22 October 2009
Controversial Book Series Banned From Wicomico Public Schools
Wicomico County Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Fredericksen on Thursday announced that a controversial series of Japanese graphic novels has been removed from all public school media centers. http://www.wboc.com/global/story.asp?s=11321353
15 October 2009
Church to burn books (and records) for Halloween
There is video here as well: http://www.kbmt12.com/news/local/63968712.html
North Carolina church to burn ‘Satan’s books,’ including works of Mother Teresa Raw Story
By Kathleen MillerWednesday, October 14th, 2009 -- 11:50 am
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http://rawstory.com/2009/10/n-c-church-to-burn-satans-books-including-works-of-mother-theresa/
A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a "Halloween book burning" to purge the area of "Satan's" works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.
The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are "scriptural bases" for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."
Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles," according to the website. Attendees will also set fire to "Satan's popular books" such as the work of "heretics" including the Pope, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Rick Warren.
"I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God," Pastor Marc Grizzard told a local news station of his 14-member parish.
Grizzard's parish website explains that the Bible is the "final authority concerning all matters of faith and practice," for Amazing Grace Baptist Church. In the Parish doctrinal statement, Grizzard expounds that "the Scriptures shall be interpreted according to their normal grammatical-historical meaning, and all issues of interpretation and meaning shall be determined by the preacher."
The event also seeks to destroy "Satan's music" which includes every genre from country,rap and rock to "soft and easy" and "Southern Gospel" and" contemporary Christian."
David Lynch, a resident of nearby Asheville, N.C., told Raw Story "it's a little disconcerting how close this is to my home."
"They are burning so much stuff I've dubbed them the hypocritical Christian Taliban," Lynch said in a phone interview with Raw Story. "Just the scope of all the information they want to destroy is pretty disturbing."
Church leaders did not respond to Raw Story's requests for comment, but the website notes they will be providing "bar-b-que chicken, fried chicken and all the sides" at the book burning.
North Carolina church to burn ‘Satan’s books,’ including works of Mother Teresa Raw Story
By Kathleen MillerWednesday, October 14th, 2009 -- 11:50 am
Share on Facebook Stumble This!
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/n-c-church-to-burn-satans-books-including-works-of-mother-theresa/
A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a "Halloween book burning" to purge the area of "Satan's" works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.
The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are "scriptural bases" for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."
Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles," according to the website. Attendees will also set fire to "Satan's popular books" such as the work of "heretics" including the Pope, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Rick Warren.
"I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God," Pastor Marc Grizzard told a local news station of his 14-member parish.
Grizzard's parish website explains that the Bible is the "final authority concerning all matters of faith and practice," for Amazing Grace Baptist Church. In the Parish doctrinal statement, Grizzard expounds that "the Scriptures shall be interpreted according to their normal grammatical-historical meaning, and all issues of interpretation and meaning shall be determined by the preacher."
The event also seeks to destroy "Satan's music" which includes every genre from country,rap and rock to "soft and easy" and "Southern Gospel" and" contemporary Christian."
David Lynch, a resident of nearby Asheville, N.C., told Raw Story "it's a little disconcerting how close this is to my home."
"They are burning so much stuff I've dubbed them the hypocritical Christian Taliban," Lynch said in a phone interview with Raw Story. "Just the scope of all the information they want to destroy is pretty disturbing."
Church leaders did not respond to Raw Story's requests for comment, but the website notes they will be providing "bar-b-que chicken, fried chicken and all the sides" at the book burning.
30 September 2009
Banned Books Week
posted by Peter Rothberg on 09/29/2009 @ 4:23pm
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/478684/banned_books_week
I wasn't surprised to read that the American Library Association (ALA) reported at least 513 actual and attempted book bannings in the US in 2008. Here's the list of the ten most frequently challenged books of last year.
What did surprise me is this interactive map showing exactly where the bannings have taken place. Would you have guessed that many of the bluest states have been just as guilty as the cradle of the Confederacy? New England's puritanical heritage seems to be holding sway with the Eastern Seaboard awash in incidents of censorship.
Along with the locations of each incident, the map notes the offending titles and offer brief summaries of the cases against these tomes. The controversies range from predictable fears about magic-related YA fiction to traditional opposition to classics like Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The transgressions range from the use of profanity and slang, to allegedly offensive depictions of racial or religious groups, to portrayals of homosexuals as anything other than mentally ill.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/actnow/478684/banned_books_week
I wasn't surprised to read that the American Library Association (ALA) reported at least 513 actual and attempted book bannings in the US in 2008. Here's the list of the ten most frequently challenged books of last year.
What did surprise me is this interactive map showing exactly where the bannings have taken place. Would you have guessed that many of the bluest states have been just as guilty as the cradle of the Confederacy? New England's puritanical heritage seems to be holding sway with the Eastern Seaboard awash in incidents of censorship.
Along with the locations of each incident, the map notes the offending titles and offer brief summaries of the cases against these tomes. The controversies range from predictable fears about magic-related YA fiction to traditional opposition to classics like Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The transgressions range from the use of profanity and slang, to allegedly offensive depictions of racial or religious groups, to portrayals of homosexuals as anything other than mentally ill.
Worried about provacative books, Leesburg votes to separate collection by age groups
Activists ask Leesburg commissioners to move racy books for teens at library
By Christine Show
Sentinel Staff Writer
September 28 2009, 7:29 PM EDT
LEESBURG -- Responding to a call by parents, church and community leaders concerned about provacative books available to teens at the Leesburg Public Library, city commissioners tonight voted 4-1 to separate all books based on age groups.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-racy-book-controversy-092809,0,3897922.story
By Christine Show
Sentinel Staff Writer
September 28 2009, 7:29 PM EDT
LEESBURG -- Responding to a call by parents, church and community leaders concerned about provacative books available to teens at the Leesburg Public Library, city commissioners tonight voted 4-1 to separate all books based on age groups.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/orl-racy-book-controversy-092809,0,3897922.story
Banned Books Week: Still Needed in the U.S.
Joan E. Bertin
This piece was co-authored by Chris Finan, President of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.
For a country that venerates its First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, the United States tries to ban books with alarming frequency.
Stick a pin in each place where there's been a challenge to a school or library book, and you'll have a map of the United States that looks like a hedgehog in need of a haircut.
This year already, challenges have been reported from Montana to Indiana to Texas, in high schools and libraries, and from classics like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, to newer books like Brent Hartinger's The Geography Club and Chris Crutcher's Chinese Handcuffs.
This February in West Bend, Wisconsin, a local couple filed a petition calling for the Library Advisory Board to remove or label several Young Adult titles, including Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be Bop and Stephen Chobsky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, because they felt that all the books in the young-adult section that dealt with homosexuality were "gay-affirming." The couple also requested that the library build a collection of books by "ex-gays" in order to achieve an ideological balance.
As this debate raged on, four members of the library board were not reappointed because of accusations that they were "promoting the indoctrination of the gay agenda." Then the Christian Civil Liberties Union Milwaukee branch filed a lawsuit against the city of West Bend, complaining that the mere presence of some of the young adult books in the library caused "mental and emotional harm" to the elderly plaintiffs. The CCLU seeks $30,000 in damages per plaintiff, the mayor's resignation, and the removal of the books for a public burning (literally!).
As the late, great, and much-censored author Kurt Vonnegut would say: And so it goes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-e-bertin/banned-books-week-still-n_b_302248.html
This piece was co-authored by Chris Finan, President of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.
For a country that venerates its First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, the United States tries to ban books with alarming frequency.
Stick a pin in each place where there's been a challenge to a school or library book, and you'll have a map of the United States that looks like a hedgehog in need of a haircut.
This year already, challenges have been reported from Montana to Indiana to Texas, in high schools and libraries, and from classics like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, to newer books like Brent Hartinger's The Geography Club and Chris Crutcher's Chinese Handcuffs.
This February in West Bend, Wisconsin, a local couple filed a petition calling for the Library Advisory Board to remove or label several Young Adult titles, including Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be Bop and Stephen Chobsky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, because they felt that all the books in the young-adult section that dealt with homosexuality were "gay-affirming." The couple also requested that the library build a collection of books by "ex-gays" in order to achieve an ideological balance.
As this debate raged on, four members of the library board were not reappointed because of accusations that they were "promoting the indoctrination of the gay agenda." Then the Christian Civil Liberties Union Milwaukee branch filed a lawsuit against the city of West Bend, complaining that the mere presence of some of the young adult books in the library caused "mental and emotional harm" to the elderly plaintiffs. The CCLU seeks $30,000 in damages per plaintiff, the mayor's resignation, and the removal of the books for a public burning (literally!).
As the late, great, and much-censored author Kurt Vonnegut would say: And so it goes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-e-bertin/banned-books-week-still-n_b_302248.html
Don't read that! The secret lives of book banners
Julia Keller
CULTURAL CRITIC
September 27 2009
My childhood was a bloodbath.
The blood stayed safely confined within the covers of books, but still: I relished gore. I ate up stories of serial killers and ax murderers and remorseless poisoners. I couldn't get enough of gun-toting hoodlums. Supernatural creatures, such as the vampires that currently flit and hover over pop culture, did not intrigue; my passion was strictly reserved for true crime, for the real-life roguery that imperils our every step -- or so one might think, from these lurid accounts.
My obsession worried my mother, who feared she had hatched a monster. One day, while I was busy toiling in a fourth-grade classroom at Geneva Kent Elementary School in Huntington, W.Va., she went into my room and gathered up my true-crime stash. I returned home, discovered the theft and confronted her: What had she done with my precious books?
"I threw them away," she replied with an infuriating calmness.
Oh, the outrage! Seething, I resolved then and there to run away from home -- Alaska sounded nice -- and get a head start on my destiny, which involved the establishment of a detective agency. What especially rankled was that my mother's fears had been wrong-headed: I didn't identify with the killers. I identified with the cops, the sleuths who cracked the case. I wanted to solve the crime -- not perpetrate it.
That day marked my first encounter with banned books.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0927-lit-life-banned-bookssep27,0,2766625.column
CULTURAL CRITIC
September 27 2009
My childhood was a bloodbath.
The blood stayed safely confined within the covers of books, but still: I relished gore. I ate up stories of serial killers and ax murderers and remorseless poisoners. I couldn't get enough of gun-toting hoodlums. Supernatural creatures, such as the vampires that currently flit and hover over pop culture, did not intrigue; my passion was strictly reserved for true crime, for the real-life roguery that imperils our every step -- or so one might think, from these lurid accounts.
My obsession worried my mother, who feared she had hatched a monster. One day, while I was busy toiling in a fourth-grade classroom at Geneva Kent Elementary School in Huntington, W.Va., she went into my room and gathered up my true-crime stash. I returned home, discovered the theft and confronted her: What had she done with my precious books?
"I threw them away," she replied with an infuriating calmness.
Oh, the outrage! Seething, I resolved then and there to run away from home -- Alaska sounded nice -- and get a head start on my destiny, which involved the establishment of a detective agency. What especially rankled was that my mother's fears had been wrong-headed: I didn't identify with the killers. I identified with the cops, the sleuths who cracked the case. I wanted to solve the crime -- not perpetrate it.
That day marked my first encounter with banned books.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0927-lit-life-banned-bookssep27,0,2766625.column
22 September 2009
Intellectual freedom videos from 2009 ALA Annual Conference now online!
OIF has four new videos up featuring programs from the 2009 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. Check them out!
http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=552
“My, those novels certainly are… graphic!”
One of the most popular intellectual freedom programs in years, this panel discussion was sponsored by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee, Association of American Publishers, and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Speakers: Neil Gaiman, Terry Moore, and Craig Thompson. Moderated by Charles Brownstein of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
“Privacy in an Era of Change”
An engrossing conversation about the status of privacy under the new administration. Cosponsored by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and the ALA Washington Office. Speakers: Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; David Sobel, Senior Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and Craig Wacker, program officer for the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media & Learning initiative.
“Libraries, Librarians, and America’s War on Sex”
Sex ed advocate Marty Klein discusses the importance of having sexual information available to all library users. Sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Round Table.
“Intellectual Freedom on the Front Lines”
Librarians and library supporters from West Bend, Wisconsin share their perspective on the protracted censorship challenges going on in their community at this issues briefing session, sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Freedom to Read Foundation. (See a blog post on the session from American Libraries’ Inside Scoop here.)
http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=552
“My, those novels certainly are… graphic!”
One of the most popular intellectual freedom programs in years, this panel discussion was sponsored by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee, Association of American Publishers, and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Speakers: Neil Gaiman, Terry Moore, and Craig Thompson. Moderated by Charles Brownstein of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
“Privacy in an Era of Change”
An engrossing conversation about the status of privacy under the new administration. Cosponsored by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee and the ALA Washington Office. Speakers: Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; David Sobel, Senior Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and Craig Wacker, program officer for the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media & Learning initiative.
“Libraries, Librarians, and America’s War on Sex”
Sex ed advocate Marty Klein discusses the importance of having sexual information available to all library users. Sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Round Table.
“Intellectual Freedom on the Front Lines”
Librarians and library supporters from West Bend, Wisconsin share their perspective on the protracted censorship challenges going on in their community at this issues briefing session, sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Freedom to Read Foundation. (See a blog post on the session from American Libraries’ Inside Scoop here.)
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