Balls and Walnuts
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Banned Books Week: the Muffin POV
Thanks to Kate for pointing out that, here in the (still free, but for a limited time only) US of A, it’s the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week.
Funny thing: one way or another, I would have found this out. I was trying to research Muffin attitudes towards child-rearing when I discovered the Buried Treasure Weblog, which is the online home of the Muffin Manifesto. (I blogged on this yesterday.) Carmon, the Buried Treasure Muffin Maven, has this to say about Banned Books Week:
“You probably already guessed that I don’t think all ideas are created equal. In fact, I think some ideas are so blasphemous that they ought to be challenged and yes, sometimes banned. The French Revolution was the ultimate object lesson on the aphorism “ideas have consequencesâ€: the evil, humanist ideas of the Enlightenment led to deadly consequences.”
How’s that for historical revisionism?
Carmon urges her readers to celebrate Official Discernment Week instead. Here’s another snippet:
“Even as we rejoice in the increasing quantity and availability of Christian reading matter, we must be vigilant to ensure that we teach our children to obey and honor God, and protect their impressionable minds from pervasive and perverse influences. Threats to their spiritual well-being exist in many quarters, even public libraries, on public television and yes, even on Fox News.”
Fox News: corrupter of our youth. I like this woman.
Not.
Next up: How many is too many?
D.
Doug, the more you read about these rather wacky sub-branch of Christians, the more you’ll find out that they:
a. Don’t know much about history,
b. Don’t know much biology,
c. Don’t know much about a science book,
d. Don’t know much about the French they took
Sorry for invoking that song. But I’ve engaged in debate with these types before (the men, of course–the women were too busy making muffins or lobbying to get Blubber and Huckleberry Finn banned) and the gaping black holes in their education are scary. The fact that most of these people engage in home schooling makes me weep for their poor kids.
And those kids, guess what they want: to grow up and be just like mom and dad.
And that’s why we need human cloning: to make more liberals like you and me.
I read a little of the Muffin stuff (don’t know if I’m happy or sad the kids weren’t actually given names like Blueberry or Banana Nut instead of “mini” – so unimaginative), but then I started to feel a throbbing in my brain and I had to stop. I did get a chuckle out of the double entendre of the “Patronizing Praire Muffin” label for the link to Muffins hawking stuff, though.
It’s funny that for the longest time homeschooled children were invariably kids of people like this. Then recent problems with the education system have changed the image a bit and made me forget that people with these unique beliefs are probably still far and away the largest group that are home schooling their kids. Which frightens me. A lot.
Finally, I recently read a book called The Big Love by Sarah Dunn which I suppose would be categorized as “chick lit”, though, like a lot of the “chick lit” stuff I really like, it should just be called “good”. Its heroine is someone who grew up in an Evangelical Christian household and it struck me that it was the first time I’d seen such a character in literature. It included a lot of dead-on accurate observations about the culture of religious people that’s had me thinking on the subject off an on ever since I read it. All that makes it sound deadly serious and boring, but it was quite lively and funny. Anyway, this bit from one of the opening chapters caught me off guard and made me laugh and I decided to share it:
“I was raised an evangelical Christian, a real born-again, a tribe which completely lacks a comedic tradition and is almost entirely missing an intellectual one. We also don’t have much in the way of a self-hating tradition, come to think of it, although God knows everybody else in the world wishes we’d hurry up and develop one. Because – and I realize I don’t have to tell you this – people hate evangelical Christians.”
Hey fiveandfour, glad to see your name links to a site! Now I can put up a link for you & follow you in your daily travails.
I enjoyed that quote. I don’t hate evangelicals, btw. I feel sorry for their kids, especially the minimuffin daughters. I simply wish these folks would find something in the Bible that would convince them not to reproduce (like the Shakers).
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