censorship – Don't Gel Too Soon

Farewell to Judith Krug – and Thanks from All of Us (Readers, Libarians, Kids, Computer Users and Gamers — Yes, Gamers)

You’re looking at a heroine here, a tireless advocate of “freedom to read” and the First Amendment. Her name is Judith Krug, known to many as “Judy” and a brave and wonderful woman. As Director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom since it was founded in 1967, she also founded “Banned Books Week” in 1982. That’s how I met her.

I’d done stories before about First Amendment issues and someone gave her my number. She called to tell me that the last week of September, 1982, would be the first ALA Banned Books Week and wouldn’t the Today Show like to cover it? Of course we would. Look at some of the most banned books over the years – here in the US! Surprising at best, eh? They include Harry Potter, Huck Finn, Of Mice and Men, The Catcher in the Rye and Kaffir Boy. Appalled by the list, I remember starting the piece with film of the Nazi book burnings in Berlin. Judy loved it!

In the years since 1982 we repeated the story almost every year — and every year new books joined the list. Not always from the right, either. Some liberal parents challenged Huckleberry Finn as racist, and the other ban efforts came from all over the place! Harry Potter as Satanism, Native Son because it put the death penalty in dispute and the Bible preaches “an eye for an eye,” Wrinkle in Time, Understood Alice and others by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, The House of Spirits, Slaughterhouse-Five and Lord of the Flies.

But banned books were far from her only concern. As the Chicago Tribute wrote:

Mrs. Krug worked directly with librarians across the country who were engaged in censorship battles. She enlisted allies from fields that are
affected by 1st Amendment attacks such as publishers and journalists,
said Robert Doyle, executive director of the Illinois Library
Association.
“She was concerned about the gamut of expression,
so that people could go to the library and encounter the full
marketplace of ideas,” Doyle said.

Beyond books was her opposition to filters on library computers and her less-noticed championing of free expression in video games. A Game Politics piece includes this:

Judith was instrumental in the fight against video game censorship. She was a forceful advocate for Media Coalition amicus
briefs in the Indianapolis, St. Louis, Illinois, Minnesota, and
California video game cases. It would have been easy for the librarians
to say, “That’s not our battle,” but thankfully that wasn’t Judith’s
temperament.

Judith was a fierce believer in the importance of
freedom of expression to our culture and our society and was zealous
defender of the First Amendment. We all have truly benefited from her
passion.

Judy died on April 11th. She leaves a family who will miss her, I’m sure. But she leaves a legacy for the rest of us too, one for which we should be grateful. Anyone who loves to read, who wants to be able to ask a librarian for a special book for a quirky kid, who wants to use the library computer to do research or read off-the-wall news stories, or who just loves to wander in the stacks or online looking for something that never occurred to them, or a special idea or book or website — we’ll miss her too.

BOOK BANNING: THIS IS NOT (EXACTLY) ABOUT SARAH PALIN

You know this photo: Nazis burning books in Babelplatz, a large public square across from Humboldt Universit y in the heart of Berlin. Germany was a highly cultured society, yet it wasn’t too difficult to get to the place where its students willingly burned the books they were to supposed to be studying if they had been written by Jews.

The U.S. wasn’t immune in those years either. In the 1930s there were huge battles about James Joyce’s classic Ulysses, a gorgeous and very moving book but so difficult to understand that I took an entire college course on it. Hard to believe that anyone would bother working through it for any but literary reasons. Even so, copy after copy was seized from trans-Atlantic passengers arriving on ocean liners in Manhattan. Finally, in 1932, after an edition of the book intended as a model for U.S. publication had been seized along with the others, Judge John M. Woolsey lifted the ban in a famous, highly cited opinion* that appears as a preface in many editions. There are many such stories, about many books, but most of them well before the 1960s. After that, it seemed we’d "grown out of" book banning. Wrong.

I read Catcher in the Rye in the 7th grade. Years later I had the privilege of reading it aloud with my own son at precisely the same age. Nearly 20 years apart, we both loved it. Yet efforts to ban it in both school and community libraries have gone on almost as long as the life of the book itself. BlogHer and book blogger SassyMonkey, in a detailed BlogHer post, reminded us that Banned Books Week is here (September 27 to October 4, 2008). The American Library Association created this week in 1982, and sadly, we still need it today. Sarah Palin was not the first, nor will she be the last, government official to fire a librarian after a discussion about removing books from library shelves. There’s a long history of such behavior, and other, more overt attempts, both here and around the world.

Try to imagine a time where you had to hide the books you love. Or where you couldn’t get Harry Potter from the library to re-live the Hogwarts adventure with your own children. Or you couldn’t get access to published health information from books like Our Bodies, Ourselves.
Imagine no Huck Finn, no Maya Angelou or Toni Morrison or John
Steinbeck or — and this is a biggie in the book banning world, no Judy
Blume. Right now there are community and school librarians risking
their careers to fight to protect their shelves from marauding
moralists. Right now.

Continue reading BOOK BANNING: THIS IS NOT (EXACTLY) ABOUT SARAH PALIN

BONNIE AND CLYDE, VIOLENCE AND TIME PASSING

Last Sunday the New York Times reminded us that Bonnie and Clyde, a film seared behind the eyelids of people like me, is 40 years old. I remember it particularly because just after I saw it, I went to a 21st birthday dinner for a friend at her uncle’s home on Park Avenue in Manhattan. I was new to such places then, and, despite my anti-war lefty politics, both thrilled and intimidated – particularly because her uncle was a writer of some renown. For a college senior, it was another experience milestone.

Along with most of adult America, our host had been appalled at the violence of the film. We, on the other hand, argued that the film was an accurate metaphor for the violence in Vietnam; a social comment that spoke deeply to all of us. The argument was long, fierce and audacious — and, of course, unresolved. I haven’t seen the film in many years and am curious how I would react.

I’ve become a lot more sensitive to visual violence as I’ve raised my sons. Beverly Hills Cop was released when my younger son was five. His big brother was nine and really wanted to see it; since we hated leaving Dan behind, he came too. Do you remember the ending? It was a gun battle too but multiples more gory and violent than Bonnie and Clyde ever dreamt of being. The worst part? My son was upset, yes, but the audience barely reacted – and many cheered. Film and TV violence in the years between 1967 and 1984 had escalated slowly, right in front of us – and we had barely noticed. That progression has continued.

It’s a creepy dilemma. I’m a true romantic who revels in love stories like Bull Durham (1988) and Shakespeare in Love (1998), oldies like Now, Voyager (1942) and two I’ve written about before, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)and Rebbecca (1940) as well as decade-old satires like Wag the Dog (1997)and Warren Beatty’s (aka Clyde’s) masterpiece Bulworth (1998). But another of my favorite films is Pulp Fiction (1994)- steeped in violence, much of it random. Silence of the Lambs, too. And of course, The Godfather Trilogy (1972, 1974, 1990) None of these, and other more "realistically violent" films, would have been possible before Arthur Penn brought Bonnie and Clyde to life.

My protective instincts as a mother and activist clash with my respect for the vision of the artist and the gifts those visions can bring to the rest of us. This isn’t a new conversation of course, any more than it was new in 1967. It’s been going on as long as artists have. What’s different this time is that I was a kid when Bonnie and Clyde slammed into our lives; now I’m at least the age of that angry uncle. I know a lot more and that colors how I look at things I don’t know.

I named this blog Don’t Gel Too Soon because I struggle to stay open – available to understand, to appreciate, that which comes next, and to remember that no matter how lovely the lovely there’s more to life than that. And that, after all, if someone doesn’t help us to see it, we can’t join together to change it.

WHAT WOULD BOOK BURNING LOOK LIKE ON THE INTERNET?

If you heard a story of a teacher being prosecuted and facing 40 years in prison for exposing kids to pornography because a porn ad page popped up unsolicited while she was teaching, you’d think it was a joke, right? Everyone understands about pop-ups, right? This story seems as absurd as the legendary Senator Ted Stevens’ "tubes" speech.

Well apparently not. In Connecticut, Julie Amero, a seventh grade substitute teacher, faces 40 years in prison for just such an event. You can read a longer story about it here, on AlterNet.

Fortunately, she at least has some supporters. I learned of this story from Kelly at Mocha Momma — a committed and very gifted teacher herself. She is sending all her readers there for the details. This site’s proprietor, Karoli, not only provides links to backup information; she’s also donating $1 for every posted comment. In later posts, she adds still more info – and links. Take a look at them – and maybe even the fund itself. There’s more information there, too.

It’s a very troubling and scary story – not only for the obvious civil liberties and injustices, but also for what it says about technological expertise among the powerful. What do you think?