Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Psst! Where Is The Library?

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by

Dick Hall-Sizemore
in , ,

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

I have been wondering about the possible effectiveness of Del. Tim Anderson’s bill trying to give parents control over their kids’ access to material in the school library that contain graphic sexual material (HB 1379).  Therefore, this weekend I asked my 16-year-old grandson, who is attending public school for the first him Johnny) restricted Johnny’s access to a book in the library. His answers surprised me:

1. Not many kids in his school use the school library.

2.  The security in the library is so lax that Johnny could walk out of the library with the book in his backpack without school officials knowing it.

What I had expected him to say, and what I expect would commonly be the case, would be that Johnny would ask one of his friends, including possibly my grandson, whose parents had not put any restrictions on their access to books, to check the book out for him.  Lacking that option, Johnny could go to the library during a study period and look at, or read, the book without checking it out.

This is not a bill offering a solution to a problem.  It is a bill designed to score political points while giving false comfort to those parents who do not feel they know and can trust their kids.

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37 responses to “Psst! Where Is The Library?”

  1. Kathleen Smith Avatar
    Kathleen Smith

    If there is a will, there is a way. Let’s not forget about Kindle or a bookstore. The more a book is banned in school or by parents, the more profit for the publishers as more banned books will be sold.

  2. Scott McPhail Avatar
    Scott McPhail

    “This is not a bill offering a solution to a problem. It is a bill designed to score political points while giving false comfort to those parents who do not feel they know and can trust their kids.”

    Ah, the old, “there-is-a-way-someone-can-circumvent-the-law-so-there-is-no-reason-to-have-a-law,” excuse . . .

  3. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Thirty-three years ago, on a whim, the spousal unit and I spent Xmas at Peaks of Otter. The lodge used to be open in those days in the season.

    On the way home, she wanted to buy a book as a gift for a friend so we drove around Bedford looking for a bookstore.

    After an hour, including a stop at the mall on the west of town, we stopped at the local newspaper office where I asked of the woman behind the counter where we could find a bookstore.

    “The only bookstore is the Christian one on Rte. 122.”

    FWIW, she was embarrassed.

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Of course, they have a lot to be embarrassed over in that place…
      https://newsadvance.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/treatment-of-recent-bedford-county-library-display-prompts-comments-to-supervisors/article_444f5a1e-02c1-11ed-b1f1-5f514f0edb29.html

      Oh, and in Florida, don’t say Black either.

      1. Paul Sweet Avatar
        Paul Sweet

        I live in Bedford now, and this doesn’t embarrass me.

        Most people resent being forced to celebrate something they think is disgusting. If we’re going to celebrate perversions we might as well give equal time to straight people and have an Adultery Pride month, although there probably wouldn’t be space for a special display of all the books featuring adultery.

        I don’t have a problem with bookstores or libraries having books which have episodes of gay or straight sex, as long as it is incidental to the story and isn’t downright pornographic. I just don’t want them in my face when I walk into a bookstore or library.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          Oh. Did they drag you into the street and force you to join the parade?

          Or, are you developing an understanding for why some people don’t like Confederate monuments on the public square?

  4. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Thirty-three years ago, on a whim, the spousal unit and I spent Xmas at Peaks of Otter. The lodge used to be open in those days in the season.

    On the way home, she wanted to buy a book as a gift for a friend so we drove around Bedford looking for a bookstore.

    After an hour, including a stop at the mall on the west of town, we stopped at the local newspaper office where I asked of the woman behind the counter where we could find a bookstore.

    “The only bookstore is the Christian one on Rte. 122.”

    FWIW, she was embarrassed.

  5. walter smith Avatar
    walter smith

    Ok…so what is the value of having smut in the school library? Sure they could get it somewhere if they wanted to. Why should taxpayers fund it? Why should we make perversion easier?

    1. Rosie Avatar
      Rosie

      A lot of it isn’t smut and just a cover for culture warriors to ban any lgbt content they don’t want in the library. A sex scene or frank discussion of sex does not make something smut.

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        “A sex scene or frank discussion of sex does not make something smut.”

        Not in the rest of the world, but in America?

        1. Stephen Haner Avatar
          Stephen Haner

          In much of the rest of the world purveyors of this stuff would be executed. Not every place is your favorite street in Amsterdam.

          1. Rosie Avatar
            Rosie

            My father said you never get far comparing yourself to people with lower standards. Maybe the social conservatives should stop patting themselves on the back for not being the Taliban?

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Do you mean 3rd world countries or developed countries or both?

          3. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            My, my, ain’t we civilized.

    2. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Guns are legal. Let’s fund firearms for students. Beer is legal. Let the school cafeterias start offering free or subsidized beer at lunch.

      Liberalism is a mental disorder

      1. James McCarthy Avatar
        James McCarthy

        Sounds like libertarianism, not liberalism. Perfectly logical progression from woke conservatism.

  6. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    Agreed. Conservative virtue signaling. I never took a class to the library my last ten years of teaching (2010-20). There was no way I would lose an entire 90 minute block to research in the library. I had to teach US history from Pre Columbian Indians to Obama. Research was not on the SOL test or the AP exam. So why waste time at the library? I will say the library was jam packed every morning. Hundreds of kids. It was the place where the smart kids would go to copy each other’s homework prior to school starting.

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Libraries are worthless in the modern world. Public libraries need to be bulldozed, the librarians fired, the land sold and the proceeds refunded to taxpayers.

      If a community needs a community center, use the local elementary school.

      Libraries are just another mindless expense of a runaway government.

  7. Not Today Avatar
    Not Today

    My youngest is a bibliophile. He goes to the bookstore for fun. There is a devoted group of students at his HS who use the library regularly, especially during lunch, but not to read. They do homework and enjoy the calm. Our public library card (you can sign up online, from a phone) offers free access to digital books on a phone, school-issued chromebook, or home computer. The school’s library/media center is very small and limited. Why do you need massive security inside an already secure facility designed to facilitate the dissemination of information? You don’t. You just need geriatric adults to stop being stupid about wasting time and money trying.

    1. Not Today Avatar
      Not Today

      LOL. I’m not sure what’s funnier or more tragic…that the recitation of a current high school student’s experience is downvoted or the belief that prohibition will keep books out of the hands of seekers/readers.

  8. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Chongqing-Zhongshuge-Bookstore.jpg

    A book store.

    1. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      What’s the pic? It looks almost Escher derived, but it’s not his work.

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        It’s a real book store. Chongquin bookstore. Some civilizations will survive us.

        Some civilizations respect books if not the content. We do neither.

        https://www.archdaily.com/914223/chongqing-zhongshuge-bookstore-x-plus-living

    2. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      Wow. If only I had the extra space…

  9. Turbocohen Avatar
    Turbocohen

    Chairman Scott Pio speaking about the sexual pornographic books in Loudoun County Public Schools and why his daughter will no longer be a part of the Democrats war on parental rights. https://www.facebook.com/LoudounGOP/videos/1127274244626005

  10. walter smith Avatar
    walter smith

    This is the “summary” of the bill.
    Public elementary and secondary school libraries; catalog of printed and audiovisual materials; graphic sexual content; parental opt out and request for review. Requires the principal of each public elementary or secondary school or his designee to (i) maintain in an electronic spreadsheet or a substantially similar electronic format a catalog of all printed and audiovisual materials, as defined in the bill, that are contained in the school library; (ii) identify each item in such catalog by title, author, and such other identifying features or information as the principal or his designee deems appropriate; (iii) identify with a prominent notation in such catalog each item that contains graphic sexual content, as defined in the bill; (iv) make such catalog available to any parent of a student enrolled in the school; (v) permit any parent of a student enrolled in the school to restrict his child’s access to any item in such catalog that is identified as containing graphic sexual content; and (vi) permit any parent of a student enrolled in the school to request a graphic sexual content notation for any item in such catalog that is not so identified.

    I don’t think it goes far enough. It basically says keep the smut but make it easy for a parent to find out there is smut and THEN, put extra burden on the library to restrict the smut from the kid, who could then get it from a friend who is not restricted.

    I have a far better idea. Why not have no smut in a school library?

    Seriously, what is the reason to have this in a school? Other than grooming? Other than encouraging behavior that is not a social good? Define the social good in encouraging homosexuality and transgender body mutilation and medical experimentation. This is common sense level crazy to all “normies.”

    If you want to pursue your own fetishes, do it with your own money.

    Meanwhile, Lefties love to block books like To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. You are crazy.

  11. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
    f/k/a_tmtfairfax

    How about books that provide information for obtaining parts and assembling them into firearms? No need for parental consent? Indeed, I suspect some on BR would say “ban the book.”

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      if that same info is available via the library computers, what would you do? Ban it on the computers also?

      1. walter smith Avatar
        walter smith

        No, Larry. That is what your side does when anybody has questions about funny anomalies during elections or when mandated Covid policy is illegal, immoral and ineffective…also with government dollars. Save our Democracy (from the plebes learning the truth)!

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          funny anomalies = conspiracy theories?

          1. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            No Larry. That doesn’t work anymore. I’m being kind. Systematized cheating. How’s that? Why did Mark Elias and the cheating lawyers file lawsuits to stop people from watching dropboxes? How come the State Bars don’t try to disbar them? Signature verification? Voter ID? Voter rolls? “Ballots” mailed out like Willy Wonka Golden Tickets? Then mysterious 90% participation in certain precincts…coinciding with Zuckerberg money… All just crazy coincidences and shut up for using your eyes and common sense!
            Hey, did you know 81 million Joe (8 million more than Barack, proving how racist Dems are) renewed the Covid emergency again, and is appealing to mask us on planes again? So, big reveal time, are you a member of the nomenklatura or a mere useful idiot?
            Everything anybody says from the Left is a lie. (Why you have to control speech)

      2. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
        f/k/a_tmtfairfax

        Larry, before we move to the Internet, which is a reasonable next topic, please just answer my question. What about access to a public school library book that provides information about how to obtain parts for a firearm and how to assemble them into a working weapon? Consider high school, middle school or elementary school if those distinctions are material to your answer.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          I don’t know the answer. There are a LOT of issues like, for instance, poisons and booby traps, etc. Do you think the administrators reach each book super close to ferret out that stuff? If they do ban a book,
          how does a kid / parent know that they have and for what reason and thus not know until they request it or go look for it at a public library if the school said they did not have it and could not supply it? If you think teachers are overworked, you should see librarians. Overworked and underpaid !

      3. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
        f/k/a_tmtfairfax

        Here for discussion purposes is a link to FCPS’ Internet Content Filtering policies. Note the requirement to follow two federal statutes: 1) Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA); and 2) Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). I would expect that FCPS would block school Internet access to any website that provided information about how to obtain parts for a firearm and how to assemble them into a working weapon.

        What kids do at home or on their phones is an issue for parents. But even if a family would allow such access outside school, it’s very unlikely that FCPS would allow in-school access. Do you agree?

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          Sorry, I am not receiving all notifications of comments… so I find them here later on. I know the
          schools DO filter the computers at school. Not sure how/if they filter chromebooks used on external networks since the firewall is not typically on the chromebook itself. If you’ve ever been involved in
          trying to “filter” stuff, you’ll know how not easy it is and I suspect it’s not hard to learn about the gun stuff with work-arounds but I WILL agree that the schools DO “censor” onsite internet access, to what degree on what subjects, I do not know.

  12. Turbocohen Avatar
    Turbocohen

    So let me get this straight, no pun intended. Democrats like some of you support allowing books written to groom kids for sex with adults to remain in libraries. Got it.

    Are efforts to limit access to, not remove mind you, the porn Democrats defend placing and leaving in public school libraries is a Republican Kristallnacht? Mmkay, got that too.

    1. Rosie Avatar
      Rosie

      They are not written to groom kids.

      They are not pornography.

      Other than that I guess you got it right!

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