We Americans Are A Danger To Ourselves And The Planet...

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http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080923/OPINION01/809230333/0/NEWS15

LEONARD PITTS JR.
Which books would Palin want to ban?
BY LEONARD PITTS JR. . McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS . September 23, 2008

Of course, we all have questions for Sarah Palin:

Does she actually think living across the Bering Strait from Russia
constitutes foreign policy expertise? Does she really take the parable of
Adam and Eve as literal truth? How, exactly, does one field dress a moose?
And why would one want to?

My first question, though, would not be one of those. I'd simply ask which
books she wants to ban -- and why.

Yes, there's a list of titles floating around the Internet right now, but
it's a fake. It is, however, established fact that our would-be vice
president has in the past tried to pull books off library shelves.

The New York Times reports that as a member of the City Council of
Wasilla, Alaska, Palin complained to colleagues about a book called
"Daddy's Roommate," described in promotional material as being "for and
about the children of lesbian and gay parents."

Laura Chase, who ran Palin's campaign for mayor, explained that the book
was harmless and suggested Palin read it.

Chase told the New York Times that Palin replied she "didn't need to read
that stuff. It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a
book from the library and she didn't even read it."

Later, as mayor, Palin reportedly asked the town's librarian three times
whether she would agree to remove controversial books from the shelves.
Three times, the librarian refused. Palin fired her, but eventually bowed
to public pressure and gave the woman her job back.

"I'm still proud of Sarah," said Chase, "but she scares the bejeebers out
of me."

And in that context, it seems apropos that Sept. 27-Oct. 4 is Banned Books
Week. As you doubtless know, that's the week set aside each year by the
American Library Association to bring attention to attempts by some of us
to regulate what others of us may read. The ALA's Office for Intellectual
Freedom reports that it has seen 9,700 "challenges" -- a challenge is
defined as a formal written request to remove a book from a library
because the content offends or is deemed inappropriate -- since 1990.
Chillingly, the office suggests that's probably an undercount. It
estimates that for every challenge reported, four or five are not.

So Palin has company, to say the least.

Count among that number the woman from a Cuban exile group who bragged to
a Miami Herald reporter how in 2006 she checked out and kept an elementary
school library book she felt painted too rosy a picture of life on that
communist island. Like Palin, she thought she had good reason. Would-be
book banners always do.

I'm reminded of how someone challenged me the other day on my contention
that anti-intellectualism has overtaken this land. I mentioned by way of
example Palin's Bible literalism, but really, there's so much more.
There's the "Jay Walking" segment on Leno. There's this notion that
"elite" is a four-letter word. There's the White House's censorship and
politicization of science. There's the recent survey that found that more
people can name all five Simpsons than all five freedoms enumerated in the
First Amendment.

And there's this: as many as 50,000 incidents since 1990 in which a book
was forced to justify its existence. We're talking books like "The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," books like "The Color Purple," books like
"Harry Potter" and, yes, books like "Daddy's Roommate" -- books that
offended because they expressed ideas that made someone uncomfortable. As
if any other kind of idea was worth expressing.

We are becoming the stupid giant of planet Earth: richer than Midas,
mightier than Thor, dumber than rocks. Which makes us a danger to the
planet -- and to ourselves. This country cannot continue to prosper and to
embrace stupidity. The two are fundamentally incompatible.