The Singapore government is supporting the National Library Board in the plan to destroy a children’s book detailing the real-life story of two male penguins raising a baby chick in New York’s zoo. It appears that the government views “And Tango Makes Three” to be nothing more than penguin perversion.
Now banned are “And Tango Makes Three” as well as “The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption” (discussing a lesbian couple) and “Who’s In My Family: All About Our Families.” Minister of Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim enthusiastically supports the book ban, stating “The prevailing norms, which the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans accept, support teaching children about conventional families, but not about alternative, non-traditional families, which is what the books in question are about.”
It appears that the Ministry has joined a long line governments in banning books to fight an idea. It has been proven to be a fruitless endeavor but government continue to hold back ideas that they find threatening or different. Regrettably, it is another U.S. ally that is moving against free speech in the name of public decency.
Source: New York Daily News
These “abberants” are raising children in legal families. The children do not all become gay. Intolerance is next to ignorance.
“Or bring aberrancy into my home. ”
Advice: disconnect all devices, cancel cable and internet, and paint your windows black. Problem solved. Step so much as a toe onto your porch at your extreme peril.
Whining about how “aberrant” the world seems to be never makes it any less so. The effort expended never achieves the goal. No one is entitled to be protected from what they see and hear, not even children. It’s called the “real world” for a reason.
Let people do what they want, is how I see it. If your lifestyle choice is to drink, smoke, enter a bratwurst eating contest, or live in filth on Brokeback Mountain, go for it! But I draw the line when you drink, get drunk, and drive on my road. I also draw the line when you introduce children to vice. Or bring aberrancy into my home. In this way, I agree totally with Squeeky. Who publishes a book that promotes smoking for children, for example? Too many of us have rolled over and played dead for militant agitators who want to indoctrinate everyone to their worldview. Underneath, their larger goal is to destroy traditional lifestyles, beliefs, family, and even people in their way.
@Annie
Oh, I bet you are just jealous that I can ring a bell and get a pain pill!!! (I know I would be. . .)
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky, darn those nurses, always late with the meds, huh? Maybe Jesus will bring ’em if you pray.
@Annie
Those people must have been pretty stupid to confuse Jim Jones with Jesus. I suspect if they had not swallowed the purple drink, they would be dedicated Obama cultists.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@NickS
Speaking of penguins, I thought one of commenters here had Al Jolson in blackface as his avatar picture thingy. Which is OK by me, because I like Mammy and Rock A Bye Your Baby To A Dixie Melody. . . But I could not believe he wasn ‘t getting clobbered by the PC crowd.
Then, last night I looked more closely and darned if it wasn’t Chilly Willy the Penguin!!! Sooo, I am wondering if “penguins ” are code talk for something or another???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
And all those Islamic states seem to be doing oh so well in controlling their population’s aberrant behaviors, there are no homosexuals in Iran!
“I see this as a good thing for Singapore. Why let people promote aberrancy to little kids???”
“Aberrency” is in eyes of the beholder, and makes an awful reason to continue to engage in the rank exclusion of people who are not going anywhere. The connected age assures young Singaporeans get that message and this book burning will be quite temporary.
Squeeky, rules and laws have a rightful place in a society. Religion can be used as a tool to control the more base impulses of humans, yes. SELF control will always be best in any given situation. Give religion the power to control society? Is that what you are really saying? Jim jones controlled his little society with his multicolored koolaid, didn’t he?
Help, please. I seem to be shut out of the thread. I’ve had 3 comments eaten. I love penguins. Why is this happening???
@Annie
Yes, Annie. Religions exist for that very reason. People having their own personal code of ethics is a farce, and a fairy tale, and ends badly for societies that fall for it. Religions, even if you don’t believe them, worked to place varying degrees of moral rules beyond human tampering.
Childish people abhor rules.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Religions protect society? Islam certainly protects the women an children, oh yeah. How does Christianity protect society? Wouldn’t a personal code of ethics do the same? ‘No aberrant behavior! Get in line and conform! Shun the abberants!’
From Shane Harris’ article “The Social Laboratory” in Foreign Policy, July/August 2014:
A few excerpts from “The Social Laboratory”:
“Some members of Congress and privacy and civil liberties advocates called for TIA to be shut down. It was — but in name only.”
“After Poindexter left DARPA in 2003, he became a consultant to RAHS*, and many American spooks have traveled to Singapore to study the program firsthand. They are drawn not just to Singapore’s embrace of mass surveillance but also to the country’s curious mix of democracy and authoritarianism, in which a paternalistic government ensures people’s basic needs — housing, education, security — in return for almost reverential deference. It is a law-and-order society, and the definition of “order” is all-encompassing.”
“… many current and former U.S. officials have come to see Singapore as a model for how they’d build an intelligence apparatus if privacy laws and a long tradition of civil liberties weren’t standing in the way.”
“In other words, Singapore has become a laboratory not only for testing how mass surveillance and big-data analysis might prevent terrorism, but for determining whether technology can be used to engineer a more harmonious society.”
“Singapore was the perfect home for a centrally controlled, complex technological system designed to maintain national order.”
*RAHS = “Singapore’s Risk Assessment Horizon Scanning program…inside a Defense Ministry agency responsible for preventing terrorist attacks and “nonconventiional” strikes,…and effort to see how Singapore could avoid or better manage “future shocks.””
( Harris has a new book — @War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex, with a release date of Nov 11, 2014.)
Back in 2007:
Son of TIA Lives in Singapore
by Sharon Weinberger
http://www.wired.com/2007/03/son_of_tia_back/
“Remember the brouhaha over DARPA’s Total Information Awareness program, described by William Safire as a technology that would create a “computerized dossier on your private life?” Well, the data-mining debate is back, at least in Asia, where Singapore is getting ready to roll-out its “risk assessment and horizon scanning, or RAHS, a system designed to link data across all government agencies to help pinpoint possible threats.
Proponents of the system — like those who defended the DARPA programs — say that data-mining can be done while protecting privacy, and that stifling technology doesn’t make sense. Good points. But the crux of the debate is how data-mining programs are implemented, and what safeguards are in place. Singapore says it’s studying ways to protect privacy (DARPA claimed the same thing).
I’d be the last one to say we should throw out all government research on data-mining technology — that simply doesn’t make any sense. But it’s inevitable that a technology designed to sift through personal records in the hopes of sniffing out terrorists is going to raise some red flags.
So, why is RAHS an issue here in the U.S.? Because those working on the system hope to garner interest in the U.S., and other countries. And, then there’s John Poindexter, the Iran-Contra figure who was in charge of the DARPA data-mining programs; in 2003, his involvement was even more fodder for the TIA debate. Turns out the Singaporeans invited him to their conference this week to roll out RAHS. An interesting choice.
Is RAHS an Orwellian data-snooping system that should scare privacy advocates, or an innovative technology that will help Singapore? Or both? Read my article on the Singaporean system in Wired News and judge for yourself.”
(Also by Weinberger: Son of TIA: Pentagon Surveillance System Is Reborn (03.22.07))
“And Tango Makes Three” has also been banned in some areas of the United States. The American Library Association reported that “And Tango Makes Three” was the most challenged book of 2006 to 2010, except for 2009 when it was the second most challenged.
Schools chief bans book on penguins
Tale describes males raising egg
“And Tango Makes Three” is based on a real-life story about two male penguins tending to an adopted egg at the Central Park Zoo in New York City. Objections have been raised in schools or public libraries in several states. (Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press)
By Mcclatchy Newspapers | December 20, 2006
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/12/20/schools_chief_bans_book_on_penguins/
*****
2010 Banned Books Week – Top Ten Banned and Challenged Books for 2009
Two male penguins raise an infant penguin? This is somehow abhorrent. If the two males are porking then that is one thing not to be described in a kid’s book. But Singapore is Singapore and so be it. I hope the book gets put on the web– along with books by Mao.
Yes, religion promotes civilization whereas aberrancy promotes dis -civilization. If humans are to live together in large numbers, there has to be rules.
In our country one could write a kid ‘s book called FREE CANDY!!! which could demonstrate various ways to shoplift more sucessfully. Singapore would ban such a book. Hmmm, I gotta see Singapore as being more adult, if less free.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
But religious requirements to chop off hands and heads and torture and genocide and burning in hell are just fine for kids?
I see this as a good thing for Singapore. Why let people promote aberrancy to little kids???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter