Also on today’s menu:
Wokeness Or Greed?
‘As Long As It Takes’
New Earthquake In Turkey
Representative Glenn Cordelli (R-Tuftonboro) has introduced House Bill 514 which would redefine the exemption granted to schools, museums, public libraries, and governmental agencies to protect them from facing obscenity charges for distributing or providing material that has not been deemed obscene by a superior court. The bill changes the definition of “school” to mean only an “institution in the university system or community college system of New Hampshire,” allowing other schools, offering classes from kindergarten to Grade 12, to be subject to obscenity charges.
It is part of a movement that ostensibly gives parents a greater role in what their children are exposed to, but has the effect of allowing a single complaint to ban any material. Under current state law, parents already have the right to object to any material being shown to their children. Schools and teachers must provide alternative instruction for those children, but may continue providing the material to other students. It is a decision made on a family-by-family basis.
Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers of New Hampshire, opposes the bill, saying, “What we don’t want is for one parent who objects to a book in the library or in the classroom to be able to decide for all children in that school what your child is able to read.”
The bill would require New Hampshire school boards to adopt complaint resolution policies laying out exactly how parents can challenge materials they believe to be obscene. It also would allow the departments of Education and Health and Human Services to initiate challenges to alleged obscene materials before state superior courts.
Wokeness Or Greed?
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman declared, “When it comes to our rich and varied literary heritage, the prime minister agrees with the BFG that we shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words.”
The PM was, of course, referring to the Big Friendly Giant and other works by author Roald Dahl, whose estate and publisher have updated The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory “to be more suitable for modern audiences.” The elimination of words such as “fat” and changes that include making “ugly and beastly” just “beastly” and “fearful ugliness” simply “ugliness” have stirred charges of threatening free speech and removing the spirit of the stories.
Others, however, say the changes are necessary, and are carefully made to maintain the tone of the works. Former teacher Kate Clanchy said children’s books should be treated particularly carefully. “Augustus Gloop is a greedy character. He’ll still remain morally greedy and his moral greed will be wrong, whether or not we have lots and lots of references to how fat he is, which I think can be upsetting,” she said.
Lincoln Michel argues in Counter Craft that the changes are not being made for the reasons people are assuming. Rather, he said, it is a ploy to make more money by issuing new versions of the books. He quotes Christian Lorentzen: “The point is not to deface Dahl’s writing out of some misplaced cultural vandalism. The point is not to atone for Dahl’s anti-Semitism. The point isn’t even to protect children from words like ‘fat’ or ‘flabby’ or ‘female’ or ‘ugly’. The point is to make money.”
‘As Long As It Takes’
President Joe Biden Jr., in an unannounced visit to Kyiv, said the United States will back Ukraine in its fight against Russia for “as long as it takes” and that President Vladimir Putin had been “dead wrong” to think Russia could outlast Ukraine and its Western allies.
Biden joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a visit to a memorial honoring the soldiers who have died in the nine years since Russia annexed Crimea and its proxy forces captured parts of the eastern Donbas region.
After the visit, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced additional security assistance for Ukraine valued at $450 million, including ammunition for howitzers and the Himars rocket system, Javelin missiles, and air surveillance radars. The U.S. also will provide Kyiv with an extra $10 million in emergency assistance “to keep Ukraine’s energy infrastructure up and running.”
New Earthquake In Turkey
The Associated Press reports that a new 6.4-magnitude earthquake on February 20 has killed three people and injured more than 200 others in parts of Turkey already decimated by a massive quake that killed tens of thousands of people. More buildings collapsed, and search-and-rescue efforts were underway in three of the collapsed buildings where six people were believed trapped.
Scores of injuries also were recorded in neighboring Syria.
The center of Monday’s earthquake was the town of Defne, in Turkey’s Hatay province. It lies in one the worst-hit regions on February 6 when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck, followed by a second magnitude-5.8 quake.
Support Our Efforts
Do you have a story to tell?
The News Café is a virtual meeting place where, each weekday, we discuss the news of the day: local, statewide, national, and international. Mondays are reserved for more personal observations which only paid subscribers will receive, while Tuesday through Friday will draw from news stories published by various sources.
The News Café relies on subscriptions, rather than on advertising and grants, for its support. That frees us to provide an independent focus on events and cultural issues without having to weigh whether it would upset advertisers or fit into grant guidelines. Our only obligation is to provide information we believe is useful to our readers.
Subscriptions to this newsletter are available for as little as $5 per month. Subscribers can share their knowledge, thoughts, and questions about any topic, and we may select some of those subjects for more in-depth analysis.
If you’re unable to pay but still want to receive all of the free public posts in your in-box, click the Subscribe button and select a free subscription.
Visit us at www.libertymedianh.org
Oh my goodness. Please, please, don’t let this book banning infect New Hampshire. Believe me, you and New Hampshire have no idea how disturbing this bill can be. Here in Florida, because of a similar bill (NH is probably based on it, like other states) it has caused all books to be taken out of school classrooms and school libraries due to no one having a true idea as to what obscene might be. In the eyes of the beholder. Florida does not have a academic group reviewing these books. I can guarantee it will not stop with this. Mom’s for Liberty are an extreme right wing group that is influencing states all across the country. Especially states with Republican governors. Like yours. I ask everyone in NH to call your representatives to defeat this bill. The bill sponsors do a good job scaring parents. Here it has continued to include books like The Kite Runner, Slaughter House Five, Thirteen Reasons Why, Charlottes Web, also, biography of Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and others. Heaven forbid someone might be queer. Please, please call your representatives.