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45 responses to “No Comment Needed”
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From what libraries and/or book stores has this man banned these books?
Also, is there a better picture available, or a list of the books? I can’t see all of titles in that photo.
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I think that’s the point… not to be able to see those books.
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I’d like to know the other titles so that I can make sure I have read at least 50% of the books. Right now I can identify with certainty only five that I have read.
EDIT: I found a more clear photo of the books on the shelf (but there are still several whose titles I simply cannot make out). I have read at least 10 of them:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
Lord of the Flies
Maus I
Maus II
The Bible (well, most of it)
The Koran (well, most of it)
Harry Potter
Diary of Anne Frank
And Tango Makes ThreeBased on the binding, the Elie Wiesel title looks like a Hill & Wang paperback edition of “Night”. If I’m right that would make eleven confirmed.
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I get it now! Those are the classics on the shelf. Yeah, Treasure Island. Great for the kiddies. A little backstabbing. A little hanging. And a clean thru-and-thru in the brainpan.
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Call Del. Simon at 804-698-1053 for info.
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I’ll probably be up there on Monday. If I am, I’ll drop by & check it out in person.
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Great! In the meantime, perhaps you would share your age appropriate ratings on the 11 books you’ve read.
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In order:
Middle School
Middle
Middle
Middle
Middle
at Home
at Home
Elementary School
Middle
ElementaryMiddle
Please remember that I am rating only the levels at which I think our public schools should make these titles available to students. I strongly encourage parents to allow their children to read whatever books and other media they think are appropriate for each child.
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Presumably, you would have no objections to books banned by private or parochial schools. Ought parents review the Kindle downloads by their children? What voice, if any, should be accorded to the wish of a child to read a book not approved by parents?
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“Presumably, you would have no objections to books banned by private or parochial schools. Ought parents review the Kindle downloads by their children? What voice, if any, should be accorded to the wish of a child to read a book not approved by parents?”
Turn 18 and purchase their own kindle and pay for their own download.
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I have objections to books being banned at all. But, a school deciding that a particular book is not appropriate for its library is not the same as banning it. Neither is deciding not to assign a particular book for students to read. Telling students they are forbidden to read a particular book at all is effectively banning it (at the school).
Parents should have the ultimate say in what their children read. That is unfortunate for some children, but unless you want the state to take school-aged children away from their parents to be “educated” away from home , there is no better way for things to be.
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“But, a school deciding that a particular book is not appropriate for its library is not the same as banning it.”
Even more so when it follows a process to determine if it’s not appropriate for their library.
I remember reading Flowers for Algernon in the 7th grade. In my opinion that was the proper age to understand the text.
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Finally we agree that the term “ban” seems misused. Or even black-listing by Amazon. Bans by parents in the home appears to be acceptable – ultimately. No suggestion was offered that the state remove children from the home to be educated.
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“What voice, if any, should be accorded to the wish of a child to read a book not approved by parents?”
If a child really wants to read something, they can normally do so. It’s not the place of schools to encourage or facilitate materials that are opposed by the parents.
A lot is just common courtesy in my opinion. When my children brought friends over, we always tried to make them feel at home. For example, we’re Christians, but when Muslims neighbors came over, we were respectful of their views.
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“ The Bible (well, most of it)”
Just the good parts. Shades of Clockwork Orange.
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I’m not quite that evil…
😉
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He wasn’t so much evil as simply violent. I think the point of the story was that by stripping our droogie leader of his ability to be violent the Liberals created more of a problem.
It was not a Liberal movie.
HA! Right in front of his office… and they say politicians have no sense of humor nowadays…
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Upon further study, I think the guy is actually against banning the books. I don’t understand his point, though, because none of the books have been banned in Virginia.
Of course, under my definition, assuring that our public school systems are providing age-appropriate reading material to elementary and middle school students is not the same thing as banning books. Others’ definitions may differ.
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A VA Beach judge recently rejected a claim by a Delegate to find two books obscene. However, a number of school boards and libraries have “pulled” books from circulation following parental complaints.
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Of Mice and Men in a why I became a special educator.
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Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors.
The one book title I can clearly read is, “Of Mice and Men”. That book, when it is banned, is banned based on racial slurs and the treatment of women. In other words, it is banned by the same “woke” crowd who ban “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or various works by Dr. Seuss.
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Yep. It was required in some HS class of mine, and when I’d read pretty much all of the rest of Steinbeck’s work, I decided it would not be the one I’d peddle to school kids. Go for the hard core socialism, In Dubious Battle or Grapes of Wrath!
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You might wish to review the history of bans regarding this novel. There were challenges in the 1950s long before woke crowds became current.
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Or I might not give a flying fig, which would be the case. Once the schools are actually TEACHING kids to read, we can argue over what. Sad that your team thinks only the books they get in school matter….me, if something seemed verboten, I went and found it!
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Waaaayy ahead of you. Or at least equal.
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It wasn’t banned because of sexual content or other typically conservative issues. That’s my point.
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Several actions to remove the novel as required curricular material arose in CA following parental complaints. Whether those parents were woke is conjecture.
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To Kill a Mockingbird is in that category.
It is behind Of Mice and Men on the top shelf. I recognize the cover because it has essentially the same art as the dust jacket on the First Edition hardcover.
It would be nice to see a list of the specific people/groups which are attempting to ban each title.
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You’ll find that one school system or even one school was sufficient to be on that shelf, even if 99.5% of the others used a book regularly.
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You nailed it. The display represents facets of censorship not an enumeration of the universe of those actions. It’s symbolic. Kinda the point many times in reading books.
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Here’s one from Michigan:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/conservative-outrage-library_n_63bf1c46e4b0ae9de1c41ba6
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Yep. It was required in some HS class of mine, and when I’d read pretty much all of the rest of Steinbeck’s work, I decided it would not be the one I’d peddle to school kids. Go for the hard core socialism, In Dubious Battle or Grapes of Wrath!
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Yes!! Ban political ideologies hidden in fiction. Nefarious and insidious stuff.
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Just noticed this item suggesting book bans attract equal opportunity censors from both ends of the ideological spectrum:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/conservative-outrage-library_n_63bf1c46e4b0ae9de1c41ba6
There’s a difference between a book not being appropriate for children vs. trying to keep it from the public at large.
The left is actively banning books they don’t like from the general public. For example, Amazon is removing books from sale that it believes we should not read.
When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment
I’ve not read it, so I can’t speak to the contents, but you won’t find it on Amazon.
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Assumedly, Amazon is part of the “left.” Its decision to remove the book from its sales was based upon Amazon’s opinion that the book characterized transgender as a mental illness. Amazon’s removal of the book is no more a ban than those actions of VA school boards and libraries removing books from circulation.
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1) The book does not characterize transgender as a metal illness. The author simply noted in his book that gender dysphoria is listed in the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
2) Amazon sells APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
3) There is a big difference between the largest retailer in the world ‘deciding’ not to sell, in effect ‘black-listing’, a particular book, and a public school system deciding a particular book is not appropriate for its students.
4) Removing a book from a school library does not affect anyone’s ability to obtain that book. Having the largest retailer in the world refuse to sell a book does affect someone’s ability to obtain it.
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See archive.org …
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That’s an opinion to argue with Amazon. If folks are like Haner, they will find the book. BTW, “black-listing” is a tool redolent of the Red Under Bed(bugs) of the 1950s, not lefties or progressives. In addition, in the current marketplace, Amazon’s decision can hardly be characterized as black-listing. The sole difference is market size.
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Speaking of censorship.
The White House Covid Censorship Machine
“Newly released emails show how officials coerce social-media companies to toe the government line.”
“The Flaherty emails demonstrate that the federal government unlawfully coerced the companies in an effort to ensure that Americans would be exposed only to state-approved information about Covid-19. As a result of that unconstitutional state action, Americans were given the false impression of a scientific “consensus” on critically important issues around Covid-19. A reckoning for the government’s unlawful, deceptive and dangerous conduct is under way in court.”
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Perhaps I’m not interpreting the email exchange presented in the WSJ piece between the WH and Facebook accurately. They seem to reflect a debate rather than a “censorship machine.”
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When a Government entity is in regular contact with a social media company (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc) and telling them to ban specific speech (under the auspices of threat) . That social media company is now an Agent of the Government and they are subject to 1st Amendment Violations.
https://www.city-journal.org/did-the-government-pressure-twitter-to-curtail-speech
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