motto is you can have it all--but not all at the same time. I loved being a full-time, stay-at-home Mom, I loved being an academic librarian, and I really, really love being retired with time to write and paint and read and, of course, take naps.