Posted on 07/07/2010 1:38:38 PM PDT by MissTed
A Japanese serial graphic novel genre popular with young teens has raised the ire of a Crestview mother whose teenage son got hold of an adult version of the genre from the Crestview Public Library.
“Manga” depicts highly stylized adventure and, occasionally, violence in fantasy settings.
Margaret Barbaree, founder of a citizens’ group called Protect Our Children, presented examples from a manga book to the Crestview City Council last week that she described as “graphic” and “shocking,” taken from material she said is “available to children” at the Crestview Public Library.
“My son lost his mind when he found this,” Barbaree said of the manga book from which her examples were taken.
She said her son had removed the book unsupervised from the library’s general stacks last summer and put it in his backpack. She has kept it ever since.
“Now he’s in a home for extensive therapy,” she said.
Several months ago, Barbaree had circulated a petition bearing 226 signatures of citizens protesting the availability of manga, which she mistakenly referred to as “anime,” or Japanese animation.
However, the library said some patrons complained they were misled when they signed the petition.
“They told us she (Barbaree) approached them at the Christmas parade and asked them to sign a petition protesting pornography in the library,” said Resource Librarian Sandra Dreaden.
Barbaree said Library Director Jean Lewis explained to her that there is a demand for manga, and that the library strives to meet the needs of its patrons.
City Council President Charles Baugh Jr. assured Barbaree that “we have safeguards in place to protect our children and we have committees that review library purchases so they meet the standards of the (American) Library Association.”
The books that concerned Barbaree “are in the library for those who wish to partake of them and they are in a section of the library” for adult patrons, said Baugh, who visited the library himself the day after the council meeting and said he found the manga available in the young adult section perfectly innocuous.
“We follow up with our citizens’ concerns,” Baugh said after meeting with library staff and viewing the young adult manga.
Baugh also confirmed that the book Barbaree’s son had taken was in the general stacks well away from the children’s and young adult books.
“Our library is well managed and well staffed,” Baugh told Barbaree while assuring her, “I am a family man and I understand what you are saying.”
Lewis said the manga available in the young adult section of the library is oriented toward young teen readers and does not contain the adult themes of the book Barbaree’s son took. That book had been in the general stacks, on a top shelf in a section with other graphic novels and comic books not geared toward young readers.
“We have policies and procedures in place to prevent underage children from accessing those materials,” Baugh said.
We have 2 small units but the window frames are rotting. I suspect we’ll be the last tenants to ever live here. And it’s a shame as it’s a graceful old federal style farmhouse. The barn is collapsing and the 76 acres all overgrown and useless. Such a waste!
Porn and anime are two different things. Sometimes they overlap, but not always. You are assuming this story was about the most hardcore of anime. Libraries are supposed to display books about a wide variety of interests and viewpoints. Refusing to carry one because some don’t like it is a bad trend to start. Many don’t like books on the fair tax, “more guns, less crime”, or “the bell curve.” That doesn’t mean they should be removed any more than liberal books should if a conservative doesn’t like them.
Freedom comes with a price. Sometimes that price is knowing there’s offensive material somewhere and choosing not to take that book out or look at it. I’m all for special sections for certain classification of books. I’m not for banning entire classifications at the behest of a few citizens.
Find a window..rotten frame or not..line it with plywood..and shove one of those puppies in. Send your landlords phone number...I’ll call and tell him I’m your attorney :)
Any chance to purchase the place? Sounds like it has alot of history...that is so neat. It is a shame to let it go.
Before the housing crash he wanted $1.6 mil. So not a chance. Hubby retires in 4 years. It’s the kind of place that we always wanted and now we’re a little old to enjoy it. But I’m trying!
The fact you equate an economic subject with porn is the entire problem right there.
The fact is porn/nudity is regulated by the government already (gasp!). Specifically to shield minors from it.
It’s a total double standard. One governmental body keeps it off over-the-air tv, another wants to buy it and stock it in our libraries. Total inconsistency. Can’t let junior tune in for free but if he happens to find it in the library well we can’t censor the library.
We have decency standards in communities, we have decency standards that affect what’s on tv. Society at large sets that, not only a select few that work for the library that aren’t accountable to the voters. Try and talk with the high-up people that RUN the library, they are the most close-minded, don’t question what I’m doing kind of people you’ll ever meet. Often appointed by mayors and such, so totally unaccountable to folks in the community. Used to be they did care, now they don’t.
It also comes with a responsibility not to degrade society into an immoral morass. Our Constitution was meant for a moral society, not a depraved one. I can give you quotes from Adams and Washington if you like.
Come to Missouri and I’ll find a farm for you for less than 250000 :) We need more conservatives! What does hubby do if I can ask?
He has a city job. Trouble shooting elevators, and he’s good at it. He enjoys it too. But his old knees don’t like trying to climb on top of elevator cabs anymore. Or using the stairs because the only elevator is down and HE’S the repairman. lol
That’s the part I noticed. Did he steal the book???
Maybe the kid went to the wrong section of the library?
Have a good night!
Yes, there is no right to porn at your local library. Just because something is published doesn’t mean the library MUST carry it, especialyl if it’s something a bunch of cheap perverts want to look at and fantasize to. As much as I can I will make sure my tax dollars don’t go to support anyone else’s pervert habits, nobody has a right to other peoples’ money to support their disgusting personal habits.
And yes, our system of government depends on the individual being their own moral agent, rather than having agents of the state (secret police, snitches, cops on every corner) telling you what you could and couldn’t do.
Not teaching this anymore, but just focusing on the rights of individuals (but not the corresponding responsibilities of those rights), we’ve fallen a lot morally and as a result the country we are living in now is much more of a police state than ever.
That they're so merrily willing to accept the word of a virtually illiterate, ostensibly "reformed" junkie -- one who had eight of her ten children taken away from her by the authorities (abuse?) (neglect?), no less -- is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
Good grief.
Wow, she sounds like an absolute nutjob.
Actually it sounds like from your report that there needs to be a clamp down on security at libraries to keep criminals and sexual deviants out, if the purpose of their visit is to rob, shower, and masturbate.
Perhaps, being drawings, he took to copying some of the drawings and mama was creeped out by his art (which could have included octopus demon rape and disembowelment illustrations of friends, family, and even the president).
The Japanese can get creeped out by some of the horrific crimes they experience too and target the art and consumers. There was a brutal beheading of a schoolboy some years back. Authorities took to looking up the video rental histories of adults; why such businesses even keep records (same as libraries) when materials have been returned is because they are nosey (despite the ALA’s insistance on a belief in “privacy”).
Turns out the culprit was a thirteen year old (don’t recall if he was a classmate or just a neighborhood bully).
It’s possible that the mother is overreacting, but the local politicians are LYING when they claim that the ALA is opposed to minors viewing extreme adults only materials or that libraries even stock such materials.
How about we petition libaries in schools and cities to drop their support for the lying pravda media?
LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Time, Newsweak and others have been caught outright fabricating news in the past decades. They are dishonest periodicals.
How many of them also subscribe to the Limbaugh Letter? Pravda? Revolution? Lyndon LaRouche’s paper?
It’s all the expenditure of our tax dollars. Some materials are considered to be “more objective” or an official “record of history” than others. But it isn’t so.
And you can gift books and subscriptions to the library. Don’t expect everything to be shelved with equal care. Some will be instantly discarded.
Thomas Jefferson owned a koran, as Barack Obama proudly reminded the world. Except Jefferson owned it to do opposition research as the rest of the world paid ransoms to Islamic pirates.
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