Censorship in Real Time

 

Watch Clayton High School senior and valedictorian of the class of 2026 get the microphone snatched from her when she began to say what she really felt about the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the treatment of immigrants by ICE in our own country. Leen Hijaz had just said the following, veering away from the text that was approved by school officials beforehand:

“Whether it’s the millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan and so many other countries around the world, or the families being torn apart by ICE,” Hijaz said over the cheers of her classmates. “These are not distant issues, they are happening as I speak.”

Here's the video of that moment:

 

Not only did the school principal snatch away her free speech rights along with the microphone but then followed up the wrong by denying Hijaz her own diploma. Did I mention that Leen is valedictorian of her class?

Adding insult to the injury, the school put out this lie: “School administrators intervened in order to maintain the integrity and focus of the program in real time. This action was not about limiting a student’s voice, but about ensuring that a school-sponsored event remained consistent with its intended purpose.”

"Not about limiting a student's voice"? It's all about limiting any voice that goes against whatever MAGA is told to think on any given day. 

Proud of the courage of Gen Z! Such bravery may be the only thing that can repair the freedoms in our Constitution.

 

Year of the Bullies

The grandstanding Brendan Jones

On Wednesday, Dec. 10th, NC House Majority Leader Brenden Jones threw a viral-video tantrum on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) superintendent and school board chair, berating, belittling, and bullying them -- he was actually yelling -- about books some third-party special interest told him were used in the schools, accusing the officials of ignoring parts of the new “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” SB49, which seeks to govern discussions of gender identity and which was also meant to show educators just how much contempt people like Rep. Jones have for their profession. After Jones' read titles and short out-of-context selections, in a sneering voice meant to signal to his base just how irredeemable these books really are, he actually tossed them contemptuously on the floor behind him.

Rarely has such fear of the written word and its power to contaminate been exhibited in public by a high-ranking official since at least the Spanish Inquisition.

Rep. Jones was especially het up about a book he waved in the air, Santa’s Husband, which he alleged was recommended to elementary school students in Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools. The superintendent started to respond — “I’m not aware that …” — and Jones angrily interrupted. “You’re the superintendent. You're not aware of what's going on in your school system? You don't know what's printed? It’s trash,” he yelled, tossing the book over his shoulder. After the hearing, a Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools official issued a statement refuting Jones’s allegation: “We have once again searched our school and classroom libraries, and that book is not offered. CHCCS has not recommended this book for children of any age, as that would be a decision for parents to make for their own children.”

 

I have to admit that the superintendent actually sort of brought this on himself, having been recorded speaking to a teachers meeting in January 2024, saying what he really thought about SB49, opining that in his opinion parts of the law are unacceptably discriminatory. He indicated that he would be reluctant to enforce what was going to inhibit some students from being their authentic selves. Griffin later wrote in a February 2024 email to staff that although the school board had voted to adopt the new law as policy, there were exceptions possible -- far as the superintendent was concerned -- related to classroom discussions and the requirement to notify parents about any change in the way enrolled children were referring to themselves. It’s a fad, right now, adopting preferred pronouns. It's seems silly to old people like me, but it's not going to end Western civilization. 

The video of the superintendent's sharing of his opinion on the law and his subsequent email to staff got into the hands of @LibsofTikTok, the username of various anti-LGBTQ and far-right social-media accounts operated by a former real estate agent from Brooklyn, Chaya Raichik, who's big into the whole "groomer" hysteria. So by that route, the horrifying goods on the superintendent got into the hands of Rep. Jones, who knows a great opportunity for grand-standing when he sees one.

I betcha ten dollars Rep. Jones, as a loyal Republican soldier, voted multiple times total for Lt. Gov porn-meister Mark Robinson -- in both primaries and general elections -- and never felt a moral qualm.

College Professors Too Are Being Bullied

Peter Hans, the figurehead who's running the UNC system for the Republicans in the General Assembly, has drafted a policy that declares all course syllabi at the 16 affiliated campuses will now be considered public documents and must be posted on-line for more rabid third-parties to comb through. That news came from The Daily Tar Heel, one of the best investigative orgs in the state.

Alex H. Jones wrote about the new policy: "This is cheap red meat for the MAGA people. I would imagine most of the complaints against course syllabi will come from conservative think tankers paid to made liberals look foolish."

This policy represents an attack on civil liberties derived from centuries of reactionary politics in North Carolina. Civil liberties have always been weak in the South. The Confederacy was essentially a police state, and civil-rights protests were met with state violence. The same has been true with regard to higher education. In the 1850s, politicians drove a UNC professor out of the state for voicing his opposition to slavery. When civil liberties in the South conflict with white supremacy, we know which priority wins out.

And if UNC professors are required to post syllabi online for the perusal of aggrieved right-wing activists, they will be subjected to threats and potentially even violence. Doubt it? Look at the number of acts of political violence MAGA Republicanism has inspired over the last ten years. The intent is to make professors nervous, over the long term to suppress the teaching of left-leaning ideas at UNC. It’s an attack on academic freedom and freedom of speech.

 

Trump NewSpeak and the Courts

Did you know that Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California) told CNN: “What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is an actual fight for democracy.” Edward Martin, Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, the chief federal prosecutor in Washington, fired off a letter to Garcia demanding that he “clarify” his remarks. “This sounds to some like a threat to Mr. Musk,” Martin wrote. “We take threats against public officials very seriously.”

An attempt to intimidate and squelch free speech. Based on a willful misinterpretation of the "weapons" used in the metaphorical "bar fight" of political discourse. This is but one example among many current and ongoing attempts to clamp down on what you can say about this current world in which we live in (as my freshmen used to say). Trump intends to teach us new-speak and rewire our brains.

The biggest, most comprehensive crackdown on speech is the current crusade against anything labeled "woke," the infamous alphabet of D.E.I. One of Trump’s ExecOrders banned D.E.I. efforts and threatened organizations receiving federal money not to even say words like "diversity" and "inclusion," let alone practice fair hiring. 

Brendan Carr, Trump's vassal chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, warned Comcast Corp. that a statement on its website saying “diversity, equity and inclusion are a core value of our business” might violate federal regulations. No, really. Universities, private companies, and nonprofits around the country "are rapidly removing statements that support DEI for fear of provoking the administration’s wrath" (WashPost). Threats that provoke self-censorship -- also unconstitutional.

One of Trump's departments ordered the censoring from public documents of a whole bunch of words Trump (or Stephen Miller) doesn't like, including “gender” and “inclusion.” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat and a medical doctor, pushed back: "I think that’s [just] the red meat that the president is throwing to the base.”

In Raleigh, House Bill 171 ("Stamp Out Woke"), mimics Trump's dictates about words that have grown offensive to those in power -- you know, diversity, equity, inclusion. Under H 171, no state agency could “promote, support, fund, implement or maintain workplace DEI programs, policies, or initiatives.” The bill instructs the state auditor — Republican Dave Boliek — to conduct periodic audits of state agencies to ensure compliance. A state employee who violates the law could lose their job and face a misdemeanor criminal charge. (WRAL)

So far, U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson has already ruled that Trump's ExecOrder banning D.E.I. violates the First Amendment, because it targets “viewpoints the government wishes to punish and, apparently, attempt to extinguish.” The judge said a requirement that anyone receiving federal grants or contracts must certify that they do not promote D.E.I. “on its face” violates freedom of speech. And threatening action against companies that promote D.E.I., is also “facially unconstitutional,” the judge said. Noting that the administration had not issued similar warnings to those who oppose D.E.I., he added, “That is textbook viewpoint-based discrimination.”

Tell me it wasn't an egregious attack on free speech when Trump banned the Associated Press from the White House press pool for continuing to call the Gulf of Mexico by its long-standing name rather than switching to “Gulf of America,” as Trump has dictated. Go on, tell me. I'll wait.

News From Trump-Era School Boards: The Wilmington Censorship Case

 

So this is happening in Wilmington. Friday morning the New Hanover School Board convened for a hearing on whether Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, written by Jason Reynolds, adapted from the work of Ibram X. Kendi, should be permanently banned from any school reading list.

WHQR, public media in Wilmington, reported:

Since January, a parent, Katie Gates, has been pushing to ban the book and now, after her request was denied in two different appeals, the school board is deciding its fate. When Gates first complained, her daughter had been assigned Stamped as part of an Advanced Placement course. Since then, her daughter accepted an alternative assignment and has since completed the course, but Gates has continued to pursue getting the book removed....

...the board will determine whether the challenge to the book has “merit” and whether that book should be “retained, removed from the New Hanover County Schools entirely, whether it should be removed to another school level, or whether its availability should be restricted.”

I haven't read Stamped. I rely on an honest broker like Wiley Cash to school me: 

The book is a “remix” of Ibram X. Kendi’s National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning created for readers ages 12 and up.

While the book reveals the genesis of racist ideology in America and suggests ways to combat it, Gates characterized it as “embracing dangerous ideologies.” In her complaint, Gates challenged the book through a number of inaccurate “facts,” contending that Thomas Jefferson freed his enslaved people and that the Bible was not used to justify slavery.

In the piece that Cash wrote for The Assembly, he concludes that "the fix" may already be in since two of the board members, including the chair, colluded with Katie Gates: "Much of the board’s public wrestling with this decision appears to be theatrical. Gates and two conservative members of the school board seemingly laid the groundwork for the decision—to be made sometime this fall—months ago. Emails WHQR obtained reveal close coordination between Gates and school board member Josie Barnhart and Chair Pat Bradford."

Cash's interest comes from a personal place:

"I’m a parent of two young children who attend New Hanover County schools, and I’m deeply invested in ensuring that they learn the true complexity of American history. As a North Carolina native who was educated in the state’s public schools, I did not."

For example, Cash writes, he didn't know about the Wilmington Massacre of 1898, a brutal white supremacist coup, until he was in graduate school taking a class on North Carolina literature at UNC-Greensboro. (Many of the rest of us didn't learn about Wilmington until 2020, when Wilmington's Lie came out and won the Pulitzer.) It would be well worth paying the measly subscription price to get Wiley Cash's full essay, for his discussion of Charles W. Chestnutt is well worth the effort.

UPDATE

The board voted Friday 4-3 to temporarily ban the book from the high school curriculum but retain it in high school libraries until the board can update its policy to allow a “balanced” book to be added to the AP course.

New GOP Schools Bill Is Indeed "A Doozy"

A "monster" schools bill was introduced on July 12, S90, "Children's Laws Omnibus." Text of the bill is linked here, which also contains the official report from the Legislative Analysis Division about what the bill will allow/cause -- which will be plenty to make any flat-earther, pissed-off Moms for Liberty happy and further fuel their hobby of raising holy hell over silly stuff.

I mean, can you imagine? The bill was obviously written to tickle an itch against an entire public education system that has taught far too many youngsters to be tolerant of difference. This is a bill written for people who are angry about tolerance. S90 will unleash real chaos on an already shaken and squeezed school system.

The bill is framed by something dreamily called "the fundamental right to parent," defined in the bill as “the liberty of a parent to direct the upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of the parent’s child.” "That’s dangerously vague," wrote the NandO Editorial Board, "and the ambiguity makes it far too easy for the bill to be weaponized by angry parents seeking to oust educators with whom they disagree."

A sampling of other features in S90 that the Legislative Analysis Division identified:

Section 5 would severely limit sex education, because it's always preferable to keep pubescence ignorant of its own condition.

Section 6 would put partisan parents in a position to censor library holdings and would require detailed -- and we do mean detailed -- syllabi, filed fresh at the beginning of every semester, of what any teacher would be saying about sex and safety in any class.

Section 8 would give parents explicit rights to ban their children from the library and the right to examine their records of borrowing books.

Sections 10 and 11 would give parents the right to sue schools and to get a superintendent fired. 

They should have called S90 "Weaponizing Ignorance." 

It's About Damn Time

 

J. B. Pritzker

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday signed into law a bill that he says will make Illinois the first state in the nation to outlaw book bans.

Illinois public libraries that restrict or ban materials because of “partisan or doctrinal” disapproval will be ineligible for state funding as of Jan. 1, 2024, when the new law goes into effect....

WBEZ --“Book bans are about censorship, marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts,” Pritzker declared at the Harold Washington Library, the crown jewel of Chicago’s public library system. “Regimes ban books, not democracies.”

NYTimes -- “While certain hypocritical governors are banning books written by L.G.B.T.Q. authors, but then claiming censorship when the media fact-checks them, we are showing the nation what it really looks like to stand up for liberty,” Mr. Pritzker, a Democrat, said...

Governor Pritzker appeared to call out, though not by name, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican who has staked his 2024 presidential candidacy in part on his status as a driver of Conservative policies addressing cultural issues.

Governor DeSantis supported state laws aimed, at least in part, at limiting access to some reading materials in public schools. Books targeted to be removed have dealt primarily with L.G.B.T.Q. and social justice themes, with some groups objecting to materials on gender and sexuality in books that schoolchildren could read.

Other states, including Georgia and Kentucky, have followed suit with laws that could make it easier to lodge complaints about specific books and influence library or education boards, according to EveryLibrary, a political action committee that advocates for increased public library funding and tracks proposed book regulation laws across the country.

“Libraries are not in the book banning business, but they are becoming sites of censorship by groups that are oftentimes not even reading the books,” Tracie D. Hall, executive director of the American Library Association, said in an interview.

Efforts to censor books doubled in 2022 over the previous year, according to a report of the library association, which counted 1,269 attempts to remove books and other reading materials....

...the “vast majority” of materials targeted for removal are about or are written by people of color or members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community.

Even librarians have found themselves targeted by groups seeking to pull materials from shelves. Many have been “chased out” of their jobs, according to Ms. Hall. The association’s fund to support librarians facing job losses, she said, is constantly depleted.

Her Moment in the Spotlight Is All About Extinguishing the Light in Others

From a news report:

I Spy With My Little Eye

Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, championed the bill [HR5, "Parents Bill of Rights"] through committee hearings and on the House floor, where an exasperated Foxx repeated from her podium that HR 5 would not jeopardize books in schools

 “This bill will not ban any books,” Foxx said. “Let me repeat: this bill will not ban any books.” 

“Our bill is meant to give parents their God-given rights to be involved in their children’s education and to seek the best education possible,” Foxx said. “We do not want anybody to be treated unfairly. We want everyone to be treated fairly. We do not want to ban books.” [Danielle Battaglia]

Ban? How about harass. Harassment mandated in one of HR5's provisions, the right to "inspect the books and other reading materials in the library of their child's school." Look forward to those scenes: Hard-right Trumpist parents, stirred up by Moms for Liberty, pillaging the school library. And leading, we would think, to many a young teacher caving, or many an old school administrator caving, a world that Foxx loves from the darkside of her heart and that she never would have put up with when she was an educator.

One amendment added to the bill states that if a school allows a transgender girl to play on a sports team, her parents must be notified. The second forces notification if a school allows a transgender child to use a bathroom or changing room matching their gender identity.

In other words, not just harassment of books but harassment of children trying to express themselves while not doing anybody else any harm.

Foxx can't hide her predatory aroma, a fox on the hunt: “Teachers’ unions and education bureaucrats worked to push progressive politics in the classroom while keeping parents in the dark,” Foxx said. “The Parents Bill of Rights aims to end that and shine a light on what is happening in schools.”

"Progressive politics"? She means "diversity, equity, inclusion," the "DEI" currently defining conservative know-nothings' notion of "wokeness." 

Banned Books Will Set You Free

 Something in us is drawn toward what we are ashamed of being drawn toward.

--George F. Will

At a very small Southern Baptist College in the Panhandle of Texas, in 1962, I enjoyed the company of a history professor who used to say off-hand, cryptic things in class, like "You must never, ever read The Decameron" and "You are forbidden from reading Candide." But I thought I saw a wink when he said those things. I don't remember what other books made his banned-and-condemned list, but he was always pointing us toward material that the Southern Baptist preachers who ran that school would not have approved of. 

That excellent history prof always prompted a scavenger hunt. I managed to get my hands on both Bocaccio's collection of 100 risque -- sometimes outright raunchy -- tales, known as The Decameron, and Voltaire's satire of sunny privilege, Candide. (The Decameron was especially easy. I found a cheap paperback edition in the tiny college bookstore. Go figure.)

Voltaire tickled my itch more than any other book at that time. Voltaire's bizarre sense of humor and cruel imagination made mincemeat out of what one character was always saying, "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds." Candide presented human misery and hardship to a sheltered young man as shocking but necessary education. Every incident becomes an ironic joke (for all the best lessons contain irony!), so we could justifiably propose that Candide began my slide to perdition, though it took years to pull both feet out of Southern Baptist concrete.

Banning books doesn't work. Don't the screaming Moms For Liberty and the gun-toting Proud Boys know that? (Maybe they know that, but those people get their ya-yas from force and cruelty, not from religious philosophy.) The more they ban and persecute what they don't like/approve of, the bigger those things grow in the imaginations of spooked individuals who can't grapple with secretly desiring what is forbidden. Tell any functioning American teenager worthy of his smart phone that he "must not" and you'll guarantee he will.

THE NAUGHTY UNDERGROUND OF H.S.

In my high school, which was pretty much all Southern Baptist with a smattering of other Christian denominations, the underground in forbidden material brought stuff into my hands that my mother would confiscate if she found it. (She didn't like my having comic books, even.) 

One of my best friends handed me a copy of Auntie Mame and said "You've gotta read this. It's really funny." Forbidden fun. The novel featured racy people doing racy things and looking very glamorous while doing them. Auntie Mame was actually very tame, especially by the standards of today. It was published in 1955 with plenty of restraint, implying far more than it ever depicted. My mother found that borrowed copy tucked under my pillow, and it got gone, disappeared from my life. I never saw that book again, and I was only half-way through it. My very religious, sainted mother strived to keep the world and "worldliness" far away from the likes of her baby son. She failed.

SIDENOTE ON "WORLDLINESS"

I believe the most violent, truly disturbing piece of smut I ever read in high school had to be Foxe's Book of Martyrs "a polemical account of the sufferings of Protestants under the Catholic Church," including the most graphic descriptions of torture, beheadings, disembowelings, and auto-de-fe action involving that theatrical centerpiece, burning at the stake. You come away from Foxe's Book of Martyrs hating and fearing Catholics, which was exactly its purpose when it was published in England in the mid-16th Century. My older brother was going to a different Baptist college at the time, and he brought Foxe home with him on one spring break. I couldn't resist picking up any new book.

My mother's obsession with "worldliness" reminds me of Mr. Worldly Man, a bad seed in Pilgrim's Progress, another super-Protestant piece of propaganda preaching the earliest version of WWJD ("What would Jesus do?"). Book made a big impact on me, since this was pre-Voltaire while I was still at an age and nervousness that wanted to avoid hell.

PEYTON PLACE ... OH My!

The big banned hit of 1956 (when I was still in middle school) was Peyton Place, a scandel of a novel described in a 50-year-anniversary story by AP: "Grace Metalious' sensational story of sex, violence and other scandals in a small New England town ... made the author an international celebrity.... It transformed an otherwise obscure township into a symbol of decadence and hypocrisy and rivaled Elvis Presley as a shocking breach to the official decorum of the 1950s."

The book was banned in numerous places, but somehow the local druggist in little backwater Silverton, Texas, managed to keep a paperback rack well stocked with the latest best-sellers, and soon one of my older friends had a copy of Peyton Place, and it began to make the rounds and even more importantly began to expand a bunch of teenaged boys' anatomical and biological knowledge -- or at least their fantasies.

By the way, whatever became of "the official decorum of the 1950s"? Does anyone know where that went? It's disappearance -- poof! -- is pretty much all the evidence I need for how banning stuff doesn't work, how the act of banning in fact produces exactly the result the censors where trying to forestall.

THE BOOK I SUCCESSFULLY HID FROM MY MOTHER

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1960), by Max Shulman, really engaged my imagination more than Peyton Place ever did, probably because Dobie and everyone else was college-age, like me, not some Martini-guzzling society people in New England (what did I know about New England?). I loved that book, laughed out loud at the everlasting teenager quest of "getting laid." This book I kept well hidden, and finished it, and went looking for more Max Shulman.

Dobie Gillis wasn't even that raunchy, not at all as raunchy as Shulman's earlier sex romp, Rally Round the Flag, Boys (1957), which I also sought out. Max Shulman, I reckon, was the first author I ever crushed on.

What They DON'T Want Their Kids To Read in Pitt and Moore Counties

 

According to a report in the News and Observer, over the past two years, some very loud people have brought at least 189 book challenges across North Carolina’s 115 public school districts. As a result of those challenges, some 16 titles have been banned from specific North Carolina schools. Those include All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely in Pitt County Schools and Life is Funny by E.R. Frank in Moore County Schools. 

I went looking on Amazon. Here's what I found about All American Boys (which, from the title, I figgered had to be about a homosexual grooming operation. Why else would it be banned from Pitt County?):

In this Coretta Scott King Honor Award–winning novel, two teens—one black, one white—grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension.

A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement?

There were witnesses: Quinn Collins—a varsity basketball player and Rashad’s classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan—and a video camera. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again. And the basketball team—half of whom are Rashad’s best friends—start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and consequences they had never considered before.

Oh, okay, I get it. Too much ripped-from-the-headlines reality.

Amazon sums up the other banned title, Life Is Funny, this way:

E. R. Frank’s seminal first novel weaves together the stories of eleven teenagers in one city over seven years in this groundbreaking and “impressive debut” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Why does Gingerbread always have a smile on his face? “Because life is funny,” he tells Keisha. But for her—and almost everyone else in her Brooklyn neighborhood—there doesn’t seem to be much to laugh about.

China, Ebony, and Grace are best friends, but Grace’s mother isn’t crazy about her being friends with two girls who aren’t white, and each cut Ebony makes on her wrist seems to drive them even further apart.

Just across the schoolyard there’s Eric who has to raise his younger brother Mickey, even though no one expects him to amount to anything. Meanwhile, Sonia’s Muslim parents expect everything of her, and it may be more than she is able to give after she suffers a shattering loss.

When Drew brings his father’s Jaguar into Sam’s family’s auto body shop across town they seem to be from opposite sides of the tracks, but Drew’s the one hiding a dark family secret. And he’s not the only one.

Harder to figure what's so terrible about this one, but maybe it's the self-harm (cutting) that the white girl is inflicting on herself (all too common, I'm told) and surely not the fact that she has two Black friends and a mother who disapproves of them.

I'll have something to say in a subsequent post about the A-Number-1 best way to get kids into banned stuff -- ban it.

 

Enemies of Caesar Who Write Negative Opinions Will Have To Register With the State of Florida

Am I potentially breaking a proposed new law in Florida?

[The Hill, March 2, 10:04 p.m.] A bill proposed this week by a Republican state senator in Florida would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), his Cabinet officers and members of the Florida legislature to register with the state.

Yikes. No distinction I see between bloggers in Florida and bloggers in, say, North Carolina. But wait. There's this important provision:

Would apply only to bloggers who receive compensation for a given online post about an elected state officer. 

That lets me out, since I make nothing from shooting off my mouth except a sore throat. 

I realize it was not the would-be dictator of Florida himself who introduced this law, but rather one of his eager minions in the Florida state lege, who evidently wanted to please the bush-league Mussolini. "You-must-register-with-the-state-if-you're-making-money-while-also-making-fun" should become one of those essential landmarks markingv Florida's slippage into the vast dark.

Authoritarianism Blooming Like Skunk Cabbage in Tennessee

 

I have occasional reasons to cross the state line into Tennessee. Lotsa North Carolinians do business in Johnson County. But after catching up on the craziness right now out our back door, I'm thinking of going cold turkey on the entire Volunteer State. Their leaders are currently volunteering to be the worst public dicks in the nation. Economic reaction is the only pressure that works. (See how NC suffered after the "Bathroom Bill" passed.)

Two days ago, on Thursday, February 23, Tennessee lawmakers officially passed joint legislation to create a new felony offense for anyone engaging in an "adult cabaret performance" on public property or in any location where the performance "could be viewed by a person who is not an adult." The criminalization of these "performances" would presumably extend to costumed dancers in Pride parades and to off-color jokes told by a trans comedian (there are plenty such professionals; check Netflix).

On the very same day, Thursday, February 23, Tennessee House Republicans also overwhelmingly passed a ban on gender-transition health care, including hormone therapy and surgery, for anyone under the age of 18. That's telling those "confused" teenagers! "You're going to be what I say you are. And you're grounded."

The Drag Show Bill (H6/S3), "An Act to Amend Tennessee Code," lists its favorite erotic fantasies -- topless, go-go, and all "exotic" dancers, plus strippers and "male or female impersonators who provide entertainment." That capaciousness for criminalizing sexy displays actually deploys the adjective pruient, a little used relic from an earlier era of shocked Victorian prudery. Any of the "entertainers" listed above who arouse pruient thoughts will be subject to prosecution. 

Pruient comes from Latin pruiens, originally meaning an itching (no lie!). For Roman soldiers, beset by fleas and lice and armor-rash, pruiens meant a physical itching but quickly took on a metaphorical meaning, itching for sex. In other words, it's ancient and obscure enough to become the standard for criminal intent in a new felony class in the State of Tennessee. 

The Tennessee legislators worry about the itch because they by God have the itch, feel the itch, and by-'n'-by scratch the itch (like all God's creatures). Their denial is a confession but also a power play. The Puritan tyrant is always covering for his own sin. Accounts for the obsession:

"Republicans are troubled by homosexuality and can't figure out how not to think about it."

--Garrison Keillor

Pruient.

Democrats hold a dismissible minority of seats in the two chambers of the Tennessee legislature. Republicans have a veto-proof majority in both houses and a Republican governor to boot, willing to sign whatever they want. One of the minority Democrats in the House, Rep. Justin Jones (who goes under the handle @BrotherJones on Twitter) stood up during the debate on the Drag Show Bill and delivered one blistering takedown of Republican hypocrisy (video can be seen here). “If we want to address the issue of obscenity and what’s harmful to minors, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don’t need a bill — they need a MIRROR.”

If there's still a shred of justice at any level of power in this country, the Courts will see that the State of Tennessee is legally persecuting an identifiable group, and you simply cannot do that in our Republic.

This Man Wants To Make Yelling "Shame!" at Ex-Gov. McCrory a Crime

Meet Senator Dan Bishop of Mecklenburg County. He was a major sponsor of HB2, the law that got ex-Gov. Pat McCrory chased by a crowd of protesters in Washington on Saturday. They yelled "Shame!" and "anti-gay bigot" at him while he tried vainly to find someplace to hide.

Senator Bishop wants that behavior criminalized ... the behavior of the protesters, not McCrory's behavior in signing a law he hadn't read and didn't understand (which, come to think of it, might also warrant criminalizing).

Sen. Bishop has proposed a new law (the General Assembly meets tomorrow for the "long session") that would "make it a crime to threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against a present or former North Carolina official in the course of, or on account of, the performance of his or her duties." Bishop said that offenders of his proposed statute should serve a prison sentence up to five years.

Gosh. Doesn't that just cry out for a major "Shame! Shame!" chant performed by a sizable group of people as Sen. Bishop walks past to take his seat in the General Assembly?

Let the Supervillain Preen

Leslie Jones was one of the stars of the all-female remake of "Ghostbusters." For no particular reason, a man in a position to do it organized a hacking/trolling attack on Leslie Jones that drove her off the internet. It was that vicious and relentless.

The man who organized that attack was Milo Yiannopoulos, "a Twitter bully" proud of who he can destroy. Yiannopoulos is also the alt-right white nationalist editor of Breitbart News (Leslie Jones is black), and he just got a quarter-million-dollar book deal with Threshold Editions, a semi-independent imprint of Simon & Schuster.

"Threshold imprint’s tagline is 'Celebrating 10 Years of Being Right!' They’ve published works by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, and President-elect Donald Trump."

Threshold Editions characterizes Yiannopoulos' book -- to be modestly titled "Dangerous" -- in a press release:

DANGEROUS will be a book on free speech by the outspoken and controversial gay British writer and editor at Breitbart News who describes himself as “the most fabulous supervillain on the internet.”

So there were calls immediately all over social media to boycott Simon & Schuster, and do worse, but I can't for the life of me go along with any censorship. If you don't want to buy the book, don't buy the book. I won't buy the book. (Don't buy any book by Simon & Schuster. I don't care. I won't either, until they publish something I actually want to read.)

Threshold Editions has both a right to publish "Dangerous" and a right to try to make a killing on Milo's celebrity (the reason for the big bucks), and Yiannopoulos can jack off in public (so to speak) all he wants to.

It's in the Constitution.

McCrory Gets Boone Book-Banner Confirmed for State Board of Education

What we need on the state Board of Education is an avid book-banner! We've said that for years, yet it took Governor Squishy to finally step up to the plate and appoint Todd Chasteen of Samaritan's Purse.

You'll be forgiven for failing to remember that Chasteen was a leading community force in trying to ban Isabel Allende's "House of the Spirits" from English honors classes early in 2014.

Chasteen's appointment sailed through the General Assembly today with only one dissenting vote.

Both Chasteen and Senator Deanna Ballard, who introduced him to the joint Senate-House meeting this morning, work for Franklin Graham.

According to Lindsay Wagner, Chasteen's wife Kim "runs a private Christian school in Boone called Grace Academy. And Chasteen is a proponent of home schooling, having served as a government instructor for High Country Christian Home Schoolers. Chasteen’s bio for HCCHS says he 'has a passion to help ground and prepare our students against an onslaught of liberal views that they may face in higher education, and to be able to convey the subject matter with academic freedom.' ”

Yep. Public education in North Carolina is in good hands now!

Pressure on UNC Chancellor To Defy BOG

An editorial in The Daily Tarheel today, titled appropriately "Power concedes nothing without a demand," calls on UNC-CH Chancellor Carol Folt to defy the power-mad Republican Board of Governors and simply refuse to dissolve the Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity:

...Chancellor, if you take the lead in defending academic liberty and those who dare critique the state’s conservative power structure, your students and colleagues will follow you. Conflicts this fundamental to the University’s mission are not meant to be managed — they are meant to be won.

She won't stand up to the Board of Governors, of course, at least not in the manner that would satisfy a stirred-up student body, but she should at least appreciate the fighting spirit around her, even if she can't find it in her heart.

Last Night, With the Watauga School Board

By a concerned citizen, guest blogging:

Last night at the climactic conclusion of the months-long furor over whether high school Honors English sophomores would be allowed to read Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, the Watauga County Board of Education gave 30 minutes each to both the complaining parent, Chastity Lesesne, who started all of this, and the English teacher under attack, Mary Kent Whitaker.

As I listened to the book challenger speak, all I could hear was the implication that she believed her standards for decency should be imposed on everybody. She listed all of the school's regulations about decency -- what books, language, movies, etc. would be acceptable -- and reminded us repeatedly that this book doesn't meet any of those standards. She read a definition of pornography ("material that is intended to cause sexual excitement") but continued to describe parts of the book that create disgust rather than sexual excitement. Time after time, she said the book is pornographic despite the fact that nothing in the book is intended to cause sexual excitement. She read a passage that described a dirty old man's fantasies as he took advantage of a 6-year-old girl, but nothing in that passage could possibly create arousal -- only disgust.  Her biggest complaint -- other than "pornography" -- was that teens who selected the alternate were deprived of educational services in the form of classroom discussions. She called this discrimination.

In contrast, the teacher talked at length about how hard educators work to incorporate parental requests, always thinking of ways to improve their efforts to meet the needs of students. She listed several specific steps she has taken to improve her handling of issues brought to her attention by the challenger. The challenger had said that there were many books that could be used, and Ms. Whitaker had asked her to send a list. To date Ms. Whitaker has received no such list from Ms. Lesesne. 

Ms. Whitaker said she has tried repeatedly to find a book that would meet criteria set by the state (including Lexile score and focus on Latin American literature), but each book that she had found contained material that would have been found objectionable by some readers.  She mentioned the fact that the accrediting association will be visiting the school, and she is concerned about the possibility that a censorship issue could threaten accreditation. She read examples from some of the essays students have written praising the class and the important learning that had taken place. She talked about the positive messages that readers receive and the fact that the passage read by the challenger was only 1% of the book. The book needs to be studied as a whole, not just a few isolated and out-of-context passages. She gave statistics about how many times students have chosen the alternate book, pointing out that this semester -- despite all of the publicity about the book challenge -- only four students have requested the alternate book. Some 93% of the parents gave approval for their teens to read this book. She mentioned the fact that Watauga High School ranks third in NC in test scores, and the two schools that scored higher teach the book. How could our students compete if they are denied access to it?

Sadly, she mentioned the fact that teachers have experienced threats and are uneasy about their jobs. They need to know that the School Board supports them.

What they got from the school board was a split decision, with board member Ron Henries providing the swing vote. Mr. Henries expressed the difficulty he encountered in making his decision to support the use of the book, saying that he personally did not like the book, but he listened carefully to parents who approached him asking that he allow their teens to study the book under the guidance of Ms. Whitaker. Since only four students chose the alternate book this semester, he believed that the 93% should be given their preference, concluding with the idea that in the future, if most parents do not want their teens to study it, the use of the book will die like the dinosaurs.

BREAKING: Watauga Board of Education Just Voted 3-2 to Retain Allende Book in Curriculum

Delora Hodges and Lee Warren (neither of whom have filed for reelection) voted to remove the book from the curriculum (though Hodges made an earlier motion to keep the book in the library while taking it out of the 10th grade classroom).

Brenda Reese, Barbara Kinsey, and Ron Henries voted to retain the book in the curriculum.

Game over.

School Board Wrong To Exclude Citizens From Thursday's Vote

From North Carolina General Statutes covering Open Meetings of public bodies:

§ 143-318.9.  Public policy.
Whereas the public bodies that administer the legislative, policy-making, quasi-judicial, administrative, and advisory functions of North Carolina and its political subdivisions exist solely to conduct the people's business, it is the public policy of North Carolina that the hearings, deliberations, and actions of these bodies be conducted openly. (1979, c. 655, s. 1.)
§ 143-318.10.  All official meetings of public bodies open to the public.
(a)        Except as provided in G.S. 143-318.11, 143-318.14A, and 143-318.18, each official meeting of a public body shall be open to the public, and any person is entitled to attend such a meeting.

The Watauga County School Board decided that attendance at Thursday's meeting, when a final decision will be made regarding the banning of a novel from sophomore English honors classes, will be limited to those who'll be able to snag a "ticket" of admission to be given out at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday.

The School Board managed somehow to get access to the High School auditorium for a previous public hearing on the book in question. They should do that again. In fact, they must do that again to be in compliance with North Carolina law governing open meetings.

Franklin Graham: "Ludicrous" and "Un-American"

Scott Sexton, the bare-knuckled Winston-Salem Journal columnist, bares his knuckles at Franklin Graham and the other Watauga County book-banners this morning. Good reading, clear thinking.

A Pugilistic Analysis of Last Night's Public Hearing

By Atticus Finch Jr., Guest Blogger:

Jesse Wood’s unbiased coverage in High Country Press of the Watauga Board of Education's public comment period over banning Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits is excellent. However, I must disagree that the audience's seating locations neatly reflected their positions on the book (right side vs. left). There were many book supporters among the against-the-book side. Altogether, I estimate about 350 people in the auditorium.

BOE chair Dr. Lee Warren explained that he was amending the usual rules for public comment to allow 10 speakers for each side of the debate. One additional speaker was allowed because she identified herself as neutral. The commentary was arranged so that the point of view alternated, beginning with “against” followed by “for,” and so on.

This format easily allowed for comparison between each pair of opposing speakers. Hence, I’m scoring this as a 10-round match using the “10-point must system” familiar to pugilistic fans and so named because a judge "must" award ten points to at least one fighter each round. I’m basing speaker performance on effectiveness, using Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos. (Ironically, it was in high school English classes that we learned about these styles of persuasion.) As a quick refresher, ethos refers to the authority of the speaker on the subject; pathos refers to an appeal to emotions; and logos refers to logic.

Round 1 began with the husband of the woman who initiated the challenge. Clearly, some ethos points here. His expression that this affair “has become something it was not intended to be” also scored pathos points. He tried to score a triple crown with logos when saying it was not about censorship. He and his wife just want the book removed as required reading or to have an acceptable alternative. Oops. Does a slip count as a knockdown? Because there IS an alternative. Mr. Craig Fischer responded with a quadruple logos sequence with a knockdown, noting that the NC Department of Instruction has found the book to be appropriate for high school sophomore instruction. Score: 10-8 for the book.

Round 2 began with a woman that claimed she read the book (ethos points) and did find some worthy themes of forgiveness and triumph but that overall the book deeply depressed her (pathos, on target). A vague reference to some Centers for Disease Control statement about U.S. teens having more suicidal tendencies more now than ever missed wildly for logos points. Her conclusion, remembering the depression caused by the book coupled with her research on suicide, left me hoping she gets professional help soon. A Mr. Kelly (a philosophy teacher – ethos points) and his wife delivered a solid round in support of the book expressing “every confidence” in the teacher. They were distraught that their child was deprived last semester of the good experience of reading the book (pathos points). Score: 10-9 for the book.

Round 3 had some real fireworks. Mr. Todd Chasteen opened with a logos- and pathos-packed flurry: “59 sexually explicit descriptions,” “deviancy,” “genitalia,” “one such reference every 7.3 pages,” a definition of child pornography, and a vague reference to some U.S. Supreme Court case that gives the BOE broad discretion. Mr. Woody McKay met this flurry with his own logos/pathos explanation of how passages taken out of context can be perceived as bad but taken in context can be good. His basis for this line of argument were the stories found in Judges 19, Genesis 34, Psalms 137, Ezekiel 23, Song of Solomon 2, and the crucifixion of Jesus. McKay was masterful in how he used these stories to support his point yet kept the Bible on sacred text ground. Score 10-9 for the book.

Round 4 pitted two female WHS students against each other. Both had strong ethos and pathos arguments. The earlier speaker (against the book) explained how she felt ostracized for choosing the alternative text. The latter speaker explained that there are students at WHS that personally experience some of the terrible actions (e.g., rape) that are covered in the book. She wondered why if they are old enough for it to happen to them, are they not old enough to be able to read and talk about it? Score: 10-9 for the book.

Round 5 was an evenly matched round that began with a well-dressed woman who said she had read the book and found it indecent. The issue for her was one of defining standards of decency perhaps via a rating system. She reminded her audience that the book may be allowed by the state but is not required by the state and that many successful graduates of WHS have taken the class without reading the book. Mr. Kauner Michael, a WHS junior, spoke passionately on the positive effect he experienced from covering the book last year in the class. He also delivered a student petition of 375 signatures supporting the book. Tough call, this round. But these two factors make the difference: (1) we can’t even decide on one book, so how likely is it that this community can agree on a rating system? and (2) Mr. Michael asked BOE chairman Warren “for permission to approach to deliver the petition signatures.” Wow! That was classy. Score: 10-9 for the book.

Round 6 also pitted a parent against the book versus a student for the book. Mr. Cliff Baldwin claimed that reading the book he found the issue one of "appropriate" vs. "necessary." This promising start was quickly submarined by a lame attempt at explaining the science of the adolescent brain (apparently based on a recent National Public Radio segment) and an even lamer attempt at connecting higher auto insurance rates charged to teenagers due to brain development. (FYI: auto insurance companies don’t know or care diddly about brain development. They only know about numbers like accident frequencies, and they only care about dollars.)  Mr. Patrick Williamson calmly reported, as the student body president (ethos points), that there was widespread support for the book among the student body and that the English department and the teacher were considered trustworthy and capable. Score 10-9 for the book.

Round 7 was contested by two WHS students. The first explained that she, in consultation with her parents, opted not to read the book and chose the alternate. She described being sent into the hallway, feeling ostracized and punished, and not being given an equal educational opportunity. Powerful pathos points scored. The student supporting the book called it her favorite book because of how it helps students become global citizens. Score: 10-9 against the book.

Round 8 began with the assertion to the BOE that their decision was actually quite simple because (1) they took an oath to uphold the laws of the U.S. and N.C. constitutions, (2) current WCS policy prohibits “possession of literature which significantly disrupted the education process or is obscene,” and (3) state statute gives BOE general control. Uh, I’d say that the book itself hasn’t disrupted anything, but the people trying to remove it from the curriculum have. The constitution bit was a red herring to trick me into being impressed. The BOE has general control to decide for either side, which is why it isn’t simple. Attempt at logos points fell flat. Meanwhile, Greg McClure said that reading this book as a high schooler himself led him to become a human rights worker in Latin America. High pathos scored. Furthermore, he claimed that while nearly everyone praises the teacher and says it isn’t about the teacher, it is in fact about the teacher. Questioning curricular decisions makes it about the teacher, and teachers need support. High logos scored. Score: 10-8 for the book.

Round 9 began with a parent claiming he respects the teacher for her ability but has lost trust in her for her accountability. Huh? Her department, colleagues, even the NC Department of Public Instruction have attested to the appropriateness of her choice. Then he slid into bizarre territory, talking about the purity of his daughter and how that was his responsibility until she was 18. Oh, and his son too! (Weird is not a persuasive mode for Aristotle.) Ms. Emily Haas, a 2012 alumna of WHS, spoke passionately in favor of the book and the teacher. She said her sophomore honors English class read Native Son that contained similar themes, but it helped her to grow. It changed her view of life and learning. High pathos. Score: 10-8 for the book.

Round 10 brought back the idea of ratings. Would this book be R-rated if you applied the movie industry rating system?  X-rated perhaps? More vacuous claims of research evidence, this time of the effects of exposing 18- to 21-year-olds to sexually explicit materials. Failed attempt at logos points. Mrs. Trudy Moss concluded the round with an interesting exploration of the stellar reputation WCS has earned over the years and how some of that reputation is due to the presence of Appalachian State University in the community and the elevation of the intellectual discourse. She warned of harming the educational health of our entire county and slipping into mediocrity. High pathos and logos scored. Score: 10-8 for the book.

It was an entertaining evening and an illuminating evening. Those present were clearly divided in their opinions, but everyone remained respectful. This judge’s final tally was that those arguing for keeping the book in the curriculum won the debate 9 rounds to 1, with a cumulative score of 99-78 in favor of the book.