American dumbness — like the plague



https://news.yahoo.com/orange-school-di ... ccounter=1

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states ... nned-books

Orange school board member Alicia Farrant, a member of the conservative Moms for Liberty group that has pushed for books to be yanked from schools.....

When people or organisations claim to guard other people's liberties you better run for the hills.

its all the religious nutters out there

A revealing paragraph towards the end of the article sheds some light on the attention grabbing headline.

The ALA notes that of titles challenged in 2023 so far, “the vast majority of challenges were to books written by or about a person of color or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.” All 13 of the most-challenged books in 2022 were challenged for alleged sexually explicit content, and more than half included claims of LGBTQIA+ content.

I have highlighted the single sentence that I think most on here can agree is an actual issue. Sexually explicit material being made available to children. Content that would be considered inappropriate or un-publishable in most mainstream outlets. But, somehow it is ok for children.
Now, I can agree that the more religious and puritanical citizens of the USA are at the extremes with their denial of evolution and strict adherence to the word of the bible, ie. god created the world in 7 days, Noahs ark and the like, and nothing will appease them but there is a growing backlash in the states to the whole gender identity thing and the reading material children are being given access to.

Yes, I am running.

But it isn't only "all 13 books..." Sexually explicit content is just a smidgen of all this...

It's nearly 700 books in one county of Florida... Including titles by authors who are standard in the canon for first year English Literature studies at universities around the world, ie.: "Jude the Obscure" by Thomas Hardy and many others... Across America over 2,000 titles have been challenged. This would never happen in Canada, the UK or anywhere in Europe!

What I cannot get my head around is how in the world these people think they are "protecting" kids. It looks like all they are doing is "protecting" them from being able to learn how to think for themselves!

That's the gut-wrenching part. Just terrifying how idiotic these people are: it's like, they think they know the truth of the world, and they want to do everything in their power to impose their extraordinarily narrow and provincial concept of literal religiosity and unreality upon everyone. What right does one narrow religious or conservative group have to impose restrictions on the freedom of others to choose a book to read!? It must be against the law somewhere..!

It just beggars belief that these people are even getting away with this. How in the world can they impose this kind of ignorant and absolutely insulting kind of parochialism upon everyone in the society!? Not everyone is a Creationist who believes the world began less than 5,000 years ago! (Although, the current Speaker of the House of Representatives happens to be one, yikes.)

On a related tack:

I was chatting with my old friend who has worked at an international school in a senior managerial position for some years. (Not in Cambodia). The millennials are taking over and she is dumbfounded at their strange, petty rule-making.

"Don't touch the kids", and "don't forget to use the correct pronoun of their choice" (we, us, they -- in place of he and she...)

She says it has reached the point of utter absurdity. The millennial teachers/managers are all hyper-sensitive about following all the new rules. Even when they have staff meetings, those presenting talks to adults are required to "pre-inform" their colleagues if they will be mentioning delicate topics like "suicide" before the meeting begins, (I presume, they must inform them beforehand by email...) Lol...

Utterly inane birdbrain shit... It's going to transform a whole new generation of little turds into hypochondriacs, neurotics and touchy ignoramuses...

Doesn't appropriateness depend on the ages of the students in question?

For example, Mark Twain's salty language in Huckleberry Finn might come off nasty and harsh to a six year old, but not so much to a high school student who's already familiar with gangsta rap and trashy-ass memes and shit.

It looks like all they are doing is "protecting" them from being able to learn how to think for themselves!

No, these books are just indoctrinating young people into the modern theocracy of multiculturalism.

The general canon:
-White people are bad.
-Chop off your penis.
-Dangerous sexual practices.
(Not necessarily in the above order. Lol)

Not impressed and I can see why parents are organizing against these books being used in classrooms. They push a very anti-social and destructive ideology.

Roryborealis wrote: ↑Sat Dec 30, 2023 1:09 pm Doesn't appropriateness depend on the ages of the students in question?

For example, Mark Twain's salty language in Huckleberry Finn might come off nasty and harsh to a six year old, but not so much to a high school student who's already familiar with gangsta rap and trashy-ass memes and shit.

To be fair, I was reading Mark Twain at age 6 & it was just folksy stuff. Us 6 year old farm kids had pretty agricultural language already from our peers/environment

orichá wrote: ↑Sat Dec 30, 2023 12:40 pm Yes, I am running.

But it isn't only "all 13 books..." Sexually explicit content is just a smidgen of all this...

It's nearly 700 books in one county of Florida... Including titles by authors who are standard in the canon for first year English Literature studies at universities around the world, ie.: "Jude the Obscure" by Thomas Hardy and many others... Across America over 2,000 titles have been challenged. This would never happen in Canada, the UK or anywhere in Europe!

History suggests otherwise

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_b ... overnments

Big Daikon wrote: ↑Sat Dec 30, 2023 1:34 pm

It looks like all they are doing is "protecting" them from being able to learn how to think for themselves!

No, these books are just indoctrinating young people into the modern theocracy of multiculturalism.

The general canon:
-White people are bad.
-Chop off your penis.
-Dangerous sexual practices.
(Not necessarily in the above order. Lol)

Not impressed and I can see why parents are organizing against these books being used in classrooms. They push a very anti-social and destructive ideology.

Madame Bovary is on the list, and banned, a novel from 1857.