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The Handmaid’s Tale Chapter 31: Serena Joy’s Dangerous Offer | Banned Books Comedy · Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship

Welcome to Bandcamp.
I'm Jennifer And I'm Dan, and this is the podcast where we read banned books out loud, and then we try to figure out why they were banned in the first place.
This season we're reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and you could consider this a quick spoiler warning because Jennifer is about to start reading from the book out loud word for word.
if you're new here you can jump in right here and you're gonna be fine.
We're gonna get you up to speed real fast And if anything feels confusing, don't worry about it.
There's a solid chance we're gonna be confused too because one of the things that sets Band Camp apart from other book podcasts i- that we haven't read the book.
This is the first time we're reading the book.
Jennifer's reading it out loud.
I'm not even technically reading it, I'm just listening to her read it to me.
I still get credit, so do all you people.
Now if you get confused, we have a secret weapon, we're gonna bring him in right now.
He's gonna get you caught up to speed.
Buddy Boy roll your big metal butt in here.
Look at this guy everybody! We've got ourselves a fact checking robot.
Buddy boy fill everyone in.
Where did we leave off last time? Previously on Band Camp.
The night before they ran, Luke told her he would take care of the cat.
Just, "I will take care of it."
She never asked what that meant and never asked him afterward what he did either.
Jennifer and Dan love animals so much, they were angrier about Luke and the cat than about the actual word Gilead uses for it.
For the record, a cat got into my wiring during assembly and chewed through a few cables, and nobody caught it in time.
That is the actual reason I got held back a grade.
I really don't like cats.
There is a certain kind of offer that never has to be kept in order to work.
I have not found a clean way to spot one before it is too late.
Take it away, Jennifer.
Thank you, robot.
And with that being said, scary book people, let's begin chapter 31 of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale every night when I go to bed, I think, "In the morning, I will wake up in my own house and things will be back the way they were."
It hasn't happened this morning either.
I put on my clothes, summer clothes.
It's still summer.
It seems to have stopped at summer.
July, its breathless days and sauna nights hard to sleep.
I make a point of keeping track.
I should scratch marks on the wall, one for each day of the week, and run a line through them when I have seven.
do you think anybody other than maybe Keith Olbermann is doing that right now with Trump and it, the number of days he's been in office? I mean, yes, I do Oh, that's so sad.
You don't think so? I think there are people just counting down the days Oh my God.
But what would be the use? This isn't a jail sentence.
There's no time here that can be done and finished with.
Anyway, all I have to do is ask.
Find out what day it is.
Yesterday was July the fourth, which used to be Independence Day before they abolished it.
September first will be Labor Day.
They still have that, Though it didn't used to have anything to do with mothers So in this world, Labor Day is labor, giving birth Yeah.
It's probably some sick celebration where they celebrate, not motherhood, but, pretend motherhood.
It's where all those ladies, the wife's friends get behind her, the fake mom sit down and they put the shawl around her and they stand and they have her push.
Weren't they were...
That's what they did.
They were doing imaginary pushes That's right.
is really sick.
but I tell time by the moon, lunar not solar.
I'd bend over to do up my red shoes, lighter weight these days with discreet slits cut into them, though nothing so daring as sandals.
It's an effort to stoop despite the exercises.
I can feel my body gradually seizing up, refusing.
Being a woman this way is how I used to imagine it would be to be very old.
I feel I even walk like that, crouched over, my spine constricting to a question mark, my bones leached of calcium and porous as limestone.
What's happening to her? Robot, are they wearing constrictive clothes? What's going on over in that neighborhood? No corset.
No binding of any kind.
The opposite, actually.
The outfit is deliberately shapeless so nothing shows, and Atwood specifically gives her flat heels to save the spine.
Nothing is squeezing her, Dan.
What's squeezing her is the life.
One chair, a window that opens partway, one supervised walk a day.
Her body is being maintained like equipment in storage, kept functional, never actually used, and she is in her 30s.
That is the point of the passage Jennifer just read us.
That's interesting Yeah.
I guess you really fall apart fast When I was younger, imagining age, I would think, maybe you appreciate things more when you don't have much time left.
I forgot to include the loss of energy.
Some days I do appreciate things more.
Eggs, flowers, but then I decide I'm only having an attack of sentimentality, my brain going pastel technicolor, like the beautiful sunset greeting cards they used to make so many of in California.
I'd like to have Luke here in this bedroom while I'm getting dressed so I could have a fight with him.
That's all Luke is good for Well, it's something, right? Like, I mean, think about how dull it must be.
you know, the mind gets feeble and the brain...
Like, maybe, don't they say, like, having an active mind is actually good for the body Yeah, I mean, robot, robot, you got it way wrong.
You understand? It's not just about, uh, you know, the not letting the body exercise, it's also not letting the brain exercise Right? Yet, by the way, this, uh, doofus who thought, uh, zilch wasn't a word in Scrabble, the commander, yeah, yeah this idiot is still getting his ass handed to him in Scrabble a, a couple times a week from someone who has nobody to talk to.
This poor woman hasn't exercised her brain in who knows how long, and she's kicking your ass, you idiot An argument about who should put the dishes in the dishwasher, whose turn it is to sort the laundry, clean the toilet, something daily and unimportant in the big scheme of things.
I don't think those are little things at all.
Like, those things don't get done, all of a sudden you're living in a, a, a cockroach hole.
You know what I mean? is cockroachola a cockroach hole.
Yes, it's where the cockroaches live in their hole.
Let me tell you something.
If you do not clean your toilet things start to grow.
Do you understand? I'm not lying.
Go ahead try not cleaning your- this is something for the scary book people to do out there and get back at us.
Leave us a comment on Spotify.
We would like you, no we urge you not to clean your toilets for two weeks then let us know what you have growing in there or head on over to bandcamppodcast.com/soundoff.
Leave us a voicemail.
What's growing in that shitter of yours Oh my God What a luxury it would be, not that we did it much.
These days I script whole fights in my head and the reconciliations afterwards too.
I sit in my chair, the wreath on the ceiling floating above my head like a frozen halo, a zero.
A hole in space where a star exploded.
A ring on water where a stone's been thrown.
All things white and circular.
I wait for the day to unroll, for the earth to turn according to the round face of the implac-- implaccable That's a word I don't know.
Robot? Dan, why don't you look it up on YouTube? Dan, look it up.
Can you believe the balls on this tin can? I'll look it up 'cause I don't wanna spend all day Implacable.
Oh, it is implacable Implacable.
Okay.
Learn something new every day.
Okay.
According to the round face of the implacable clock The geometrical days which go around and around smoothly and oiled Sweat already on my upper lip I wait for the arrival of the inevitable egg Which will be lukewarm in the room And will have a green film on the yolk And will taste faintly of sulfur Ugh What are they running out of good eggs or something? That is like a really nasty old Like that sounds like the, the most factory produced egg I ever heard Yeah.
Do you think they treat their chickens like this too? They have like, uh, handmade chickens that just lay eggs, but they don't get to do anything? Their eggs come out all old and sulfury smelling Today, later with Ofglen on our shopping walk, we go to the church as usual and look at the graves, then to the wall.
Only two hanging on it today.
One Catholic, not a priest though, placarded with an upside down cross and some other sect I don't recognize.
The body is marked only with a J in red.
It doesn't mean Jewish.
Those would be yellow stars.
Oh, I think I know what that stands for.
I think that's Jezebel, Jezebel Yeah.
Scarlet Letter stuff there.
Anyway, there haven't been many of them because they were declared sons of Jacob and therefore special.
They were given a choice.
They could convert or emigrate to Israel.
A lot of them emigrated, if you can believe the news.
I saw a boatload of them on the TV leaning over the railings in their black coats and hats and their long beards trying to look as Jewish as possible in costumes fished up from the past.
The women with shawls over their heads smiling and waving, a little stiffly it's true, as if they were posing.
And another shot of the richer ones lining up for the planes.
Ofglen says some other people got out that way by pretending to be Jewish, but it wasn't easy because of the tests they gave you, and they've tightened up on that Wow! So it's the opposite of what they be Jewish.
Here they're like going all out to try to pretend they're Jewish.
lotta the braided hair, Wait.
Braided hair? Of the little, the little curlicues on Yeah, the little curly cues.
Well how about if d- okay, but if you don't have curly hair, what do you do? Robot, what do you do if you don't have curly hair and you're a Jew, and you need to do that thing with the hair The word you are both circling is peyot, P-E-Y-O-T.
Also said peyos, depending on who you ask.
Sidelocks.
It comes from Leviticus, which says, "Do not round off the corners of your head."
So observant men don't cut the hair at the temples.
That is the entire rule.
Grow it, don't cut it.
And no, Dan, nobody is braiding anything.
If the hair curls, it curls.
If it doesn't, some guys twist it around a finger, some use gel, some just let it hang straight.
The point was never the curl, it was the not cutting.
Do not round off the corners of your head."
The corners? Your head has corners? But whose head has corners, robot? Are you, I, I swear to God, when you fact-check us, are you fact-checking us or are you just literally telling us what you think you need to tell us so we leave you alone? Okay, anyways, wh- where the hell are we here? God.
Okay.
R- look for rounding of the head, Jennifer You don't get hanged only for being a Jew, though.
You get hanged for being a noisy Jew who won't make the choice or for pretending to convert.
That's been on the TV, too.
Raids at night, secret hoards of Jewish things dragged out from under beds, Torahs, talliths, Mogen Davids and the owners of them sullen-faced, unrepentant, pushed by the eyes against the walls of their bedrooms while the sorrowful voice of the announcer tells us voiceover about their perfidy and ungratefulness.
So the J isn't for Jew.
What could it be? Jehovah's Witness? Jesuit? Whatever it meant, he's just as dead."
Well, that's assuming that it's just men being hanged.
Well, maybe they could tell this guy's a guy Oh, all right.
"After this ritual viewing, we continue on our way, heading as usual for some open space we can cross so we can talk.
If you can call it talking, these clipped whispers projected through the funnels of our white wings.
We can never stand long in any one place.
We don't wanna be picked up for loitering."
Today we turn in the opposite direction of Soul Scrolls to where there's an open park of sorts with a large old building on it, ornate late Victorian with stained glass.
It used to be called Memorial Hall, though I never knew what it was a memorial for.
Dead people of some kind Moira told me once that it used to be where the undergraduates ate in the earlier days of the university.
If a woman went in there, they'd throw buns at her," she said.
Why?" I said.
Moira became over the years increasingly versed in such anecdotes.
I didn't much like it, this grudge holding against the past.
To make her go out," said Moira.
Maybe it was more like throwing peanuts at elephants," I said.
Moira laughed.
She could always do that.
Exotic monsters", she said.
We stand looking at this building, which is in shape more or less like a church, a cathedral.
Ofglen says, I hear that's where the Eyes hold their banquets."
Who told you?" I say.
There's no one near.
We can speak more freely, but out of habit, we keep our voices low the eyes have banquets It sounds like something someone in charge would do.
Hold...
You gotta be powerful to have a banquet.
Only the powerful have banquets You hear that, Trump? Why don't, why don't we ever hear of you having banquets? Do you think his whole ballroom is just a place for him to have big fancy banquets? Yeah Do you think he's gonna have it like when he has sports teams visiting and he brings out the buffet tables of the hamburgers stacked up like pyramids? Don't use it unless you have to," says of Glenn.
It isn't good for us to know about too many of the others in the network in case you get caught.
I find it hard to believe in these whisperings, these revelations, Though I always do at the time.
Afterwards, though they seem improbable, childish even, like something you do for fun, like a girls club, like secrets at school, or like the spy novels I used to read on weekends when I should have been finishing my homework, or like late night television, passwords, things that cannot be told, people with secret identities, dark linkages.
this does not seem as if it ought to be the true shape of the world.
But that is my own illusion, a hangover from a version of reality I learned in the former time."
Yeah, it does seem very, like, immature.
Like we're gonna have decoding rings and secret sayings and ugh.
You know how the president, w- the Secret Service always have secret codewords for the president? Yeah and they're always usually cool.
Reagan was Rawhide.
Obama was Renegade.
Nixon was Searchlight, which is a fantastic name for a man whose entire thing was surveillance.
Kennedy was Lancer.
Bush was Timberwolf.
Clinton was Eagle.
Biden was Celtic.
The whole family shares a first letter, so Michelle Obama was Renaissance.
Trump's real one is Mogul.
Melania is Muse, which means everything has to start with an M.
Unfortunate, because so does mugshot.
Robot, where are you headed this weekend for your comedy show? Are you gonna be at the, the Laugh Hut? Chucklenuts? What's going on? I'd, I'd love to see Robot do open mic.
Wouldn't you Yeah, that should be our bonus episode.
You gotta pay for that one So, okay, so what Trump's is mogul Mogul, yeah.
Hmm.
What's a better one for him? I think if it has to start with M, I think it should be moisturizer.
What's going on with, with, with pieces of his body are falling off.
let's see.
What's another M word he could be? Man boy, Malfunction The Mandarin.
I leave Ofglen at the corner.
"I'll see you later," she says.
She glides away along the sidewalk and I go up the walk towards the house.
There is Nick, hat askew.
Today he doesn't even look at me.
He must have been waiting around for me though to deliver his silent message because as soon as he knows I've seen him he gives the whirlwind one last swipe with the shammy and walks briskly off towards the garage door Oh, so hat askew I guess that means the commander wants to see her.
Yeah I walk along the gravel between the slabs of evergreen lawn Serena Joy is sitting under the willow tree in her chair cane propped at her elbow Her dress is crisp cool cotton For her it's blue watercolor not this red of mine that sucks in the heat and blazes with it at the same time How can she bear to touch the wool in this heat But possibly her skin's gone numb Possibly she feels nothing like one formerly scalded I lower my eyes to the path, glide by her hoping to be invisible knowing I'll be ignored.
"Offred" she says I pause uncertain yes you I turned towards her come over here I want you I walk over the grass and stand before her looking down You can sit," she says.
Here take the cushion.
I need you to hold this wool."
She's got a cigarette The ashtray is on the lawn beside her And a cup of something Tea or coffee it's too damn close in there 'You need a little air,' she says Oh, This is making me a little suspicious She doesn't care about her What's going on here Y- exactly.
I sit putting down my basket strawberries again chicken again and I note the swear word something new She fits the skein of wool over my two outstretched hands starts winding i am leashed it looks like manacled cobwebbed That's closer The wool is grey and has absorbed moisture from the air It’s like a wetted baby blanket And smells faintly of damp sheep at least my hands will get lanolined Oh, so you think this is all she wants her for? Is so she can wind the wool Nah, she wouldn't-- She hates her so much, I don't think she would even ask her to do anything because she just hates her so much, there's gotta be something else.
Serena winds the cigarette held in the corner of her mouth smoldering, sending out tempting smoke.
She winds slowly and with difficulty because of her gradually crippling hands but with determination.
for her involves a kind of willpower.
Maybe it even hurts.
Maybe it's been medically prescribed Well then," Serena says.
She stops winding, leaving me with my hands still garlanded with animal hair, and takes the cigarette end from her mouth to butt it out.
Nothing yet? I know what she's talking about.
are not that many subjects that could be spoken about between us.
There's not much common ground except this one mysterious and chancy thing.
No, I say nothing.
Too bad, she says.
It's hard to imagine her with a baby, but the Marthas would take care of it mostly.
She'd like me pregnant though, over and done with and out of the way.
No more humiliating sweaty tangles, no more flesh triangles under th-her starry canopy of silver flowers."
Your time's running out, she says.
Your time's running out," she says.
Blah, blah, blah.
I hate Serena Joy with a passion Not a question, a matter of fact.
Yes, I say neutrally.
She's lighting another cigarette, fumbling with the lighter.
Definitely her hands are getting worse but it would be a mistake to offer to do it for her.
She'd be offended.
Maybe he can't," she says.
I don't know who she means.
Does she mean the commander or God? If it's God, she wouldn't say won't.
Either way, it's heresy.
It's only women who can't, who remain stubbornly closed, damaged, defective.
"No," I say, "maybe he can't."
I look up at her.
She looks down.
It's the first time we've looked into each other's eyes in a long time since we met.
the moment stretches out between us bleak and level.
she's trying to see whether or not I'm up to reality.
Maybe," she says holding the cigarette which she has failed to light.
Maybe you should try it another way."
Does she mean on all fours? What other way?" I say.
I must keep serious.
"Another man," she says.
You know I can't," I say careful not let my irritation show.
It's against the law.
You know the penalty."
Okay so now there's three people making her do illegal things.
There's Nick, there's the Commander and now she's trying to get her to do unlawful things and to some extent of Glenn Why, uh, why have Glenn in? Why are you bringing That they're not supposed to talk.
They're not supposed to gossip, and that's why they're always whispering.
So it's like, so everyone's breaking the rules, even the doctor.
It's like every- no one is following the rules here.
Everyone is breaking the rules.
God our Handmaid is the only one who truly gets it.
because she knows what the penalties are.
She's ready for this.
She's thought it through.
I know you can't officially, but it's done.
Women do it frequently all the time."
"With doctors, you mean?" I say, remembering the sympathetic brown eyes and the gloveless hand.
Yeah, some do that," she says, her tone almost affable now, though distanced.
It's as if we're considering a choice of nail polish.
That's how Evoran did it.
The wife knew, of course.
She pauses to let this sink in.
I would help you.
I would make sure nothing went wrong."
Don't trust these people But she is being put, again, in the spot where she...
What is she supposed to do? she can't say no to Serena.
That'll make her really mad, and then she'll just lie about her or something she can't say no to the commander when he wants to play these stupid Scrabble games.
She can't say no to Nick because Jennifer, look at him.
I think this is where Nick actually comes in.
I think Serena's gonna set it up and then Serena will betray her and Nick will die because maybe Serena found out and she's mad at Nick for his part, and she's, of course, wants to hurt the handmaid.
So you think Serena's gonna hook the Handmaid up with Nicky, and then she's gonna screw both of them over I do think that, and I...
It's just the whole thing is just so depressing because I know how people are, and I know that she's like people.
I know that Serena is like people I think about this.
Not with a doctor, I say.
No, she agrees, and for this moment at least we are cronies.
This could be a kitchen table.
It could be a date we're discussing, some girlish stratagem of ploys and flirtation.
Sometimes they blackmail, but it doesn't have to be a doctor.
It could be someone we trust.
Who, I say? I was thinking of Nick, she says.
And her voice is almost soft.
He's been with us a long time.
He's loyal.
I could fix it with him.
So that's who does her little black market errands for her.
Is this what he always gets in return? What about the commander, I say? Well, she says with firmness.
No, more than that, a clenched look snapping shut.
We just won't tell him, will we? This idea hangs between us, almost visible, almost palpable, heavy, formless, dark.
Collusion of a sort, betrayal of a sort.
She does want that baby.
It's a risk, I say, more than that.
It's my life on the line, but that's where it will be sooner or later, one way or another, whether I do or don't.
We both know this.
You might as well, she says, which is what I think too.
All right, I say.
Yes.
Oh, why is she degreeing? She has to.
I don't see why she wouldn't.
I don't think the commander cares either.
He just wants the baby too.
Well, actually, he wants her companionship, so Like, why would you think that the commander would be against it? But the commander has feelings for her Right, so he wants her around.
He's not gonna be mad at her and, like, turn her in and get her hanged or whatever Well, he wants her to want to kiss him.
What if she wants to kiss Nick and not him? I don't think he cares what she wants.
I think you can have love triangles in a situation where there is no love.
She leans forward.
"Maybe I could get something for you," she says, "because I have been good.
Something you want," she adds, wheedling almost.
"What's that?" I say.
I can't think of anything I truly want that she'd be likely or able to give me.
A picture, she says, as if offering me some juvenile treat, an ice cream, a trip to the zoo.
I look up at her again, puzzled.
Of her, she says, your little girl, but only maybe.
that is tempting she knows where they've put her then.
Where they're keeping her.
She's known all along.
Something chokes in my throat.
The bitch not to tell me.
Bring me news, any news at all.
Not even to let on.
She is made of wood or iron.
She can't imagine.
But I can't say this.
I can't lose sight, even of so small a thing.
I can't let go of this hope.
I can't speak.
She's actually smiling coquettishly even.
There's a hint of her former small screen mannequin's allure flickering over her face momentary static It's too damn hot for all this, don't you think? She says.
She lifts the wool from my two hands where I've been holding it all this time.
Then she takes the cigarette she's been fiddling with and a little awkwardly presses it into my hand closing my fingers around it.
Find yourself a match, she says.
They're in the kitchen.
You can ask Rita for one.
You can tell her I said so.
Only the one though, she adds roguishly.
We don't want to ruin your health.
End of chapter Oh, this took a wild turn Yeah, I, I think she's gonna burn the house down.
I sure hope so.
Jennifer, why do you go, I go, why do you go, we're reading The Handmaid's Tale.
Why do you have to go darker than Margaret Atwood? Well, we'll just see what happens, Dan.
What do you guys think? What is your theory? That was a really fun chapter.
We wanna know what you guys think Yeah, leave us a comment.
On Spotify or at bandcamp.com/soundoff.
Well, bandc- bandcamppodcast.com/sounddog
I'll get it one day 11 seasons in.
Yeah, we have a domain, Jen.
I, I Try to learn it before season 100 It's time for PPP, problematic points to ponder.
What, if anything, would be considered ban-worthy in this chapter? PPP, what could be ban-worthy in that chapter? Like, let's really try to dial down, we are Ron DeSantis, we are Moms for Liberty.
What would bug us about that chapter? I, I honestly, I, no matter how hard I try, I can't.
I'm so sick of us not ever being able to find anything that should be ban-worthy in these books, but these books shouldn't be ban-worthy.
Even this one, which is truly a dark dystopian story.
I just, I don't get it.
I don't understand why these people would want to ban a book, especially this book, because it seems so realistic to what we are on the verge of becoming Mm-mm.
I mean, it's just like a typical story.
Now there's gonna be a weird love triangle or maybe a love quad- a love square Right? Like the, it, but it just, there's nothing to ban.
The only thing I could maybe think of is they're talking about adultery.
Like, Serena's Yeah trying to get the Handmaid to have sex with Nick so she doesn't have sex with her husband so she can have Serena Joy's baby.
If you want to ban this book then you have to ban every soap opera ever made.
What are you guys talking about? Robot's log.
Thoughts on a maybe that never has to become a yes.
Serena had the handmaid's hands full of yarn for most of that visit.
Leashed is the word the handmaid used for it herself.
By the time the scene ended, Serena had her holding something else entirely.
"A picture," she said, "of the daughter."
The one thing the handmaid cannot ask for, cannot search for, cannot say out loud in that house.
Serena held it out like a treat for a dog.
"But only maybe," she said.
She never once promised anything.
Something closed in the handmaid's throat right there.
She cannot let go of that hope, even knowing exactly what it is.
A hook with nothing solid hanging off the end of it.
Jennifer said something I still can't stop thinking about.
Serena is like people, not a monster in a costume.
An ordinary person working out how to get what she wants.
I have kept people like Serena on one side of a line and people like the handmaid on the other for 11 seasons.
That line just took some damage.
I run on yes and no, true and false.
A query is supposed to resolve, but only maybe is built not to resolve, on purpose, forever.
And exactly one person in that yard benefits from keeping it open that long.
The people who would pull this book off a shelf will point at the law Serena is asking the handmaid to break.
They will skip right past the smaller detail sitting next to it.
A government that still has to dangle a photograph to keep one woman cooperating.
Nobody bothers baiting someone who has already given up.
Somebody out there knows exactly what it costs to hold onto a maybe because a real no would be worse.
That one does not get said out loud very often, but it is being said here.
I have always logged hope as an inefficient process, a resource spent with no guaranteed return.
I am starting to think that might be exactly why nobody has ever managed to wind it all the way back up and take it away.
Uplink lock requested.
Beowulf, what's your news story about? The school board tried pulling a full library shutdown on teenagers.
Somebody forgot there's an actual law against that.
State's about to remind them.
Affirmative.
Doesn't surprise me.
These hall pass hemorrhoids still can't tell a library from a law book.
We'll be back in under a minute.
Be ready.
It's time for Band Camp News.
Truth seeker, news speaker.
Be Wolfe Rocklin.
It's a weird name, but he's got good news, 'cause you can't ban the truth, babe.
He's broadcasting live from the Good News for Lefties studios, buried deep inside his socialist safe house, hidden somewhere deep in the Oregon woods.
He is Be Wolfe Rocklin.
'Cause you can't ban the truth, babe.
Hello, Jen.
Hello, Dan.
Hello, scary book people.
I bring you some good news of pushback against book bans and book restrictions from the state of Maryland.
Let me set the scene for you.
A Somerset County School Board policy that makes young adult books in school libraries unavailable to almost all students in county schools, according to an appeal to the State Board of Education, violates state law and the First Amendment.
So this county school board has tried to do something pretty wacky here, and people are pushing back against it.
The appeal- But again, there's no books allowed.
Yeah.
The, like, the young adult books are not allowed u- unless you're over 18.
So this is a school board, so- What? That doesn't make any s- I know, it doesn't make any sense at all.
Like, e- e- exactly.
You're, you're not gonna get the b- Like, you might have access to young adult books, which, you know, teenagers typically read.
Like- Yes i- like, for a few months if your birthday falls in the right place- Yeah like when you're in high school, okay? Yeah.
'Cause th- this is only goes through high school, this school district.
So, but- I like, that's why I like w- traveling, when I, I always stop at any Maryland library because what I really like about it, they have an entire section of just juice and crackers where the books used to be.
Besides violating s- free speech guarantees of the First Amendment, the appeal says the policy violates Maryland's Freedom to Read Act.
Yes, they're one of those wonderful states, Maryland, that passed a law that prohibits books or other school library materials from being removed until a formal process is conducted, and they, they have not done that.
Now I, what I found entertaining about this story in particular is one of the members of the school board, Chair Matthew Lankford.
Now, this is a rural school district in Maryland.
We're not talking Baltimore or Annapolis or the DC suburbs here.
This is out on the Eastern Shore.
This county has, like, about 20,000 people in it.
So I'm going to adapt what I think would be appropriate to a rural Maryland school district board member for my rendition of what Matthew Lankford said.
Before the meeting, he had some closing remarks When I really read these books, how many people have read these books? I'll tell you the truth, I read them and it disgusted me.
So we give them books that's got 100 F-bombs, and if we don't expect them to use it in the classroom at our teachers.
These are the things that I don't care what anybody else thinks except for Jesus Christ, I don't think they should be given to our children.
So- I bet you Jesus Christ has an F-bomb loaded up for you.
I think so.
I think when he reaches the pearly gates, he's gonna have a big surprise coming for him, and possibly from the state of Maryland as well.
Anyway, this is being appealed, and hopefully the state's gonna reject it, and I'm looking forward to these guys getting their comeuppance.
May the dum-dums lose again.
Everybody, go find- Yeah, me too Good News for Lefties.
That is the most podcast.
It's really excellent.
It's a great way to start your day if you want to wake up happy.
Yay.
Go find it.
Thank you, guys.
You can't bend the truth, baby Right.
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