Conservatives want to ban books in Alabama

[Bandit3 the Worker]

http://cbs5.com/topstories/topstories_story_117000521.html

[Blerpiez]

That's pretty stupid.  Even if you believe homosexuality is a choice, there are still people who identify as homosexual, and not talking about them won't make them go away.  Of course, this is also flagrent censorship.

[YRABNNRM]

http://cbs5.com/topstories/topstories_story_117000521.html

Will yours be one of them?

[opebo]

Typical Southern religious.  Alabama is such an embarrassment.

[Emsworth]

Although Alabama would strictly not be "banning" publication of the books, I find this bill utterly ridiculous. I echo Opebo's remark that some people in Alabama constitute an embarassment to the nation.

[ATFFL]

I am a bit torn.  I am against widescale removal of books from school libraries.  However, I am for anything that spares someone reading Gore Vidal by accident.

[A18]

While this is incredibly dumb, not buying a bunch of sh**tty books and banning them are two different things. Anyone who doesn't realize that is an embarassment to the nation.

[Akno21]

Wasn't Desperate Housewifes directed by a homosexual? Would he ban that? Or does he watch it?

[Gabu]

I wonder how many libraries Gerald Allen has been to.  It can't be that many, as he evidently has no idea what a library is for.  The fact that he originally even wanted to ban Shakespeare gives me the impression that he has some serious issues.

[Emsworth]

While this is incredibly dumb, not buying a bunch of sh**tty books and banning them are two different things.

Yes, the article does not really present the point too clearly.

[opebo]

While this is incredibly dumb, not buying a bunch of sh**tty books and banning them are two different things. Anyone who doesn't realize that is an embarassment to the nation.

The distinction is not very large for poor children.

Anyway, these theocrats you vote for normally only want to ban books from libraries and schools.  Of course they would certainly ban pornography from the country as a whole if they could.  One day no doubt they will accomplish all these goals.

[MissCatholic]

This is simmple outrageous. the left need to create hound news and get a liberal commentator to put these type of stuff on the air.

show to america that freedom is an absolute joke.

[minionofmidas]

But Shakespeare encourages impressively naughty behaviour amongst young'uns! You must have noticed that almost all seven-year-olds from Alabama secretly read Shakespeare on a regular basis, which explains why they have such bizarre mannerisms and are obsessed with sex. Shakespeare was clearly pornographic and in the business to promote Satanism, Islamic militants, homosexuality, and all those things that we don't ever hear about on television or read about in the newspaper!

Satanism - you betcha. Just read Macbeth.
Islamic militants - you betcha. He certainly shows an untolerable amount of sympathy for the muslim, Othello.
Child Porn - Yep. Juliet's clearly stated to be 13 years of age.
Homosexuality - No. That was Christopher Marlowe.

[angus]

It was Othello's huge cock that really impressed Shakespeare, though.  Islamic militancy was just a sidebar, remember "moor" more often evoked the image of what an American would call "black" than the image of what we'd call "muslim"  Not that there wasn't a hint of radical islam there, but I think it was Othello's huge cock that made it so juicy for Jamesean English crowds.

[minionofmidas]

Well, that's a given of course. Although Moor did mean Muslim, especially Berber, not Black, when and where the text Shakespeare drew upon was written.

[angus]

Darwin hadn't been born yet.  I think different associations existed then.  But yeah I do think "moor" was associated with the North African in an ethnoracial sense as a practical matter, even though we tend to teach it in modern English-Speaking countries as an exact homonym for "muslim"  Shakespeare was all about drugs, sex, violence, whores, hedonism.  Not surprising that his work still sells.  It hadn't occurred to me till I read your post (excellent examples by the way!) but now that I think about old Dr. Archer in freshman english saying okay now we're going to read about "sex, lies, violence, whoremongering, and all the rest..." and the students actually woke up and pay attention for a change.  I think the most salient fact about all this is that Alabama is the sort of place where students really need whatever will make them stay awake and pay attention.  Surely the teachers should have been consulted about this.  Well, I'm making some assumptions about the goal of public education in Alabama.  So is everyone else, I suppose.  It may well be that this action is totally appropriate to their goals, whatever those may be.

[phk]

The Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula, who ruled Spain between 711 and 1492 C.E., are commonly known as the Moors. They called their land Andalus which in the early period of their history also included Portugal and southern France and in the last period only the Kingdom of Granada.

The word Moors is a corrupted word referring to the people who came from Morocco. The Christians of the Iberian Peninsula began to use this term exclusively for Muslims when the Muslims lost administrative control of northern parts of Spain and Portugal. Later, other words such as Moriscos and Mudejares were used for them beginning in the mid-thirteenth century.

When Muslims first arrived in Spain in 711 C.E., they constituted mainly Arabs and Berbers of North Africa. Within two decades a majority of the inhabitants of Andalus, especially most of the Unitarian Christians and the lower classes, accepted Islam.

By 770 C.E. people of all races from North Africa and Arabia migrated to Andalusia (Spain and Portugal). They intermarried with various nationalities including the native Spanish-Muslim population, with the result that Spain became a fairly homogeneous country within a few generations.

[angus]

Language too.  Spanish for what the latin language calls "germania" is "alemania" and spanish masculine definite article is "el" and so on.  it was a two-way street, though.  I'm not sure whether the Moorish masters didn't adopt as much latinate into their semitic language as the hapless spaniards adopted words of semitic origin into their own latinate language.

[phk]

This site contains a 'small' table of borrowed Arabic words into Spanish.

http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/places2.html

[opebo]

But yeah I do think "moor" was associated with the North African in an ethnoracial sense as a practical matter, even though we tend to teach it in modern English-Speaking countries as an exact homonym for "muslim"

Thats odd - I always understood 'moor' as a black, and never even thought about muslims in relation to the word.   I guess I think of the word 'blackamoor'.   

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In other words life, particularly life in his times, before bourgeois morality stifled everthing.

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It is obvious that the goal of education in Alabama is to make people accept the above mentioned bourgeois morality, christian religion, etc.  These youths have to be made to accept their future miserable lives somehow.