Wednesday, October 27, 2021

The Falling Leaves...

Well, it's not "Texas' naughty list," it's a list cooked up in some fever swamp somewhere in the country and latched onto by this fool nobody has ever heard of who wants some notoreity so he can challenge Ken Paxton and call him a "weak sister" in the GOP primaries.

Odds are it won't work.

The list is arranged by publication date.  The oldest book on the list is one by Michael Crichton that I've never heard of, published in 1969.  This list goes a long way in explaining why high school reading lists still contain many of the books I read in high school, 50 years ago.  And I don't mean Shakespeare and Dickens, I mean books that were meant to be "contemporary" when we read them, and were then already 30-40 years old.

A lot of the books on the list have to do with abortion or Roe v. Wade, so, not exactly "how-to" manuals so much as simple history of the matter, or the legal decision. The earliest such book on the list (based on the title), was published in 1984.  Eleven years past Roe, IOW. Past that you get books about gender and sex, such as "Everything you need to know about growing up male" (or female; two separate titles).  Banned?  Suspicious?  Devious?  WTF?

I do like the fact The Cider House Rules is on here.  Is anybody still reading John Irving?

And of course the joke is many of these books were probably purchased by libraries when they were published.  What records do they have to dig up to find what they paid for them in 1969? (Yes, this is why I'd advise a school district to tell this guy to pound sand.)

But 90% of this list is either sex-ed or abortion, based on the titles.  Which I'm sure is how the list was compiled; based solely on titles.  Although I strain to understand the concern for:  Falling Hard:  100 love poems by teenagers.  Except it's probably a good way to ruin any appreciation of poetry in any student.

What Philosophy Can Do? You mean besides teach you to think? The Red Scrolls of Magic? I'm guessing, satanism?  And, of course, anything with "Black Lives Matter" in the title.

I will repeat myself:  this clown has no authority to do anything.  Even asking for a response is something the school districts can refuse.  Probably their best response would be to treat this as a public information request, and respond with an estimate of costs (allowed under the law) and refuse the request until payment is made (also allowed under the law).  That cuts off the mouth-breathers who will come to school board meetings to demand the school respond to this "demand."  As for his infamous "paragraph 3," they can ask (again, per the public information law) that he clarify that before they respond to it.

And all of this falls down like leaves off the trees.  Which, around here, pretty much happens in November, anyway....
Yeah, self-awareness is not their strong suit.

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