Verdict on the book banning

I'd blogged a while ago about the banning of Maureen Johnson's The Bermudez Triangle solely for having homosexual (though in no way explicit) content. There's a verdict now. You can read her post here, if you're interested.

In short, the school library will allow the book. However, it must be kept on a reserve shelf and only checked out for school assignments by students who have parental permission.

How asinine. And slippery slope. Dangerous precedent. All of the above.

Oh, and this is on the heels of the librarian on the book banning committee having been removed from her position and the school librarian resigning. What a world we live in.

Footloose, anyone?

Happy Mother's Day from the U.S. Army

My 20-year-old brother is a corporal with the U.S. Army based in Georgia. We've known for a while that he was going to ship out to Iraq sometime in May (for his second tour); they just didn't tell anyone exactly what date it was going to be.

Well, my mother and stepmother got a great Mother's Day gift. Saturday night my brother made the rounds via telephone to tell us all that he was shipping out on Sunday.

Yes, that's right. Mother's Day.

The Army felt the need to ship out troops on Mother's Day.

Now, maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion but I don't really think so. This is hard enough on families as it is, having our sons/daughters/brothers/sisters shipped overseas and wondering if we're ever going to see them again. They have to send them out on Mother's Day?

That's like a slap in the face to all the mothers watching their children go overseas. There are mothers whose kids left on Mother's Day who will not see them again; it's inevitable. We all pray that it won't be our loved ones but there will be kids who shipped out on Sunday who don't make it home. And that is what those mothers will have as their Mother's Day gift.

This isn't to say that those whose family members shipped out on any other day don't have it just as hard ... it's just the symbolism of the thing.

They had to ship them out on Mother's Day?

The new age of banned books

Maureen Johnson, a popular young adult author who I haven't read but now certainly will, has gone and gotten one of her books banned from a high school library. The book in question, The Bermudez Triangle, is an examination of how friendships change when friends begin to date. The apparently problem with the book is that the couple in question is a lesbian couple -- which, according to Maureen, is really not the focus of the book.

Don't people realize that banning a book, in any form, just drives interest in the book? God forbid we let kids think for themselves and learn to formulate their own opinions.

Maureen's blog post includes the comments made by a parent that got the book banned and how she plans to respond. I applaud her.