I can't even find the information on the KRRP website, aside from the two news articles referenced in TFA.
No?
Okay, Carry on.
Part of the problem in this discussion is that we are dealing with almost NO concrete information.
The article on which the NPR "article" is based tells of 49 "incidents" this year with no additional details--we may presume that it has to do with children, based on the project name. They say that they investigated "three times the average number" in November, without revealing the number. They do give concrete numbers for this school year so far (31 compared to 14 last year), but give no context. The ALA reported 464 challenges in 2012 (referenced by turning in circles, above), but we don't know how these organizations relate or how this statistic relates to the KRRP statistics.
We don't know what percentage of challenges were successful, only that there was [a] "notable increase in positive outcomes to book challenges." They indicate clusters of challenges around racial and LGBT subjects, and suggest coordination, but give no corroborating evidence, and no links to the underlying data.
We are left with the vague impression that we should panic and with a link to their websites, where you have to hunt around to find any information related to the articles in question.
Yes, this IS slashdot, but doesn't it strike anyone as odd that we've been discussing/arguing/namecalling based on what is essentially a poorly-written press release?
'Cause not everything is yet available online--and not everything online is accessible.
I'd say that less than a quarter of the books in my (public) library are online, and about half of the materials available for download are crippled by DRM or format locks.
People will do for each other out of a natural inborn sense of decency
Your post reads a bit differently when, as in my area, "to do for" someone means "to kill" him (or her).
Ah, idiomatic expressions.
That is usually the effect.
Half the time, the first we hear of the book is when someone tries to challenge it. The story gets into the media, and sales spike. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't authors and publishers out there deliberately trying to court banning for the publicity's sake.
Usually the challenges start with trying to completely ban the book.
Most challenge policies are written to make that difficult, so the challengers then fall back to the position of trying to get them removed from the Required Reading Lists, and finally to requesting exemption and alternate reading materials for students.
Not that you'd know it from the article, or even the article's source article--both exhibit an amazing paucity of information--first time I've seen the summary more informative than the articles
Politics, probably. There's a lot of backlash against political correctness - some people would see reading such a book in schools as 'liberal indoctrination' intended to make white people feel guilty about being white.
I'd give you odds it's the reverse - that someone searched through an eBook library and banned every one with racial epithets regardless of context.
Usually, anymore, it is an organization that specializes in book or curriculum challenges. It will have a list of "objectionable" materials; downloadable complaints; challenges with page numbers and everything included; and all the press releases needed. The parent/teacher/administrator/pastor/insert authority figure does not even have to read the book.
Check out the Parents Action League's Book Alert Page (sorry, can't remember how to insert a link) for an example.
Not to say that AVG and Clam aren't great, but the average user wants to set it up and never look at it again, which is what Norton can give you that AVG and Clam can't.
Except, of course, that Symantec/Norton will attempt to trick you into manually paying for a subscription renewal, when you are being auto-billed...which is another thing Norton can give you that free AV can't.
Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them over the horizon. -- K.A. Arsdall
