Remember That Time a Mendocino County Logging Tycoon Attempted to Cancel Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax?
Crop of a photo showing the title page of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax
As the nation considers Dr. Seuss and his depiction of minority groups, the North Coast should not forget its unique place in the annals of Dr. Seuss’ culture. In September 1989, members of Mendocino County’s logging industry lobbied the Laytonville Unified School District to remove Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax from the district’s second-grade curriculum claiming the book demeaned the logging industry. Coverage of the controversy spread across the news wires bringing national attention to the growing war between the logging industry and environmentalism, demonstrating Dr. Seuss’ uncanny ability to touch the nerve of audiences.
Image of McElligot’s Pool from Amazon.
Currently, Dr. Seuss’ children’s literature is grabbing headlines due to what some consider racialized illustrations in a few of his books. The company that oversees Dr. Seuss’ estate said six of his books would no longer be printed because some of the depictions of groups were “hurtful and wrong.” The books that will no longer be reprinted are: And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer.
Back in 1989, when our local area became the center of another Dr. Seuss controversy, Laytonville was an unincorporated hamlet in the rugged north of Mendocino County along Highway 101. According to Lawrence Livermore’s article “Under the Barnum and (Bill) Bailey Big Top: The Mayor of Laytonville,” Bill Bailey, a logging equipment wholesaler based out of Laytonville, saw an opportunity to fix the town’s school district he saw as pandering to “unwashed-out-of-town-jobless-hippies-on-drugs.” He made it his mission to secure power and control of the Laytonville School Board. Bailey successfully was elected to the board and soon got his compatriots Mike Wilwand and Art Harwood elected along with him. Power secured.
As described in a Press Democrat article written by Mike Geniella, Judith Bailey, Bill Bailey’s wife, sought removal of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax from Laytonville Unified School District’s 2nd-grade curriculum. She claimed the book went against California Education Code 60040 prohibiting references that “tend to demean, stereotype or be patronizing toward an occupation, vocation, or livelihood.” Judith Bailey was quoted as saying, “I feel when a second grader reads a line that says, ‘Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack,’ as a moral of the story, then he or she will feel that anyone who cuts down trees is bad.”
The Press Democrat article explained Laytonville Unified School District Superintendent Brian Buckley was obligated to conduct a formal review of Judith Bailey’s request. He formed a committee comprised of a librarian, the school’s librarian technician, two teachers, two district residents, and himself. One of the two district residents happened to be Becky Harwood, Bill Bailey’s compatriot Art’s wife, and Judith Bailey’s sister.
The review committee met to deliberate upon the removal of The Lorax on September 13, 1989, according to a Press Democrat article written by Mike Geniella. Becky Harwood said the book was disparaging to loggers, and “Kids don’t have to feel bad about what their parents do.” Sue Jones, the librarian of Willits High School, argued the book should be used as a “place of departure” and envisioned the book giving students insight into the harmful logging practices that once were. After deliberating, the committee voted six-to-one to keep The Lorax in the school’s curriculum.
Crop of a photo showing a page of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.
The proposed removal still had one step before it could be quashed: the Laytonville School Board would be casting the final vote on October 5, 1989.
Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax is a fable with environmental themes telling the tale of an industrious man referred to as the Once-ler, his exploitation of the Truffula trees, and a mustachioed creature referred to as the Lorax who claims “to speak for the trees.” By the end of the tale, the Truffula trees were clear-cut, the ecosystem destroyed, and the Once-ler’s industry in ruins. Reflecting on the beauty of the land that was lost, the Once-ler remembered the Lorax’s wisdom of stewardship: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
With The Lorax decision in the Laytonville School Board’s hands, the book’s controversy became a vehicle for the nation to understand the conflict between the North Coast’s logging industry and the environmental movement. News wires picked up the story, and soon readers from Ohio to Florida to New York read about the town of Laytonville and the Dr. Seuss story tearing a community apart.
According to an AP Newswire article that appeared in the Ukiah Daily Journal, Theodor Seuss Geisel, who was at that point 85 years old, said the “grown-ups are missing the point. Trees are used in this book as a symbol- the rousing up of nature. It’s about turning natural resources into crud.”
Arthur “Bud” Harwood, the president of Branscomb Lumber Company Harwood Products, said in an open letter to Dr. Seuss published by the Ukiah Daily Journal that he did not believe The Lorax should be taken out of school. He said if it was “taught sensitively” the book could be an “excellent tool in stimulating young people’s minds on how we should deal with the environment.” In his letter, Harwood insisted the real issue was the book was “required reading for very young students. He expressed he did not “feel that it is right for our schools to put father against son or daughter.”
Well-known Earth First! member Judi Bari was quoted in a Ukiah Daily Journal article written by Lois O’Rourke as saying, “The reason they are so afraid of this book is (because) it shows exactly what they are doing. They are taking the last of the redwood forest, just like the Truffula trees in The Lorax.”
The last Truffula Tree being cut in The Lorax.
On October 5, 1989, 200 residents and national and local print, television, and radio reporters gathered in Laytonville to cover the school board meeting where The Lorax’s future would be decided.
The majority of public comment at the meeting was against the banning of the children’s book. A Ukiah Daily Journal article written by Lois O’Rouke highlighted some of the prescient public comments.
California Teacher’s Association representative Bill Haywood claimed that the district’s teachers’ academic freedom was at stake if the book was removed.
Kathi Cloninger, a resident of Laytonville and Earth Firster!, was reported to have said The Lorax “is a useful tool to teach? the value of conservation.”
One person who spoke in favor of removing the book from the required reading list was high school student Tara Fristo who asked, “What’s the big deal. It’s only being removed from the mandatory list.” Fristo, in her high school brashness, looked around at the school auditorium full of reports from outlets ranging from CBS News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and People magazine, and simply asked, “Why are all the TV cameras here?”
Bill Webster, a member of the Laytonville School Board, was met with a standing ovation when he said manipulating books was “insulting our children” and tells them, “we don’t trust you to make your own decisions.”
Bill Bailey, the man who had stacked the school board to cancel The Lorax, did not show that night, and by the end of the meeting, the School Board decided to table the decision and explore the option of abolishing the required list and replaced it with a “suggested” reading list.
In the wake of The Lorax controversy, Judith Bailey stood firm on her message that the book hurt families in the logging industry, telling Press Democrat writer Mike Geniella “I don’t think the teachers understand the message that says cutting down trees is wrong. Especially in an area where children’s parents are the very people who cut down the trees for a living.” Bailey did give ground, saying that she was not “interested in taking the book away from anyone,” insisting the book “can remain in the classroom, the library, or wherever. I know there’s nothing to gain by holding back knowledge.”
In an editorial published by the Ukiah Daily Journal after the school board meeting, staff expressed a timeless sentiment regarding the First Amendment: “every time we hear of another book being attacked by a certain group for whatever reason — religious, moral, or any other- we cringe. Book banning (or burning in some cases) has no place in a democracy. It has no place anywhere.”
Please Note: We wish to acknowledge gratefully that Chapter 22 of Steve Ongerth’s non-fiction book Redwood Uprising: Book 1 is a comprehensive account of the Laytonville Lorax saga. That chapter assisted greatly in the writing of this piece by providing an overview of the press coverage surrounding the circumstance and the Lorax saga’s place in the Timber Wars of the North Coast. Thank you Mr. Ongerth for your thorough coverage.
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“Book banning has no place in a democracy. It has no place anywhere”
Biden’s Bullies ban books because being better is bad.
Let those who live in wood houses throw the first match.
All Dr. Seuss books are in our freedom school libraries and class rooms, as are all “banned books ” by the counter culture. As soon as counters want something banned, we provide it to our students, with robust discussions about them. And we just read where there are Seuss books in our local schools here on the north coast. The counters are ugly people who have decided what we are to believe, think, say or read or watch. Hey Lumber, you do not have the ability or authority to do these things, you cannot enforce anything about us. In commie China they do, but not here. We teach children people are not allowed to rule you, and you are allowed to be who YOU want to be, not a freak counter. We on this site, and many others, do not tread lightly.
Who are these counters?
Which school of Law did they graduate from?
Counters are those who would attack someone for taking a picture with Trump They want to cancel their business, they go to their house and harass them and their family. They think they have the power to tell us who we can take a picture with, or who we can support for office, like Trump or other conservatives. They tried to cancel a Disney actress because of her supportive views on Israel, a great country and people. Disney wussied out, cowtowing to these freaks, and let her go. But, as in most cases, she prevailed, and now has her own production company, and is so thankful she was Canceled. Same with the Hispanic food company in LA, the owner took a picture with Trump, and these little freaks tried to cancel his business, which back fired, and the support for his business went way up, he had to hire more people to keep up with the increase in demand for his product. He and his business are thriving today, he even thanked the cancels for helping his business. The cancels graduated from the school of hate, of oppression, of bigotry, of non inclusion. We have quite a list of these cancels, and are keeping an eye on them. They are marked. We who love freedom, that of expression, of speech, of our religions, and our guns, will not ever be canceled, nor forced into the shadows. The constitution is the law of the land, it will not be canceled, too much blood has been spent defending it, and as we saw on Jan 6th, Americans will defend our country. As we see with the horrible way XIbiden is doing things, the border is now a crisis, gas has gone up, jobs have been lost to the misguided greenies trying to destroy our way of life, the 6ers are being proven right. Ask Voya foods, the cancels are being crushed. And that is a good thing.
Cancel culture is turning out to be just one more thing conservatives do better. Covington kids out front should have told you.
Obviously the Covington kid was right, as he made millions in his settlement. He never backed down, that was the problem the cancels and the press had with him. He stood his ground. He had the right to be there, and to express his views, whether you or the liberal press, or anyone else liked it or not. A good American that young man is. Freedom of expression is superior to any other way. The kids in our schools like him for standing up to attempted intimidation.
Or the Dixie Chicks. Or Colin Kaepernik. Or the Hollywood 10.
Kaepernick’s attention-getting device on the steep downward curve of his short NFL career paid off handsomely. Try naming one other failed quarterback who got a marketing deal with Nike.
The Hollywood blacklist came to be recognized as a gross violation of due process. There’s a lot of resistance to recognizing the demands of the cancel mobs as such.
The Dixie Chicks ended up doing fine.
They all do “fine.” That does not negate the fact that most of this countries “cancelling” has always come from the right wing.
Refer to my list of companies that Trumpers have called for boycotting.
Are you keeping an eye on the books your religious right wants banned from schools?
Sorry, your desire to keep America in the 1950s is going to fail.
Cancel Culture is practiced by both sides.
Well hallelujah. Cancel culture IS attempted by many. And is only prevented from succeeding by outrage. Those of principle are outraged by the process whether they object to what’s being cancelled or not. As to the 1950s, it more frightening to be stuck in 1984.
I think your confusing boycotting and attempted bans with the actual removal of something from being produced for others to read. Though I can see where your attempted justification would work in your mind.
What?
Let the delirious pretend to be sain…… Pretty funny how some 30 years later this is ALL still true and the only ones looking a fool are the logging industry! They practiced with poor ethics for over a century and the snowflakes want to have a book removed because it shines light on their blatant disregard for our forests and eco systems….. You can get upset and want to cancel everything, but cancel culture will only make themselves feel better while continuing to destroy this country!
Mike and Ernie are both spot on.
I will add to that and place “stuber” on the spot on list as well. Where have we gone as a country when we are cancelling all things the majority (uhm….media) of people don’t agree with!? This really is crazy talk and resembles a Communist perspective. Get rid of everything the government does not agree with.
Dangerous ground indeed, don’t cancel, don’t remove, learn from the past I say.
So you would not have a problem with Lolita, Justine, Mein Kampf or the Unibomber’s writings being in a school library?
You are conflating adult literature with children’s books. A true liberal tactic, conflation. I have no problem with Mein Kampf or any of those other writings being in a public library. Taking a look into the minds of sociopaths is a good thing. They stand as warning signs to others. Like if a society is starting to travel the same path as the one outlined in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, maybe we would be able to say “Hey I read about this in the book Hitler wrote, we shouldn’t be doing this.” If you destroy those works of knowledge, then you have no milestones to compare the current path of society with, and you are doomed to repeat past failings.
Republican religious right wants any books that have wizardry, tarot and anything With LGBQ characters removed from schools.
Here’s some companies that Trumpers have recently wanted boycotted:
Walmart , Starbucks, Netflix, Budweiser, Target, Oreos,Starbucks,Keurig, Nike, Pepsi, Nordstrom, Macy’s, HBO,CNN, Goodyear, Gillette, Univision. NFL.
Trump himself has threatened publishers who published Biographies on him.
As Alice would have put it if she was in this Wonderland, “Stupider and Stupider.” This is 1) not the public boycotting Suess’s books or even demanding they stop carrying them but the seller using only their own moral judgement in refusing to carry them and 2) if you think that “Trumpers” /right wingers are wrong to make such demands (otherwise why mention them) why would you think that doing the same thing to Suess books refutes anything? If you don’t want to buy a Suess book, don’t. No one’s going to make you. Now if the bookstore tells you that you are too dumb to know better and would be corrupted or incensed if you were exposed to them so you won’t be allowed to buy any…
Again, an assumption is made about Christian Conservatives. Congrats, media sheeple.
“So you would not have a problem with Lolita, Justine, Mein Kampf or the Unibomber’s writings being in a school library?”
Dude, give it up. I’ve read all those. I have the Unibomber manifesto in my personal library. I’ve read the others when libraries had them. Why did I read them? I wanted understanding where some of societies nutcases get their reasoning from. What makes these persons lose their shit? If I can read and understand what atrocities they did, I can teach that to someone else that has no clue what to look for. That’s simply learning and passing along knowledge. If you want to ban something because you’re afraid someone might get the wrong “tips” you’re a goddamn fool. Let us know how life is when various scenarios start to play out again in 10 years or with your kids.
Scooter, i went to school in Massachusetts . Very liberal and they (the tax payers of Massachusetts) , bless them for this, put a lot of money into public schools. Our libraries were pretty large and yes we had Lolita , The Bell Jar, A Clockwork Orange, and many other “problematic “ books at our disposal as students. Our librarians were sort of militant about getting books that were sort of difficult.
I don’t understand. A majority of the Asian world does eat rice out of bowls and use chest chopsticks. Many African people do wear grass skirts. Wtf is going on here?
“Many African people do wear grass skirts.”
Yeah, this kind of crap is wtf is going on here. Are you serious?
So what? And Vikings never had horns on their helmets but Wagner created that stereotype.
The whole thing is so ridiculous. If we would just treat each other as individuals this conversation would be moot.
Then we would have UNITY.
not division.
We must divide….
Yup. Let the healing begin. Said the people being divisive. You guys have 4 years you don’t have to ruin everything in the first 2 months.
Do they not? Maybe I’m thinking of somewhere else. I know people from Papua New Guinea do.
Is there something wrong with grass skirts? Would it be offensive to show a Scotsman in a kilt?
Don’t grass skirts itch? Don’t wool kilts itch? We wouldn’t wear either. We grew up that girls wore skirts and boys wore pants. In a public high school, in the late sixties, early 70’s. Boys were not allowed to come to a public school in a T shirt, you had to wear a button up shirt. Girls were not allowed to wear pants, they had to wear dresses or skirts, and they had to be knee length or lower. If a male came to school with his hair up in a “boy bun”, I can promise it would be cut off before the first class. You had to wear decent clothes, no holes, buttons buttoned, and no slogans on your clothing either. Boys had short hair, girls had long hair. That was the way it was, no arguing, no resistance, no demonstrations. If you talked back to a teacher, they would kick your ass. You never told a teacher to fuck off, ever.
What does that have to do with canceling the Lorax?
This is not a law court where lawyers bicker over procedure. It’s relevancy is obvious.
It’s relevant as a smoke screen.
I am so sick of this ridiculous cancel culture. There’s not a darn thing wrong with Dr. Seuss books or the Bernstein Bears. OR MISTER Potato Head for crying out loud!
If you don’t like it, don’t buy it and don’t punish everyone else for you’re sick and twisted BS.
Free ALL potatoes from the thought prison of binary sexuality!
With these books be canceled if they depicted if that American eating a hamburger?
Let’s keep book banning a thing that Nazis did.
Actually what is going on in this country resembles Mao’s cultural revolution of the 60s and 70s more than anything the Nazis did.
But who can tell the self righteous anything if they are unwilling to listen?
“Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.”
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
Dr. Seuss
👍
The author requested that 6 books be taken out. Nothing more.
Quit over analyzing everything people.
Have a great day
The author is dead. The books being taken out are a part of MOST of our childhood reading. If I stub my toe and it turns black and blue, will that too, be taboo?
This is getting so out of control! Omfg, erase history and delete passages and poems, burn books…is this communism?
Identify the playbook, identify those who have the power to carry out these perverted ideas. Speaking of perverted ideas,
Did I just hear that a law sentencing pedos, was considered “racist?
That turned out to be a gratuitous and unnecessary side comment from someone who otherwise had some solid reasons for opposing the mandatory sentencing law in Arizona. And the law affects a lot more than just pedos.
Actually, it was the author’s family who decided to discontinue the publication of 6 books. They want him to be remembered for his later work. What’s wrong with that?
Hmm… What is wrong with that? If the whole problem is sanitizing Suess’s image, that speaks for poor ethics. If it’s really about not offending people with racist characterizations, can that be the effect of announcing stopping publishing or will it be more remembered his work needed correction and all other work is now tarred with the same brush?
It’s their choice as to how they want him to be remembered.
Dr. Suess has no descendants. His estate is managed by a foundation. The unanswered question is what pressures the foundation was under regarding those books, and from whom.
There are a lot of works from that period reflecting the backward mores of the day that stand on their own merits. Will “A Day at the Races” be cancelled because the Marx Brothers wore blackface? Will “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” be cancelled because of its depictions of Mexicans?
I don’t know. But those movies weren’t intended for young impressionable children either.
Things like that happen naturally as society’s values change. Some ideas and images become distasteful. They’re forgotten. What is damaging is when people with an agenda apply their own knives freely to surgically remove ideas before the large part of the public is willing for them to go. Right now knife wielding fanatics are busy attacking just about everything, without consultation and without reasonable judgement. They specialize ever increase anger and division. Sort of like McCathyism… Another decade or two people are going to be shaking their heads over the excess, wondering why no one stood up for the attacked.
That you so easily decided that incorrect information without a second thought is just what’s so awful. And then proceeded to belittle …
Getting outraged over every thing is their favorite pastime. It’s hilarious. You name it, they have outrage over it. The dramatics and posturing crack me up. If the publishers hadn’t announced what they were doing these pearl clutchers wouldn’t even know the difference.
So much outrage over outrage.
So much outrage over my comment on outrage.
I see your outrage and raise it by incensed!
There are no living members of the author’s family. The soulless corporate entity that now holds the copyrights is making the decision to drop some of their worst-performing titles and gain some social warrior cred.
The one where an elephant says “A person’s a person, no matter how small” is next. Watch.
Announce the cancellation and sales go through the roof. Problem solved!
32 years on. The Lorax remains, the loggers remain, the redwoods remain.
The anti-Lorax book of the time (1995). Published by the Hardwood Forest Foundation
Exactly, if you don’t like whats written, write your own point of view.
That what debate is all about.
Removing is about silencing and keeping people ignorant.
Anti-lo wants to ban anti-fa from banning neo-nazi publications.
Here, have a free read. Online copy of Truax.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxtcnNzY2hvZW5lYmVyZ2VyfGd4OjY2ZWJjZWVkOGNiYzMxYWM
Thanks for the link, that was interesting read.
Truax is a treasure trove of alternative facts, more commonly known as opinions, which Goodbark gets a healthy ear full of.
Truax says: biodiversity is when the forest floor is open to all species to compete in the open sky / full sun. It creates NEW habitat.
Ah, breathe it in, like the star thistle in the prairie, or the razor edged pampas grass and hay fever inducing scotch broom of every unrocked skid road, to the wonderland of himalaya berry and salal blanketing slash piles capping over-steepened fillslopes at the heads of our watercourses……then, in 5-10 years when the land is ripe with a few million tan oak sprouts the landscape will get sprayed with herbicide, yes, we shall then realize the benefits of biodiversity on the hillslopes!
Well, thanks Truax!
Well Mr. Guardbark overreacted to the scenario laid out in that book.
But the Lorax didn’t overreact to his scenario.
So which scenario is most accurate? Given Maxam’s carnage from 1985 to 1995 my vote is with the Lorax.
No one has “banned” those books you know. The people who OWN the rights to them have just decided, for good reason, to stop publishing them. No one is coming for your books. Get a grip.
What do you call Amazon and E bay etc. refusing to sell them.
No point in publishing something if a political party won’t allow it to be sold.
Should we ban books that tell the Native American story on small pox blankets, the trail of tears, or maybe not tell the story Roots? These stories as ugly as they are have taught everyone lessons that where we have been is not where we want to go.
Stop censorship it’s not good for anyone.,
True.
This has nothing to do with a political party. Amazon and EBay are private companies, and Seuss Enterprises chose to stop publishing these particular books. Those books aren’t even among his most popular and best selling books. If it’s okay to allow a private business to refuse to bake a cake for same sex couples, well then it’s okay for these private companies to make these decisions as well.
As an avid reader of Seuss’ books in my childhood, I can say I never heard of the books that are on the list. If the publisher hadn’t announced this publicly, I doubt any of us would have ever noticed these books missing from stores, because stores like to stock his best selling, most popular books.
Again, private businesses have made these decisions, it’s not the government, it’s not a political party.
Is it OK not to bake a cake for heterosexual couples?
Nazi’s book burnings were not done by government. Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses was not burned by the government in Britain. Berkeley students have burned books. Comic book burning were done in the US in 1948 by groups of students.
When commercial interests join in, it is just a marker of how narrow interests have an oversized pull through intimidation. Amazon has a right to remove items they sell but, if current politics has reached such a stage that refusing to sell ordinary books out of fear of a few individual’s negative opinions, then it is a clear warning that the country is already gone pretty far down the path of fascism.
Besides, ‘And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street’ was a staple of childhood for decades. Your personal lack of contact with it does not make canceling okay.
How is this example ( a publisher no longer printing certain books, not best selling books, in a huge catalogue of books) the same as the Salman Rushdie terrorism, or the Nazi book burnings?
How?
And please don’t forget, any publicity is good publicity. Announcing this publicly will in the end be a boon to the Seuss estate.
It’s not an example. Guest excels in comparing apples with oranges with great conviction then posting 10 links that “prove” his/ her point of view.
If amazon stops selling because it is not profitable, then is one thing. But if they stop selling out of fear of retaliation from social agenda, it is exactly the same problem. The timing of stopping selling books that have been announce as “having racist images” makes that fear of intimidation likely.
Really? ..I remember reading Dr. Seuss as a child in the early 60s. I have NO memory of this specific book. Green Eggs and Ham, sure, still have a soft spot for it.
As for being a staple for children for decades, the children in my family moved onto other books, and they are in their 30s now. It wasn’t because we/they saw any racism in the books, but because there were so many wonderful options, Seuss being just being one of them.
I still have a very soft spot for “The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark”.
I still chuckle, too, when I remember my grandkids reading/being read to, “Angry Ninja”.
I’m just shocked that there is no outrage that the “Dick and Jane” readers are no longer around!!! That is how I learned to read. Actually I am not, they are long gone replaced by other things. I do miss Spot, though
I did find this, though:
I have great pride in taking Dick and Jane out of most school libraries. That is my greatest satisfaction.
— Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), author
I guess what goes around comes around. Or something like that.
So you think that cancelling Suess won’t come around to those guilty of this hubris in their turn? If these books faded away because they were no longer relevant, that is one thing. But to take a knife to them because they don’t meet current ideas that were unavailable to the auther is another- it’s hubris. It reeks of vengence, ignorance and intolerance all its own.
Actually, the Nazi military did burn books in occupied countries.
“The Nazi university student association created blacklists of works by literary and political figures such as Bertolt Brecht, Erich Maria Remarque, and Ernest Hemingway that were to be thrown into the flames.”
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/book-burning#:~:text=Book%20Burning%201%20Introduction.%20Book%20burning%20has%20a,Ideology.%20…%204%20Targeted%20Authors%20and%20Works.%20
Private companies that took tax payer money to help With their prime delivery service.
https://newrepublic.com/article/146540/amazon-thriving-thanks-taxpayer-dollars
Someone refusing to bake a gay-themed wedding cake does not prevent the couple from taking their business elsewhere. Banning the sale of certain books does prevent people from acquiring them.
You really do not understand the concept of censorship. Because that is not what happened with these particular Seuss books.
Get a grip on reality and stop falling for the hyperbole of right-wing commentators.
You really do not understand ….
“The commentators” have broadened the subject matter beyond just those particular books.
Twitter, WordPress, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Schools, etc. are all censoring, according to their whims.
Not to mention tracking what you read, (Amazon knows everything you’ve ever bought from them), and watch on TV.
Even Biden is censored, the last 2 times he said he would take questions from reporters the screen immediately went blank.
Yeah, they are all censoring, according to their whims….because they’re private companies, and that’s their right. You know how you walk into a local store and there’s a sign saying “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone?” Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and the Dr Suess estate that owns the rights to his books are exactly the same, and they’re simply choosing to refuse service to people or media that they deem to be racist, as is their right.
I find it ironic that all the private-enterprise, “I can choose not to sell to gay people if I want” right wingers aren’t making that connection. The giant corporations are choosing not to print your racist sh*t, and you think they don’t have a right to do that? I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but your hypocrisy is stunning.
And guess why they’re choosing to “cancel” all this stuff? They read the writing on the wall.
The world is changing, a generational shift is happening, casual racism just isn’t acceptable anymore, and all you a$$hats commenting your racist “but Africans DO wear grass skirts! I don’t get it!” are going to end up on the wrong side of history. Just wait. Do you honestly think all these giant corporations would be “cancelling” everything right and left if that weren’t the way that the demographics and the money were moving? It’s not that they suddenly decided that these things were immoral, it’s that they’re no longer worth it financially. So get used to it.
Hmm your right. They are just following the money. Last I checked, money and power corrupt. Maybe they are being immoral. Call everything racist and cancel everything. People who do that are weak. Grow a thicker skin, stop being a bunch of wimps. The world is not America. There is a much larger world out there and it is laughing at our weakness. The time is almost right for outside forces to destroy our society completely, right after inside forces bring us to the brink of collapse. America is in decline, and cancel culture is to blame.
AA
Private companies make their decisions and their consumers make their decisions accordingly.
As with Goya foods, etc.
If a store wouldn’t sell me bread, I would go to another store for bread and all my other purchases. Why buy form someone who doesn’t want to sell? Just seeking a lawsuit maybe?
Yes, the wedding cake caper was an exercise in flexing power through the Colorado Human Rights Commission, which got overruled in the courts. And it wasn’t even about refusal to sell a cake, it was about refusal to do a gay-themed customization of a cake.
Pretty funny, huh? They’re all riled up. So easily manipulated.
That it doesn’t worry you is plenty of reason to be concerned. When Salman Rushdie’s book was targeted, booksellers came under threat of violence and some caved. ” The Association of American Publishers, whose 250 members comprise a who’s who of trade book publishers, expressed ”outrage and condemnation” at the call for Mr. Rushdie’s death. But several book editors said privately that the threats are almost certain to inhibit houses from publishing books critical of Muslims.”https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/17/world/satanic-verses-is-removed-from-shelves-by-book-chain.html
Of course, where that hijacker sense of entitlement ended up was in the violence against Charlie Hebdo. But you probably don’t see the problem with that either.
That’s like comparing apples to hand grenades. In the Rushdie case it was an outside group that threatened the violence and I thought it an unconscionable threat at the time, the same with the Charlie Hebdo attack.
That is not the same thing as a private group making their own decisions about what THEY do. They aren’t forcing booksellers to stop selling someone else’s books, they are simply saying they aren’t going to put out some specific titles.
Yup- just coincidence. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/tourism/os-bz-dr-seuss-universal-play-area-20210303-pljn452cfnemzcztw2274le6va-story.html
“Nel said the decision to no longer publish titles including caricatures of people of African, Asian and Arab descent showed just one way to address problematic material.
“[The books are] not going to disappear,” he said. “They’re not being banned. They’re not being cancelled. It’s just a decision to no longer sell them.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/its-a-moral-decision-dr-seuss-books-are-being-recalled-not-cancelled-expert-says/ar-BB1ek2mk
The books ARE available on Amazon.
Some are crazy expensive, I assume because they are out of print now and are collectibles.
I know this because I just checked.
I guess I could get just as offended by Mr. Coffee when it stopped making my favorite latte maker. I can still get it on Amazon though, but at a jacked up price. Like really jacked up. Yeah, yeah, lattes…we hipsters, taking our homemade lattes everywhere.
I especially like to sip on my latte while listening to the Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks. Ask them about “canceling”.
Right?
And in some ways, isn’t Christianity the oldest and largest culture of ‘cancelling’?
Apparently, I (and a majority of free thinkers on earth) may not be allowed into heaven.
You can always start following the Ten Commandments and teachings of our Savior Jesus Christ and redeem your soul if you are so worried. Its never too late.
And you could start following critical thought, analysis and decision making skills to form the basis of your reality.
But I doubt either of us will take the other’s advice.
You can also start respecting his right to Religious freedom.
You confuse a principle of government framed in the Constitution with a personal ethic. “In my 1911 trust” is not a government and “freedom of religion” is not required of his comments. His freedom of religion in lecturing TRB is not to be abridged by the government. You, not being government either, however are also free from government interference to be as bigoted in that line as you want. As you have chosen.
True, though religion since the beginning of..well the beginning has been “Thou shall not” in one form or another.
Though religion is just, on second thought, an organized form of human nature. “Stop liking what I don’t like”.
Indeed, I should have stated Christianity is the oldest cancel culture method in our culture, to be accurate.
No. Christianity is not at all the oldest anything. Hinduism, Judaism, Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc etc etc all had earlier and much more detailed restrictions. Right now all Christian sects might have more acknowledged participants but even that is less than a third of the world’s population with Islam being a close second.
In any case, ignorance of history aside, that remark is a bigoted irrelevancy.
See above.
Listening to “The Chicks”?!! Well- THAT is an extremely sexist name that is hurting females by denigrating their very souls, referring to them as small, helpless barnyard animals!! We need to pressure them to change their name further and ask their fans to never say that word again!!! As a progressive, caring white man I demand justice for everybody!!! (as I sip on my espresso)
The etymology of “chicks” referring to human females is often misconstrued. It was derived from chica, Spanish for girl, by American hipsters. It’s not that much different from “homeboy” (hombre).
This is exactly how things will be banned going forward.
Karen
Exactly right.
Private property. Private decision.
More on it:
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/22309286/dr-seuss-controversy-read-across-america-racism-if-i-ran-the-zoo-mulberry-street-mcgelliots-pool
The left didn’t feel any such capitalist values when they threatened violence over Powell’s over Ngo’s anti Antifa book. In fact it’s the total inconsistency in the application of liberal principles that shows they don’t know what a principle is.
Amazon Is Thriving Thanks to Taxpayer Dollars
The tech giant has received more than $1 billion in tax breaks. The government is also funding food stamps for many of its workers.
Amazon Is Thriving Thanks to Taxpayer Dollars
The fine line between the public and the private.
Let the customers decide.
I guess my first reply was too edgy, and got cancelled. So you here you go:
One ad Dr. Seuss drew for Flit insecticide featured a disgusted white woman saying to a Black man, “You hold a job, Worthless? Say, ni**er, when you hold a job a week, mosquitos will brush their teeth with Flit and like it!’” Dr. Seuss tended to draw Black people as cannibals or monkeys, and they weren’t the only racial group he caricatured.
…….
There are very few characters of color in Dr. Seuss’s children’s books. The ones that do appear are racist caricatures.
There aren’t that many racial caricatures in Dr. Seuss’s children’s books, mostly because there aren’t that many nonwhite characters in Dr. Seuss’s children’s books. In their study, Ishizuka and Stephens counted 45 characters of color among the 2,240 human characters who appear in Dr. Seuss’s 50 books, which works out to just 2 percent. Notably, all of those characters are male. There are no girls or women of color in the Dr. Seuss canon.
And when characters of color do appear in these books, they appear as racial caricatures. In their study, Ishizuka and Stephens found that all 45 characters of color were either subservient, exotified, dehumanized, or some combination of the three. Dr. Seuss’s characters of color drive carriages for whip-wielding white characters, dress in turbans and “rice paddy hats,” and never speak out loud. Most of them are Orientalist caricatures, and the two that aren’t are those African characters drawn as monkeys in If I Ran the Zoo.
And Dr. Seuss’s interest in racial caricatures influences some of the rest of his work in ways that are no longer visible to casual readers — especially when it comes to the Cat in the Hat, that icon of Seussian madcap humor and surrealism.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/22309286/dr-seuss-controversy-read-across-america-racism-if-i-ran-the-zoo-mulberry-street-mcgelliots-pool
So to offer the apologist explanation of Chinese racism to the question put by a Nigerian living in China- “Nigerian In China: Why Are People Here So Racist Towards Black People?” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups#:~:text=Largest%20religious%20groups%20%20%20%20Religion%20,%20Indian%20subcontinent%20%201%20more%20rows%20
“However, there is a context here that may be helpful to shed some light on why some Chinese people seemingly respond negatively to blacks, whites and people of other ethnicities (yes, it’s not just a black thing)…
So combine the fact that there has long been a sense of cultural superiority that is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture mixed with the fact that the vast majority of Chinese people you meet on the streets of Guangzhou have probably never interacted with someone of another race or ethnicity and, well, you have all you need for a lot of cultural misunderstanding.”
However, in defense of the Nigerian’s ignorance of the number of race riots by Africans against especially India’s immigrants, nothing stays the same. This decision by American liberals to surgically excise all history not in accord with their own self righteousness is based on the same sort of intolerance. They expect people long dead to have the same experience as they have now. As if most of them wouldn’t have the same biases as those they despise now without the efforts of so many born before them to change things. Perpetual adolescence.
I didn’t read your comment, but I bet you found a way to bash “liberals” for some reason.
(LDS)
Free speech is ESSENTIAL……Right Kym, lol.
I have no solutions, only food for thought. Young minds are very impressionable. I don’t feel that they should be purposefully indoctrinated, neither conservative nor liberal. Kids should be educated, not indoctrinated.
Kids believe what they are told with very little thought. I was a rather stupid child, I always believed everything that I was told. I had older relative kids around me, so they had great fun filling head with things that I was silly enough to believe in. They had a lot of fun spoiling Santa Claus for me at a very early age, so that didn’t bother me to bad. I was never told that Mickey Mouse was not real so when I finally found out, I was crushed. Of course my older relatives thought that it was real funny that I was dumb enough to think that Mickey was real.
I love spinach today because when I was a kid Popeye would eat a can of spinach and become incredibly strong and instantly defeat evildoers. I don’t know if I would like spinach as much today as I do, but It is a possibility that I was “indoctrinated”. My daughter would not eat her vegetables when she was a kid until one day she asked me why I was bald. I told that when I was a kid i didn’t eat my vegetables and when I grew up all my hair fell out. Both true, but not necessarily connected. From that day on she ate ALL her vegetable without question. She still likes vegetables today. (She finally figured out that she had been tricked though).
When I was about 6 yrs old I watched a Mr. Magoo cartoon where he walked of a building with an umbrella in his hand and slowly floated to the ground. That sounded like so much fun to me that I couldn’t wait to get home and I try it. I jumped off of a 6 foot high porch. The umbrella turned inside out and I hit the ground so hard that it almost knocked some sense into me.
Needles to say I grew up not believing in anything that I couldn’t hit with a hammer to see if it was actually real.
It’s not fair to lie to kids, because they will believe you!
Amen! It’s not fair to lie to adults either!!
Keep fiction in the fiction isle and teach people especially children the difference.
I learned to like to eat my vegetables from watching my guinea pig eating his food. He seemed to enjoy it so much I had to copy him.
A lot of sawmills got killed.
They should also ban “Green Eggs and Ham”. Not fair to other eggs.
The banning of books is totally insane. Cancel culture is snowballing and we are all in danger of being consumed by it if we don’t conform to certain ideologies.
“we are the Borg. We will assimilate you”
Resistance is futile.
That seems to be the effort… part of the hive mind.
Both side dabble in attempted bans and boycotting. It’s not one sided.
They sure do. I’m not on either side.
Get a grip. This isn’t banning books. This is the Seuss estate deciding to stop publishing new copies of 6 out of the 60 currently in the catalog. The old ones are still out there.
All 6 contained various denigrating depictions of minorities and other cultures — which is kind of the essence of white supremacy. The publishers decided they didn’t want to continue to put out those specific books.
The other 54 titles are still being published.
Ugh. Really? Yes, they are “choosing” to not publish those 6 books anyore… because of social pressure
It is a sign of the times..
I’m curious, how do you think society changes? Why can’t I put out a “Whites Only” sign at my drinking fountain, or “All Negros in the Back of the Bus”. Those were both socially acceptable by the dominant social group as viable options during a period of our history that we now see (and should’ve seen then) as detestable and unconscionable.
This isn’t a government mandate that all copies of the books be turned in under penalty of law. This is a private organization making their own decisions about what to do. Isn’t that the essence of the free-market?
If it were some government organization forcing this decision, I’d agree with you about being outraged at censorship, even if the material is culturally insensitive or derogatory. But it’s not. It is private organizations making private decisions for their own reasons.
Save the outrage to real censorship — like say when an administration (*cough* like the last one *cough*) wouldn’t let the CDC scientists publish the real impacts of the pandemic because they were afraid it would make someone (T****) look bad. That’s dangerous, this Seuss uproar isn’t.
Of course the owners of the Seuss rights can do what they please. That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s the absurd pressure to deny somethings existence because it might hurt someone’s feelings.
And your comparison to the Jim Crow era is patently absurd. That was a time where the social movement was pushing for freedom, for more individual liberty. The movement now is exactly the opposite. It is pushing for restrictions and denial of individual liberty.
Okay, now you’ve lost me. It’s okay to decide what to do, it’s not okay to make that decision based on changing social awareness that denigrating other cultures or races based on stereotypes and tropes is bad.
Which is exactly what went on with response to the Jim Crow era. Jim Crow laws existed because whites wanted to protect what they viewed at the time was their personal liberty, even though that came at the expense of another race. Heck, it was the rationale behind the South’s secession in the first place — they wanted to preserve their economic tool of enslaving other people because they thought it was their personal right to do so.
The movement now is simply to recognize that denigrating other cultures is generally not a good thing. You’ll have to explain how doing that as a social pressure limits your individual liberty. Unless you feel like repeating degrading stereotypes is somehow at the core of someone’s liberty.
Can it go too far? Of course, we humans have a tendency to do that (pendulum swings and all that), but this doesn’t seem at all like a case where that argument holds sway.
Freedom of thought is at the core of individual liberty. Even stupid ideas.
“All 6 contained various denigrating depictions of minorities and other cultures — which is kind of the essence of white supremacy.”
Not true.
And who is behind this madness?
Consider the people so empowered and willing to justify erasing our collective history.
What history is that?
I just checked on Amazon, you can still buy, ‘And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street’ for $235!!!!! I’ll keep my copy until the price hits $1,000.
Hell ya! $1,000 will buy alot of Non-Racist Dr. Suess books!😂🤣😂🤣
Did these anti book loggers and school board members not realize how many Dr. Seuss books, including The Lorax, were printed on paper (made from trees)? Plot twist, encourage everyone to read ALL books, the good, the bad, and….GASP…..the offensive. Encourage thoughtful discussion of exactly how many trees, what kind of trees, and where and how they were harvested and processed to turn them into books (and don’t forget to discuss how many become the once highly sought after toilet paper, newspapers, Amazon boxes, etc.) The great depressing irony of the battle to ban this book was the foretelling of the day the all the logging jobs would be gone due to overly enthusiastic and greedy logging.
Thankfully, free thinking “hippies” stood up for the environment by tree sitting and enduring countless days and nights fighting big and small logging businesses in an attempt to save the ancient redwood forests and truly speaking “for the trees.” Ironically, those hippies and their youngsters are the locals still able to get by in this area by growing and harvesting different “trees” (you know, the trees that have not been around thousands of years.)
The picture is neither black or white, but many shades of the two. Not all hippies, pot growers, or loggers do irreparable or even temporary harm to our environment. There are right and wrong ways to protest logging, grow pot, or to make a living in logging or forestry. There is good and bad, yin and yang, in every industry that effects our planet. Without any logging, we have seen a huge increase in wildfires and an increase in insect damage caused by overcrowding in the forests. With too much ill thought out logging, we have seen landslides, flooding, water, soil, and air pollution, and the death of what some consider a “renewable resource.” Maybe instead of looking at forests as “resources,” a better approach would be considering them our neighbors and ancestors who make it possible for us to not have to use inhalers or oxygen tanks to survive on our precious planet.
The Lorax taught an uncomfortable and timeless lesson about the stewardship of our home.It also taught us irresponsible humans can and,unfortunately, often do devastate the forests and force all of us into having to abandon our livelihoods and homes. The abuse of our once living forest “resources”, pollutes our soil (diesel, herbicides, compaction, erosion, etc), air (smog, less oxygen producing plants, etc) and water (landslides, mudslides, herbicide runoff, fuel runoff, erosion, etc) to the point it makes certain areas unlivable.
It is not just the logging industry destroying our home for the sake of profit. How many other industries or individuals have done the same, raping and pillaging our only Earth, for the all mighty dollar, the one printed on…..you guessed it….paper? Where are the bamboo forests, fields of hemp instead of acres of empty forest,the businesses recycling the ever growing cardboard boxes sent out daily to millions of people, to make our paper products? Why are we still killing trees to wipe our butts, produce reading material that could be published online, to box orders to ship items most of us don’t really need, or make ridiculously overpriced college books? How many trees do each of us kill inadvertently everyday to produce the items we use, but don’t necessarily need? Why are there always more questions than answers? How would banning ANY book ever help anyone?
Yes, allow people to grow hemp, it makes great paper, rope, clothes, etc.
I’ve been looking for a nice pair of hemp jeans that didn’t cost $150.00 and didn’t come from China for years.
Pine and fir are dieing.
If any book must be banned, make it one that has killed millions of people or would kill millions more people, if the book fell into the wrong hands. Many think just like “Guns don’t kill people,” books don’t kill people either, therefore banning ANY book will neither save or destroy millions of lives? Those who have lost their ancestors or loved ones due to murders and wars steeped in religious teachings/beliefs might not agree with the idea that “books don’t kill people.” There are several religious texts which have certainly contributed to both the deaths of millions and on the opposite side of the equation millions of lives that were “saved,” both literally and metaphorically. We will leave the discussion of banning religious texts for another day. It is, however, a very slippery slope when anyone starts banning any book because: “__________”……..you fill in the blank.
The writings of mad men (as well as geniuses) are often used as historical texts so we are not destined to repeat our past atrocities and tragedies, like Hiroshima or Auschwitz. There is no way to insure these historically important texts do not encourage evil in a new generation, who see past atrocities as something to emulate or even admire. On the other hand, without the written history of devastating events and truly evil minds, history may be repeated, or at the very least forgotten after a number of years, and all the lives lost and human suffering would be for nothing.
If we are forced into banning books, how are the banned books chosen for banning? If banning books is something that must be done to “protect” us from ourselves and others, what makes a book or an author a candidate for the chopping block? Are we on the verge of Fahrenheit 451? Are we so stupid and hateful as individuals and as a society that we must be protected from the written word,ourselves, and spoon fed certain information edited or destroyed selectively for our own “good” or “safety”?
While Amazon,eBay, and other corporate giants ban Dr. Seuss books, please feel free to go buy a copy of Mein Kampf, since it is still available to purchase on both sites. I understand why this book needs to remain available for reading, but do not understand how anyone or any corporation could see fit to profit off of this evil man’s thoughts or words. On second thought, please don’t buy this book because the real eye opener on the ignorance and hate still filling(or emptying)the human heart is all free for reading in the most recent Amazon reviews.
Hitler’s Mein Kampf has an almost 5 star Amazon rating, which says more about the current human mindset and our society than I would ever like to know.The most recent reviews are of course criticizing the banning of Dr. Seuss, while this hate filled book remains for sale. If you keep reading the reviews (past the criticism of banning Dr.Seuss), you will find way too many glowing 4 and 5 star reviews declaring how intelligent and interesting Hitler’s writing and thought process was/is, along with way too many parents buying this book for their sons and their sons loving it, and quite a few people who want the return of genocide, and another race war. Some reviews are actually hoping for one race to rule the world, you guess which one. The reviews are not only disheartening,but also deeply disturbing and disappointing. All the lives and lineages lost due to hate, racism, and ignorance, yet evil and hatred still exists and persists.
Dr. Seuss books are definitely not the problem, but banning his books does bring up a necessary discussion of censorship and when and why it may be a good idea. In a “free society” where of the most important rights is “free speech,” banning ANY writing or spoken words does beg the question, are we truly free? If not, why are we not “free” and how do we become “free?” Are certain books to be banned because of some perceived or inferred racism or a certain marginalized group’s interpretation they may be racist?
If that is the case, before long the banned book list will be longer than the available book list. The books written for teens will be seen as agist by seniors, books written for physically able people will be seen as discriminating against those differently abled or physically disabled people, books written for “geniuses” will be seen as discriminating against those who are not “geniuses” or have developmental disabilities, books written for heterosexual people will be offensive to those who are not heterosexual, and so on.
When everyone is so easily offended, nearly everything will be on the chopping block for being banned. If those who see something (like a book) as offensive, are seen as minorities or marginalized segments of society, no book is safe from being banned. Frightening, isn’t it? How did we get to this point and is there any turning back once we start banning books because:____________? Fill in the blank however you see fit, but please don’t edit my damned library or book choices. That’s just downright evil, and not up for anyone to decide for anyone else.
I apologize for this rambling comment. Please “teach your children well, their father’s hell is hard to go by….”
“Those who don’t learn from history?”
Let the customer decide?
Well thought out and articulated…Thank you
California being almost last in the country in K-12 education I’d be glad if teachers would just teach children to read with comprehension, instead of trying to teach them gender and political issues.
California ranks 21st. That’s hardly “almost last”. At least google things before you exaggerate.
Try 31st.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-09/california-school-test-scores-2019
https://wallethub.com/edu/e/states-with-the-best-schools/5335#methodology
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/public-school-rankings-by-state
sponge Bob and his girl friend Alice are next.
gotta wonder what has taken place to get where we are today, and what their plans are for the future.
I was living in Laytonville when Bill Bailey stood up against The Lorax. It was my favorite story- I had memorized it line for line and would recite it (w/o the book) for children, bewildered bystanders and deadheads sleeping out in line for General Admission shows, etc. So it was an interesting time for sure…Had some friends in Earth First and did some action also but never could dehumanize or insult my logging neighbors. “Earth First- We’ll Log the Other Planets Later!” ha ha! Anyways…my point is that I find the above article offensive (especially using that ass Lawrence Livermore as a source) and so we should cancel this entire discussion. Thank You!
I am the daughter of an American Diplomat (born in Czechoslovakia; but, fled the 2nd World War via Austria/Switzerland to America because he was a Jew) and a Mum (from Scotland who moved to America as a child). I was born in South Africa. And, I have a mentally retarded sister people made fun of.
I am African/American Jew.
My Mum and Father taught us to laugh off @$$holes. And, I LOVE my sister.
I find it fascinating how EVERYONE has lost their sense of humor.
“I’m offended” seems to get you places these days. Well, we are not jumping on that bus.
Going to watch BLAZING SADDLES again tonight just to laugh until I cry.
I suspect most families in the USA are of mixed race or nationalities.
But on the humor side …. Reminds me of the movie BullWorth…..
” everybody just keep screwing everybody else until we’re all the same color”. LOL
Yes, pathetically, for their own self interest of stripping every damn tree possible out of our forest, felt the need to endocrine kids not not EVER consider saving a rare tree, as quoted in Dr. Suess’ book, The Lorax. They wanted to strip the forest clean and wanted every kid in grammar school to be on their same page. Banning a book in order to thwart any idea of not chopping the shit out of every tree for profit.
Fast forward to today, its the same shit that makes me ashamed of humans and not want to be around people. Lets change every school name, strip down every single statue ever made, and continue allowing black lives matters (racist organization for $100M profit to trash and wreck cities all over the world, under some bullshit guise that they have the right to. Then call people terrorists at the Capital. So lets continue banning every damn thing, but of coarse, METH and HEROINE. Cops every single day refuse to arrest individuals selling under some sick covid excuse. This fucking place is upside down. Lets ban the bible because we don’t want to offend anyone. L;ets do it now ! And lets ban Cool-Aid and tampons. They are offensive too.
At same again, it was sick talking to a business owner yesterday, whom said they couldn’t keep the trash meth garbage humans from sitting with their attack dogs, smoking meth and crank in front of their businesses. 100 years ago, shit would have been taken care of in a completely different manner. Of coarse back then, a heroine or meth dealer would be put to death for their actions, not reinforced or taken care of by society and protected by the cops.
Nice rant. However…
a) Clear-cutting the forests is somehow equatable with labeling the terrorists who broke into the capital on a murder quest as terrorists? Huh?
b) Cops do arrest heroin and meth dealers all the time. What happens to them after that is not their doing.
c) No one wants to ban the bible. Cherish it or (as I do) ignore it as silly superstition.
d) 100 years ago there was no such thing as meth, and opiates were available over the counter.
Great read RHBB, Mike LeFever. I wish my children would have been exposed to this community discussion. They, like most kids, were able to deal with controversy. They also learned, as they matured, to respect different points of view. The school administrators and teachers were wonderful role models for the students,
All whites are racist by definition.
Keep those Laytonville StudentAthletes OFF HarwoodPark Baseball Field.. it’s not for them its for the Administrators ONLY and newspaper owners ONLY!!!
Evolution
🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔
Yep Dr. Seuss bad …. Cardi B and her song Wet P—Y Joe Biden loves.
Cats should rebel!
A Great example for children. (Not)
Oh the horrors, to think that children might infer that cutting down trees is bad! In 2009, the Harwoods went bankrupt after getting hit with a Cleanup & Abatement Order for discharging toxic chemicals into the South Fork Eel – an “imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and safety and the environment” that likely continues to pollute the river to this day. https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/board_decisions/adopted_orders/pdf/2009/09_0023_CAO_Harwood.pdf
The problem with banning any content of any book is when will they ban your material next. We must insist that nobody be banned, so next time it will not be you! Also we are not stupid children who haven’t a brain to help us devise right from wrong, we can read something and come each of us to our own conclusions. You need not ban something in order to protect society. Society can determine for itself, the right of something.
Remember that time it didn’t actually happen?