Category: The Good Fight
According to the American Library Association, last year books bans and attempted book bans hit “the highest levels ever documented,” and Florida “led” the nation in the push to either remove or restrict access to certain books.
To counter this, Firestorm Books, who describe themselves as a radical bookstore co-operative & community event space in Asheville, NC, is giving away 22,500 books rescued from the public schools in Florida’s Duval County (Jacksonville and surrounding areas).
You can request from two different sets of books aimed at different age groups:
- Six picture books for kids age 4 – 8
- Six chapter books for kids age 8 – 12
Find out more and request your free books here!
What sort of books were banned?
For starters, there’s Grace Lin’s Dim Sum for Everyone:
It was banned because Florida has a ban on the discussion of race in schools. DeSantis is such a snowflake.
Another book banned in Duval County: Sonia Sotomayor: I’ll Be the Judge of That!:
This is particularly strange because this is a book about a current Supreme Court Justice. One gets the feeling that no such challenge would ever be issued against a book about a laughably less-qualified judge like Amy Coney Barrett.
Here’s another banned book: Nya’s Long Walk:
Here’s what the book’s about:
Young Nya takes little sister Akeer along on the two-hour walk to fetch water for the family. But Akeer becomes too ill to walk, and Nya faces the impossible: her sister and the full water vessel together are too heavy to carry.
As she struggles, she discovers that if she manages to take one step, then another, she can reach home and Mama’s care.
Bold, impressionistic paintings by Caldecott and Coretta Scott King Honor winner Brian Pinkney evoke the dry, barren landscape and the tenderness between the two sisters.
An afterword discusses the process of providing clean water in South Sudan to reduce waterborne illness.
You get one guess as to why this book was banned.
Sam! is about a transgender boy and his family, so of course it got banned:
Want to know more about the books that have been banned from schools and libraries in Florida? Here’s a list compiled by PEN America.
Join or Die is a film about why you should join a club — and why the fate of America may depend on it. And I want to get it screened in Tampa — at the Tampa Theatre.
Here’s the trailer for the film:
Join or Die is a feature documentary about community in America, as viewed through the lens of political scientist Robert Putnam’s research and the ideas from his 2000 book, Bowling Alone. The thesis of Bowling Alone is that:
- Social capital, community involvement, and civic engagement have been dropping in the U.S. since the 1950s, and
- How we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures.
The title Bowling Alone comes from a friend of Putnam’s who owned a bowling alley. The friend remarked that while bowling was up, bowling leagues and bowling as a group activity had gone down.
The decline of bowling as a group activity mirrored other declines. As Putnam says in interviews featured in the film:
How many times last year did you go to church? Down. How many times did you go to a dinner party? Down. How many times last year did you go to a club meeting?
In barely a couple of decades, half of all the civic infrastructure in America had simply vanished. It’s equivalent to saying half of all the roads in America just disappeared!
Robert Putnam, from the trailer for Join or Die
Here are some “bowling alone” stats, taken from the site for Join or Die:
- 40% decline from the 1970s to the 1990s in the number of Americans who attended even one public meeting on town or school affairs in the previous year
- 60% decline from the 1970s to the 1990s in the amount of picnics Americans attended annually
- 50% decline from the 1970s to the 1990s in the number of Americans who took any leadership role in any local organization
- 35% decline from the 1960s to the 2020s in religious congregation membership
- 50% decline from the 1970s to the 1990s in the number of times Americans attended a from the 1970s to the 1990s in the number of times Americans attended a club meeting the previous year
- 66% decline from the 1960s to the 2010s in union membership
Putnam’s research is all about what makes a society succeed or fail, and he puts forth the idea that it’s about the connections and trust that people make, and the sense of “duty of care” that arise from them. If you get together, get to know your neighbors, build trust not just within a group (“bonding”) but between groups (“bridging”), there better things are — and not just for individuals within the society, but the entire society itself.
Putnam’s been studying this topic for a long time. His 1993 book, Making Democracy Work, was based on his study of regional governments in Italy, which were similar structurally, but different operationally — a difference that went back a whole millennium:
- Northern and central Italy had a society where people were more civic-minded and involved, where people took part in social gatherings and governance, with their social organization being flatter and high-trust. Their system was more democratic.
- Southern Italy, on the other hand, was more hierarchical, with kings at the top, knights below them, and peasants below them. Their system was more autocratic.
(By the bye, the next time some crank tries to tell you that America isn’t supposed to be a democracy, remember that they’re envisioning a southern Italy-like scheme and that they won’t be the peasants in that setup.)
Wikipedia sums up Putnam’s thesis nicely:
Putnam believes that for democracy to be successful there needs to be a level of mutual trust among the citizens and a more horizontal system of governing, all of which Northern and Central Italy has enjoyed. Putnam states in Making Democracy Work that civil society creates wealth, wealth does not create a civil society. The civic nature of Northern Italy and Central Italy dating back to medieval times has caused the region to be prosperous in modern times. Southern Italy, however, with its more feudal nature in medieval times has caused the region to be the origin of the Mafia and has created a less successful region. The Mafia’s hierarchical structure is very similar to Southern Italy’s feudal roots, according to Putnam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Democracy_Work#Author_thesis
I want to see this film — don’t you?
Here’s the challenge: it’s not available on streaming platforms and it’s not being distributed in the way more mainstream films are. If you want to see it, you have to contact the filmmakers and ask them to host a screening in your community.
So I did just that. I even suggested that Tampa Theatre would be a great venue for it.
Getting a screening here in Tampa will take more than just my effort, and it may take some money. I’m going to need help with this one, and if you’re interested in helping, drop me a line!
From the International Women’s Day site:
Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women’s equality. Collectively we can all #InspireInclusion.
Celebrate women’s achievement. Raise awareness about discrimination. Take action to drive gender parity.
IWD belongs to everyone, everywhere. Inclusion means all IWD action is valid.
Categories
What they really mean
![Comic by Jen Sorensen featuring a lecturer and audience member.
Lecturer: “In conclusion, America must ban immigrants from interior nations and instead celebrate European culture.”
Audience member: “You mean you support a strong social safety net?”
Lecturer: “Er, no.”
Audience member: “Excellent high-speed train systems?”
Lecturer: “No.”
Audience member: “Universal health care?”
Lecturer: “No.”
Audience member: “Liberal democracy?”
Lecturer: “No.”
Audience member: “Respect for science and the Paris Climate Accord?”
Lecturer: “No.”
Audience member: “Generous vacations and paid family leave?”
Lecturer: “No.”
Audience member: “Bicycle-friendly cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen?”
Lecturer: [Dark cloud over head] “LOOK, I MEAN I LIKE WHITE PEOPLE, OKAY?”
Audience member: “Oh, right.”](https://www.joeydevilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/strong-european-culture.png)
This is from a few years back, but it still holds true (and cartoonist Jen Sorensen’s depiction of the lecturer’s “fashy” haircut is spot-on).
It’s all too easy for we (temporarily) ambulatory people to treat special needs as a secondary concern, but as the comic above points out, accommodating people with special needs accommodates everyone.
(This doesn’t just apply to buildings — if you design or develop software or web pages, keep this in mind!)
