And Tango Makes 420

The American Library Association's activist campaign against anything outside its mainline secularist dogma continues again this year with the group's routine (yawn!) announcement of the year's "most challenged" books.

To make the list, books must be the target of a formal, written complaint requesting it be removed from a library or school because of inappropriate content.

Topping the list again this year (says AP) is "And Tango Makes Three," a 2005 children's story about a family of penguins with two fathers.

"The complaints are that young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable. The people complaining, of course, don't agree with that," Judith Krug, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

And what's wrong with that? It's a perfectly good concern, but not in ALA-think. Note Krug's job: "Intellectual Freedom." By issuing the list every year, Krug is absolutely opposing intellectual freedom because the list exists only to shame people who hold believes based on traditional morals and the values-based thinking that comes from a solid moral core.

How can I allege such a thing? Because in all the schools, in all the libraries across this great land, there was a grand total last year of 420 complaints against the content of books. Complaints are of such tiny consequence that Krug's nasty little compendium should yield absolutely no media interest, but since the media generally shares the ALA's view that we should all ascribe to secular relativism, they're happy to trumpet the results each year.

What's more, the number of complaints dropped dramatically, from a whopping 750 in the mid-90s to 546 in 2006, and down to last year's puny 420.

Other books on the ALA's top 10 list include Maya Angelou's memoir "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings;" Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," attacked by know-nothings because it supposedly is racist ... sheesh; and of course Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass," an anti-Christian work that was slumbering away in obscurity until Hollywood decided to make a big Christmas-season film out of it.

Krug's explanation for the drop in complaints is strange and troubling:

"The atmosphere is a little better than it used to be. I think some of the pressure has been taken off of books by the Internet, because so much is happening on the Internet."

I don't think she means the laissez faire morality of the Web has caused an erosion in morals which in turn brought a drop in complaints. More likely, she means people are spending more time on the Web and less in libraries.

And that may have more to do with the ALA's policies forbidding filters on computers and saying pedophiles have a right to look at kiddie porn on library computers, and librarians who think otherwise can be fired.

Throwing Baby Moses Out With The Bathwater

What is it about some regulators that make them so simple-mindedly, bone-chillingly stupid?

Here's a case in point, from the other CSM:

Earlier this year, chaplains in federal prisons removed thousands of religious materials from federal prison libraries nationwide. Perhaps this government-ordered purge won't cause concern outside of prisons, because it affects only convicts, and because it's to fight terrorism. But it should.

The issue is not whether prison literature is censored, but the degree to which it is. US law and the Constitution allow government to restrict religious freedom in prisons as long as it has a compelling interest and uses the "least restrictive means" to pursue its interest. Making sure prisons don't become recruiting grounds for terrorists certainly is a compelling interest.

But the [Bureau of Prisons (BOP] has overreached.

Before this summer, screening was done by BOP chaplains. They culled material sent to the libraries and pulled mostly hate literature – a lot of it white supremacist citing a Christian basis – that could endanger prison security.

The new policy instead uses religious experts to select a list of approved materials. The list is long, allowing up to 450 titles for each of 20 religions or religious groupings, and will be periodically updated. But many titles that the BOP admits "may be very worthwhile" aren't on the list and were removed from chapel libraries.

In the Otisville prison, according to the suit, hundreds of books were taken from shelves, including such "fundamental" works as Maimonides' Code of Jewish Law, as well as the Christian bestseller, "The Purpose-Driven Life." The Muslim collection, small to begin with, amounts to the Koran and two other titles.

The BOP's move stems from a 2004 Department of Justice inspector general review of religious services for Muslims in federal prisons. One recommendation was to take an inventory and rescreen chapel libraries. It also said the BOP should consider a central registry of appropriate titles to avoid duplicating review efforts.

But the BOP never conducted the inventory. A BOP spokeswoman says the list is the "most effective" way for selecting material that is "consistently available," provides "religiously reliable teachings," and does not discriminate or promote violence or radicalization.

We all know the purpose of this move: To get control of Islamist radicalization of the prison population, plain and simple. But the Muslim collection -- the Koran and two books -- is the only group of books that went unchanged, and once again the stupid bureaucrats are punishing the Christians and Jews for the sins of the Muslims.

This foolishness that equality equals fairness and wisdom is the regulators' way out. Two kids fighting in school? Throw them both out; don't worry about trivialities like "wrong" and "right." Worried about Muslims recruiting bomb my way to paradise crazies from the population of devout child molesters, welfare cheats and wife murderers? Throw out all religions.

Two prisoners, a Christian and a Jew, have sued. They face a 50/50 chance of getting a mind-numbingly stupid judge who is no better than the BOP buffoons who set this policy.

Achtung! New Fronteirs In Religious Bigotry

Let's put these four dislikes of mine in ascending order, starting with the least repulsive: Tom Cruise, who's still plenty repulsive. Then the Church of Scientology, then religious discrimination, and finally, Adolph Hitler. So this story just whips me this way and that:

Germany has barred the makers of a film about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler from filming at German military sites because its star, Tom Cruise, is a Scientologist.

Cruise, also one of the film's producers, is a leading member of the Church of Scientology, which the German government does not recognise as a church. Berlin says it masquerades as a religion in order to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject.

The US actor has been cast as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Nazi dictator in July 1944 with a bomb hidden in a briefcase.

A defence ministry spokesman, Harald Kammerbauer, said the film-makers "will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult".

The film, planned for a 2008 release and to be directed by Bryan Singer and co-starring Kenneth Branagh, is called Valkyrie after Operation Valkyrie, the plot's codename.

The main site of interest would be the "Bendlerblock" memorial inside the defence ministry complex in Berlin. (Guardian)

I'm happy to see Cruise and his dangerous and deceitful cult publicly humiliated by nothing less than an entire national government. The publicity generated may just save some vulnerable souls from Proctology ... oh, sorry ... Scientology.

Delightful as I find all this, it doesn't make me smile because it's repulsive for a nation to determine that any religion is a cult and ban it. If they can find a religion guilty of fraud, scams or personal harm, then by all means prosecute -- but it's a huge leap from criminal prosecution to ban a religion entirely.

Put this together with recent decisions in Germany against mainstream conservative Christian beliefs and it's easy to conclude that Germany wouldn't have to go far to declare Christianity a cult, too. And if Christianity is a cult, then all faiths can certainly follow.

So my head's gone this way and that, and then it gets the irony whammy: von Stauffenburg was driven to assassinate Hitler because his early anger at Hitler's betrayal of the Catholics grew as it became evident what Germany was doing to the Jews.

So Germany has used Cruise's religion as an excuse to ban Cruise from making a film about a hero who risked all to try to kill Hitler in order to stop the Reich's persecution of people for their religious faith.

Really, Europe is just too rich.

A New Low For Euro-Tastelessness?

We have to go back ten years or so for this episode of European secularism at its best/worst (who's to judge?):

Accusations of "extraordinary bad taste" were leveled at Vienna on Sunday after details emerged of an Austrian designer snapping nude photos at a former Nazi concentration camp.

Gudrun Geiblinger used the memorial site at the former Mauthausen death camp as a backdrop for nude photos of herself, the news magazine Profil wrote in its latest edition.

The photos, shot in the late 1990s, show Geiblinger naked, wearing only white stockings and high heels, in sensual poses in front of a camp watchtower and hugging a sculpture depicting a dying soldier.

Geiblinger justified the photoshoot by saying she worked on a project at an art school and the photos were used for "brainstorming." (source)

"Oh, art is supposed to shock," you say? Not until secularism took it over, it wasn't; before that, art existed to edify. But being uplifting is so passe.

Geiblinger certainly was caught up in the shock aspects of art when in art school. Her excuse, looking for was a simple prison, doesn't earn her much slack. White stockings and high heels in a prison? That's sure normal. Besides, we're supposed to believe that she didn't think about how debasing to the memory of Mauthausen's victims her actions were?

Since getting out of art school, Geiblinger has grown to be a rootin' tootin' graphic artist, but doesn't seem to have gotten too far away from her efforts to stay in the mainstream of the anti-mainstream art world:

Brit, Lindsey & Paris: Secular Relativism's Ultimate Glory

Not being a celeb-watcher, I wouldn't recognize Brittney Spears if she upchucked in front of me -- and I certainly wouldn't recognize her with her new hairdon't, shown here.

According to the breathless and brainless reports, Ms. Spears buzzed her own hair because she didn't want people to touch her any more. Her family is said to be "in full intervention mode" and rehab is a distinct possibility.

Meanwhile, the pop movie starlet Lindsey Lohan reportedly has checked out of rehab and is taking things one day at a time. And Paris Hilton is ... who knows what? Drinking, drugging, sexing, aping for any camera, anywhere.

My three girls don't think much of this crew of awful role models; they have other interests and other influences, most quite good, some bad, but none as bad as the drinking, drugging, slutting lot that captures the media's eye.

I just asked Incredible Daughter #2 , who's 18, what she thought of them and she said, "Nothing. The media over-hypes them, but they're disgusting."

"So they're not role models to you?"

"Oh yeah, I want to be like Paris, a ho with a lazy eye."

I could ask for better phrasing, but basically, Phew!

But all over America, in millions of households it's different, as young girls take on the personna of these partying, puking, pandering pieces of human garbage.

Incredible Wife saw a number of young girls who are influenced by these shameless hussies interviewed on Dr. Phil this week. She reported that they were vacuous, lost and utterly without morals.

They were, in a nutshell, Secular Relativism's ultimate glory, it's crowning achievement. They see nothing wrong in their behavior because they have no moral guideposts to give them the combatting senses of guilt and honor.

The media might as well dress up in a crimson body suit with horns and tail attached on this one, because the sensationalization of the news fuels the celebrity sluts, which in turn fuels the cameras, which in turn fuels the imaginations of the young and misguideable.

The other night as I was packing my briefcase and readying for bed, the late night news had stories on a man who threw a barking Chihuahua over a fence, a woman who discovered her Shi-tzu's ear had been cut off by a groomer, then superglued back on, and a piece on Anna Nichole's body, baby and hangers-on. Lacking a car chase that evening, that's what constituted the news for most people today.

Not a story of significance in the bunch.

The only fortress against this onslaught is a tight family with a solid center. The slut brigade (and those boys who are very, very happy because of this turn of events) doesn't stand a chance against a foundation of love, interest and discipline.

Where are those families? Lost, unfortunately, to Secular Relativism. Divorce, affairs, parental drinking and drugging, money above love, anger because control doesn't feel good, saying yes because saying no takes effort, as in the case of Lindsey Lohan's mom:

"As a parent, you tell them what you can tell them, but she's 20 and I'm not gonna say, 'Stay home and don't go out,' that's a ridiculous thing to do."

Really? You're daughter is 20 and self-distructing and it's ridiculous to intervene? Why? Because the money might dry up if she's just run-of-the-mill?

The media is not interested in positive role models, so if America is going to stop this slide before the next generation gets even worse, we have to change the media. Are we mad as hell, and not going to take it any more?

Dunno. Seems like a lot of work ... and besides, who's to say who's right?