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The Official Book Censorship Thread

Maybe this will be more to Peder's liking? :flowers:

Russian priest calls for schools to ban classic novels that 'justify paedophilia' | World news | The Guardian

Father Vsevolod Chaplin's demand that Russia's government investigate and limit the use of the books was his church's latest attempt to impose religious norms in a country that once rejected religion altogether.

Chaplin, who heads the public relations department for the Moscow patriarchate, discussed Nabokov's Lolita and García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude on Ekho Moskvy radio, accusing both of "justifying paedophilia".

The priest later elaborated in comments carried by Interfax, saying the authors' works should not be included in high school curriculums as they "romanticise perverted passions that make people unhappy".

"Obviously, the popularisation of these novels in schools will not make our society more morally happy," he was quoted as saying.
 

BeerGood, I think you are intelligent enough to know the answer to your question. And I think you also know that it can be read as a personal slur. Your conrtinual needling of me is growing old, so please try to restrain your emotions and personal remarks.

As to the content of the article, I'll post separately to clarify whatever confusion might exist in your mind about my attitudes on the subject.
 
My apologies, Peder. You asked for non-US stories, I thought you might be interested in a non-US story. I'm not sure what the slur would be, but if that's the way you took it, then I apologize for that too.
 


I saw this in my morning paper earlier. I wonder if this fella read the book he wants to ban? I never saw Lolita has promoting pedophilia at all; in fact, I think it makes a strong case against it. It makes far more sense to have students read the book and discuss it than to pretend this issue doesn't exist. Controversial? You bet. Life gets that way.
 
You asked. I answered. You pouted. I gave up.

You just can't give it up can you?

And I thank you for your clarification. It wasn't clear to me whether you thought my interest might be because of the religious source of the quote, or the implied attempt at censorship, or my participation in the Lolita thread. Or something that didn't cross my mind, the content coverage of the Guardian.

On the latter point I am glad to see that the Guardian covers international news broader than just quirky events in the United States like the pronouncements from the American Library Association that fuel this thread on an annual basis. I'm not sure the NY Times gives those press releases much notice -- but then again it has been a while since I have read the paper through to the bitter end of every column on every page.

But proceding on, sorry for my grouchy tone. I have already been defamed once on BAR for my participation in the Lolita discussion, so I'm a little tender on the topic.

That the Russian churchman complains about Lolita re pedophilia is not surprising. Complaints of that sort have arisen in the US long ago. One medical doctor, in fact, concluded from examination of information in public print that Vladimir Nabokov was a "closet pedophile." You can find his article mentioned in the BAR Lolita thread, where I believe he himself posted it.

And a US action organization for prevention, protection and support of molested children long ago cited Lolita as a nefarious book. [I forget the exact adjective they used]

As for "teaching" pedophilia, the churchman should read the book, or adjust his bifocals -- a prescription for many who criticize the book.

Re the censorship issue -- the topic of this thread -- I suppose he can try, maybe just like anyone else in the Russian republic. Never been there, don't know whether such an attempt is newsworthy there or likely to succeed. Here in the US I regard it as a dead issue and one not worth getting worked up over at the governmental level. At the individual school board level, my attitude is to let them fight it out, church people or no church people.

AIE: Pardon, I see that justifying might be the word reather than teaching. Either way my comment stands.
 
You just can't give it up can you?

...I just said I did, right in the sentence you were responding to?

But just for clarification then: You asked a direct question about censorship in non-US schools. I presumed that meant you wanted to know more about it, so when I found an article about that exact subject, which also happened to concern a novel that I know both you and I love, I thought it might be of interest to you. You responded as if I'd just slapped you in the face.

Whether you believe it or not, I am sorry if I phrased it in a way that made it seem like anything else than that, and I accept your apology as well. And I leave it at that.
 
ai5.photobucket.com_albums_y187_sparkchaser1998_smileys_rofl.gif You guys. Peder, in the future if you don't want an answer to a query then don't ask and this kind of thing will be averted. Beer good, do a better job of reading Peder's mind.
 
Thank you for your interest, Sparky. I am in fact cutting back considerably on participating in potentially entangling conversations. Mind reading shouldn't be necessary.
Regards
Peder
 
Thank you for your interest, Sparky. I am in fact cutting back considerably on participating in potentially entangling conversations. Mind reading shouldn't be necessary.
Regards
Peder

You said that last time too, 'member?

It's OK, I feel your pain. It's hard to quit this place. We're too damn lovable AND we have AquaBlue.
 
Sorry Sparky, I miss your reference to "last time."
But, no, I have no intention of quitting BAR, just participating less.
Cheers
Peder
 
Sorry Sparky, I miss your reference to "last time."
But, no, I have no intention of quitting BAR, just participating less.
Cheers
Peder

Didn't you take a sabbatical earlier this year after a quarrel with beer good or that chaingmai dude? I can't remember. It's also possible I am thinking about another spat on another forum which is also very likely (moto's dump had a huge and :rofl: drama explosion there earlier this year plus bfc always has stuff going on), and if that is the case, apologies.

Now, time for me to chill with some Street Sweeper Social Club. awww.thestringtornados.de_smiley_smiley_kopfhoerer.gif
 
My recollection is of announcing an extended vacation in thread labeled "4300," with intentional use of the word vacation. Vacations are temporary and do come to an end. Re moto (where I have never been a member) and other places, BAR is currently the only place where I am an active member, and near to the only place where I am still enrolled. The others just aren't worth the candle and I very seldom post anywhere else, not years in most places.
And I suppose I'll be posting less on BAR itself. Call it semi-vacation if you will, but you'll see me around.
Very best, :)
Peder
 
All I know is that the Lolita book discussion was the only BOTM that was worth a damn.

Thank you SFG, very much, on behalf of all the wonderful people who contributed and made it so, yourself included.
Hope all is well with you.
Very best regards :flowers:
Peder
 
Thanks Peder, that was truly an awesome experience, nowhere near being replicated since. Then again, "I read it, it was a good book" ranks close up there since then, in quite a few threads, but I digress....

You had a previous post about schools and whether or not other countries have a similar situation. The legal cases that shaped our own is interesting to study, given that the key cases were products of the circuit courts for the most part and not the Supreme Court. President's Council v. Comunity School Board dictated that district's could ban books based on valid educational reasons and that the courts didn't have any business running the internal affairs of a school. Zyklan v. Warsaw Community School Corp. set up a system whereby books could be banned, but couldn't be banned due to a desire to exclude a given view point. The latter concern was expressed in Board of Education v. Pico as well. Part of my hiatus from here was due to taking education law, so I'm now excited about this thread!:)

What does all that mean? If you had a parent committee with written guidelines to examine a book and look at how it fits with your curriculum, you probably could get rid of Breakfast of Champions from the elementary library as it would be a stretch to argue that a book with obscene drawings is appropriate for 2nd graders. Especially if little Johnny Sparkchaser was drawing the obscene photos on playground equipment with a permanent marker. ;)However, it doesn't mean that you have to pull the science textbook or anything by Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan because the local minister's wife is upset about what those books contain. Pico would prevent you from doing that and that case would flash in front of your mind if you were an administrator who had a clue.

The Roberts court is leap years apart from the Warren court in constitutional interpretation. Combine that with the fact that SCOTUS has let the circuit courts handle the issue through conflicting cases and you still have a muddled area that has to be navigated, lest you bring your school into a legal dispute with the ACLU or ACLJ(the right wing version of the ACLU) over a book.

P.S.-Check out this awesome site regarding Tinker v. Des Moines. You can even hear an audio file with a corresponding transcript of the case.:star5:
 
SFG,
What a post! Many many thanks for a (clear) clarification of legal guidelines that are available for US school board administrators. I'm very glad to see that its not that they arrive for work one day and then gaze at their navel and flip a coin. Not all of them anyway.

You ask "What does all that mean?"

Well, heh heh, it sounds like my own rules of reason for the situations you describe. Which, among other reasons, probably explains why I am not generally among those claiming that school boards are censoring books. [And here I am trying to be nice and avoid fighting. Oh well. Maybe I'll be sorry I said that. :sad:]

Peder
 
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