Censorship in Wisconsin--Librarians losing jobs?

I detected a faint air of superiority, but Dick, it's all right because you are superior in most ways.

You may have met my cousins--they served in the war and are true gentlemen. I would not have wanted my son to follow them in their gay lifestyle because I wanted a daughter-in'law.

Our parents did the best they could.

In our town we did not have all of these attractions.

Phooey! no worries, they wouldn't have let me go anyway.

Dick, I'm like Alice, and also glad that you were raised that way. However, that doesn't mean it was the best way to be raised, or even a desirable way. It just happens to be the way you grew up, and you managed to rise above it. Or, maybe you want to enlighten us and let us in on your days as a prostitute and a gay rifleman, and how you overcame all those evil ass bigoted southerners.

Those of us who were raised in the south during those days grew up in an entirely different way, and unless you were born and raised here you have no benchmark to judge anyone. You think your way was best, I think mine was, and that's kind of been the contention between the north and the south for a long time now. I really don't see either of us changing our minds.

I'm glad I got past those days, but I have no regrets at all about the way I was raised, just as you have none about the way you were.

Dick,

That was quite a tribute to your parents.

Would you have been so thankful to have known the murderers, if they had bagged your wife?

Just curious!

Alice,

That WAS a tribute to his parents. He grew up during the depression. His parents were hard working people who lost their jobs and they had to live in their car. They were good people who had very rough times. And in spite of where they had to live, Dick turned out to be quite a man, which was probably because they loved him above all else.

(I hope I got that right, Dick. If not, feel free to correct me.)

Carol

This thread is about the type of information that should be available in libraries for children. How children are reared and how they grow up is not the issue.

My father is the same age as Dick. His mother died when he was seven, he never knew his father (who died when my father was fourteen) and, yet, he turned out well too. Just like Dick. If there is a God, he hadn't finished interfering in my father's life and took away his youngest son in 2002. Life is tough. It hurts. No one escapes without being hurt, one way or another.

It is the role of adults to minimise the hurt and danger that might threaten children. Too much information at an early age takes away children's right to be free of adult worries and responsiblities.

Learning on the street and in the school playground is not the same as sitting in a library reading a book. Adults cannot protect children from all outside influences, but they can control what children are and are not allowed to read in libraries.

Shelagh wrote:

If there is a God, he hadn't finished interfering in my father's life

Ok, that was funny.

IMO, both the books and employees should have stayed. I don't know that removing them was a reflection of community values. It may have just been the reflection of four loud people's values.

Carol,
Dick knows I admire him . I always have and always will!




By the way, Social Worker, is this the prescibed manner in which children should be reared?

LC.

I am bothered by the job losses as well, Perhaps the library should have sections. The so-called offensive books could be in an area where parental permission is required to enter.

That way the parents could peruse the books and see if they approve of them for their chilldren.

Just an idea!

Shelagh,

And they need to go to the library also. They need to read the books their kids read. Kids also need to read books of survival.

I'm sure this issue has been discussed in schools in West Bend. It has probably been the subject of every English and Social Studies Class. It has probably been a very active point of discussion.

One time my grandson was very interested in the book "Holes." He had purchased this through the paper back book sale at his school with his own money. He told me he was going to be in trouble because his father told him he couldn't purchase that book. I didn't think it was because of that particular book, but because his father thought he had enough books, or he had given him enough money that week. My grandson was probably 10 or 12 years old. He is now 21.

Anyway, I told him I would read the book to see if this was truly a book he should not read because he became quite concerned that he had done something very wrong.

I told my grandson to tell his father he had purchased the book, and indeed it was not an act of censorship on his father's part.

And when my grandson read the book, we discussed it because I had read it, and it was a good experience. This is the young man who is an A student at the university and comes and hangs out with us and discusses the world.

Reading the books our kids and grandkids read and then discussing them can be valuable to all.

Carol

Alice,

I think that is a very good idea.

Carol

Alice wrote:

LC.The so-called offensive books could be in an area where parental permission is required to enter.

That way the parents could peruse the books and see if they approve of them for their chilldren.

Well, there'd have to be an awful lot of such books for there to be a whole section for them, no? Putting them behind darkened glass like the "adult" section of a video store will just make everyone want to read them, lol.

The books exist because they speak to some people, and one might be a kid who needs to see it, so I have no problem with them being on the same shelves as all the others. Parents need to figure out on their own how to deal with it (discuss the books? refuse to let their kids check them out?), not tell everyone they can't check them out, which is what these loudmouths apparently did.

Shelagh wrote:

Is that what you wanted for your daughter -- that she should be as lucky as you? Did you want your daughter to walk past a line of hookers waiting for customers on her way to school. Did you think it would be good for her to talk to prostitutes and find out that they had hearts of gold and had merely fallen on hard times (more likely to be earning money to feed a drug habit these days)?

Would a strip club next to your daughter's school be acceptable?

Would you want children to experience the same things you did as an adult or would you want them to grow up first?

The answer is "yes" to all except wanting them to grow up first. As a matter of fact my daughter did grow up that way. Today she has four kids, one of them a minister, and her husband is a minister. She worked 28 years for a newspaper and now is a caregiver for a prominent member of the Nixon administration. She never had trouble with reality. Some overly-sheltered kids do. And no, I have not encouraged her to pull the plug on that guy she cares for. In only one way am I disappointed in her: she has turned Republican. She did vote for Obama, though, so I have forgiven her.

For such a bad father you didn't do so bad.

I'm not sure what walking past hookers and strip clubs on the way to school has to do with banning books. I don't mind controversial books on library shelves for all to see. I wouldn't want to live or raise kids in a seedy neighborhood. The reasons for that seem so self-evident I won't explain why.

Marie,

You have hit the nail squarely on the head.
In my opinion there is no free speech anywere.

Whatever we say is necesary and corrrect in our eyes, but we get very judgemental about what others say.

Ever try to exercise your free speech rights in Court? To a traffic Cop?

I haven't and won't even bother to try.

LC,

I hear you.

I think reality is good, however. I did not grow up with reality, either reality of family or life. But I read books and observed and asked questions. I'm still asking questions and reading books.

Carol

Diick, have you read Alan Alda's book?

You and Alan have almost convinced me that rearing children is a total waste of time and energy.

No, no Alice it isn't. Protecting them, spending time with them and providing an environment of structure and boundaries are all valuable. But sometimes I think all we provide is a good childhood, but that is valuable also in the big scheme of life.

And trust. They have to have people in their lives they can trust.

Carol

Carol,

Then you had a chldhood. I would have loved a childhood--
Santa Claus, etc.

I had too much reality--my books were non-ficiton--Foxes Book of Martyrs

Some silk , satin and ribbons would have been much appreciated also.

A few stuffed animals would have been nice.

My mother was into reality--she took me to a funeral when I was 6 years old.

I never recovered from the sheer horror of seeing a beautiful woman dead because she had aspirated during childbirth.

Sorry if I scared everyone!

Nope, didn't scare me.

Carol

LC, just because we lived in a rough neigborhood we did not consider it seedy. Too bad my parents couldn't afford something better at the time, something that might have suited you. I have lived in many types of neighborhoods. Never have I lived among better people than in the neighborhood you refer to as seedy. If you don't approve, tough.

?? I don't approve or not approve. I commented that to me, not minding controversial books in a library is not the same as minding living in a "rough" neighborhood.

Then you need to be less sanguine and give it some more thought.

Why?