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Grex > Agora47 > #27: BANNED BOOKS WEEK - 20 to 27 September 2003 | |
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rcurl
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BANNED BOOKS WEEK - 20 to 27 September 2003
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Sep 25 19:18 UTC 2003 |
September 20 to 27 is Banned Books Week, and the ACLU is calling attention
to the wealth of creative expression that is stifled when books can be
forbidden from library shelves.
For example, which of these books was among the 10 Most Challenged Books
of 2002:
-- The "Harry Potter" series by J.K. Rowling?
-- "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou? Or,
-- "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain?
Give up? Take the ACLU's online quiz to find out:
http://www.aclu.org/FreeSpeech/FreeSpeech.cfm?ID=13757&c=83&MX=959&H=0
The ACLU is also using this Banned Books Week to raise awareness of the
other ways freedom is being compromised in America's libraries. The ACLU
has been in court fighting the government's attempts to force public
libraries to use Internet blocking software. And we are working overturn
Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, which gives the FBI license to snoop
in a person's library records.
The ACLU encourages Americans to mark Banned Books Week by telling their
elected officials to preserve our right to privacy and keep censorship out
of our libraries.
For more information, see the ACLU's feature page on Banned Books Week at
http://www.aclu.org/FreeSpeech/FreeSpeech.cfm?ID=13668&c=83&MX=959&H=0
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| 50 responses total. |
cross
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response 1 of 50:
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Sep 25 19:54 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gelinas
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response 2 of 50:
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Sep 25 21:45 UTC 2003 |
I'd guess all three.
Now I'll go take the quiz.
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rcurl
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response 3 of 50:
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Sep 25 21:51 UTC 2003 |
It was a trick question - they all were.
There is more about Banned Book Week at the website of the American Library
Association - http://www.ala.org.
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dah
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response 4 of 50:
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Sep 26 00:52 UTC 2003 |
I'm reading Ulysses.
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willcome
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response 5 of 50:
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Nov 27 07:37 UTC 2003 |
AHAHA< FAG!
whore.
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gull
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response 6 of 50:
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Nov 28 15:11 UTC 2003 |
Freak.
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md
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response 7 of 50:
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Dec 1 03:01 UTC 2003 |
Maybe they've changed the web site since Rane entered #0, but it
isn't "the 10 Most Challenged Books of 2002," it's "20 of the Most
Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000." Also, it isn't a "quiz" at
all. You're instructed to "Check the box next to every book you've
read to find out if you're a rebellious reader." The 20 books are:
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Native Son by Richard Wright
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Except for one major classic and a couple of minor ones, the quality of
the books on the list isn't very high, nor is any of them
especially "rebellious." It's the sort of list a cynical politician
would put together to appeal to what he insultingly imagines to
be "average" people. It says more about the cretins that banned them
instead of Thoreau ("Break the law!") and Whitman ("Resist much, obey
little!") than it does about the books themselves. You actually
*could* ban most of them and the culture wouldn't even blink. The ACLU
is like my cable company: I keep saying, as soon as an alternative
comes along...
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mcnally
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response 8 of 50:
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Dec 1 03:36 UTC 2003 |
I presume "Where's Waldo?" was included as a joke..
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mary
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response 9 of 50:
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Dec 1 03:41 UTC 2003 |
Nope. It's because in the beach scene there is a lady
going topless. Her nipples are about the size of an
ant's footprint. But, as we all know, size isn't
everything.
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mcnally
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response 10 of 50:
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Dec 1 03:53 UTC 2003 |
<gasp> Nipples?
Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?
Where's my Congressman?
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aruba
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response 11 of 50:
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Dec 1 04:43 UTC 2003 |
There are some scenes in Where's Waldo of people apparently stoned on
Marijuana, too.
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other
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response 12 of 50:
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Dec 1 05:33 UTC 2003 |
How's that?
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tpryan
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response 13 of 50:
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Dec 1 06:47 UTC 2003 |
No they went to the crease and sniffed the binder glue.
I take it they were banned near the time of their
initial publication, instead of all being challenged today.
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bru
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response 14 of 50:
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Dec 1 14:53 UTC 2003 |
I have some Idea why some of the books are controversial, but some make no
sense to me at all. Mean, Flowers for Algernon? What in there is
controversial? Oh! now I remember.
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remmers
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response 15 of 50:
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Dec 1 15:06 UTC 2003 |
I suspect that the people who try to ban these books don't read
very widely, and certainly don't read the classics. If they did
they'd be trying to ban a lot of other stuff, such as Plato.
I mean, all that stuff about the pleasures of homosexual love.
Can't have the kids being exposed to that!
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rcurl
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response 16 of 50:
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Dec 1 15:27 UTC 2003 |
I think very few even read the books - someone else did and reported
something (in their opinion) nasty. So the banning bandwagon runs on
largely on hearsay. This gets reported now and then, especially when
some bigwig is the spokesperson - when asked, they admit they haven't
read the books but lots of people had told them....etc.
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gull
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response 17 of 50:
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Dec 1 15:29 UTC 2003 |
My dad is a school librarian, and he's had people ask him to remove the
Harry Potter books before. He always offers to let them borrow a copy and
read it for themselves, but everyone has turned him down. Generally they're
going on what they've heard second- or third-hand, or on their church's
party line. One guy brought in a copy of an Onion article about the dangers
of Harry Potter that had been emailed to him; he didn't realize it was
satire, apparently.
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rcurl
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response 18 of 50:
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Dec 1 16:06 UTC 2003 |
(Was that explained to the visitor, and did he understand, and admit he
was embarrassed?)
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mynxcat
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response 19 of 50:
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Dec 1 17:24 UTC 2003 |
Why were James and Giant Peach and Are you there God, It's me Margaret
on the list?
I haven't read James... but it seemed harmless enough. And I read the
Judy Blume book when I was 10. Nothing controversial, unless the whole
concept of a pubescent girl dealing with her first period was too
controversial for the banners.
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jep
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response 20 of 50:
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Dec 1 17:40 UTC 2003 |
Of course he didn't admit he was wrong or misinformed. That would be
about as likely in that situation as someone doing so in a discussion
on Grex.
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gull
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response 21 of 50:
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Dec 1 17:49 UTC 2003 |
Re #18: Yes, I think so. Well, I don't know if he admitted he was
embarassed, but as far as I know he stopped pestering my dad about
removing the book.
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happyboy
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response 22 of 50:
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Dec 1 19:44 UTC 2003 |
ask him to ban the bible because of all the dirty sex and
violence in it.
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mcnally
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response 23 of 50:
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Dec 1 20:29 UTC 2003 |
Whenever I find material at the library to be offensive, I prefer to
insist that it be bowdlerized.
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other
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response 24 of 50:
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Dec 1 23:00 UTC 2003 |
Whenever I encounter people demanding that books be banned from
libraries because of objectionable content, I prefer to insist that
such individuals and any existing progeny they may have be
sterilized in order to prevent the spread of their disease of
ignorance.
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