Laura Murphy wants people to know that she is no book burner . . . just a book banner. The Fairfax County mother of four has been campaigning to ban the Pulitzer-prize-winning American novel “Beloved” from the school system due to its depictions of bestiality, rape, and murder. She says that her teenage son read the book as a senior in his Advanced Placement English class and was traumatized with nightmares as a result. Now she wants to ban the book for any child to read.
“Beloved” depicts the harrowing life of a mother who killed her child to protect it from a life in bondage. In receiving the Pulitzer prize, the citation says that Toni Morrison wrote “novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, giv[ing] life to an essential aspect of American reality.” That however is a bit too much reality for Murphy. She has campaigned for six months to ban the book and school board members are now reading the book as part of the long appellate process.
The fact that this book is being read by seniors in advanced placement English is a particularly important fact. Murphy’s son is one year from college and being sent into the world as an adult. He wanted to take advanced English which deals with a higher level of reading and reading material. Even if his mom succeeds in banning this book, he will face the same nightmares in college where such books are common.
I respect Murphy’s commitment to her child and her work as a member on school committees. However, her protection of her son from these forms of literature does not serve his interests any more than banning it for others. These books can shock and disturb students. However, they also challenge their preconceptions and expose them to extraordinary writing. Indeed, it is Morrison’s passion and skills as a writer that produces such intense responses.
Murphy insists that “I’m not some crazy book burner.” No, she would be a book banner who (for students and teachers wanting to read this book in school) is like a book burner without the fire.
Source: Washington Post
I imagine some folk dont do well when they realize what slavery did to and does to a human being.
I guess some people think “out of site, out of mind.”
They seem to have banned the U.S. Constituion, so why not dirty books?
The DC area seems filled with “pearl clutching” parents who won’t let their children grow-up or do things that aren’t heavily micromanaged. I’ve taught the result of this and it’s not pretty. I’m assuming this isn’t required reading and even if was someone could browse through it and then ask to opt-out and read something else on a related topic. DC area schools are used to assertive parents.
The banning of books to “protect” children has been a recurring theme since this country began and is prevalent in many other countries. In my lifetime some of the greatest works in 20th Century literature were “banned” because of their content, usually sexual. James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller were some of the great writers banned from having their books even published in this country until the late 50′s. This doesn’t even take into account the “chilling effect” this mindset had on other writers whose editors “toned down” their manuscripts to avoid “banning”. Banning is book burning whether this woman realizes it or not. Part of the process of maturation is running across material that shocks ones sensibilities. Those parents that take such care in “protecting” their children do them no service.
They better burn that bible that they consider so sacred…… I hear tel thar rape, incest and murder in there tooooo…
The news about 20 first-graders being gunned down by a lunatic gives me nightmares. A work of fiction, not so much. I’m going with the “opt-out” option. If the pearl-clutching, helicopter mom wants to “protect” her son from such gritty fiction, who am I to stop her? But I deeply resent her desire to keep MY teen from good fiction. On the other hand, my daughter’s class is reading Atlas Shrugged. If they can read it without falling asleep, they’ll be able to analyze a sententious rant when they encounter it in the future. It’s not particularly good fiction, but it IS a player in today’s culture wars. If the kids learn analytical reading, they’re the richer for it.
BTW–a legislator in Idaho’s statehouse wants to make Atlas Shrugged REQUIRED for every student in the Idaho public schools. Now, THAT gives me nightmares.
it’s even worse, according to the article her son is now in college, so she is continuing this ridiculous stunt to “protect” other students.
What was it that worried this mother? Was she afraid her son would realize that bondage and slavery is worse than death? Was she afraid that he son would hear that slaves weren’t better off under slavery than they would have been free? What part of the realty of Slavery did she feel her son needed to be protected from? Does she allow him to go to the movies? There so much violence that is worthless and gratuitous but she focuses on this book. I feel very sorry for her son. If she could shed burn it. I am tired to this type of person being able to drive the conversation and sometimes the policies of “education”.
I have to disagree with a sweeping statement that a policy decision that a certain book won’t be part of the school classroom curriculum is the same as banning it, and the implication that a parent requesting that the school review whether a particular book should be used as part of the classroom curriculum is an attempt to ban the book. I have ready many books which I would not consider to be an appropriate addition to a classroom curriculum, and some I would consider worth fighting to have removed from the curriculum if they were included. On the other hand, the idea that a good book should be eliminated from the high school curriculum because it is disturbing seems to fly in the face of what a literature course should be. The fact that the mother believes her senior in high school should not be exposed to disturbing literature is another reason to fear for the future.
If she is on the Christian right-wing, I wouldn’t be surprised.
When I was a freshman in high school, I had to get parental permission to read “Catcher in the Rye” which was exceedingly “controversial” at the time because, of all things, Holden sees the word “f*ck” on a wall and is concerned his little sister would see and not understand what it meant and its implications. Starting young, I read the so-called “banned in Boston” books which later became literary treasures. Rather than being stunted or traumatized by them, I found I was embracing a broader perspective on people and the world for which I am eternally grateful. We all need to be shaken out of our cozy constricted belief boxes. That to me is the whole purpose of education and great writing. So if Laura Murphy wanted to “protect” her son from the realities of life as found in books, that was fine with me. BUT her crusade to “protect” others is censorship. Let others decide for themselves whether to read or not to read! If they choose not to, that’s their loss.
This story smells fishy. There is no way that a high school senior would have nightmares from reading this book. If this would give him nightmares, then he has other more pressing issues to deal with.
The crazies are out in force again.
Some of the crap that the education system foist upon the students is amazing. But then again, one mans trash is another mans treasure. I’ll take the Bible over Nickled and Dimed any day.
rafflaw:
I live in Fairfax, some of the parents here are really kooky. Very competitive and many are evangelical Christians who havent met a probe they dont like or a book they do like [unless it is the book of books, the tome of the tomb, the..., well you get my point].
In Fairfax everyone is someone even if they arent. So I can well believe the story, as I used to see it all around me on a daily basis when I had children in public shool [which by the way are pretty darn good].
The story about a slave woman killing her young children rather than having them grow in slavery is true. Margaret Garner was a runaway facing capture and a return to slavery. She killed one child and planned to kill her 3 other children. Did she kill them to keep them from slavery? or did she kill them to deprive her “owner” of his “property” since it seemed apparent that the children were the result of her by Gaines, her “owner”. She subject to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and returned to Gaines who sold her to a plantation far away from her husband. She was never tried for the killing of her child.
You can read more here: http://www.margaretgarner.org/MargaretGarnerBrief.pdf
Toni Morrison is a powerful writer and her books should be read, not “burned”. Perhaps the woman who is pressing this has a problem herself in learning the lessons of slavery and what it does to people.
A few words left out….. Margaret was raped by her “owner”, Gaines. Her children were his “property” and his progeny.
blhlls has hit the nail on the head.
Rafflaw hit the nail on the head. And Betty Kath was nudging at it.
That this young man was disturbed to the point of nightmares could be an indication of several causes (there we are again).
One, that he has experienced his life as one of violation and bondage simiilar to that the book portrays.
Two….that he has been over protected.
Three–that it shows a vision of life that horrifies or deeply depressies him.
Myself at age 14 experienced a lecture for the whole high school by a visiting physics professor with loud sound effects.
What depressed me profoundly was his revelation that the second law of thermodynamics says the clock of the universe will run down sometime in the future. That there are more proximate dangers, like the consumption of earth when the sun becomes a red giant, I did not know
Life seemed meaningless to me.
What name do we give the phenomenon that this mom represents, assuming it is nationwide?
Re Toni Morrison and others.
“Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford;[1] February 18, 1931) is an American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon and Beloved. She also was commissioned to write the libretto for a new opera, Margaret Garner, first performed in 2005. She won the Nobel Prize in 1993 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for Beloved. On 29 May 2012, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.” Wikipedia Toni Morrison.
Let us not fail to praise a little French book publisher who saved some of these treasures for a more mature world and the edification of those prepared to read them then.
And also Anais Ninn, whose works I can not describe, but who was certainly one of those defending women’s sexual rights, long before the pill and Women’s Lib.
Betty Kath,
I will repeat your link after reading it. It hurt in my belly to read it. Perhaps we can begin with this link and proceed to “Beloved”. There is neither here in the link or the book, nor in reality any happy endings to the consequences of slavery in America. It would not have been Pulitzer Prize material otherwise.
http://www.margaretgarner.org/MargaretGarnerBrief.pdf
I think we can draw the distinction between banning books and simply not making this a required book for high school reading. It is beyond racy and not suitable for every kid about to enter college. That said, it seems we could make it available to older teenagers and parents who want to read it without forcing them to do it. I’m not a fan of the book since it seems more heat than light to me, but here’s a possibly arguably objectionable excerpt for your consideration :
Sethe was thirteen when she came to Sweet Home …The five Sweet Home men looked at the new girl and decided to let her be. They were young and so sick with the absence of women they had taken to calves. Yet they let [Sethe] go, so she could choose in spite of the fact that each one would have beaten the others to mush to have her … It took her a year to choose — a long, tough year … eaten up with dreams of her. A year of yearning, when rape seemed the solitary gift of life. The restraint they had exercised possible only because they were Sweet Home men — the ones bragged about while other farmers shook their heads in warning at the phrase.
“And so they were: Paul D., Paul F., Paul A., Halle Suggs, and Sixo, the wild man. All in their twenties, minus women, f*cking cows, dreaming of rape, … rubbing their thighs and waiting for the new girl … She waited a year. And the Sweet Home men abused cows while they waited for her.”
Not exactly Rebecca of Sunny Brook farm stuff.
It is the low of the day there. I will make this post and depart.
To all Americans, not pompously meant but as a loving gesture from me.
Now black men are still threats to the white man’s virility or lack thereof, as the white man experiences it. So, how otherwise explain their disappearance in our system of social entrapment and rapid disappearance in our incarceration for profit system. Terms like “lazy drug-ridden morally degenerate good for nothing—black man will not do. All the black men were castrated once upon a time, not physically but literally in being denied the chance of fatherhood in its fullest expression..
And we wonder at their PTSD that is renewed at every opportunity here in America, home of the free, but also home of cowardly white men.
Amazing, the loss that America made in their souls in allowing the first slave to be brought her at 3/8th of a human value. My African contacts are delighted to meet someone, even in Sweden, who sees them as a person bearing a worthy heritage. Of course, it’s availability can be discussed. They were all living in what were recently cruelly persecuted colonies at one time and the descendants bear that burden vv the white world. Enslavement in your native country, how cruel is that. And the Belgians were worst, followed by the Portuguese. Nuf said.
(Let us not forget the IMF and World Bank and the rapacious greed that we attack the continent again in these very days.)
Thanks for the loan of the platform. I hope that the Professor’s expectations of ROE are met in part at least.
=============
I write in this manner because I would feel the pain excruciatingly and perhaps unbecomingly if I used my heart’s words.
Keeping it at arms length is necessary, when I face the terrible news of each passing day. Today, besides the news, I was asked, as my sympathy and world knowledge was evident, by a Syrian Christian (30%) immigrant what I thought ot the situation in Syria. I don’t know, which is true, I replied; but I was more interested in his views. When did you last speak openheartedly with an immigrant to USA?
Thanks to GeneH for helping me reach that insight. But he did not intend that, but I do listen carefully to what he abuses me with. As usual there is some truth in what he says.
“Pompous, hot air bag”, he called me.. Perhaps this declaration will help you all understand and perhaps me as well.
I cannot cry as some here can, but I bleed, just as Shylock of the “Merchant of Venice” did..
Mesopo,
Maybe it strikes to close to home and they try and keep some family history in the attic…. So to speak…..
The book she wants to ban has a sexual activity mentioned in it.. There are murder novels no one complains about. Why get up in arms about a sexual activity. That is beyond stupid. That book unashamedly talks about life as it is. That offends the devil. Innocent honesty enrages the d4vil. That is who is speaking through the person wanting to ban that book. Don’t ban it. Spit into the face of Satan.
Mark,
Were slave men like this during slavery? I would only presume to offer Betty Kath’s link which provides a little of the truth of Margeret Garner’s life.. Morrison’s book was certainly conceived to awaken some sleeping souls, black or white.
Tastes do differ, but how to get people to read it and get the message, it is often necessary to use, as in this case, the realities of life. Including bestiality, rape and restraint of a peculiar kind not often witnessed today.
I seldom like Nobel Litterature Prize takers books. Perhaps because I don’t understand them. Can this be the case here in your appreciation of the work? Just asking, not snarking. I don’t snark, but I do speak directly.
For myself, I am only speculating as I have not read it. But it was with pleasure I saw a black American woman receive the prize here in Stockholm.
I would recommend it to any pre-college, but perhaps not as first exposure to reality. A child springs with short legs, and an immature mind sees the world within its grasp. Impaired by the glitz and glam of today. JC, himself, help us!!!.
The book she wants to ban has a sexual activity mentioned in it.. There are murder novels no one complains about. Why get up in arms about a sexual activity. That is beyond stupid. That book unashamedly talks about life as it is. That offends the devil. Innocent honesty enrages the devil. That is who is speaking through the person wanting to ban that book. Don’t ban it. Spit into the face of Satan.
id:
I think Morrison’s book was written to awaken some sleeping dollars but aren’t they all. It’s a shock value book (cutting your kid’s head off with a hacksaw?. I’d get nightmares about that, too.)) written with a perspective that was rarely seen before its time. Unique or not it’s not my cup of tea. I have no problem with books on the evils of slavery but Morrison does a sloppy job as a historian, a grammarian, and a writer and the the thing just moves sooo slooow. It also fails as a fantasy tale or ghost story. Morrison’s just not a particularly good story teller. She’s like a lot of southern authors: self-indulgence approaching the bounds of eccentricity and with little regard for the reader. It’s a tough read and not really worth effort like say, Dostoyevsky. With him you put the wordy treatise down and think, “I’ve actually discovered something worthwhile about myself or someone else.” With Morrison you usually think, “Who the Hell is she talking about now with all these unclear pronouns?”
I’ll take the classic Uncle Tom’s Cabin if I want a rabble-rousing, slave trader hatin’ story:
“The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;–stumbling–leaping–slipping–springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone–her stocking cut from her feet–while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.” (Ch. 7)
Now that’s an American novel.
I didn’t call you pompous, id707. I said, “you are a bag of hot air on the issue of causation versus blame and I’m calling you out on it.” Also, do not be so sure about that intent thing. It sounds to me from your Syrian exchange like you learned what I wanted you to learn. Namely, when you don’t know, don’t conflate. The analysis of causation requires knowing, not conjecture, unless there is no other option in dealing with a relevant unknown.
mespo,
“Morrison’s just not a particularly good story teller. She’s like a lot of southern authors: self-indulgence approaching the bounds of eccentricity and with little regard for the reader. It’s a tough read and not really worth effort like say, Dostoyevsky. With him you put the wordy treatise down and think, “I’ve actually discovered something worthwhile about myself or someone else.” With Morrison you usually think, “Who the Hell is she talking about now with all these unclear pronouns?”
On that we agree 100%.
ID:
“I seldom like Nobel Litterature Prize takers books. Perhaps because I don’t understand them. Can this be the case here in your appreciation of the work? Just asking, not snarking. I don’t snark, but I do speak directly.”
***********************
You should never apologize — even a little — for not understanding the written work of someone else. It is the duty of the writer to permit the reader to understand his perspective taking into account the nature of the audience. That’s communication 101.
If the writer can’t get his point across to you, that’s his fault. Not yours.
Gene H:
“On that we agree 100%.”
*********************
We always agree; we just “think” it different.
Hmmmmm……sounds like a good read. Would have never heard of it, had that wacky lady not wanted to ban it…
College prep students used to be the ones that always had their noses in a book. If her son really wanted to go to college, he should have already read at least half of the books in his local public library on his own. Alas, times have changed. Still, in Europe university prep students attending their local public schools receive the equivalent of the first 2 years of an American college education “for free” (OK, we pay high taxes, but at least we get something for them).
P.S. to all: If you want a good book, I just finished re-reading — for the third time — James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom. I have no idea how you can totally capture the most important four years in our history in 952 pages but McPherson does it magnificently. Simply put there is no better fit-in-your-hand treatment of the Civil War era anywhere. It’s all there from the practically bloodless Battle of Ft. Sumter to the gentlemanly end of hostilities at the Mclean House in Appomattox. Along the way you feel the late afternoon July heat in Gettysburg, cross the bloody bridge at Antietam and go into Lincoln’s War Cabinet as he battles confederates, copperheads, and his own party. Not just recommended reading but implored reading.
Ms. Murphy’s concerns are misdirected. She ought to be focused on why her high school senior son appears to have been so traumatized. Since millions of people have read the book without similar reactions, one must consider whether this young man does not fall within the class of individuals whom we would describe as persons of ordinary sensibility.
High school AP classes are supposed to be challenging. Moreover, the graphic language and disturbing scenes in Ms. Morrison’s novel are not intended to serve as historical narrative, but as illustrative of the dehumanizing and soul-destroying effects of slavery, a lesson which I personally do not believe has been well absorbed in this country. Whether Ms. Morrison is a good storyteller or a bad storyteller is beside the point. Presumably AP students can use their developing critical thinking skills to discuss both the literary merits of the book and the truth of its underlying themes.
Contrary to her self-serving remarks, Ms. Murphy is indeed a book-burner in the classic sense. Her desire is to censor literature that does not meet her lowest-common-denominator guidelines or which raises issues which she finds uncomfortable.
Excuse me, is it not a sign of mental health to have nightmares when you read a book that correctly and accurately portrays a REAL NIGHTMARE that occurred in the lives of REAL PEOPLE? Shouldn’t we hope that our high school seniors are sensitive enough and empathetic enough to have nightmares when they read depictions of slavery that are essentially accurate and historically supported by primary source documents? Shouldn’t this mother be teaching her son that there are times when man has been so inhumane to his fellow-man that he has made life into a veritable nightmare? Shouldn’t this young high school senior get some genuine help, if it be therapeutic or religious or spiritual or educational, whatever, to help him deal with the realization that torture, murder, deprivation of rights, and yes even infanticide are ALL PART OF OUR WORLD?
I began to read accounts of the Holocaust at a very early age because I am a post-Holocaust Jew. I was horribly upset by them; who wouldn’t be? That is part of being human. Then, in school, I began to read accounts of slavery, and again, was horribly upset. I could never get to the answer to the simple question: How could anybody DO THIS? But unfortunately, one of the answer is: We do not let ourselves suffer the consequences of our own inhumanity, if we can help it. Those of us who can slide by without feeling the terror, rage and helplessness one naturally feels when reading about such things often do so — to the ultimate peril and detriment of our entire world. Saving one person from having to feel bad about bad things is itself a manifest evil. Let us understand what we have done as a people, as humans, as sufferers of and inflictors of exploitation, deprivation, torture and death. We must come to a point of having enough courage to understand this; there is no easy way.
Special thanks to Toni Morrison for writing that book. And to the AP English teacher who taught it.
Thank you for your loving caring heart. All need to be like you.
Malisha´s right.
Let’s be sure not to mention that the housewife, Laura Blake Murphy, is trying to sell copies of her vanity press book, My Little Messenger — or that the daddy, Dan Murphy, is general counsel at BGR Group: Haley Barbour’s megalobby devoted to the Bushian promotion of tobacco, big oil, and central Asian dictators. The messed up kid, Blake, is just a pawn for their money-grubbing backward poltical positions. Nothing to see here folks: it’s what you get with C-student Floridians going to Christian white flight academies, Alabama public colleges, and Notre Dame, then swooping in to Washington to cash in with the party of rape.
Wow, whom should I praise most:
Messpo, with his amusing and litterarily founded review of “Beloved”. Much appreciated.
GeneH, for his attention to correctness but missing my liberty to take “pompous” from one row/sentence and put it together with “hot air bag” from another. As for not making a molehill out of nothing. Soft answers are not usually of much value here. Conflation is in the eye of the beholder.
Mike Appleton, who provides an effective rebuttal as to the intent and wished for effect of “Beloved”.
That is an effective example of how the reader is obliged to work a bit with his own notions, and try to see if the message is there and if it is worthy in itself.
Malisha, who walking her own path, as she usually does, shows us a world, convincingly our world, as a place of horrors. A source for nightly nightmares or daymares if you nap. One disturbing experience after the other, and some will not see it or can not. I., like an unnamed person here, can not enter these horror chambers other than at my emotional peril. It ain’t healthy for me. Not saying how it is for others.
But Messpo’s tastes are most interesting in that I have views on litterature, and can often discern what “genre” or technique the whole is aimed at. But his feat, and it is that, to read 494 (?) pages of Civil War descriptive material is impressive both as to length and as to the type of book it was. More citations, but this is not a litterary blog. Sad.
I abhor those books that open with 15 pages of purely descriptive material, and those who expect us to miraculously see the world through their eyes without any aid, or those who venture into a genre where they have no apparent talent.
Conceit reigns in Stockholm again? Perhaps.
Apologies to all, my summations miss the real content which you expose.
Particularly, to Mike Appleton and even more to Malisha.
If we don’t look into the chamber of horrors, how can we say that we should be entrusted to decide anything in this nation. Go back to your football. Get your jollies and sleep well after a “bra knull”. Tomorrow another day of a55-kissing.
Leave the big stuff to Obama or Dubja or any ot our two party pols.
And to Gewurtztraminer, thank you for revealing the clay feet of the latest WashDC immigants. Beautiful imagery.
But would it have been weaker if they were agnostics from Wisconsin? Ask yourself that.
PS
Rule again is enforced by one votes margin.
Democracy does not mean a two-party system. Nor is the addition of several parties requiring careful negotiations between to establish alliances.
The weakness is the “majority rules” rule.
Democracy for anyone (?) who does not know, I believe, is the rule by the common man, not the elite.
Do we have it? Hardly..
Ruling must be by consensus, ie some supermajority.
I think, quite without proof, that this “war” between the two parties is a set-up. Similar to the “terror threats” and other things meant to heighten tension and worry and a more likely to be open for manipulation population. Let’s start the horse race, ever heard that used tp describe it. Not from me, I just remember the comparison by another here. And in the chase and the posturing and maneuvers not unlike a sulky race, the voters lose sight of what it is all about. Or did we? I think so.
Bushmen never had a hands count decision. It was mauled from under the taboo of open conflict.
Until such time as, the women ,tiring of the men’s talk, decided for them. Taboo was punished by expulsion, which meant and still means today in large parts of Africa, death.
Good night, sweet dreams. 2AM here.
Last point, to those who would correct and say that we have a republic, representatives responsible to the “dems”.
To which I say, if so, let us discard the democracy BS, and then we can concentrate on how well our reps are doing our bidding and not those of their bribe manipulators.
The American dream, what an EFFing nightmare.
Read Olof Palme’s story in Wikipedia.
Of course he was assassinated by the CIA.
He was a loose cannon, and based on his record, he would as Sec Gen of the UN. have launched the equivalent of a third world assault to the USA hegemony. Who says the Security Council shall have veto power. Spoils of war is the Council. Time to change he would have said.
Guess I killed this thread. Everybody fled the lecture.
ZZZZZZZzzzzzz!!!
Mespo’s comment on McPherson’s book Battle Cry of Freedom is right on. I have read that book three times. McPherson is a great writer.
Conflation isn’t in the eye of the beholder. It’s when you take two (or more) unrelated things and try to combine them into one. Like a wrongful but explainable police shooting, the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory, and a plan to further the unitary Executive. You might as well be trying to connect peanut butter, the Loch Ness Monster and campaign finance. Conflation is in the (confused) mind of the speaker.
Gene,
I have been quite busy today, but lurking and looking in when I had a moment. I am always amused when non-lawyers try to argue evidence, proximate cause and Constitutional law with lawyers. You know, those guys and gals who actually attended something called……wait for it……it is coming…..law school.
Now back to lurking. I think I will get some popcorn.
OS, some might say, “One lives to be of amusing service.”
Shooting to solve a problem always ends up with one side making a bigger bang with the apposing side making one that is bigger trying to say the bigger bang solves the problem. When will they stop? When they make a bang big enough to make a neutron star creating a singularity to swallow the planet?
Attacking that book is shooting at that book with a bang. Give peace. When people do the the book will not be banned.
Bad me. I lived in an apartment complex for ten years. One building two doors four apts each door. There were 4 buildings in a U-shape. It was a smart setup. My neighbors 3 from different buildings, one from mine (across the hall) had parties on the lawn. … No they did not set up in front of my neighbors window across the hall, nor did they set up in front of the windows of their respective buildings. They set up in font of my window.
Instead of voicing my concern about this infringement of my space, ( though legally theirs too) I ate my displeasure.
……. Until one evening I had heartburn and reflux. (metaphorically) I stormed out the front door and unleashed 3 months of frustration at this perceived affront to my privacy. Anger, F-bombs and nasty statements. I was acting badly, I was over the line, and today I would handle things differently. …Anyways, after I unloaded, they moved in front of the window of one of the other revelers. My status from that day forward was below earthworm.
My long and rambling point is …. there was a grand daughter of my across the hall neighbor there. !!! I had never been aware of a youngster being at these parties. I don’t believe this was at all common. Call me a Putz, because I sure felt like one. My neighbor took no ease at telling me how I ruined her granddaughter with my idiot behavior. She did not want to come visit any more. I felt terrible. Mea Putza.
However… I wonder what influence the Grandmother had in inflating, enhancing, and exacerbating my grotesque behavior in the mind of the granddaughter. I was wrong. But I think the G-ma made it worse.
So ….the Mom in this article could have enhanced her childs fears and confusion,…or explored and concretized them for discussion and understanding. Adult authority and perception ooze into youngsters. A parent that wants to instill fear into a child, has in most cases the means tools and authority to do so. …. Then they can blame someone else.
PS. I was an A-hole that night, but I am far from an all the time A-hole. … I don’t think the G-ma pursued that line of reasoning with her G-daughter. … Yes I am still uncomfortable, but I can’t change that moment, but I do believe I have changed my behavior for the better. ….PS. …but you guys never met my neighbor.
This was years ago and I am other places now on this river of life. …whats that loud rumbling sound that i hear ..
.it seems to be getting louder every year.
What Mike A. and Malisha said.
OS,
Nice lurking!
Mespo,
I must disagree with you on Morrison’s book. I think it is very appropriate for high school. At the age of 8 I was blessed to have parents who would go to the local library and sign a document saying I could take out any book in the library without restriction because of my age. I had no censorship of my reading at home, or what I could watch on TV, or in the movies. I rsised my children into adulthood with the same philosophy and all of us have turned out fairly well. Too often people try to hide the reality of the cruelties that exist in life from their children. Not only do I think it does a disserviice to the child, but it also runs counter their own growth experiences.
If he has nightmares and has been traumatized from reading the book then he needs a psychiatrist. And a social worker. Therapy should include bike riding and outdoor activity. No association with books, magazines, and of course not televsion. An institution well away from mother is a must. Forget college. Forget the Marines. Perhaps a job as a sanitation worker at a hospital. Or a machine shop with lots of busy things to do. No manuals. No reading for a year. Low salt diet. No sugar. No newspapers.
Weenie, beanie, bo beanie, nanna naanna fo feenie, WEENIE!
No, not a psychiatrist, never. Thats where insanity lies & where the shootings come from: psychiatric drugs. Our evil president knows this but he wants your guns, while your children get drugged up in school & enough chaos provides an excuse for martial law. Nothing left or right about this; I would not give a fig leaf to either party. But we do need to act NOW! Call Citizens Commission On Human Rights 800 869 2247.
OS and GeneH,
As old buddies I guess you meet once in a while for the emotional equivalent of mutual masturbation. Now what you guys do is your responsibility, but published here it becomes accessible for my comments.
This elitist attitude (we know and you don’t so shut up and let us control things) has been a prime factor in producing our current mess.
A chain of “evidence” may be necessary in court, but investigations are based on looser grounds: cui bono for example, opportunity, access, etc. And COLLUSION between parties with no known connection.
Conflation is Apples and Pears. Investigation by many competent people outside the injustice system searching for data and linkages is not conflation.
But never mind, minds whose development were arrested by legal studies are poorly inclined to progress to handling the real world. Only perhaps if it can be contained in a legal framework.
To deny the plans of government is weird; as the newspapers in both headlines and in Political sections have been full of the hidden plans that Congress, let alone the people, does NOT have access to as our representatives encharged with oversight.
Snorts of contempt and looks of disdain with lifted chins don’t impress, me or others, but some here are still cowed by the bully game. An old complaint which has become somewhat improved. Courtesy????
Id707, I have no idea what that word salad you posted above means. There is a damn good reason for both laws and trials. Evidence is tested and cross examined in a little procedure called a trial. Does the trier of fact ever make a mistake? Oh, hell yes. But show me a better way to test the truth of an accusation. The rules simply provide procedures for testing evidence that is as fair to all sides as humanly possible. That is why hearsay is not admitted. It is why a claim of fact is not admitted unless it passes a vetting procedure, such as identifying the chain of evidence and provenance of the material. Some engineer gets up in a courtroom and says a tire has certain properties, he better have some kind of research to back it up instead of, “It’s so because I have been doing this work a long time and just know it is so.” (Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael
526 US 137, 119 S. Ct. 1167, 143 L. Ed. 2d 238 – Supreme Court, 1999).
If you have come up with a better way of doing things, then write to your nearest congresscritter with a suggestion for amending the Constitution. I am sure they will be willing to introduce a proposed Constitutional amendment based on your suggestions.
Heh!
1, February 9, 2013 at 7:54 am crossposted
See democracynow.org.
On the Brennan hearing for CIA chief. He got fierce opposition in the try to nominate him four years ago. But then he was still too close to his own CIA time there directly assistiing the CIA chief. He’s been 4 years in the White House running his part of the CIA show from there and being deodorarized. The committee is laughable, or maybe something to cry over as a totally ineffectual oversight organ which is stopped at every turn by the Executive stonewalling behind Nat Sec considerations.
Our Senators have no cojones, but then they are not elected by us but by lobbyists, or private folks who want favors, and will pay for trips for the likes of Menendez, Have you forgotten him already? Hope not.
Three persons were interviewed during the halfhour I watched. None friendly to the CIA or Brennan. One was Code Pink founder, one was former CIA analyst, and one a correspondent specializing in this area for The Nation journal.
How can we rate this on a veracity scale, bias scale, etc.?
All this gobbledygook about banning a book to Save the Children(tm) is going to actually encourange more of them to read it.
When I was in 6th grade, there was a row at our middle school to ban Forever… by Judy Blume. Very few students knew of the book before the proposed ban and during the controversy everyone wanted it. I would say it was probably the most popular book in the library. I don’t remember what become of the proposed ban, but I can say that of the thousands of so called “chick books” published, this is the only one I know anything about.
If the adult age, kid in mentality, brat is named Adam or Jared then automatically ban him from ever owning a firearm. Ban the mother from owning any firearms. The Second Amendment was meant to articulate the right to arm bears and the Founders were dyslectic that day that it was penned. The brat is not a bear and has no right to any arms. The mom needs to be examined and sterized because she obviously has at least one child left behind. Or born of the behind. She might be related to Eddie Cantor’s son Eric Cantor, so she might have some political pull in Virginia.
Oh my god, how embarrassing for her son! He’s probably 17 or 18, and about to go to college, and now he’s in the news for having nightmares from reading a Toni Morrison novel. Yikes. Poor guy for having to deal with a mother like that.
Darren Smith,
Good point.
Can we exploit this by starting a movement, to under the guise of “protecting the children” from unsound books , thus create interest in GOOD books.
Surely a site, a copyrighted (by use) name, and a few good names on the board of directorsm will get it going at one place. Then we can see if it will spread. No coordination, no planning, just do your own local thing. Hide well in case of bombings.
There is certainly no lack of authors, books, etc. Spicing things up with little excerpts and review opinions by anon persons will help success.
Guaranteed kickoff headliner! Obama’s self-praising memoir.
OS,
Thanks for the expected reply.
I have understood a long time ago that you support the system of injustice that we havei in our 50 states.
Thank Goodness that we have other persons here and in society that see the through the fog of litigation for what an injustice it is truly, beside a source of goodies for the performing seals.
Being a servant of the law is handicapping. And understanding me is quite easy if your lawyer fllter is removed.
Salad! You are just too lazy to analyze and rebut it sentence by sentence. Criticizing the form instead of the substantive content is a well worn method of ignoring the truth of what is said. Humor is another, but doubt you can use that weapon.
Courts are for what they are used for:
——to prosecute “criminals”—-primarily those in victimless crimes and for racial reasons or the fact of being poor.
——to guarantee that the ones with the most money will retain his property, or win his tort.
——to persecute the selected for gain of political bones.
Thank goodness, our discussions concerning our republics processes, gooo or bad; take place outside the courtroom’s constraints.
A tangent, but a pertinent one addressed to you, our drone expert:
Never answered my question (one of several) about the windspan of the Cessna versus the U-2 or the similarity to the loitering drones weaponized in Pakistan.
The drones are weapons of terror, like God’s lightning in hovering storm clouds, they buzz every hour day or night, ready to strike anywhere. A 16 year old sitting drinking coffee in a cafe, or 12 year olds sheparding goats. The same technique is used against us, but the buzz in our case is the media constantly screaming the government message 24/7. No wonder that we are terrorized, but compliant. We have food and the liberty to speak—as long as it provides no effective deterrence to our government in mission. Watchdogs like you ensure that.
What OS said.
You’re talking gibberish id707. Your statements don’t have any substantive content. They lack evidence and logical cohesion. They are the equivalent of a sandwich board shouter standing on the corner shouting about Skittles are a plan to make our children into homosexuals and undermine the fabric of our nation.
travelinglimey:
I strongly suggest that Scientology is not the place to look for accurate information on mental health care. But nice try.
The president thinks guns are the problem. Think that , and people with a dead soul will be a problem retaliating to make dead bodies with a weapon that is not alive. It would be a person with a dead soul in them making people dead people. All of this happens because people do not consider the soul not valuing it. Devils do not value their soul.
The president thinks guns are the problem. Think that , and people with a dead soul will be a problem retaliating to make dead bodies with a weapon that is not alive. It would be a person with a dead soul in them making dead people. All of this happens because people do not consider the soul not valuing it. Devils do not value their soul.
Malisha, Excellent post, definitely one of your best and you have a lot of good ones.
I read Beloved when it first came out. It stayed with me for days.
I envy Mike S. uncensored reading. I read everything I could get my hands on, but sometimes I had to sneak into closets to find it! Zane Grey books have scenes that are with me still, but I read every one of them that the library had. Right after all the Nancy Drew. Nancy Drew was age appropriate. Not so sure about the Zane Grey. Lady Chatterley’s Lover was an under-the-covers read. Not sure where I got it from. Ban a book and increase sales. Beloved is an excellent choice for book club discussion.
Bettykath,
In 9th grade I did book reports on “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, “Lolita” and Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer”. My teacher loved the fact that someone in the class was reading books at a higher level than the “Black Stallion”. The other students were perplexed and hadn’t heard of most of those books. However, I also read all of Zane Grey, handed down from my brother and even read “The Hardy Boys” serial. My tastes have always been eclectic.
The love of God is in you.
Jesus banned himself from killing people saving his soul. That is what people need to do.
All of us have had Nightmares growing up. The mind can counter those nightmares.
I guess the $10,000 is why are there some books that make it into the system that are garbage anyway? I don’t know anything about this book so I don’t know if it is garbage or not, but perhaps there isn’t a good filter on what is selected to be in the school libraries. They won’t need to be banned if they’re filtered out of the system from the start, right? Common sense.
Satan was filtered out of Gods presence. That is all he can think of through people. Nothing bad about what I call zoosexuality. Hate sensationalizes it to make people give an evil eye. Had people be godly minding their own business all would be peace, but devils dispise peace preferring turmoil
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