An Eagle editorial allows that there is plenty of room for debate about what literature our kids should read in schools. And parents’ concerns about profanity and “obscene” material in novels must be taken seriously.
But the Kansas State Board of Education’s crusading conservatives shouldn’t meddle in what is a local district decision.
It’s impossible to please everyone with reading lists. After all, language in novels that board member Connie Morris finds “horribly vulgar” has been found entirely appropriate by school districts such as Blue Valley that considered the passages in context, as intended.
The way to resolve these disputes is for schools to have a good, open selection process in place that involves parents and explains how certain books were chosen and why. And give parents who object to specific works some alternatives for their kids.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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36 Comments
Well if the BOE wants to censor books the first one should be the bible. It is absolutely disgusting. It has all of the stuff a good upstanding christian finds repulsive, and I for one don’t want their sensitive eyes and impressionable minds reading that crap.
One of the first pieces of advise I received when I started writing, was about content and relevancyI had written a Science fiction story about time travel and the main event within the story involved adolescent sex. I was prepared to submit it for publishing, but the subject matter made me hold back.Then my Uncle advised me that as long as it is relevant to the story and not just for the sake of titillation.And without what may be perceived as objectionable the story could not be told. That it is appropriated to have it in the story.
The same view should be used when you are deciding if a book is appropriated for a child. As long as the child is old enough to understand what the real message of the book is about. It is all about the target audience, in the case of my story the web-zine that published it was more for the teen and young adult target media. I receive a good review for the story and went on to be Author of the year.
In Wichita, Connie Morris of the State Board of Education, objected that books in the district’s reading list “have vulgar language.” “… you need to take it off the list,” she demanded, cautioning about “a novel students are being tested on that talks about suicide.”
I wonder if the contents of a biography containing material such as this would pass her muster? At her mother’s wedding the writer recalled she wore a “tight T shirt and even tighter cutoff blue jean shorts,” from which her “buttocks squeezed indecently…”
The accounts detailed her arrest, rapes and adulterous affairs. “I snorted heroine (sic), angel dust, speed and cocaine. I spent nearly every night…passed out in somebody’s van or on a stranger’s floor.” “Sometimes over a hundred stoned freaks would stagger into our house.”
Those lines of course, are taken from Chapters 4 and 5 of an autobiography, “From the Darkness.” by District 5 representative Connie Morris.
Since the schools don’t teach kids to read, and as a general rule they don’t read on their own, the BOE shouldn’t have much to worry about.
I have heard claims that the Bible has been banned from libraries. However I checked and found that at least in schools I am familiar with it has not been banned. However, in view of the BoE’s stand it SHOULD be – due to content and language.
I think the BOE Backlash is coming.
From the exerpt above sounds like Connie has had her fun, and now is on a mission to make others atone for her sins.
Are they kidding? With the sexually explicit and violent music, videos, movies, and TV that kids watch daily, why are they worried about books?
Ban all the books.
That will get kids reading again.
LOL, so true!!
THAT’S IT!!! TruMad you have found the answer.
There’s a passage in the Old Testament that goes something about this:
God commands a man to go into the tent and bring seed unto his brother’s wife. When the man enters the tent, he spills his seed upon the ground. God promptly slays him.
I don’t remember what book, chapter, and verses that is in in the Old Testament (it’s definitly there), but I would easily argue that material is not for young eyes to read. Imagine explaining that to a child. Imagine the protest if the writers of Everybody Loves Raymond had written that into a show! I also doubt that passage from the bible will ever be the Old Testament reading at my Catholic church.
I did a book report on Arthur Hailey’s “Airport” in the seventh grade. It was a charming story about dysfunctional relationships, freezing sperm, stressed and burn-out air traffic controllers and. . .oh, yeah, a madman who gets aboard a jetliner and blows up the toilet.
I read Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions” (complete with, ahem, ‘author illustrations’) shortly before then. No comment.
So now you know what so terrifies them. Their kids might turn out like me!!
The Sin of Onan – Onansim. I think it might be Genesis but am not sure.
By the way, we also better fix geometry – PI = 3.0 3Kings 7:23
Good one, WSU Prof.
Check out this delightful story.
Roman general returns in triumph to Rome. Gives his blessing to Saturnius, the new Caesar. His daughter, who’s engaged to the Caesar’s younger brother, is demanded in marriage by Saturnius. General agrees. Daughter runs off with fiance. General kills his own son when he crosses him.
Remaining brothers rise up in revolt. Sons of the Queen kill the younger brother and pin the death on General’s sons. They rape the engaged daughter, and so that she can’t talk, cut out her tongue, and so that she can’t write, cut off her hands.
Meanwhile the sons are executed for the supposed death of the Caesar’s younger brother. General goes partly mad. Gets revenge on the Queen’s sons by killing them.
Invites Caesar and Queen to dine with him. As they eat dinner, General kills his own daughter. When the shocked Queen and Caesar learn that the sons are responsible for the rape, they ask that they be brought thither.
“Why there they are,” screams the General, “in the meat pies upon which you’ve been eating.”
He had cooked their flesh and blood and served them up for dinner.
In the ensuing melee, General is killed by Caesar. Caesar and Queen are killed by General’s oldest son.
This charming tale is “Titus Andronicus,” one of Shakespeare’s plays.
I love that one, actually . . . hehehe.
Oops, Saturninus
Rage, I remember Hailey’s Airport and few of his other books, too. I also remember watching Peyton Place when I was in junior high. My dad told me about the book, which I read a couple of years later, with his blessing. He didn’t believe in restricting my reading. In high school, many of us toted around copies of Valley of the Dolls, with appropriately inappropriate pages and passages marked. Then there was the porn book that belonged to a friend’s father that we sneaked out… I still remember THAT story.
If someone wants to read a book, there are always ways to find a copy. Libraries not stocking them won’t stop anyone. Besides, what some might find vulgar and obscene, not everyone else will. I find Cheney’s $9 million income obscene.
who cares. They get all the smut they need from the internet anyway.
RD: Dad wants his mags back!
Who remembers which of the Canterbury tales is the most obscene? It was a big debate in my senior English class. I wouldn’t care which one most of our HS students thought was more obscene, as long as they could read it. Same goes for Shakespeare.
Then there is the immortal essay “On Choosing a Mistress” by Ben Franklin.
Allie,I would say the overly-suggestive, lewd and lascivious nun was the most obscene. Of course, what they deemed obscene back in Shakespeare’s time is much different than what we consider obscene.
CrusX–
Uh, what?
Neither Chaucer nor Shakespeare had a “lewd nun” as a character.
Chaucer had a friar who the narrator very subtly suggested got more than one woman with child. He had “The Wife of Bath” who used her naughty bits as freely as the Lord gave them to her, but there were no lewd nuns.
As for their definition of obscene is different from ours . . . well, yes and no. “The Miller’s Tale” is pretty ribald, then or now. Shakespeare’s “All’s Well that End’s Well” main plot contrivance is a woman substituting herself for another in bed.
The sex is in no way graphic, if that’s what you mean, but when Mercutio says in “Rom & Juliet”, “the bawdy hand of the clock is on the very prick of noon,” that’s a little more than G-rated . . .
Tru,
The lewd nun was a character in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. She’s in the bar along with the crusader and the other characters. Although she isn’t porn-style overtly sexual, she was giving very suggestive looks to the other males, that a traveling nun on pilgrimage should not be doing.
Now Ben,
You know that is not what 1 Kings 7:23 says.
It is not an exact blueprint, but a discription.
“And they were both naked, the man and his wife. And they were not ashamed”That is from the bible. Maybe Nathan can give me chapter and verse.Sounds like a healthy thought to me.
But would not some call it the starting place for salacious thoughts?
CrusX–
hahaha . . . groan.
JR,
If kids were given a Bible as part of their course studies to read you might have a point.
I thought this discussion was about texts assigned not available.
“It is not an exact blueprint, but a discription.”
“10 cubits brim to brim, round all about … a line of 30 cubits compassed it round about.”
PI = circumference/diameter = 30/10 = 3.0
Nathan said nothing about context?
“language in novels that board member Connie Morris finds “horribly vulgar” has been found entirely appropriate by school districts such as Blue Valley that considered the passages in context, as intended”
Where did you get this nathan?
“I thought this discussion was about texts assigned not available.”
From this?
“give parents who object to specific works some alternatives for their kids.”
Well gosh, we wouldnt want kids to learn anything that they wouldnt learn at home. We wouldnt want any new ideas to penetrate their pointy little heads. It might cause them to question the taliban.
I thought that is why we had public schools. To teach kids a broad spectrum of knowledge so they could make informed choices themselves. Silly me for forgetting that they are really indoctrination camps for the one true religion.
Only in taliban country is ONE acceptable position taught.
But please, tell me again how the Kansas Board of Evangelism isnt the same as the taliban.
Where is bonbon on this subject of local parental control? Isnt that why she objected to raising the age of marriage above 14?
Ben,
You are infering a claim about Pi which was not made by the Bible.
Lets be intellectual honest here shall we?
When was 1 kings written? Who wrote it? What is the history of Pi?
I think we both know that Pi was discovered by different people to differing degrees of accuracy throughout history and that your trying to question the Bible with that passage is disingenuous.
KFG,
You have yet to show how they are like the Taliban.
Last I checked they were not executing women in sports arenas for not wearing a head garment…
Is that the only criteria for being taliban nathan?
Oh, I forgot, you dont answer questions or do research.
Nathan – I am simply being strictly literalist. The questions you ask are the same ones I ask about Genesis.
I’ve never been in favor of banning books, so my kids were never told what they could or couldn’t read. They were, however, expected to discuss with us everything they read, which lead to some very valuable conversations. All I can say is that my kids turned out OK!