Showing posts with label ThomasSowell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ThomasSowell. Show all posts

Monday, April 20, 2009

LISNews Disses Judith Krug Unwittingly

LISNews is an excellent news source for those interested in libraries. In addition to its daily activities, it podcasts weekly on library issues. Unwittingly, but justifiably, it mocked the American Library Association's [ALA] former de facto leader in the very publication dedicated to that leader.

The most recent podcast was "dedicated to recently departed freedom crusader Judith Krug." See "LISTen: An LISNews.org Podcast -- Episode #68," by Stephen Michael Kellat, LISNews, 19 April 2009.

Judith Krug was the de facto leader of the ALA for about 40 years. Thanks in part to her ACLU heritage, she single-handedly changed libraries so they no longer protect children from inappropriate material like they used to.

For example, she alone created "Banned Books Week," ostensibly to decry censorship, even though no books have been banned in the USA for half a century and it is nearly impossible to do so now for reasons that have nothing to do with the ALA. Supposedly, according to Banned Books Week material, "Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment." More ominously, "Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label 'controversial' views, to distribute lists of 'objectionable' books or authors, and to purge libraries. .... The problem is not only one of actual censorship."

I say ostensibly because "actual censorship" by librarians, citizens, and local governments is impossible by definition; the real goal is different. The real goal is to ensure children retain access to inappropriate material by making false and scary claims about censorship. As one former ALA Councilor Jessamyn West rightly noted, "It also highlights the thing we know about Banned Books Week that we don't talk about much — the bulk of these books are challenged by parents for being age-inappropriate for children. While I think this is still a formidable thing for librarians to deal with, it's totally different from people trying to block a book from being sold at all."

By calling efforts of some librarians, citizens, and local government officials to keep children from inappropriate material "censorship," the ALA is misleading the entire nation. And in light of US v. ALA, which the ALA lost big in 2003 in the US Supreme Court, the ALA's actions to mislead are evidently intentional, unless the Court itself is also censorious: "The interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree."

The ALA does not agree; protecting children from inappropriate material is "censorship," according to the ALA. Now what is more authoritative, the ALA or the US Supreme Court?

Did you know that US Supreme Court case that allows Internet filters in public libraries to protect children (hence, Children's Internet Protection Act) was Judith Krug's biggest disappointment in life? The only means the ALA is forced to allow to effectively protect children is her biggest disappointment? Is it any wonder why the ALA intentionally misleads the public and the media? (And Judith Krug "'invented what they now call media training,' said Art Plotnik, former editor of American Libraries.")

Perhaps her greatest disappointment was the 2003 Supreme Court ruling that the Children's Internet Protection Act was constitutional, ending a battle over internet [sic] filtering that cost ALA over a million dollars. Adults, the court decided, could ask that filters be turned off for unrestricted access and Congress could require libraries to install filtering in exchange for funding. It was a decision that Krug had fought hard.

Source: "A Tribute to Judith Krug," by Leonard Kniffel, AL Inside Scoop, 21 April 2009.

But I digress.

Censorship has nothing to do with keeping inappropriate material from children. Nothing. Protecting children from such material is common sense, and it is legal. It is not censorship. The US Supreme Court already addressed that issue. Why does the ALA continue to raise it? Why does the ALA continue to misled local media, communities, and those who guide local communities? Why do people think the ALA is authoritative anymore?

So what is censorship?
Cries of censorship rang out over a relatively small, minor situation. .... [I]t is called censorship when a selection of LGBT materials becomes harder to access within Amazon's catalog. While the English word "censorship" might be at the core in the Amazon story and others, it might be better to term such "inference of intended suppression." Censorship more properly involves a government using its coercive powers to dictate what can be said, written, printed, or shown in a media form.

As Dan Gerstein said, "The ... elites have convinced themselves that they are taking a stand against cultural tyranny. .... [T]he reality is that it is those who cry 'Censorship!' the loudest who are the ones trying to stifle speech and force their moral world-view on others." Does that not perfectly describe the false claims of the ALA? (Speaking of stifling speech, get a load of a public library in West Bend, WI, refusing to hear a citizen complaint: "West Bend Library Board Shuns Public Hearing Over Porn.")

So censorship defined "more properly" has nothing to do with what the ALA is claiming, what Banned Books Week is espousing, what Judith Krug has created. As Thomas Sowell put it, Banned Books Week should be called "National Hogwash Week."

The definition of censorship given above about a government using coercive powers is relatively accurate, but who said it? Who defined censorship in a way that is truthful and in total contradiction with the ALA's claims as promulgated by Judith Krug's creations? Believe it or not, it is the very source that dedicated the podcast to Judith Krug. It was LISNews! It was Stephen Michael Kellat! Listen for yourself. I'll have to add him to my "Good Librarians" page along with Jessamyn West, who's already there with others.

That's right, LISNews has dedicated a podcast to Judith Krug, then went on to define censorship accurately in a manner that total refutes Judith Krug's life work to mislead people about censorship. (She even made racist statements when parents in Howell, MI, who attempted to keep public school children from reading school books containing bestiality.) An "inference of intended suppression" is twisted by the ALA into "censorship" in a effort to ensure children retain access to inappropriate material. But the two are "totally different," as Jessamyn West said.

Thank you, LISNews, for justifiably producing a podcast that contains such truth, such delicious irony. By defining censorship accurately as you have, you have struck a silver stake in the heart of Banned Books Week, in the very podcast dedicated to its creator, even while praising her. That is what I mean by the title of this post. Truly outstanding.

For the record, I am sad to hear of Judith Krug's death and particularly her illness. No one will ever replace her at the ALA. I looked forward to speaking with her; she never responded to my emails. I have such respect for her effectiveness in creating and promoting ALA policy vis-a-vis children that I applied to take classes on library law directly from her, among others. I wanted to meet her, to ask questions, to exercise my intellectual freedom. Alas, her Office for Intellectual Freedom refused me access repeatedly in a fashion that illustrates the ALA's hypocrisy perfectly and may have violated court rules. Apparently, some animals are more equal than others. I'll apply again for admittance to those classes, but they just won't be the same without Judith Krug.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Humberto Fontova, the Media's "Book Banning" Claims, and the ALA's Opposition to the "Right to Apply Accuracy" in Public Schools

Humberto Fontova becomes another person exposing false claims of "book banning" and "censorship." (Thomas Sowell and "National Hogwash Week" comes to mind.)

Most of America, for instance, applauds "parental involvement" in their children's education. But a recent New York Times editorial decries it. "Banning Books in Miami," blares their editorial headline from February 10th. "The Miami-Dade School Board's decision is not only unconstitutional, it is counterproductive. If the (local school) board wants to oppose the totalitarianism of the Castro regime, banning books is an odd way to go about it."

....

Last week a federal appeals panel in Atlanta ruled that the Miami-Dade School Board has 'the right to apply accuracy as a criteria for educational purposes.' The appeals court noted that the book indeed 'contained factual errors that distorts what life is like in that dictatorship.'

Source: "The New York Times and 'Book Banning,'" by Humberto Fontova, Human Events, 16 February 2009, emphasis added.


Please read "The New York Times and 'Book Banning.'" I'm especially intrigued by the "right to apply accuracy" in public schools and why it appears perceived violations of this obvious right are labeled "banning" and "censorship" by the media, the ACLU, and the American Library Association [ALA].

The ALA? Mr. Fontova did not discuss this in his article, but the ALA agrees wholeheartedly with the ACLU:


Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told American Libraries, “Naturally we are disappointed with this decision. The book ban is unconstitutional, and we will continue to support the ACLU’s efforts to return the books to the shelves of the Miami-Dade school libraries.” ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation had filed an amicus curiae brief (PDF file) for the plaintiffs in ACLU of Florida v. Miami-Dade School Board, along with Reforma and other groups.

Source: "Appeals Court: Miami-Dade Book Ban Isn't Censorship," by ALA, American Libraries, 11 February 2009.
Apparently, the ALA opposes the "right to apply accuracy" in public schools and local control of public libraries, in this case "parental involvement" in public school libraries. More fuel for "National Hogwash Week." More reasons the ALA should no longer be considered authoritative by community members supporting local libraries; the ALA actively works against their interests, even in the face of relevant legal decisions.


NOTE ADDED 14 NOVEMBER 2011:

Note that the right to apply accuracy is so important that a national park refused to sell a book that was factually inaccurate:


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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Thomas Sowell on Banned Books Week - BBW is "Shameless Propaganda ... Now Institutionalized With a Week of Its Own"

(UPDATED REGULARLY)
Thomas Sowell wrote about the American Library Association's "Banned Books Week" calling it "National Hogwash Week." As the media rebroadcast ALA propaganda uncritically, let us remember "Banned Books Week" is total propaganda. No book has been banned in the USA for many decades; what with the Internet, it is nearly impossible now. See "Hogwash is Happening," by Thomas Sowell, Washington Times, 3 October 1994.
Even a former ALA Councilor said, emphasis mine:
It also highlights the thing we know about Banned Books Week that we don't talk about much--the bulk of these books are challenged by parents for being age-inappropriate for children. While I think this is still a formidable thing for librarians to deal with, it's totally different from people trying to block a book from being sold at all.
Here are choice quotes from Thomas Sowell, emphasis mine:
  • "The kind of shameless propaganda that has become commonplace in false charges of 'censorship' or 'book banning' has apparently now been institutionalized with a week of its own."
  • "False charges of banning or censorship are so common that they are seldom challenged for evidence or even for a definition."
  • "To call a book 'banned' because someone decided that it was unsuitable for their particular students or clientele would be to make at least 99 percent of all books 'banned.'"
  • "If the criterion of censorship is that the objection comes from the general public, rather than from people who run schools and libraries, then that is saying the parents and taxpayers have no right to a say about what is done with their own children or their own money."
  • "[O]ther books in the display were pure propaganda for avante-garde notions that are being foisted onto vulnerable and unsuspecting children in the name of 'education.'"
  • "No one calls it censorship if the collected works of Rush Limbaugh are not put into libraries and schools in every town, hamlet and middlesex village. It is only when the books approved by the elite intelligentsia are objected to by others that is it called censorship. Apparently we are not to talk back to our betters."
  • "Those who are spreading hysteria about book banning and censorship know that they are in a war, but too many of those who thoughtlessly repeat their rhetoric do not."
See also:
    The ALA response to parental complaints was the creation a few years ago of a national event they call "Banned Books Week" in which outrageous charges are made about parents supposedly attempting to ban classics like "Huckleberry Finn" and "Of Mice and Men." It's an ingenious tactic considering the ALA seems intent on phasing out the classics. However, parent researchers and bloggers have found many of these allegations to be false or grossly exaggerated; for example, the ALA counts as censorship incidents in which a parent simply requests that the school or library be more age selective when assigning books or amend a teacher's mandatory reading list to include other books not so offensive.
        For making the modest demand that schools not flood their children's minds with filth until, for example, the 8th grade, the ALA, PTA, various state Department of Educations and some loony anti-Christian groups have responded by publishing outlandish strategy manuals on how to deal with "extremists," the code word for any parent with a religious-based value system.
            But the ALA will not compromise on such common-sense requests by parents. Banned Books Week was clearly designed by the ALA to direct attention away from the onslaught of violent, obscene literature in America’s schools. And it’s not just books; it's the Internet as well. When I co-sponsored a bill to have filters placed on library computers so as to block pornographic and racist web sites, the ALA went ballistic. They flew in their big guns and in front of a hearing room full of shocked parents, argued that "the First Amendment is more important than parental concerns about content" and made clear they were totally against any effort to block content of any kind from children no matter what age. Indeed, the ALA web site arrogantly states, "Librarians do not serve in loco parentis."
                The idea that our Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment to allow children to view obscene literature is preposterous but the ALA is on a crusade to persuade all libraries to treat children as adults. It’s a bizarre crusade, because, legally and morally, school children are minors and school boards and librarians have been entrusted by parents to protect them from such literature. Indeed, when a library Internet filter bill was introduced in Congress, the ALA went all out to fight it. It passed but ended up in the courts where again, the ALA spent a fortune fighting it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. They lost. Thank God.
                • "Marking 25 Years of Banned Books Week," by Judith Krug, Creator of Banned Books Week, Curriculum Review, 46:1 September 2006, emphasis mine:
                  On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library.  In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials. If it doesn't fit your material selection policy, get it out of there.
                • "American Library Association Shamed," by Nat Hentoff, Laurel-Leader Call, 2 March 2007.
                So bizarre is the ALA leadership, along with a cadre of Castro admirers on the Governing Council — in its abandonment of their fellow librarians — it refuses to post on its “Book Burning in the 21st Century” Web site the extensive, documented court transcripts of the “trials” that sent the librarians to prison. Those judges ordered the “incineration” of the prisoners’ libraries, including works by Martin Luther King Jr. and George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”
                ....
                A key ALA official, Judith Krug, heads its office of Intellectual Freedom. In my many years of reporting on the ALA’s sterling record of protecting American librarians from censorship, I often quoted her in admiration. But now, she said at an ALA meeting about supporters of the caged librarians, “I’ve dug in my heels ... I refuse to be governed by people with an agenda.” The Cuba issue, she continued, “wouldn’t die,” though she’d like to “drown it.”
                Kleinman accuses the ALA of hyperbole in celebrating Banned Books Week. "The whole purpose of Banned Books Week is to provide this kind of misinformation," he said. "The ALA misleads people into thinking that if you keep an inappropriate book from a child that is considered censorship. It is not."
                In the common-law tradition, censorship refers specifically to the government's prior restraint on publication. None of the sponsors claim this has happened; the acts they have in mind are perpetrated by private citizens. Yet the cases on the map almost all involve ordinary people lodging complaints with school and library authorities. Before Banned Books Week began in 1982, such behavior was known as petitioning the government for a redress of grievances.
                ....
                There's something odd about a national organization with a $54 million budget and 67,000 members reacting so zealously against a few unorganized, law-abiding parents whose efforts, by any sensible standard, are hopelessly ineffective. The ALA's members have immeasurably more power than the "censors" they denounce to decide what books are available in our communities, but this power is so familiar it's invisible. Why do parents' public petitions constitute censorship, while librarians' hidden verdicts do not? A spokesman for the ALA once tackled this question in the Boston Globe: "The selection criteria that librarians use may not always be what everybody wants. I don't see that it's a real problem." Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
                • "Chicago Tribune's Julia Keller Endorses ALA's Banned Books Week," by Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute, 28 September 2009.
                • "Celebrate 'Banned' Books Week!," by Annoyed Librarian, Library Journal, 30 September 2009, emphasis added:
                The ALA's definition of censorship has no relationship whatsoever to what everyone else in the entire world understands by the word.  It's incoherent and self-serving.
                Calls from Foxnews.com to Caldwell-Stone were directed to American Library Association Media Relations Manager Macey Morales, who asked for more information about PFOX's allegations and then failed to return follow-up e-mails and phone calls.
                The American Library Association refused to do anything about the book banning. This is actually predictable behavior for them – they are a left-wing advocacy group.
                A few weeks ago, the American Library Association announced with much fanfare that it was celebrating the ridiculous event called "Banned Books Week." This announcement accused Americans of being "zealots and bigots who live in fear of discourse" and of being "screamers and book banners and book burners." This Association arranged events and set up displays at libraries all over the country to pretend we have a problem with censorship.
                It's always been clear to me that the ALA OIF likes to dress up book challenges as "censorship" to draw attention to themselves and to pretend there is some sort of threat to "intellectual freedom" in the intellectually freest country in the world. It's hard to get worked up about some book challenge when the book is freely available in libraries and bookstores all over the country. But when it's censorship, then by God we're going to get upset by it! 
                Banned books are a sign of an oppressive regime. That said, forcing age-inappropriate reading materials on youngsters not ready to deal with the material -- and doing so just for the sake of a bigger principle -- is just as oppressive. Enter the American Library Association. .... Can't we trust the ALA to look out for the kids? The short answer is a resounding "no." .... Unless you are willing to sacrifice your child at the altar of political correctness, it may be wise to question the age-appropriateness of some books.
                Banned Book Week is a farce and an insult to the intelligence and goodwill of the taxpayers who pay for local public libraries and staff salaries.  Neither the American Library Association [ALA] nor the local community library is a "governmental" agency.  It is the taxpayers who own their community library and should have the freedom to determine the policies that regulate this community service institution.  The ALA, a private, non-governmental group of associated librarians, has incrementally usurped the freedoms of clients - especially parents - to determine which books should be selected for their library shelves.

                If anyone bans books, it is the radical American Library Association, which has run rough shod over our libraries for too many years and now solely determines which books are or are NOT ordered for display.

                It has been proven that books that have been banned from library shelves are those that the ALA "selection process" does not allow.
                Although I’ve written a lot about "banned" books, my primary objections to OIF shenanigans can be condensed to two.

                1) By its own extremist logic, the OIF is incapable of arguing against making hard core pornography or excessively violent books or films available for young children. Everything is merely "information," and everyone regardless of age somehow has a right to all that information. In the case of Internet pornography, they apparently have a duty to view the information if they happen to be passing by. Not only can they offer no argument against it, but if any concerned parents ask that such material be removed from the children's section of a library, the OIF condemns them as censors.

                Despite the high-minded rhetoric, practical instances of challenges almost always involve what is appropriate or inappropriate for children. Any group that is incapable of nuanced ethical argument distinguishing the needs of children from adults deserves not only to be ignored, but morally condemned.

                2) The OIF uses deceptive language in their claims about "censorship." I expect such dissembling rhetoric from politicians, but I prefer not to have it from my professional association. A library removing or not buying a book isn't government censorship. Government censorship is very clear when it happens – just look to China or North Korea – but it is extremely rare in the United States. The OIF changes the meaning of "censorship" because it's a strong word, and it makes their crusade against almost non-existent government censorship sound stronger.

                Government censorship prevents the publication of information. Period. That's what it means, and everyone but the ALA knows it. If a book were really censored, a library wouldn't be able to buy it in the first place, much less remove it. Recently, the Pentagon bought all 10,000 copies of the first edition of a spy memoir and destroyed them, claiming that they contained information that could be damaging to national security. This is the best attempt at government censorship I've seen in the United States since the Nixon era. Had they not bungled the affair by clearing the book and then later un-clearing it, it would be tempting to give the Pentagon the benefit of the doubt, because there are secrets of national security that protect American lives. It would still be censorship, but sometimes censorship is justified, and the right to free speech isn't absolute. If the OIF really knew anything about the First Amendment, they would know this.

                Because of these two flaws in OIF thinking, it's difficult to take them seriously. By using such extremist logic and sloppy language, they manage to turn what should be a serious debate about intellectual freedom and tolerance into a farce. A defense of intellectual freedom is admirable, but it can be defended without resort to irrational extremism or deceptive language.
                • "ALA's Ironic 'Banned Books Week,'" by Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute, 19 October 2010:
                In a 1995 interview with Beverly Goldberg, the highly respected Judith F. Krug, decades-long president of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, had this to say about the importance of intellectual diversity in library book collections:

                We have to serve the information needs of all the community and for so long "the community" that we served was the visible community.... And so, if we didn't see those people, then we didn't have to include them in our service arena. The truth is, we do have to.
                ...
                We never served the gay community.  Now, we didn't serve the gay community because there weren't materials to serve them.  You can't buy materials if they're not there.  But part of our responsibility is to identify what we need and then to begin to ask for it.  Another thing we have to be real careful about is that even though the materials that come out initially aren't wonderful, it's still incumbent upon us to have that voice represented in the collection.  This was exactly what happened in the early days of the women's movement, and as the black community became more visible and began to demand more materials that fulfilled their particular information needs.  We can't sit back and say, "Well, they're not the high-quality materials I'm used to buying."  They're probably not, but if they are the only thing available, then I believe we have to get them into the library. [emphasis added]

                According to Krug, intellectual diversity is of such paramount importance that it trumps even quality of material.  And if resources are scarce, Krug believes it is the obligation of librarians to ask for them.

                In light of Krug's comments, consider the topic on which libraries have virtually no books. Community and public high school libraries carry dozens of books, both fiction and non-fiction, on the topic of homosexuality and "transgenderism," almost every one of which espouses or embodies liberal assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality.  There can be found nary a one that espouses or embodies conservative assumptions about homosexuality.
                  To its credit, the OIF, in a letter to the school board, didn’t actually call the move “censorship,” but I’m sure someone there was thinking it. Instead, there’s a string of dubious arguments and an insistence that the real problem was that the board didn’t follow the written procedures for removing a book from the reading list.
                    That last argument basically boils down to “librarians know better than you,” so it’s probably not going to persuade the school board.
                      They’re probably also not going to be persuaded by this one: “We strongly encourage you to follow the guidance provided by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has held that public school officials may not remove books from school library shelves simply because of their disagreement with the views or ideas expressed in the books.”
                        Unless a “reading list” is the same thing as “library shelves,” that entire paragraph doesn’t make any sense in context. Probably a form letter.
                        The hypocrisy is breathtaking.  Just as school reconvenes, here comes "Banned Books Week," Sept. 21 to 27, the contrived observance by the far-left American Library Association which has the essential theme that nothing, nothing in media, hurts children, unless it's a book critical of homosexuality, abortion or upholding the truth of Scripture. Or possibly advocating the right of Israel to defend itself. 
                        Otherwise, any image, idea or scenario produced by adults motivated by perversion/greed/notoriety/atheism/anarchism should be available to inquiring young minds, because there's never an ill effect on children.  This is an odd position that would seem to nullify the value of books in general.  But then there's also the strong possibility that perversion/atheism, etc. are qualities some adults want children to develop.
                        CHICAGO — A far cry from the stereotypical homely, conservative librarian many of us remember from childhood, the American Library Association of today is behaving more and more like the corner drug dealer or child predator — “Psst…hey kid, I’ve got something for you…”
                        The general gist of the criticism is that while librarians talk a good game about intellectual freedom and are against “censorship” and “banning books,” in fact their entire collection development process effectively bans books that librarians disagree with politically.
                        Libraries use Collection Development Policies (CDP’s) to determine which books they will purchase with their limited budgets. CDP’s hold that librarians should purchase only books that have been positively reviewed by two “professionally recognized” review journals. Guess what folks, the “professionally recognized” review journals are dominated by ideological “progressives.”
                        That’s pretty hard to argue with, because she’s right and we all know it. It doesn’t even mention that a lot of times it’s other librarians reviewing the books anyway, thus guaranteeing that the choices will be kept within the profession and that books librarians don’t like won’t be reviewed and thus won’t be purchased.
                        Now admittedly, not all librarians are loony leftists.  In fact, some are speaking out here and there against the fascist, anti-knowledge approach of BBW.  They admit the goal is all about exaggeration and intimidation.  In other words, "Banned Books Week" is essentially a pro-bullying strategy, with parents, the community, even thoughtful teachers the victims.

                            .... Every right-thinking person agreed: This was an outrage. 
                            .... But in feeding off of conflicts like Sims vs. the school board, Banned Books Week also traffics in fear-mongering over censorship, when in fact the truth is much sunnier: There is basically no such thing as a "banned book" in the United States in 2015. 
                            The statistics certainly sound alarming. Since Banned Books Week was instituted in 1982, the event’s website informs us, 11,300 books have been challenged. In 2014 alone, 311 books were banned or challenged in schools and libraries in the United States, with many more cases unreported. It would be easy to assume that the literal banning of books is still a routine occurrence in the United States. 
                            But take a closer look, and there's much less for freedom-loving readers to be concerned with. The modifier "banned or challenged" contains a lot of wiggle room, for one. A "challenge," in the ALA's definition, is a "formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness." By that definition, Sims' one-woman freak-out in Tennessee qualifies as a "challenge," despite the fact that it posed no real threat to Skloot's book, let alone the "freedom to read."

                            .... 
                            Much of the rhetoric around Banned Books Week elides not just the difference between the past and the present but some other important distinctions: the difference between "bans" from public libraries and from school libraries, and between inclusion in school curricula and general availability in a library. A parent merely questioning the presence of a book on a required reading list is the same, to the organizations that run Banned Books Week, as the book being removed from circulation at the local public library. But the former, I would argue, is part of a reasonable local conversation about public education (even if the particular parental preferences are unreasonable). The latter comes closer to a "book ban." 
                            .... 
                            Some, or even all, of these challenges may be misguided, silly, or narrow-minded. But even if you're firmly opposed to "banning books"—and I am!—it's hard to argue that parents should have no right to weigh in on what their children read at school. There's an enormous difference between parents saying a book shouldn't appear on their kid's required reading list and a citizen demanding that adults should have no access to a book at a public library. And it should shock no one that in a country of 300 million people, there are a few hundred cases each year in which someone objects to a particular book’s availability, especially to children.
                            ....
                            This Banned Books Week, instead of hand-wringing about a nonexistent wave of censorship, let's celebrate the obvious: The books won.
                            .... 
                            Upon closer inspection, and a little bit of Googling, it turns out many of these banned books were merely "challenged" — which means one or two ignorant and/or censorious parents filed a complaint with their local school or library about some innocent tome. 
                            .... 
                            Claiming a book has been banned, or willfully misunderstanding the difference between a challenge and a ban, is no doubt good for business in a world that despises censorship. It certainly worked on this book buyer. 
                            But if you indulge in that sort of thing, not only are you making yourself less trustworthy (sorry, local bookstore), you're also flooding the market with fake stories — and reducing the amount of attention paid to real book censorship problems when they come along. 
                            .... 
                            So, nutty overprotective mom doesn't understand basic medicine. Big whoop. The challenge went nowhere — except the websites of the BBC, Salon, the Guardian, and dozens of other outlets. Skloot let her indignation be known on her Facebook page, and no doubt sold a few extra books. Imagine the furor if the Knoxville school district had actually agreed with the mom. 
                            As a Salon columnist noted, books simply aren't banned in the U.S. any more, calling the whole basis of Banned Books Week into question. (The most recent ban in any U.S. school, according to the ALA's own material, was in 1994.) 
                            Or rather, it begs this question: Why aren't we paying this much attention to parts of the world, including free-speech-friendly countries, where forms of book censorship are still in effect? Why aren't we paying this much attention to parts of the world, including free-speech-friendly countries, where forms of book censorship are still in effect? Why wasn't it news around the world when a book was burned by religious extremists in India, and the intimidated author gave up writing and asked his publishers for the book to be withdrawn? 
                            .... 
                            But we can't begin to discuss the real problems of censorship if our awareness is dulled by a focus on cranks who think they see a nipple in Where's Waldo. That's what got the famous kids' book briefly banned from a few pubic [sic, unless intended] schools in Michigan and one in New York in 1989 and 1993, respectively. 
                            I'm not trying to minimize the dangers of cranks, or say that there's no chance the overzealous and prudish could see their way clear to banning a book in the future. But by and large, those days are over. America, a few ill-informed attention-seeking parents notwithstanding, has learned its lesson. Let's stop fighting old battles, because there's a new global frontier where we could effect some change. 
                            In the war against book banning, it's high time we turned the page.
                            As we wrap up 2015’s Banned Book Week (September 27 – October 3), Ruth Graham at Slate rightly takes the American Library Association (ALA) to task for trafficking “in fear-mongering over censorship, when in fact the truth is much sunnier: There is basically no such thing as a ‘banned book’ in the United States in 2015.”
                            That’s true, but Graham understates the problem with the ALA’s campaign of disinformation. 
                            She points out that to maintain the semblance of relevance in an era of ever-freer access to books of all kinds, the ALA has begun to conflate the categories of banned books and challenged books. “The modifier ‘banned or challenged’ contains a lot of wiggle room,” says Graham. 
                            .... 
                            The ALA presents itself as championing freedom, but what the organization is really doing is waging a campaign of “fear-mongering over censorship” to make us feel grateful to them as guardians of our rights, when they are, in fact, the guardians of tax-funded librarians. 
                            ....


                            This week is Banned Books Week, and in libraries all over the country, librarians are making displays of books on fire to illustrate the great danger we all face of Amazon setting its warehouse aflame, or something. Not really. There is no possible way for any book to be censored by any stretch of the imagination. Books are not censored. Period. Should one school library remove a book from its shelves because of parental concern or otherwise, that book is still readily available, well, everywhere. 
                            Libraries themselves take part in the censorship of books, except they say they "select" them. This is the process where they choose which books to make available to the public and which books to throw in the trash. It’s a joke of colossal proportion that librarians don’t censor. Here is a discussion I found on the American Library Association (ALA) Think Tank’s Facebook page during Banned Books Week, addressing this very issue.



                            Notice the calls for these books about controversial topics to be thrown in the dumpster. These are the same people who wax sanctimonious about all the bad parents out there who want to "ban" books because they complained about violent sexual content in a reading assignment (a growing problem in public schools). This is a far cry from "banning" a book which would make it unavailable to the general public. A complaint is not a "ban." 
                            Modern librarians put themselves on pedestals, claiming to be champions of intellectual freedom and the First Amendment. They make no judgements (they claim) and fight against parents who would prefer that some judgements be made about the content that is given to their kids. 
                            In case you think it's extreme to suggest that librarians are fighting against parents, consider this. Titled Censorship and Intellectual Freedom, ALA acolyte and assistant director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom Kristin Pekoll laments the involvement of parents in book selection, among a litany of other complaints (because only librarians are allowed to throw books in the dumpster). 
                            Do I stand strong against the onslaught of vocal parents demanding cleaner libraries? 
                            If there was ever any doubt that ALA was concerned with the welfare of children, this should end that debate. The ALA prides itself on encouraging librarians to stand against parents, to put books that are rife with sexual violence, drugs, alcohol, abortion and other adult topics into the hands of your children without your permission or consent. 
                            Here is my favorite find on the ALA's website. This infographic shows you exactly what they are actively pushing on your kids during Banned Books Week.


                            Don't be fooled by Banned Books Week; it's just more trumped-up fakery to push cultural rot on your kids.
                            Banned Books Week, the American Library Association's annual self-advertisement, has now ended for this year. Bookstores will disassemble their earnest displays of "banned books," public libraries will return to the semblance of normality in public libraries. And we will be left with the sobering thought that, in 21st-century America, there remain people who would ban the works of Harper Lee or J.D. Salinger or Judy Blume, to give some favorite examples.  
                            Except that this year, I'm happy to report, a tiny crack appeared in the ALA's great Banned Books Week edifice. Slate, a publication not known for its skepticism toward liberal pieties, ran an essay with the intoxicating title "Banned Books Week Is a Crock." I was, and remain, astonished, and yet encouraged, that it should have been published—and not banned!—by the right-thinking editors at Slate.  
                            .... 
                            Yet what intrigues me about Banned Books Week publicity, and the likely political agenda over at ALA headquarters, is not what it features but what it excludes. For there is, in fact, an ongoing effort to ban books in America in 2015—that is, to exclude them from classroom reading lists, if not prevent their publication and sale – but it is taking place not on school boards in our nation's rural communities but on college campuses in some of the most progressive and sophisticated communities in the United States. At Columbia University in Manhattan, for example, Ovid's Metamorpheses has been excluded from the syllabus because of objections about sexual violence and replaced with—irony alert!—Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. Rutgers is considering the attachment of required "trigger warnings" for The Great Gatsby and Huckleberry Finn, and based on individual complaints, innumerable other colleges and universities are pondering the future of such works as Mrs. Dalloway or The Merchant of Venice on student reading lists. 
                            ....
                            Those bannings, while rare, did happen.  These days though, there aren't books being banned in America.  Those saying otherwise are repeating comforting lies.  Leftists, led by the weirdly extremist American Library Association, tell themselves these things so they can feel superior to others. 
                            The lack of a banned book problem is so striking though, Dan Kleinman points out that press outlets are starting to notice, who otherwise would just parrot the "banned and challenged books line."  That's the trick wording: The American Library Association is trying to get you to equate 'banned books' (which are a thing that mostly happens in the Islamic world) with 'challenged books.'


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