Free Republic

“In the mid-1970s, California Congresswoman Karen Bass, who is now under consideration to be Joe Biden’s running mate, was an organizer for the Venceremos Brigade… An event blurb in an October 1975 issue of the communist Daily World newspaper describes Bass, then 22, as “leader of the Venceremos Brigade in southern California….As a ‘brigadista’ and then organizer for the Venceremos Brigades, Karen visited Cuba every 6 months.” (Tablet magazine, 7/28.) In that heady Age of Aquarius hundreds of starry-eyed college kids were volunteering to “help build Cuban Socialism” and “fight U.S. Imperialism,” mostly by joyfully cutting Cuban sugar cane and...

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,”...

The current flap over Spanish-language dirty comic books on the shelves of the Denver Public Library raises a number of serious questions. One such publication is titled La Policiaca Novela. It features graphic illustrations of well-endowed, bare-breasted women repeatedly engaged in sexual intercourse or on the receiving end of severe beatings from men. Diane Lapierre, the library's director of strategic initiatives (more on what that title suggests later), prefers to call these comic books "illustrated novellas" and says they are very popular among Latino library users. She claims, "They are targeted at people who don't have strong reading skills and...

<p>It's "Back To School" time again, and here's the first pop quiz. No, it's not for the kids. It's for parents, and they have to answer only one question: Do you know what your children are learning in sex-education classes?</p>