On July 12, 2023, the book Arthur's Birthday was formally challenged in the Clay County School District, which is located outside of Jacksonville, Florida. The challenge is an effort to remove the volume from the district's school libraries. The book tells the story of Arthur, a bespectacled anthropomorphic aardvark in the 3rd Grade, whose birthday party is scheduled at the same time as one of his classmates, a wealthy monkey named Muffy. Initially, the dueling birthday parties divide Arthur's 3rd Grade class, with the boys pledging to attend Arthur's party and the girls committing to Muffy's celebration. The tension is resolved when Arthur arranges for a joint get-together.
The stated reason will be that "Spin the Bottle" is porn. The real reason will either be mixing monkeys and aardvarks, DIVERSITY!!! OMG!!! or that Arthur made rich girls feel bad.
But let me ask a different question - when hundreds of challenges in multiple districts are coming from one guy, is there a time when his challenges need to be immediately directed to the circular file?
Adam, we need more than that. Are the majority in this country asleep? Why allow this.? Time to remove federal funding to these states for incompetence & danger to society.
Could this person be making a point with Arthur?
Or perhaps it is time to disallow dangerous republicans or even christians to be served across this country. Make them national security risks, or a danger to society. Now I know this isn’t realistic but a taste of their own medicine would be fun to watch.
I love the MoveOn Banned Books van. Time to buy up the Arthur books! I love Arthur! Such a great learning series for you g children. It is UP TO US to make sure this attack stops.
Seeking Reason, your question, "Are the majority in this country asleep?" misses a crucial fact. Tens of millions of Americans side with the Friedman, not with the rational, reality-tethered others (us). The dis-information industry preaches to and encourages people such as Friedman. The industry gives him and millions more the justification to be untethered from reality and act on it. Those same voters gave us Trump, DeSantis, MTG, Gaetz, Boebert, et al. Catering to that base, McConnell gave us a 6-3 majority right wing Supreme Court. These ills, not just the Florida attempt to educate their children to be trainable morons, are the consequences of letting the dis-information industry hide behind the First Amendment.
10s of millions? It only takes 1 person to fill out a form. Like that lady who opposed Amanda Gorman's poetry book. The lady opposing didn't even know who wrote the poem, for God's sake. She wrote on the form that Oprah Winfrey wrote it. These people are unhinged and should be fought against. For every 1 of them, I think there's 100 that want the books and understand their child can learn something or they can simply not check the book out. Their first amendment right can't infringe on MY rights. Period.
I certainly don’t disagree with your “one person” observation but otherwise, I believe you missed my point. Perhaps I should have made it clearer. I do not agree that for every one of them there are 100 who disagree. If that were the case, Florida wouldn’t have DeSantis as governor.
You're assuming that Florida represents a fair cross section of the US. It does not. The elder demographic skews conservative-to-right-wing, as does much of the Cuban community, among others. Not to mention that by now the infamously rightwing governor is attracting like minds.
Spot on Bruce! We really allowed a right wing monopoly of media way back. We need to get members in Congress who will put a definitive end to this outlet to destroy any sense of democracy or any form of fairness.
Not charitable of me I know but these folks are a danger to society. They would tear it all down with their own damn hands, then blame "the Libs" and the socialastic-communistic-woketywoke-softhanded-covidass-no gun zone-Marxo/Commu/Homo/Feminazi/Skirt wearing MFing... you get the picture.
"Friedman said that unless the school district voluntarily purged all the books he believed were inappropriate from the library, he would "perform 3,600 challenges and overwhelm your awful, awful procedures and policies."
Perhaps they will start with changing the policy allowing one person to challenge a book.
Kind of like one senator challenging military promotions? And now two senators challenging state department ambassador nominations? Gotta protect the tyranny of the minority, no?
The electoral college, the filibuster, equal power in the senate for low-population states, no term limits for federal judges (particularly the supreme court), partisan gerrymandering, corporations as "people" (who can donate unlimited amounts to campaigns)...are all massive structural defects in our system.
This Article examines that status quo to show that the “income” tax is dead, replaced by a universal wage tax in which payroll taxes add on to a wage/income tax to highly, and inescapably, burden labor while wealth is left off the hook of taxation altogether.
Liberals and progressives must change the way they think about tax in order to get non-taxpaying billionaires to pay anything at all.
Good idea. One miscreant should not be able to show up clutching a suitcase bulging with challenges and gum up the system with self righteous foolishness.
Believe in what you want but don't try and convert me or mine by force.
Yup. I think it should be hard to challenge a book -- at least as hard as getting a referendum on the ballot (i.e. you have to get a lot of signatures).
How does one person—is he even a parent?—get to decide what all children in a school district can read? What possible interest can he have in what other people’s children read?
His interest is stated in the article: he's a hardcore right-winger (presumably a MAGAt) and a member of the extremist group No Left Turn in Education.
No doubt the MAGAs trying to get “Arthur the Aardvark” books banned from libraries are the same people who brag about their commitment to “free speech” when they get Nazis resinstated on Twitter.
What exactly does “run over someone like a dead body” mean, anyway? There should be a law that says you can’t ban a book if you can’t read or write at the grade level for the intended audience.
the difference being that koan introduces am apparent contradiction or paradox to induce a moment of enlightenment. That’s not the same thing as a word garbage salad.
A student asked his master, “What does it mean to roll over somebody like a dead body?” The master replied, “When you roll over somebody like a dead body, you are not moving forward. You are not moving backward. You are not moving sideways. You are simply rolling over them like a dead body. But the dead body is not you. You are the one who is rolling.”
And that's what they may be forcing their children to do, turn to the internet for information, if they aren't helped to understand it at home or school.
But with e-books for instance, haven't I read that they can be digitally changed/corrected without notice because you are actually "leasing access to an intellectual product" and don't actually "own" it?
That's the rub. I really don't know but if their agent didn't negotiate that particular nuance, we are in a grey area and that is where exploitation starts.
Friedman and his handlers know that the time and other resources devoted by the school system to defending books means that less time and resources will be available for educating children. The destruction of public education is their goal. My guess is that the supporters of such censorship also support government school vouchers for religious and segregated private schools.
I once read an Amelia Bedilia book to my kids. In one scene, she smiles at a woman. Was it a smile of friendship, or something more? Ms Bedilia, being an adult woman who lives alone and engages in behavior I find strange, leads me to think she might be a lesbian! Since I'm not sure, the book must be set aside to avoid any potential unnatural influence on our children (and my children are grown, so I really mean your children), or engaging in deviant behavior such as puns or silly rhyming. Believe me! I am a deeply serious person!
While I do agree that sexualizing children is problematic, not allowing children content that helps them deal with sexuality, is also a major problem, since if they're not helped to learn about it, learn to manage their own sexual thoughts and impulses, encouraged to feel good about who they are as sexual beings, they may grow into adults who struggle with sexuality and often express it in inappropriate ways. Keeping silent on such an important aspect of life leaves children without direction and often forces them to find less than helpful ways/sites to get their information. But, what's even more troubling is how much people on the right are obsessed with how children view sexuality.
Florida is lead by people who believe this kind of behavior is good. Friedman knows this. School and class libraries have been emptied of books. Teachers and Librarians (I believe)have been fired and/or reprimanded.
TBH this won't stop in Florida until there is a change of heart in the voters and a change in legislative and gubernatorial leadership.
My tired old repetitive phrase. Gerrymanding has contributed to this, but in statewide elections where that shouldn't matter as much it is the voter or lack of voter who bears the responsibility.
I am committed to not visiting Florida for oh so many reasons, successful book bans amongst them.
I wonder what Friedman thinks of "Arthur's Underpants." My kids loved that book and many others. I had no problem with Arthur books.
This is absolutely ridiculous! Over 40 years ago (can it be??? I feel so old!) I worked as an assistant to the Children’s Librarian in a small NJ town. I loved that wonderful job and all the kind people that worked with me. It makes me sick to see what is happening in our country.
That's a lot of reading to do, unless, of course, he doesn't actually read them and analyze them before he issues a challenge. Does this guy have a full-time job?
My point is that just by virtue of the list of questionable books, 3,600, he shows that these challenges are specious and should not be taken seriously. Logically.
But then there is nothing logical about this literary witch hunt in Florida.
I cannot tell you exactly which Arthur stories by Marc Brown I read to my kids 38 & 35 years ago (which shows you this author's work has stood the test of time) but I can tell you that they were fun, entertaining books that did not in any way negatively impact my children.
If you have young kids at home ignore this stupid man's opinion, better yet, take Bruce Friedman's "challenge" as a recommendation to read this book to your children...or grandchildren.
Hmmm.. Who has time to compile these lists? Who is Bruce Friedman? Just think about how deranged this person must be. If he worked for me, he would no longer be employed.
The stated reason will be that "Spin the Bottle" is porn. The real reason will either be mixing monkeys and aardvarks, DIVERSITY!!! OMG!!! or that Arthur made rich girls feel bad.
But let me ask a different question - when hundreds of challenges in multiple districts are coming from one guy, is there a time when his challenges need to be immediately directed to the circular file?
There comes a time when one MUST consider the source and in doing so, give all challenges the consideration they are due.
In Friedman's case, that would be none!
Adam, we need more than that. Are the majority in this country asleep? Why allow this.? Time to remove federal funding to these states for incompetence & danger to society.
Could this person be making a point with Arthur?
Or perhaps it is time to disallow dangerous republicans or even christians to be served across this country. Make them national security risks, or a danger to society. Now I know this isn’t realistic but a taste of their own medicine would be fun to watch.
I love the MoveOn Banned Books van. Time to buy up the Arthur books! I love Arthur! Such a great learning series for you g children. It is UP TO US to make sure this attack stops.
Seeking Reason, your question, "Are the majority in this country asleep?" misses a crucial fact. Tens of millions of Americans side with the Friedman, not with the rational, reality-tethered others (us). The dis-information industry preaches to and encourages people such as Friedman. The industry gives him and millions more the justification to be untethered from reality and act on it. Those same voters gave us Trump, DeSantis, MTG, Gaetz, Boebert, et al. Catering to that base, McConnell gave us a 6-3 majority right wing Supreme Court. These ills, not just the Florida attempt to educate their children to be trainable morons, are the consequences of letting the dis-information industry hide behind the First Amendment.
10s of millions? It only takes 1 person to fill out a form. Like that lady who opposed Amanda Gorman's poetry book. The lady opposing didn't even know who wrote the poem, for God's sake. She wrote on the form that Oprah Winfrey wrote it. These people are unhinged and should be fought against. For every 1 of them, I think there's 100 that want the books and understand their child can learn something or they can simply not check the book out. Their first amendment right can't infringe on MY rights. Period.
I certainly don’t disagree with your “one person” observation but otherwise, I believe you missed my point. Perhaps I should have made it clearer. I do not agree that for every one of them there are 100 who disagree. If that were the case, Florida wouldn’t have DeSantis as governor.
I'm sorry! I didn't realize you were referring ONLY to Florida!
You're assuming that Florida represents a fair cross section of the US. It does not. The elder demographic skews conservative-to-right-wing, as does much of the Cuban community, among others. Not to mention that by now the infamously rightwing governor is attracting like minds.
Spot on Bruce! We really allowed a right wing monopoly of media way back. We need to get members in Congress who will put a definitive end to this outlet to destroy any sense of democracy or any form of fairness.
Agreed. I'd love to make the maga folken CRAWL!
Not charitable of me I know but these folks are a danger to society. They would tear it all down with their own damn hands, then blame "the Libs" and the socialastic-communistic-woketywoke-softhanded-covidass-no gun zone-Marxo/Commu/Homo/Feminazi/Skirt wearing MFing... you get the picture.
Adam, never be charitable to the domestic deadly seditionists and terrorists. 😄 It’s the last thing we should be to them!
I’d like to see them rounded up for hard labor in the hot sun..no water allowed to be brought to the terrorists, following Georgia’s rules!
From your lips...
😄❤️
Allowing 3000+ book challenges by a single person is tantamount to the majority being governed by an extremist minority.
And here we are, being held hostage by Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, Bobo, MTG, Mitch McConnell and Joe Manchin.
"Friedman said that unless the school district voluntarily purged all the books he believed were inappropriate from the library, he would "perform 3,600 challenges and overwhelm your awful, awful procedures and policies."
Perhaps they will start with changing the policy allowing one person to challenge a book.
Kind of like one senator challenging military promotions? And now two senators challenging state department ambassador nominations? Gotta protect the tyranny of the minority, no?
Yes.
The electoral college, the filibuster, equal power in the senate for low-population states, no term limits for federal judges (particularly the supreme court), partisan gerrymandering, corporations as "people" (who can donate unlimited amounts to campaigns)...are all massive structural defects in our system.
Is it any wonder we can't get anything done?
More about those structural DEFECTS.
https://deanbaker.net/books/rigged.htm
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/democracy-reform-blueprint-accountable-inclusive-ethical-government/
The Death of the Income Tax (or, the Rise of America's Universal Wage Tax)
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3242314
This Article examines that status quo to show that the “income” tax is dead, replaced by a universal wage tax in which payroll taxes add on to a wage/income tax to highly, and inescapably, burden labor while wealth is left off the hook of taxation altogether.
Liberals and progressives must change the way they think about tax in order to get non-taxpaying billionaires to pay anything at all.
Good idea. One miscreant should not be able to show up clutching a suitcase bulging with challenges and gum up the system with self righteous foolishness.
Believe in what you want but don't try and convert me or mine by force.
Yup. I think it should be hard to challenge a book -- at least as hard as getting a referendum on the ballot (i.e. you have to get a lot of signatures).
How does one person—is he even a parent?—get to decide what all children in a school district can read? What possible interest can he have in what other people’s children read?
His interest is stated in the article: he's a hardcore right-winger (presumably a MAGAt) and a member of the extremist group No Left Turn in Education.
No doubt the MAGAs trying to get “Arthur the Aardvark” books banned from libraries are the same people who brag about their commitment to “free speech” when they get Nazis resinstated on Twitter.
Or blindly follow a convicted sex abuser.
There's that too. A dead giveaway.
Hahahaha! Most definitely they are. You can recognize them by their spoor.
Bravo! Great remark.
What exactly does “run over someone like a dead body” mean, anyway? There should be a law that says you can’t ban a book if you can’t read or write at the grade level for the intended audience.
Freedom of expression includes Zen koans.
the difference being that koan introduces am apparent contradiction or paradox to induce a moment of enlightenment. That’s not the same thing as a word garbage salad.
A student asked his master, “What does it mean to roll over somebody like a dead body?” The master replied, “When you roll over somebody like a dead body, you are not moving forward. You are not moving backward. You are not moving sideways. You are simply rolling over them like a dead body. But the dead body is not you. You are the one who is rolling.”
This reads like a Dril tweet.
LMAO. Thank you.
I, too, was stopped by the phrase (or koan): "Roll over them like a dead body." I mean, say what? So I am super glad y'all cleared it up for me.
It's "be best" so "I'm un/low educated, illinformed so I want everyone to be like me so I don't feel inferior or inadequate or fearful of different".
If the Religious Right has their way, soon these loonies may try to start to extend their book bans to bookstores. Thank heavens for digital media.
I have zero doubt that that's exactly what they are going to do.
And that's what they may be forcing their children to do, turn to the internet for information, if they aren't helped to understand it at home or school.
But with e-books for instance, haven't I read that they can be digitally changed/corrected without notice because you are actually "leasing access to an intellectual product" and don't actually "own" it?
But doesn’t the Author have to authorize the changes since they own the intellectual rights to the content?
That's the rub. I really don't know but if their agent didn't negotiate that particular nuance, we are in a grey area and that is where exploitation starts.
Good point.
Like rewriting some Roald Dahl stories to make them less 'offending' for these times. Or Mark Twain's great classics.
Without mentioning this in the new edition.
I am all in for the original source, warts and all.
If you must, include an introduction to explain about the current issues, but DON'T change the original text.
Friedman and his handlers know that the time and other resources devoted by the school system to defending books means that less time and resources will be available for educating children. The destruction of public education is their goal. My guess is that the supporters of such censorship also support government school vouchers for religious and segregated private schools.
In a word, yes.
I once read an Amelia Bedilia book to my kids. In one scene, she smiles at a woman. Was it a smile of friendship, or something more? Ms Bedilia, being an adult woman who lives alone and engages in behavior I find strange, leads me to think she might be a lesbian! Since I'm not sure, the book must be set aside to avoid any potential unnatural influence on our children (and my children are grown, so I really mean your children), or engaging in deviant behavior such as puns or silly rhyming. Believe me! I am a deeply serious person!
So right on, Jeff
While I do agree that sexualizing children is problematic, not allowing children content that helps them deal with sexuality, is also a major problem, since if they're not helped to learn about it, learn to manage their own sexual thoughts and impulses, encouraged to feel good about who they are as sexual beings, they may grow into adults who struggle with sexuality and often express it in inappropriate ways. Keeping silent on such an important aspect of life leaves children without direction and often forces them to find less than helpful ways/sites to get their information. But, what's even more troubling is how much people on the right are obsessed with how children view sexuality.
The "not allowing" portion of your comment is most pertinent in my opinion.
Yes! Yes and yes.
Florida is lead by people who believe this kind of behavior is good. Friedman knows this. School and class libraries have been emptied of books. Teachers and Librarians (I believe)have been fired and/or reprimanded.
TBH this won't stop in Florida until there is a change of heart in the voters and a change in legislative and gubernatorial leadership.
My tired old repetitive phrase. Gerrymanding has contributed to this, but in statewide elections where that shouldn't matter as much it is the voter or lack of voter who bears the responsibility.
I am committed to not visiting Florida for oh so many reasons, successful book bans amongst them.
I wonder what Friedman thinks of "Arthur's Underpants." My kids loved that book and many others. I had no problem with Arthur books.
The last time I was in Florida was 2004. Never going back.
This procedure seems time consuming and distracting. Also, one can imagine Floridians will get tired of paying for the censorship police.
This is absolutely ridiculous! Over 40 years ago (can it be??? I feel so old!) I worked as an assistant to the Children’s Librarian in a small NJ town. I loved that wonderful job and all the kind people that worked with me. It makes me sick to see what is happening in our country.
Conservative Objector, probably: "I don't like aardvarks and monkeys mixing—it's unnatural."
Deviant! Unclean!
Woke! The shame.
Yezzzz. How can you even PRONOUNCE that w w w Woken word?
Whoever want to ban a book should have to prove they have actually read the entire book, not just the back cover.
My son and I love Arthur and we spend many years watching the cartoon together and reading the books when he grew up.
They didn't even read the front cover. Just looked at it and judged.
If you do that, how can you achieve Friedman's goal. He wants a clean library: one that is spotlessly devoid of any books at all.
Friedman 😊
A clean library is an EMPTY library.
Wow! 3,600 books to be "challenged".
That's a lot of reading to do, unless, of course, he doesn't actually read them and analyze them before he issues a challenge. Does this guy have a full-time job?
My point is that just by virtue of the list of questionable books, 3,600, he shows that these challenges are specious and should not be taken seriously. Logically.
But then there is nothing logical about this literary witch hunt in Florida.
I cannot tell you exactly which Arthur stories by Marc Brown I read to my kids 38 & 35 years ago (which shows you this author's work has stood the test of time) but I can tell you that they were fun, entertaining books that did not in any way negatively impact my children.
If you have young kids at home ignore this stupid man's opinion, better yet, take Bruce Friedman's "challenge" as a recommendation to read this book to your children...or grandchildren.
The passive aggression is strong in this one. I imagine in a meeting with Friedman he would use the entirety of it defining what “meeting” means.
Hmmm.. Who has time to compile these lists? Who is Bruce Friedman? Just think about how deranged this person must be. If he worked for me, he would no longer be employed.
Reminds me of the very old saying: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Believe it or not, I was originally introduced to this phrase by listening to the band Rush!!!