Book banning scares the crap out of me

[Townsend]

If true this is the sort of stuff I can't tolerate.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080912/ap_on_el_pr/palin_librarian;_ylt=AmNcYA5ySTIKIMk7CVYs2_Bh24cA



GOP campaign downplays Palin book-banning inquiry

By GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press Writer



The McCain campaign is defending Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's much-criticized inquiry into banning books at her hometown library, saying her questions were only hypothetical.

Shortly after taking office in 1996 as mayor of Wasilla, a city of about 7,000 people, Palin asked the city's head librarian about banning books. Later, the librarian was notified by Palin that she was being fired, although Palin backed off under pressure.

Palin alleged attempt at book-banning has been a matter of intense interest since Republican presidential nominee John McCain named her as his running mate last month.

Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, said Thursday that Palin asked the head librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, on three occasions how she would react to attempts at banning books. He said the questions, in the fall of 1996, were hypothetical and entirely appropriate. He said a patron had asked the library to remove a title the year before and the mayor wanted to understand how such disputes were handled.

Records on the city's Web site, however, do not show any books were challenged in Wasilla in the 10 years before Palin took office.

Palin notified Emmons she would be fired in January 1997 because the mayor didn't feel she had the librarian's "full support." Emmons was reinstated the next day after public outcry, according to newspaper reports at the time.

Still, one longtime library staffer recalls that the run-in made everyone fear for their jobs.

"Mayor Palin gave us some terrible moments and some rather gut-wrenching moments, particularly when Mary Ellen said she was going to have to leave," said Cathy Petrie, who managed the children's collection at the time.

Recent outrage has been fueled by Wasilla housewife Anne Kilkenny, whose 2,400-word critique of Palin's legacy as mayor is widely posted on the Internet. Kilkenny described Palin's actions as "out-and-out censorship."

But the McCain campaign, in a statement, said the charge "is categorically false ... Governor Sarah Palin has never asked anyone to ban a book, period."

Emmons, a former Alaska Library Association president who now goes by Mary Ellen Baker, did not return calls seeking comment.

According to the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman newspaper, Emmons did not mince words when Palin asked her "how I would deal with her saying a book can't be in the library" on Oct. 28, 1996, in a week when the mayor had asked department heads for letters of resignation.

"She asked me if I would object to censorship, and I replied 'Yup'," Emmons told a reporter. "And I told her it would not be just me. This was a constitutional question, and the American Civil Liberties Union would get involved, too."

The Rev. Howard Bess, a liberal Christian preacher in the nearby town of Palmer, said the church Palin and her family attended until 2002, the Wasilla Assembly of God, was pushing to remove his book from local bookstores.

Emmons told him that year that several copies of "Pastor I Am Gay" had disappeared from the library shelves, Bess said.

"Sarah brought pressure on the library about things she didn't like," Bess said. "To believe that my book was not targeted in this is a joke."

Other locals said the dust-up had been blown out of proportion.

"That was many years ago and Sarah never had any intention to ban books," said David Chappel, who served as Palin's deputy mayor for three years. "There were some vocal people in the minority, and it looks like they're still out there."

Jim Rettig, a University of Richmond librarian who heads the Chicago-based American Library Association, suggested that lingering quarrel raises issues that are still relevant as librarians prepare to celebrate Banned Books Week later this month.

"Librarians are very committed to the principles of the First Amendment of the Constitution and that means we don't allow one individual or a group of people to dictate what people can or cannot read," he said. "Most librarians if they got that sort of a question would be curious as to what the intent of the questioner was."

(This version CORRECTS that ALA is based in Chicago, not in Richmond, Va.)

[RecycleMichael]

People who read books think they are so smart.

[Gaspar]

Way behind.  That was originally posted on a liberal blog the day after she was chosen as VP candidate.

It was since refuted by the very librarian that they claim was threatened.

This AP story is strange.  It makes no claim to new evidence, just seems to bring the topic back up.  I guess they want to keep it in the news.

[Townsend]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

Way behind.  That was originally posted on a liberal blog the day after she was chosen as VP candidate.

It was since refuted by the very librarian that they claim was threatened.

This AP story is strange.  It makes no claim to new evidence, just seems to bring the topic back up.  I guess they want to keep it in the news.

Good to know.  Can you post the article where she refuted it?  I'd like to know what she had to say about it.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by Townsend

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

Way behind.  That was originally posted on a liberal blog the day after she was chosen as VP candidate.

It was since refuted by the very librarian that they claim was threatened.

This AP story is strange.  It makes no claim to new evidence, just seems to bring the topic back up.  I guess they want to keep it in the news.

Good to know.  Can you post the article where she refuted it?  I'd like to know what she had to say about it.

She hasn't, and more came out about it just yesterday:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/11/politics/animal/main4439414.shtml

[waterboy]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar

Way behind.  That was originally posted on a liberal blog the day after she was chosen as VP candidate.

It was since refuted by the very librarian that they claim was threatened.

This AP story is strange.  It makes no claim to new evidence, just seems to bring the topic back up.  I guess they want to keep it in the news.

Not exactly true. Check this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVAXaJ-SHo8&feature=related

It is an ABC story that debunked the rumor that a list of books had been listed for banning. But not the questioning of the librarian. She was questioned in a city hall meeting by Palin about what her response to banning books would be. She said she would refuse any efforts since they were decided upon using national professional standards. Shortly later, Palin tried to fire her. Palin says it was an unrelated matter, others suggest it was merging a museum with the library. At the time the librarian felt otherwise. But nowhere is it reported that she denied the incident happened or felt pressure, only that there was a list.

The librarian left two years later citing difficulty in working for Palin as the reason.

[Townsend]

And so I'm back to where I was...that sort of stuff scares the crap out of me.  I picture large gatherings with bon fires and storm troopers keeping the rest of us back.

I'm out.

[Gaspar]

More info.

From Anchorage Daily news

According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn't fully support her and had to go.

Emmons had been city librarian for seven years and was well liked. After a wave of public support for her, Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job.

It all happened 12 years ago and the controversy long ago disappeared into musty files. Until this week. Under intense national scrutiny, the issue has returned to dog her. It has been mentioned in news stories in Time Magazine and The New York Times and is spreading like a virus through the blogosphere.

The stories are all suggestive, but facts are hard to come by. Did Palin actually ban books at the Wasilla Public Library?
...Were any books censored banned? June Pinell-Stephens, chairwoman of the Alaska Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee since 1984, checked her files Wednesday and came up empty-handed.

Pinell-Stephens also had no record of any phone conversations with Emmons about the issue back then. Emmons was president of the Alaska Library Association at the time.

She also fired dozens of other township officials on this day.  They were all political opponents of hers, and appointees of previous administrations.  This is standard practice when a new mayor or other elected official takes office.

I don't see any teeth here, especially since the list mentioned in the origional story has proven to be a fabrication by liberal forum poster identified as "Andrew Aucoin."  

Here's the fake list if you're interested:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Includes some of my favs!

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by Gaspar
She also fired dozens of other township officials on this day.  They were all political opponents of hers, and appointees of previous administrations.  This is standard practice when a new mayor or other elected official takes office.

Fire the librarian in a town of 7,000 people, smaller than Glenpool, for being a political opponent?

Really? You think that sounds reasonable and Ok?

[swake]

Can you imagine the howls of outrage that would come if Taylor were to fire the head of the Tulsa Library system for simply being a republican? Or any department heads at all? And Tulsa is something like 50 times larger.

[tim huntzinger]

That shows Executive experience, Swake, sheesh . . .

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by tim huntzinger

That shows Executive experience, Swake, sheesh . . .

Check out the massive facility that this political opponent was in charge of.



Man, she may have been responsible for as many as two or even three employees. Can't have some hothead Democrat or Methodist running a big operation like that....

[Gaspar]

Perhaps that's a poor practice that should be more deeply scrutinized.

[Friendly Bear]

quote:Originally posted by swake

Can you imagine the howls of outrage that would come if Taylor were to fire the head of the Tulsa Library system for simply being a republican? Or any department heads at all? And Tulsa is something like 50 times larger.

Just imagine:  A Mayor firing someone from a previous administration.....how quaint.

Didn't Mayor Taylor fire several from the city attorneys office, and bring in her own: Deidre Dexter.

This whole story is a stinking, Obama's Mama inspired RED HERRING.  

NO books were ever banned.

Name ONE.....

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by Friendly Bear

quote:Originally posted by swake

Can you imagine the howls of outrage that would come if Taylor were to fire the head of the Tulsa Library system for simply being a republican? Or any department heads at all? And Tulsa is something like 50 times larger.

Just imagine:  A Mayor firing someone from a previous administration.....how quaint.

Didn't Mayor Taylor fire several from the city attorneys office, and bring in her own: Deidre Dexter.

This whole story is a stinking, Obama's Mama inspired RED HERRING.  

NO books were ever banned.

Name ONE.....

But the librarian was fired.

And as for the Tulsa city attorneys, weren't they fired for cause for not discovering that the Great Plains deal was illegal and that they didn't even bother to present a defense or try to settle a lawsuit that cost the city more than $10 million?