Posted on 05/22/2006 12:11:31 PM PDT by Borges
A northwest suburban high school board member seeks to ban seven books from classroom use because she thinks the profanity, depiction of graphic sex, and drug and abortion references in the literature are inappropriate for teenagers.
Leslie Pinney admits she only read passages of the controversial selections, including Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Toni Morrison's Beloved, which were on the American Library Association's 100 most challenged books list between 1990 and 2000.
But Pinney said perusing the questionable parts of the books made it clear they weren't suitable for children and should be taken off Township High School District 214's proposed required reading list next year. The district is based in Arlington Heights.
Pinney was particularly offended by the explicit tales of masturbation and teen sex in Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The popular novel, often described as a modern-day Catcher in the Rye, was among the ALA's top 10 most challenged books two years ago.
'Isn't there ... a higher level?'
"We talk about the steady diet of trans fat and sugar, and we know the result is obesity and diabetes. But what are we feeding the minds of our students? They're getting a steady diet of foul language, violence and sexuality outside the classroom by the media. But when it comes to the classroom, isn't there something of a higher level to feed the minds of our children?" Pinney asked.
Other books Pinney wants replaced are The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien; The Awakening by Kate Chopin; Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, and Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World.
Many of the texts have been used in the district's six main high schools before and were reviewed by the department heads before the lists were sent to the board for consideration.
"These aren't books someone just picked out of a bookstore one Saturday morning and said, 'Hey let's put them on the reading list.' These are books that have gone through the process and were selected for their educational value," Board President William Dussling said.
'It cannot hurt to be informed'
Dussling is willing to listen to Pinney's concerns when the board meets Thursday, but he doubts the books will be removed from the curriculum. The district has an "opt out" policy if parents don't want students to participate in an activity or read a certain book, he said.
Levitt, a University of Chicago economics professor, can understand why some people may be uncomfortable with his nonfiction best seller, which correlates legalized abortion with lower crime rates. However, he said banning it for ideological reasons does not make sense.
"The book does deal with controversial topics like abortion, crime, guns and race. But we aren't making moral statements in the book about whether abortion should or shouldn't be legal, or guns should or should not be regulated. Instead, we try to look at the data and understand what impact legalized abortion or gun control has had on crime. I would think that whatever conclusion one comes to on the morality of an issue like abortion, it cannot hurt to be informed about the facts," Levitt said.
There were 404 challenges or written requests to have a book removed from a school or library filed with the ALA last year. There were 11 challenges in Illinois in 2005, compared with 10 the year before, spokeswoman Larra Clark said.
I disliked the way that "literature" was taught so much, it took me some years after I started teaching (math) to read some of it.
Painfully. Ever think about what a mechanical 0.5mm pencil could do?
Well, that's obvious. But how their language was different isn't so obvious. Can you show me an example of a similar incident where the context was clearly not homosexual? Preferably less than 2000 years removed would be nice.
That's because he was BI.
Silent Spring
Communist Manifesto
Population Bomb
Origin of the Species
Fahrenheit 9/11
The Koran
Protocols of the Elders of Zion....
Like I say, I wouldn't BAN any of those, but there should probably be warning labels on them.
F 9/11 isn't a book. The Coommunist Manifesto is a pamphlet. With the exception of 'Protocols' and 'Population Bomb', those others are hugely influential and cannot be ignored.
A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Sorry, try again.
Citing Shakespeare's culture when discussing Richard is like citing Tupac Shakur's when discussing Isaac Newton's. Shakespeare was born 365 years after Richard Coeur de Lion.
365 years after Richard I died that is.
Bookmark
From your quote, I think your problem is with the word "passionate". Richard and Philip are described as eating together (horrors), sleeping together (a common practice back then), being of one soul (is that gay?). The only other thing that might lead one to think they were gay was the word "passionate" which does not necessarily denote ardency of a sexual nature.
Besides all that, Henry II would hardly have marvelled to know that his son was homosexual. Rather, he would have marvelled that the 2 had a close friendship which would bode well for the expansion of his kingdom.
"... who doesn't think sex is evil."
Sex is the reason we are all here.
Even you.
"Not Lance III! Who Knew?"
Lance Sr. was straight:
There was a young fellow called Lancelot,
Whom his neighbors all looked on askance a lot:
..Whenever he'd pass
..A presentable lass,
the front of his pants would advance a lot.
sleeping together (a common practice back then)
All I'm asking is that you cite those claims. Was it common for grown men to sleep with one another in France in the 13th century? I honestly don't know. You say it was. But do you have any supporting evidence or are you just making this up?
Besides all that, Henry II would hardly have marvelled to know that his son was homosexual. Rather, he would have marvelled that the 2 had a close friendship which would bode well for the expansion of his kingdom.
And you know that because...?
I find that awfully hard to believe.
Nah,
You came out of a cabbage patch,
I'm sure of it! ;)
The Song of Songs is far from filth. However, it is my understanding that Jewish children were forbidden from reading it until they had attained a certain maturity. This, is of course, as it should be with mature reading material.
You will have to read more about the culture back then. Then you won't be hoodwinked by the gay history-revisionist propoganda. Even as late as Melville's "Moby Dick" Ishmael and Queequeg share a bed and no one to my knowledge has accused them of homosexuality.
And you know that because...?
Again, if you know your history, you will know that Henry II lived for the expansion of his kingdom. If there was any threat that his son would adopt a homosexual lifestyle and thereby imperil the dynasty he would certainly not have "marvelled".
The only way to be sure of this stuff is to become more familiar with history. One of the socialists' favorite tactics is to disrupt it. The more you know, the more you can be free from their tactics.
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