Sherry Chandler

Librarians have long been among my heroes, from the county librarian who winked when I checked out large armloads of everything I could find in the summertime and forgave my overdue fees, to the librarians who stood up against the Bush government’s internal spying.

National Public Radio did a nice feature this morning on the banning of The Grapes of Wrath in conjunction with the release tomorrow of Rick Watrzman’s book Obscene in the Extreme (Public Affairs Books). Here is Judith Krug of the American Library Association:

Sept. 29 marks the beginning of the American Library Association’s annual “Banned Books Week,” a commemoration of all the books that have ever been removed from library shelves and classrooms. Politics, religion, sex, witchcraft — people give a lot of reasons for wanting to ban books, says Judith Krug of the ALA, but most often the bannings are about fear.

“They’re not afraid of the book; they’re afraid of the ideas,” says Krug. “The materials that are challenged and banned say something about the human condition.”

…

Still, says Krug, the censorship of The Grapes Of Wrath was a key event in the creation of the Library Bill of Rights, the statement Krug describes as ensuring that “as American citizens we have the right to access whatever information we wish without anyone looking over our shoulders. … that we have the right to utilize this information once we have acquired it.”

Here is the ALA’s banned books page, which has links to the most challenged book list and suggested Banned Books Week Activities, including ReadOuts.

And yes, it’s true that Sarah Palin inquired of the Wasilla, Alaska librarian about banning books, a fact that disqualifies her from high office in my book. But books have been challenged by many earnest but dare I say naïve people for what might seem like perfectly legitimate reasons, the most obvious example being Huckleberry Finn, which continues on the most challenged list for racism, though the theme of the book is anti-slavery.

Here is the ALA’s list of the most frequently challenged books of 2007:

1. “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2.The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3.“Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

4.“The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

5.“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
Reasons: Racism

6.“The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,

7.”TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
Reasons: Sexually Explicit

9. “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

_________
Update on Friday: The great Lance suggests that you read Huckleberry Finn and make Sarah Palin cry. I’ll drink to that.

And the Vagabond Scholar expands the list.

From the Women’s Media Center:

The Women’s Media Center invites you to submit your questions to be asked at the Presidential Debate! We want to hear from you on issues that matter to, and affect, women. Click here to submit your questions, and continue reading below for information about the WMC’s initiative to add women’s voices to these historic and deeply significant debates.

On August 14, The Women’s Media Center (WMC) launched “Show Me The Women,” an email campaign by our supporters challenging the Commission on Presidential Debates in its selection of three men – Bob Schieffer of CBS, Tom Brokaw of NBC, and Jim Lehrer of PBS – to moderate the upcoming Presidential debates. The WMC urged the public to insist that each moderator have a partner reflecting the diversity of our country — which is more than half women.

The Commission on President Debates did choose Gwen Ifill of PBS to host the Vice Presidential debate, a decision that the WMC applauds. The Commission clearly did not know when they chose her for this role how highly anticipated the VP debate would be. Regardless, this does not excuse the notable absence of women’s voices in ALL THREE presidential debates.

The public responded to “Show Me The Women,” and so did one of the moderators – Bob Schieffer of CBS. He is moderating the October 15 debate which focuses on domestic issues, and he invited The Women’s Media Center and its supporters to give him suggestions for questions he should ask at the debate. We have contacted the other moderators and requested that they accept our questions as well. To date, none have agreed.

The Women’s Media Center invites you to submit your questions to the Presidential debates. As the result of your actions, a more diverse group of people will be able to participate in this critically important part of our democratic process. To submit your question, click here. To see what questions other people have submitted, check out our blog, Majority Post. We are particularly interested in getting your questions on domestic issues.

The deadline to submit questions will be 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday, October 1st.

Just got an e-mail from Crystal saying there are still spots available in all of the Midway Writers Workshops for the Fall. Crystal is an experienced teacher. She is a faculty member in Spalding University’s low-residency MFA writing program and is currently serving as visiting professor and writer in residence for Morehead State University.

The workshops offered are:

Ready to Write: Poetry October 4 noon to 5 p.m. $75
Ready to Write: Short Stories October 11 noon to 5 p.m. $75
Short Story Saturday: The Art of the Story October 25 noon to 5 p.m. $150
Online Writing Workshop November Session ($75 per session or 4 sessions for $250)

For more information contact wilkinsoncrystal@aol.com or midwayworkshop@aol.com
Thank you,

Via By the Fault, this clip from a speech by Dr. Paul Krugman at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco from October 30, 2007 on the subject of income inequality in the United States.

__________

And then there’s this:

During its weeklong deliberations, Congress made many changes to the Bush administration’s original proposal to bail out the financial industry, but one overarching aspect of the initial plan that remains is the vast discretion it gives to the Treasury secretary.

The draft legislation, which will be put to a House vote on Monday, gives Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and his successor extraordinary power to decide how the $700 billion bailout fund is spent. For example, if he thinks it wise, he may buy not only mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, but any other financial instrument.

To be sure, the Treasury secretary’s powers have been tempered since the original Bush administration proposal, which would have given Mr. Paulson nearly unfettered control over the program. There are now two separate oversight panels involved, one composed of legislators and the other including regulatory and administration officials.

Still, Mr. Paulson can choose to buy from any financial institution that does business in the United States, or from pension funds, with wide discretion over what he will buy and how much he will pay. Under most circumstances, banks owned by foreign governments are not eligible for the money, but under some conditions, the secretary can choose to bail out foreign central banks.

Under the bill, the Treasury is to buy the securities at prices he deems appropriate. Mr. Paulson may set prices through auctions but is not required to do so.

Rarely if ever has one man had such broad authority to spend government money as he sees fit, with no rules requiring him to seek out the lowest possible price for assets being purchased.

I am very dubious about this. The Bush administration really likes this idea of the strong man but it doesn’t seem to have worked out all that well for you and me. Also, they don’t have a real good record with no-bid contracts.

Another one of my constant themes: checks and balances. (And I don’t mean blank checks either.)

This year marks the 100^th anniversary of John Fox Jr’s The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. Here’s the plot summary from Wikipedia:

Set in the Appalachian Mountains at the turn of the twentieth century, a feud has been boiling for over thirty years between two influential mountain families: the Tollivers and the Falins. The outside world and industrialization, however, is beginning to enter the area. Coal mining begins to exert its influence on the area, despite of the two families feuds. Entering the area, enterprising “furriner” (foreigner) John Hale captures the attention of the beautiful June Tolliver, and inadvertently becomes entangled in the region’s politics.

The novel sold one million copies. It was adapted for film 4 times between 1914 and 1936. The latter version, which starred Henry Fonda and Fred MacMurray, was the first outdoor movie filmed in technicolor. It was also made into a play that has been running since 1964 in the outdoor theater at Big Stone Gap, Virginia (which by pure coincidence is where Eugene Debs was imprisoned about the time John Fox, Jr. died there). Oops! My memory failed me there. Debs was imprisoned in Moundsville, West Virginia.

But though Fox may have died in Virginia in 1919, he was born right here in Bourbon County, Kentucky in 1862. He is buried in the Paris Cemetery. To mark the centenary, Duncan Tavern, which houses the John Fox Jr. Library, will hold an open house today from 2 - 4. Visitors may tour the library (which houses Fox memorabilia), hear a short presentation about the author, and partake in refreshments.

As far as I can tell, the event is free and open to the public. That’s why it’s an Open House???

The illustration is from the first edition of the novel. Some of these original illustrations are housed at Duncan Tavern and will be included in the tour.

A Granddaddy Confrontation

Photo by TR Williams

Right after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Dick Cheney went on Meet the Press and made this rather famous statement: “We’ll have to work on the dark side, if you will.”

Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side (Doubleday, 2008), takes its title from that statement. I have just begun reading the book, subtitled The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. Though I’ve only read the first 20 pages or so, already I’ve come across some information I should have known (my emphasis):

While there was nothing new about torture, its authorization by Bush Administration lawyers represented a dramatic break with the past. As early as the Revolutionary War, General George Washington vowed that, unlike the British, who tortured enemy captives, this new country in the New World would distinguish itself by its humanity. In fighting to liberate the world from Communish, Fascism, and Nazism, and working to ameliorate global ignorance and poverty, America had done more than any nation on earth to abolish torture and other violations of human rights.

Yet, almost precisely on the sixtieth anniversary of the famous war crimes tribunal’s judgment at Nuremberg, which established what seemed like an immutable principle, that legalisms and technicalities could not substitute for individual moral choice and conscience, America became the first nation ever to authorize violations of the Geneva Conventions. These international treaties, many of which were hammered out by American lawyers in the wake of the harrowing Nazi atrocities of World War II, set an absolute, minimum baseline for the humane treatment of all categories of prisoners taken in almost all manner of international conflicts. …America had long played a special role as the world’s most ardent champion of these fundamental rights; it was not just a signatory but also the custodian of the Geneva Conventions, the original signed copies of which resided in a vault at the State Department. [pp. 8-9]

When asked about the Bush Administration’s position on torture, Arthur Schlesinger is quoted as saying, “No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world—ever.”

But though the torture memos may be the most egregious, they are not the only example of ways in which the U.S. has fallen off its pedestal as world leader in human rights. As Adam Liptik pointed out in the New York Times a few weeks ago, the world’s nations are no longer looking to the U.S. Supreme Court for guidance in matters of legal precedent:

…American legal influence is waning. Even as a debate continues in the court over whether its decisions should ever cite foreign law, a diminishing number of foreign courts seem to pay attention to the writings of American justices.

“One of our great exports used to be constitutional law,” said Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. “We are losing one of the greatest bully pulpits we have ever had.”

From 1990 through 2002, for instance, the Canadian Supreme Court cited decisions of the United States Supreme Court about a dozen times a year, an analysis by The New York Times found. In the six years since, the annual citation rate has fallen by half, to about six.

Australian state supreme courts cited American decisions 208 times in 1995, according to a recent study by Russell Smyth, an Australian economist. By 2005, the number had fallen to 72.

The story is similar around the globe, legal experts say, particularly in cases involving human rights. These days, foreign courts in developed democracies often cite the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in cases concerning equality, liberty and prohibitions against cruel treatment, said Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of the Yale Law School. In those areas, Dean Koh said, “they tend not to look to the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Amnesty International promises to keep up the fight for human rights no matter which of our two candidates is elected president. Here is an e-mail statement I received from them yesterday:

Though Americans are engrossed in the final weeks of a tight presidential contest of historic importance, we cannot lose sight of the epic human rights challenges before us—life and death issues that transcend politics.

No matter who moves into the White House in January, one thing is crystal clear. We cannot depend on a new administration in Washington to swiftly reverse the human rights abuses being carried out in our name. We are the agents of change that will make it happen.

Amnesty is holding their fall membership drive. If you join by September 30, your membership donation will be doubled by an anonymous donor. You can join here.

Here is the NYTimes obit.

This grieves me. The icons of my life and times are leaving me.

Avedon has some nice links.

at the 2007 Poet’s Forum from the American Academy of Poets:

is a good thing to come out of this election season.

Listen to All Things Considered on the subject.