Discriminatory

To say nothing of Judge Jackson’s qualification to be a member of the Supreme Court, but does it not smack of racism and gender bias? Biden’s judicial preferences and appointees thus far have been three-quarters women and two-thirds people of color. Wouldn't you imagine that the pool of candidates is overwhelmingly white and male, thus making this skewed selection process of his nothing short of discriminatory. No?

Clinton Espionage

This is the definition of insanity. The Durham investigation is positively screaming what should be headline news from the rooftops: Trump actually was spied on by way of a sinister plot hatched by the Clinton campaign. And yet…..crickets from the mainstream media. This nefarious deep state subterfuge makes Watergate look like amateur hour. And to hear the left’s attempt to debunk their new favorite word, the findings are laughable. Mara Liasson, the wretched, cantankerous, old NPR mouthpiece, actually dismissed it on Tucker’s panel discussion, claiming that the only thing wrong was somebody lied to the FBI. Sure, Mara. But the reason Sussman lied was to cover up Clinton shenanigans that were illegal. Sorry, but you can’t spy on opposition presidential candidates and then after they’re elected, continue to spy on their communications in the White House. And you can’t take that information, cut and paste it into a fabrication, then through your government insider channels, funnel it to a more than compliant FBI, CIA and State Department. And then use it to cripple a President for two years where, as Jesse Watters so ineloquently put it, every time Robert Mueller burped, it was newsworthy. But, alas, the Teflon plated Clintons will skate, the media will ignore the story, and the democrats will distract us with yet another social issue. Probably by appointing another first member of an aggrieved minority group to a position of authority. Color, gender identity  and party affiliation allow separate rules in the new world order. 

Peggy’s Folly

WSJ’s Noonan just can’t help herself, taking another shot at Trump in her weekend editorial “Republicans, Stand Against Excess.” Get over yourself, Peggy; there will never be another Reaganesque  President in a country this polarized. And I’ve had enough of these conservatives, Mitch McConnell included, who are now parroting the democrat’s January 6 mantra about the “violent insurrection meant to stop a constitutionally mandated process.” Please. We are speaking of an insurrection whose poster child was unarmed, in a horned headdress, face painted and carrying a Trump flag?  Right. Sure there were some bad actors in the crowd. But like the rare and out-of-place Confederate flag and the Trump hats that resulted in the media labeling the Canadian trucker protest as racist, the vast majority of the crowd appeared more like tourists, without malicious intent. Unlike the summer’s BLM riots, for example. If Ms. Noonan truly wants to “stand against excess,” she should start with her own.

The Great Texas Book Ban

 

In this age of political correctness and woke sensibilities, I succumbed to clickbait that promised a story on censorship and instead had my sensibilities assaulted when I logged into a CNBC story titled; “Banned: Books on Race and Sexuality are Disappearing from Texas Schools in Record Numbers.”  I should have known better.  It is remarkable that censorship of established classic literature occurs at all these days and unfortunately in many cases it is the conservative religious right that has spearheaded the figurative and sometimes literal book burnings.  Most often morality seems to be the issue where cases of vulgarity, profanity, and explicit sex scenes have rallied the troops to shield our once thought to be impressionable youth from the moral turpitude that lurks in the stacks.  Granted, this seems absurd in the age of the smartphone when virtually all of mankind’s moral failings are available on the internet, but I suspect the goal is to preserve our schools as the last bastion of morality-based education, some anchor to windward against the onslaught of social and moral upheaval.  As is frequently the case, that all depends on which side of the aisle you’re on. When we became segregated into tribes, particularly those infatuated with race and gender, the real battle began and the contemporary scarlet letter, this time R for racist and an H for homophobic, have been scattered like buckshot. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” had come under fire for being “rough, coarse, and inelegant” according to the prudes in late 19th century Massachusetts, but has more recently been challenged for its stereotypical character depictions and use of the dreaded N-word. Apparently Twain’s seemingly accurate depiction of the times is no longer acceptable.  Similarly, Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” has been banned for its “profanity, racial epithets, and description of a rape” according toHistory.com, but its “racial language” has proven to be the most sensitive issue.  Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”succumbed to criticism for “objectionable” language and itsdepiction of Kern County, California, apparently upsetting those folks that reside there.  Hemingway has taken a beating for “A Farewell to Arms” being too “salacious” and Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” for profanity and explicit sexual content.  Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”took a beating for “profanity, blasphemy, and sexual references.”  And even the “Harry Potter” books, by JK Rowlings have run afoul of the religious right for theirportrayal of occult and satanic themes.   And the list goes on: “Animal Farm” for its political themes, Dr. Seuss for the author’s supposed racist caricatures, “Gone With The Wind” for its depiction of the antebellum South, “Clockwork Orange” for violence, and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” for being “pornographic, glorifying criminal activity, and containing descriptions of bestiality, bizarre violence and torture, dismemberment, death and human elimination.”  Wow, I’ll have to reread that.  So what’s left to read?  According to CNBC, Texas is now ground zero for banning books related to race and sexuality and the theme has been dutifully picked up and parroted by Yahoo, NBC, Greek reporter, The Guardian, CNN, Gwire, and Allsides.com.  Those damn conservatives in Texas are at it again. 

 

But the particular subject matter that has CNBC’s knickers in a twist is specifically related to homosexuality, sexually explicit books that are, and I quote CNBC: “coming-of-age stories that prominently feature LGBTQ characters and passages about sex”.  Isn’t that precious? What’s not to like for your teenager?  So it would seem that the reported book banners aren’t really engaged in any sort of discriminatory behavior, as they seem to treat any explicit sexual content as taboo when it comes to our schools and what our children are exposed to.  But are any of these books on CNBCs list truly worthy of defense?  Are they considered classic literature?  Or are they merely appealing to the left’s obsession with all things that fall into the alphabet soup of all that which is not heterosexual and, to employ their own phrase, all things non-binary.  And CNBC partially answers that question themselves by stating: “many of the books are newer titles, purchased by school librarians in recent years as part of a nationwide movement to diversify the content available to public school children.”  Seriously?  So the effort is to appeal to every minority interest group by supplying educational materials to reinforce your individual proclivities?  And exactly how far is that outreach going to be extended and promoted? Where do we draw the line, and, for that matter, who is drawing it? In this age of sexual redefinition, must we provide experiential roadmaps for every possible deviation from the norm in the name of inclusion and diversity?  It’s a ridiculous proposition. And the fact that more challenges are being issued every year is perhaps lessa reflection of intolerance as CNBC would like you to believe, with librarians calling the censorship efforts “unprecedented”, and more a reflection of the number of controversial books that are being introduced into our school libraries.  It is interesting to note that a slew of formal reviews and guidelines are necessary to remove a book from the library but there does not appear to be any such protocol for reviewing books that are added to the collection. An activist librarian may in fact arbitrarily add a title to their library based on their efforts at promoting their own definition of diversity with a compliant school board willing to turn a blind eye.  And once again, the definition of vulgarity, perversity, and pornography will vary wildly, influenced by political and social leanings. The old definition of pornography by Justice Potter Stewart as “I know it when I see it” may be diluted significantly from when that was first offered in 1964 as an explanation.  So with that in mind, let me offer you a small sample of the controversial books and you be the judge:

 

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin.  Described by Amazon as “a groundbreaking work of LGBT literature’ that “takes an honest look at the life, love and struggles of transgender teens.”  Described by one dissenting parent as, “Extreme sexual content that isn’t even appropriate for me to put in an email”

 

Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison.  Described by the New York Times as “a 10th generation peasant with a Mexican last name, raised by a single mom on an Indian reservation”.  Checked all the boxes there, Jonny.  The Times goes on: “a light touch and humorously guides the reader, this time through the minefield that is working class America.”  Hmmm, no mention of homosexuality there or in the Amazon description.  But again, outraged parents, according to CNBC, described the content as containing “descriptions of oral sex between fourth grade boys”, “a search for a Mexican American boy to understanding his sexuality filled with profanity and explicit sexual references”.  It doesn’t sound like they’re talking about the same book, now does it. My bet is the parents have it right.

 

Jack of Hearts (and other parts) by LC Rosen.  Amazon makes it sound like a mystery romp about “an unapologetically queer teen working to uncover a blackmailer threatening him back into the closet.”  Oh heavens, not that. Amazon goes on to entice the reader with: “Jack has a lot of sex and he’s not ashamed of it”, “ground breaking and page-turning Jack of Hearts celebrates the freedom to be oneself, especially in the face of diversity.”  Parents that objected to the book’s content summarized it as being about a character that writes a teen sex column describing male genitalia and advises on how to perform oral sex with excerpts referring to anal and oral sex.  The author described the complaints as “reading passages out of context”.  CNBC reported that the School Library Journal wrote that “the dearth of sex positive queer literature made Jack of Hearts an essential addition to library collections that serve teens”.  Essential.  Uh-huh. 

 

And there’s more.  A lot more, I just don’t have the stomach to read the descriptions. What are we doing to our kids? It is fascinating that our educators constantly remind us that the adolescent mind is basically oatmeal until their early twenties, and until then, they are fragile creatures that just need more sleep.  What they need is guidance and structure, especially as they try to navigate their teens when hormones are at play and their bodies are morphing into what will hopefully be functional adults. Instead we allow them to be bombarded with confusing messages, most of them from the internet and television.  Your sex is no longer decided by your chromosomes, it is a social construct, a myriad of variations from which you may choose, or perhaps just go fluid and choose a different one at a whim. But on the other hand, your race is decided, and that makes you a victim or an oppressor prejudged by the color of your skin. Religion, morals, scruples are mostly disregarded in favor of worshipping the buck, our social idols and influencers all propped up by entertainment dollars and questionable ethics. Then we cloister them away for a year with Covid protocols and subject them to remote learning. No wonder a significant percentage of teens check the “depression and anxiety” box on their health questionnaires.  These kids are confused. Do we really need to add to the confusion by offering themreferences for sexual behavior that make an LGBTQ lifestyle a trendy matter of choice, glamorized by Hollywood and now literature in the school library? With the internet available to these kids that choose to identify as LGBTQ, is it necessary to have a library that offers explicit sex, disguised as literature and entertainment, providing how-to sex instruction manuals in a school setting?  And exposing heterosexual teens, presumably in the majority, to it? You know how that will go when a bunch of teens are given access to sexually explicit material.  Where are the adults that should be the gatekeepers for access to this material? Where are the parents? And before you call me a prude, especially when I prefer “conservative old dinosaur”, I agree that these kids need some reference tailored to their identity.  But is this it?  A sexually explicit one? Just drop them into the tank without guidance and hope they can swim? And why are LGBTQ students different from their heterosexual counterparts?  We don’t expect heterosexual children to learn about their sexual identities by giving them a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Loveror directing them to the pornography section.  Here you go kid, figure it out. And it would appear that banning a book from the school library for violence, profanity, or explicit sexual content is a crime against literature for the left, but banning a book for not fitting their narrative of social justice, containing violence against a politically expedient minority or containing images of an inconvenient past is acceptable.  Okay, got it. But of course the CNBC article framed the controversy by offering a sympathetic 17 year-old “queer” student, that fears her homophobic Christian parents (naturally) won’t understand her and seeks solace in the stacks, her “safe haven” where she can “be herself”, immersed in literature that “offers hope” and “gives her a sense of validation”, looking “forward to the freedom that it offers.”  Please.  Why is this generation so self-absorbed? And why does everything revolve around your sexual identity at 17? I know I will be criticized for being less than sympathetic, but it would appear that these kids need fewerhow-to sex manuals and more guidance, with an emphasis on how to be productive members of society.  Less looking inward and more looking outward, less CRT and sex education and more STEM. More stick and less carrot.  More normalcy and less selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.  And let’s do it now, before this generation is lost.