Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
Banned Books Week: September 27 - October 3
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
 Banned Books Week: September 27 - O...
|
|
|
To those who celebrate the freedom to read and love books, this is "Banned Books Week" in the United States (September 27 - October 3). There is (and has been since time immemorial) a constant struggle in American secondary schools between those who think students should be exposed to a variety of viewpoints in the literary canon and the forces of ignorance on both the Left and the Right who would ban books they deem inappropriate, insensitive, unpatriotic, un-American, or that offend anyone in any way. This year the two most commonly banned books were old warhorses in this annual celebration of ignorance:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1884
The first ban of Mark Twain’s American classic in Concord, MA in 1885 called it “trash and suitable only for the slums.” Objections to the book have evolved, but only marginally. Twain’s book is one of the most-challenged of all time and is frequently challenged even today because of its frequent use of the word “nigger.” Otherwise it is alleged the book is “racially insensitive,” “oppressive,” and “perpetuates racism.”
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X and Alex Haley, 1965 (Grove Press)
Objectors have called this seminal work a “how-to-manual” for crime and decried because of “anti-white statements” present in the book. The book presents the life story of Malcolm Little, also known as Malcolm X, who was a human rights activist and who has been called one of the most influential Americans in recent history.
There are many more on the list, but three additional classics that are always banned in schools somewhere in the country are J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye," Joseph Heller's "Catch 22," and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird." In fact, all five of the books mentioned, as well as most of the many others on the challenged or banned list, are worthy reads that have stood the test of time. Yet, the forces of ignorance often win out.
So, this evening I'll raise my glass and toast "Banned Books Week" and all the books that have been removed from secondary schools' library shelves as being "unsuitable" for our fragile youth.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Sep. 28 2015 7:56:08
 |
|
estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
|
|
RE: Banned Books Week: September 27... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
|
|
|
quote:
quote:
I was always puzzled how 6000 became the number.
It was arrived at by Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656). There's an article in his methodology in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology
This is the chronology used by the Creation Museum — the one with diorama of a child and T-Rex gamboling together on the banks of a river.
_____________________________
This is always a hoot, introduction to anthropology text books sometimes begin with a reference to Ussher and his 5000 year calculations to explain what was the commonly thought of age of the world just prior to the beginning of the modern science of geology.
It was observed however by many writers before Ussher that the world was ancient and that one could observe geological evidence. Ussher had to square the age of the earth with the age of the bible, of course. But even in the so called Dark Ages before the Renaissance observers as far back as Greek times to knew the earth was ancient. The church was trying to control knowledge as any one who could read Latin and were honest with themselves knew the earth was older than the biblical ages of man.
Eventually modern geology spelled the out the fall of the house of Bishop Ussher, but oddly there are still Christian morons running around who can't grasp that the earth is old, really old. They constantly try to rebuild the House of Ussher in the Christian mind. A few years ago a high school friend on Facebook took issue with me saying the earth was ancient, she's a Christian who thinks the world is young. She said my teenage son goes to a Christian academy where they teach them to debate people like me and that her son would love to engage me in a debate about the age of the world and the fallacies of modern geology. I said it saddens me to know your son is brainwashed. She said she would pray for me to change my mind.
This has always been very strange for me as my grandmother was a rabid born again Christian who grew up in the tongue talking deep Southern pentecostal tradition. She was from the folks that are trying to perpetuate these dumb ideas. However she had a different idea and could not abide by the idea that the earth was geologically young. She was also a Jew born here of European parents who fled Russia and then Germany to arrive in Texas. I guess you had to assimilate if you were a Jew who arrived via in the US Galveston Bay. (We are distantly related to anther Jewish family in Texas, the Gephardt Chili family.) So immigrant families often do one of two things, make a clear break from the past an embrace the local religion in total immersion, or segregate into a community of people who still carry on the ways of the old country.
She was a bit of a paradox. When I was young I used of play with dinosaur models and have dinosaur books like so many children, but she never tried to indoctrinate me with the idea that the earth was young or that stupidly men and dinosaurs co-existed, as some ancient earth deniers believe today. Her idea for me was look at the evidence and work it out for yourself between the religion and the geological evidence. She maintained some Jewish objectivity, I suspect. My great grandfather used take my mom to the Jewish Community Center and his Yiddish speaking buddies would talk to her in German, so he clearly never got on the Christian ark.
This one aspect of her philosophy was very helpful in forming my ideas about how religion and science could co-exist, but not agree. She was extremely meddlesome in my life in other ways, but on the topic of Bishop Ussher and geology she was right on. Look at the evidence and work it out for yourself.
I choose the scientific way to seeing it, I never thought that one could not embrace both and reason out some kind of religious belief with scientific fact.
Crazy old granny get's a plus one for that........if only more religious zealots could muster her open mindedness. And she was a zealot a and racial bigot.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Sep. 29 2015 3:13:13
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.0625 secs.
|
Printable Version
