A reading awareness project: Banned books list printed on free bookmarks

A banned books list printed on bookmarks should include a square to mark off the titles we have already read. I will start by checking To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nigh-time, by Mark Haddon :

Dateline Texas: 130 books were targeted by reactionary parents. 11 were banned. Frustrated students started their own club: Leander’s Banned Book’s Club.

And this:  An echo opinion letter published in The Washington Post:  Pretty soon, we’ll just not let children read at all. 

What? What is this?  "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nigh-time"??- Oh paaleeeze! The novel is narrated in the first-person perspective by Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old boy who is described as "a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties" living in Swindon, Wiltshire.

To the editor of The Washington Post:  I’m grateful to be a high school senior. Youth education has become highly politicized and is used as a pawn for politicians to win votes. And behind the deliberately vague wording lies a clear motive to restrict dialogue about sexuality and gender identity among students, some of whom might be looking for representation of their own.

What frustrates me most is the law’s illogical examples of banned materials, “descriptions, images or videos of sexual bestiality, lewd nudity, sexual excitement, sexual conduct, sadomasochistic abuse, coprophilia, urophilia - IOW, a paraphilic disorder classified under Other Specified Paraphilic Disorder in the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5),,, i.e., obsession with penises...or fetishism.” I might have missed a couple of days here and there, but I’m certain my classes weren’t covering books with urophilia any time in my 12 years of public education. 

In fact, the grouping of sexual excitement and sexual conduct with concepts such as sadomasochistic abuse is chilling.

Banned books!  How many have you read? 

It’s saddening that young children won’t have many trusted adults around them able to speak about such common phenomena. Additionally, this law will more than likely be subverted to target material with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. In the (sadly) polarized world we live in, it’s more important than ever to set an example of open-mindedness for children.

From Jessica Feng, in McLean Virginia

P.S.  In my Maine Writer opinion, we should consider organizing a movement of people who want to protect free speech to begin memorizing Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury.

Bookend reading 101 to combat white supremacists

MaineWriter opinion:

Evangelicals are often seen carrying their Bibles with them wherever they happen to go because they believe in a literal interpretation of all Scriptures. Nevertheless, in today's American society, those very same Bible carrying believers obviously overlook several key scriptures about how to combat the growing evils of ethnic discrimination, white supremacists, racism and fear of immigrants. For those who want to find some semblance of humanity in this cauldron of fear, stoked by the evils that accompany the Donald Trump's practices of abandoning leadership in favor of political advantage, here are MaineWriter's references: 

Biblical Scriptures  include many statements about welcoming strangers. Two of the most often quoted from the New Testament and from the Old Testament:

• Matthew 25:35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me
• Hebrews 13:2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Scripture notwithstanding, the enlightened opponents of white supremacist discrimination and anti-immigration zealotry can keep two contemporary American classics close to their reading tables:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee can even be a source of comfort for people (like me) who just need to be reminded that there is humanity even in the darkest of situations whereby racism creates mob rule.  Let's me honest, Donald Trump's racist rhetoric has created a cult following of people who soak up nearly everything he says. Harper Lee's noble character, Atticus Finch, symbolizes enlightenment in the face of racism in a small Southern town.  Actor Gregory Peck brought Atticus Finch to life in his Oscar winning performance in the movie made from Lee's book.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature.

And the second "bookend" reading is the play "Driving Miss Daisy" by Alfred Uhry.  This story transcends time. In my opinion, it's a "real time" time-travel play where racism is juxtaposed alongside antisemitism.   

Driving Miss Daisy is a play by American playwright Alfred Uhry, about the relationship of an elderly white Southern Jewish woman, Daisy Werthan, and her African-American chauffeur, Hoke Coleburn, from 1948 to 1973.

Of course, the most visually compelling argument against right wing racism, discrimination, anti-immigration and white supremacists is our American iconic tribute to immigrants. It's the inscription by Emma Lazarus: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! It's inscribed on The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.

Thoughtful Americans can put the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird and the timeless play Driving Miss Daisy into a tote bag where The Statue of Liberty is the featured image. Keep those readings alongside a Bible. In so doing, you'll be set to find solace when trying to stand up for humanitarian values while trying to maintain sanity in the face of the evil white supremacists.

Donald Trump and Harper Lee ~ wearing the shoes of an American

Donald Trump told a frenzied Trumpzi white supremacy audience in Florida that people need an identification card before shopping in a grocery store! In other words, Trump wrongly assumed, if people must have a valid ID to buy groceries, then they should also produce a voter registration card before they can be allowed to vote. Obviously, it's painfully evident, that Donald Trump has never purchased groceries.

Mark Shields, the pundit and TV journalist, wrote in the Northern Virginia Daily, that it's also a a safe bet that, when Donald J. Trump was a younger man, he never read “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Harper Lee’s American classic about a young child’s awakening to racial prejudice in a sleepy little town in the pre-civil rights South. In the classic, the admirable Atticus Finch teaches his young daughter, Scout, about empathy, saying: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Otherwise President Trump would have been able to put himself in the shoes of the more than four dozen Republican House candidates who, because national polls show an overall advantage to Democratic challengers for the 2018 midterms, are nervously running in the four dozen House districts that have been rated toss-ups or worse, trending from Republican to Democrat.

If you’re a Republican running in one of those battleground races, you want the 2018 campaign to be about how you and the GOP, over the opposition Democrats, continue to do such an obviously great job as stewards of the booming U.S. economy whose unemployment fell to an 18-year low in May and whose second-quarter growth, powered by a comeback in consumer spending, grew at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 4.1 percent. You want to be able to taunt your opponents who remind us that the current economic expansion that began in mid-2009 under then-President Obama is probably a lot closer to its end than its beginning: “Cheer up. Eventually, things will get worse.”

But if you’re a Republican on the ballot in 2018, you don’t always get what you want from Donald Trump. For some irrational reason, Trump selfishly wants to make his dubious relationship with Russia and President Vladimir Putin the October non-surprise, thereby putting Republican candidates squarely on the political defensive, forced to explain and justify why their president continues to be such an unassertive and deferential wooer of the Russian dictator’s approval.

Trump cohorts with access to the Oval Office and some steel in their backbone could tell the president about the most recent Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, which asked voters to rate how positive or negative feelings their feelings toward prominent individuals are with the categories “very positive,” “somewhat positive,” “neutral,” “somewhat negative,” “very negative” and “don’t know name/not sure.” Somewhere in these United States lives the 2 percent of Americans who give Putin a “very positive” score and their soul mates, the 3 percent of us who give the Russian boss a “somewhat positive” score. On the other side, 19 percent of voters rated Putin “somewhat negative,” and 46 percent gave him a thumbs-down score of “very negative,” for an overall total of 5 percent positive and 65 percent negative. Sadly, that means that approximately 30 percent of those interviewed do not know who Putin is or have no opinion of the man.

It was obvious from the publicly cold shoulder House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave to Trump’s initial autumn homecoming invitation to Putin that they know another summit of sorts this fall is bad news for their embattled Republican colleagues. 

Yet, as one wise GOP wise man explained: “Trump has spent more than seven decades thinking first, foremost, and uninterruptedly about Trump. It is unrealistic to think he would begin thinking about others.”

Maine Writer post script ~ Donald Trump has never shopped for groceries or read a book. Therefore, Trump is incapable of leading America and it is painfully evident that he is destroying the American dream. Sadly, Donald Trump has never chosen to walk in the shoes of real Americans.  He's a failed leader and a deeply flawed human being.

What Republican will run for the 2016 nomination?

Clearly, the Republican party can't support a presidential candidate who is unqualified to be elected the leader of the free world. Donald Trump has proven that he is unqualified to be nominated for president. As Hillary Clinton aptly stated, "Donald Trump is dangerously incoherent". 

In "To Kill a Mockingbird", Atticus Finch said, "One thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience".

Therefore, who will be the GOP standard bearer and lead the party during the election?

I submit two names for my nomination. Both men have tried in the past but failed to appeal to voters.  Congressman Newt Gingrich (okay Democrats, just take an antacid Tums and deal with this potential) and Mayor Rudy Guiliani.

Suck it up Democrats because, at least, Gingrich is qualified to be nominated!

Mayor Rudy Guiliani

Of course, stupid Donald Trump is lashing out at Newt Gingrich, because the former Congressman and Speaker of the House has criticized the "Trumponian" bigotry expressed against Judge Gonzolo Curiel, who is overseeing the case against fraudulent "Trump University".

Donald Trump is increasingly behaving like a mad man:

FoxNews reports;
Donald Trump bristled Monday at supporter Newt Gingrich joining the chorus of criticism over his comments about the Mexican heritage of a federal judge -- saying it was "inappropriate" for Gingrich to weigh in, while once again defending his remarks.

For days, stupid Trump has defended claims that American-born District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, whose parents are from Mexico, has a conflict of interest as he considers lawsuits against Trump University.

Gingrich, speaking on "Fox News Sunday," called the remarks “inexcusable.”

Trump, though, pushed back during an interview Monday with "Fox & Friends."

“I saw Newt and I was surprised at Newt. I thought it was inappropriate, what he said,” Trump said.

Gingrich, though, is far from the only Republican challenging Trump's claims that the judge is biased against him because of his plans to build a wall along the Southern border. (Excuse me???? Why hasn't the media challenged this? America isn't supposed to build this idiotic wall. Does stupid Donald Trump realize, or did he forget, he said it was Mexico that was supposed to build this ridiculous anti immigration wall!)
The top two Republican congressional leaders have scolded Trump, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich -- who recently suspended his presidential campaign -- on Monday urged Trump to apologize.

Gingrich's criticism was especially pointed, coming from a figure thought to be a potential running mate prospect for Trump.
“It was one of the worst mistakes Trump has made. Inexcusable,” the former GOP House speaker, who has become one of Trump’s closest advisers, told “Fox News Sunday.”

Although Newt Gingrich is ambitious, it's doubtful he desires to be a president of "vice" with Donald Trump. Rather, it makes more sense for Gingrich to run for the leadership office himself, rather than be sucked into the wake of the doomed 2016 Republican equivilent of the Titanic.

Black men serial murdered - How many more?

Black men are the targets of recent police serial murders, but the "why" is a mystery to me.  Here is a tribute to some of them:

Violence against American black men has roots in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, in the US, but these heinous murders were going on even before then.

These murders are serial killings. Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird", creates the experience of how deep rooted hatreds led to the murder of one Tom Robinson, one of the book's lead characters. Her classic book's plot and characters are loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.

James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner

Died June 21, 1964

Of course there are dozens of other Civil Rights era martyrs.  Lately, the list has grown to include:

February 5, 1995 - February 26, 2012

Killed by George Zimmerman in a Stand Your Ground incident in Sanford, Florida

\

Eric Garner died July 17, 2014 in Staten Island, New York City

Killed by a police officer who put him in a suffocating choke hold.

Garner died screaming, "I can't breathe".

Michael Brown May 20, 1996 - August 9, 2014

An 18-year-old black man, fatally shot by Darren Wilson, 28, a white Ferguson, Missouri police officer. 

Walter Scott murdered by a South Carolina white police officer named Michael Slager

A cell phone video of the killings, revealed this week, re-ignited national outcries surrounding police treatment of African-Americans and led to a murder charge against the police officer, Slager, who is white. Scott was black.

These serial killings can't continue. 

None of the African American men who were murdered, nor the Civil Rights martyrs, were carrying guns. Imagine how "turned the tables" would be on these senseless killings if any of the victims had weapons on their person? As America is becoming a gun culture nation, the Second amendment rights don't seem to be applied equally for all races of people. White men are being encouraged to carry guns for self defense, but when African American men or Civil Rights activists obtain weapons, they're considered to be "threatening".  

Tragically, the serial killing of African American men won't likely end just because we want the murders to stop.  These killings have been going on for many decades. Only God knows how many of them have gone unreported or were never solved.  

So, the rhetorical question is, "How many more?"
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
- Atticus Finch”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird