I absolutely, positively do NOT have any time to fool with blogs today. Not a second. I am up to my alb in alligators trying to re-enter after being away at Lambeth followed by my mother's funeral followed by vacation. I love what I do and at the moment -- as my friend Elizabeth would say -- I have too much on my plate to even pray over it!
And ...
I got an email from an friend and educator (posted below) about an effort to ban some books in Wasalia, Alaska. And so I'm tithing the 20 minutes I had planned to eat lunch to posting this up instead and throwing myself on the mercy of some of you blog-heads out there with more time on your hands than I have this week to do the research on this.
Because --believe it or not, I do NOT believe absolutely everything someone emails me -- I want someone to give it a "truth dig" thumbs up or thumbs down for accuracy.
And ...
If it's true ...
I want to know how we think we could even BEGIN to imagine that trying to ban "A Wrinkle in Time" is something we want on the resume of the Vice President of the United States of America.
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1:39PM
UPDATE: WOW!!! You guys are fast!!!
Thankfully, the answer is "NOT TRUE!" ... here's a link to the Snopes "debunk" ... and shame on whoever's putting this kind of stuff out there and getting bleeding heart liberals like me all excited!
So, now you know ... and here's the email NOT to believe when you get it ...
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From: XXXXX
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 9:35 AM
To: XXXXX
Subject: Our next vice president's banned reading list
The following is a list of books that Sarah Palin tried to get banned when she was mayor of Wasilla. This information is taken from the official minutes of the Wasilla Library Board.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John KnowlesS
ilas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth
8 comments:
There seems to be no truth to that list. Check out a librarian's take on it: http://www.librarian.net/stax/2387/on-fact-checking-and-sarah-palin-and-book-banning/
Good thing you put a disclaimer on this.
First, you can go through the Wiki page on Sarah Palin and see that at no point does anyone allege that any request came from Sarah Palin to remove any book from the Wasilla library. It appears to have been a query on what would happen if someone did request that kind of thing, and came up in the context of a general discussion of library policies.
Second, the list is copied from a list of books that people commonly complain about being included in libraries, especially school libraries. Note that some of the books on that list were published after this occurred, so there's no way that Sarah Palin could have put them on any list. For example, the very first book of the Harry Potter series was published on June 30th, 1997. Rather difficult for it and the rest of the Harry Potter books to have shown up on a list that would have been created in October of 1996.
That e-mail's been debunked. It's apparently something someone made up to attempt to discredit Gov. Palin.
Okay, so it was an "urban legend." Here's the REAL problem: how utterly believable it was.
Glad it's not true, but...
If I were a living author on this book list, I'd be extremely honored to be included.
Almost as good as being on GAFCON's 'not welcome' list, isn't it?
Here's the REAL problem: how utterly believable it was.
Well, it was utterly false and easily checked. So it seems to me that the problem lies with the people who believed it and how ready they were to run with the narrative instead of the facts.
Sure, there have been a couple of exceptions, like the flip-flop on the "Bridge to Nowhere". But overall it seems that the left is falling all over themselves to demonize or "other" Gov. Palin with baseless rumors instead of checking and sticking to facts and treating her like a human being.
ron ... a "flip flop" is when you change your position based on new information or a change of heart.
There's another term for doing one thing and then saying that you've done another.
I think it's "bald face lie."
The problem here is not that it was so believeable--the problem is that a prominent member of the Episcopalian clergy posted it on her high-traffic blog without even checking herself if it was true, but with the weak--"I'm putting this here for YOU to confirm." You're better than this, Ms. Russell.
Dear Rev. Russell:
What all this shows is that we are all pre-disposed to attack and believe the worst about those with whom we disagree and dismiss and disregard similar information about those we agree with.
On another thread you have an Episcopal priest calling an accomplished woman, a governor, a mother and now V.P. candidate "bat-s*** crazy." Is this what we have become?
I have to admit that for the first time in a long time I feel no real angst about whoever gets elected. They all seem like fine, intelligent people. I would gladly have any of them in my home.
We will soon be rid of the adolescent in the White House no matter who is elected. That is a good thing.
The forum last night (the one where Barack criticized Columbia University for not allowing the ROTC) was an example of what I wish our campaigns were more like.
Instead of tearing people down, calling them "bat s*** crazy" when they obviously are not, why not just hear the positive plans of both sides and make our choices accordingly.
Now I'll go outside and watch the porkers fly by. I just got an e-mail from a friend (a McCain supporter) trying to convince me that Barack is a closet Muslim based on a slip of the tongue this week when he used the term "my Muslim faith."
It was clearly a mistake he meant to say that he appreciated that McCain hadn't attacked the rumors of his alleged Muslim faith, but in his haste he did use those terms. That now is making the Internet rounds and it is a shame, first because it's not true and secondly because it is not relevant.
Stepping off soap box now.
A sinner saved by God's Grace
Jim of Michigan
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