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SYSK Selects: How Book Banning Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: s Y s K Selects, I've chosen How Book Banning Works,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: which is an episode we released all the way back
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand and twelve, but it's as pertinent today,
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  Speaker 1: sadly as it was back then. I hope you feel
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  Speaker 1: inspired to go out and read a book that somebody
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  Speaker 1: didn't want you to read, because you can enjoy. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My Heart
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
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  Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. Do do do
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: do do do? Just just just did my little best anchor
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: man move, getting the papers all in order, reading the prompter.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't that be great? I don't feel so funny
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: these days. Man, Well, we need to get the teleprompter
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: writer to juice UF. You're through jokes. I agree. Everyone
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  Speaker 1: knows that, right. We don't actually make any of this
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  Speaker 1: stuff up. We have somebody right the show and we
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  Speaker 1: read it. This is a very very um well rehearsed, practiced,
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  Speaker 1: labored podcast. That's right. I think this is the second
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  Speaker 1: of two good topics today. Yeah. Part one a sexuality huh?
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  Speaker 1: Part two banning books? Yeah, what do they have to
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  Speaker 1: do with each other? Nothing? I thought I saw a
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  Speaker 1: common thread. No that I've looked, I've forgotten it. But
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  Speaker 1: yeah there was something discrimination maybe, I guess. So maybe
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  Speaker 1: we'll find out. It'll pop up. Possibly it'll be like
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  Speaker 1: the Peewee secret word of the day. Oh yeah, isn't
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  Speaker 1: that what it was called? I think so many it
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  Speaker 1: was cool? So you got an intro proper for this
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  Speaker 1: or chuck? Yes, are you familiar with the last week
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  Speaker 1: of September? Yeah you are, yeah, through it before. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's after the third week and before the first week
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  Speaker 1: of October. That's exactly right. It just so happens that
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: that very weak is banned book week. Did not know
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: that existed? Well it does today it does. Yeah. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you haven't heard a banned book week before? Uh? No
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  Speaker 1: I have. I've seen like the subversive um displays outside
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  Speaker 1: of b Dalton booksellers, and you know, and basically the
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  Speaker 1: whole point of it is, it's like, hey, people have
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  Speaker 1: tried to ban these books, so make sure you read
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  Speaker 1: these because it means that there's somebody out there who
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  Speaker 1: doesn't want you to. That's right. Hey, look what I've got.
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  Speaker 1: I've got to kill a mocking bird over here. Yeah
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  Speaker 1: that's a bit. Yeah. Yeah. So the whole point of
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  Speaker 1: Banned Books Week is to celebrate intellectual freedom. That's because
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  Speaker 1: there are people out there who would take that away
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  Speaker 1: from you if they could. We know it. You go
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: back and listen to some of our podcasts, there's certain
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: words that were beeped out because the man has as
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  Speaker 1: under his thumb. Thanks gi um So. I would strongly
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  Speaker 1: recommend it's coming up. By the time this thing gets released,
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  Speaker 1: will be in September. That's right. We should probably post
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  Speaker 1: something about band book Week when it comes Okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: September thirty through October six Actually, um so, truly the
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  Speaker 1: first week in October this year. It's weird than they
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  Speaker 1: would put it the last week of October, first week
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  Speaker 1: of OCTOBERA or last week of September. Yeah, yeah, that
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  Speaker 1: was confusing for a second. Let's let's talk band books man.
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  Speaker 1: More than eleven thousand books have been challenged since Josh,
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  Speaker 1: that's just since eighty two they've been I was reading
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: about The Catcher in the rye um. It came out
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: in Wow, man, I wish I knew it came out
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  Speaker 1: in the either the late fifties or the early sixties.
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  Speaker 1: At the late fifties or nineteen sixty, because in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty a teacher who assigned it to his class for
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  Speaker 1: reading got fired. Really yeah, Um, it's one of my
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  Speaker 1: favorite books, is it. Yeah? And it's one that I've
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  Speaker 1: reread several times over the years, and it always takes
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  Speaker 1: on a little different meaning depending on my age, which
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  Speaker 1: is interesting. Ye have you read The Catcher's Companion? No,
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  Speaker 1: that's we got that as a gift, right, No, I
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  Speaker 1: haven't ready yet. It's just like footnotes and extrapolations and
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: explanations like this guy went into catching the World of
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  Speaker 1: Catcher in the Rye and like made footnotes of the
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  Speaker 1: whole thing. It's actually thicker than The Catcher in the
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  Speaker 1: Rye by the way. Okay, so fifty one within nine
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  Speaker 1: years somebody lost their job because they assigned that book
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  Speaker 1: to read. That's pretty common. Usually with UM book banning,
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  Speaker 1: it comes out of um the public school system. Um. Yeah, library,
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  Speaker 1: So well, that's it's usually school libraries. So if you
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  Speaker 1: go on the internet and you look for banned books,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to find a lot of um uh confusion.
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  Speaker 1: There's this body called the American Library Association, and a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people think that they're in charge of banning books.
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  Speaker 1: It's absolutely the opposite of the truth. The American Library
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  Speaker 1: Association is a it's it's basically the librarians lobby, and
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  Speaker 1: they're committed to no censorship whatsoever. Yeah, ask any librarian
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  Speaker 1: and they're they're gonna probably be in favor of not
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  Speaker 1: banning books right. Um. As a matter of fact, the
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  Speaker 1: a LA maintains a library Bill of Rights, and in
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  Speaker 1: this library Bill of Rights is a provision for the
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  Speaker 1: free access to libraries for minors, which basically says this,
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  Speaker 1: we have a bunch of books that we're not going
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  Speaker 1: to make any judgments on. If we have a book
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  Speaker 1: that you don't want your kid to read, it's your
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  Speaker 1: job as their parents to monitor what they read, and
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  Speaker 1: you can decide what they read or not, but you
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  Speaker 1: that's it. Your opinion doesn't extend to anyone else's kids.
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  Speaker 1: So that means that if you want to ban a book,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to tell you no because you're responsible for
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  Speaker 1: your child, but not everybody else's child too, which means,
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  Speaker 1: in short, that the a l A doesn't censor books.
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  Speaker 1: This is a big deal because this happens a lot.
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  Speaker 1: There's eleven thousand challenges you said since two since nineteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty two, and I think there were in two thousand eleven.
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  Speaker 1: There were three hundred and twenty six challenges last year. Um.
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  Speaker 1: A few of these are the Color of Earth series
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  Speaker 1: by Kim Dong Hua and The Reasons Why, Nudity, sex education,
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  Speaker 1: the Hunger Games trilogy, My Mom's Having a Baby, a
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  Speaker 1: kid's month by month guide to pregnancy. But we certainly
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  Speaker 1: don't want our kids to learn anything about that, No,
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  Speaker 1: especially not with um mom, Uh, Brave New World by Huxley, insensitivity, nudity, racism, um,
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  Speaker 1: To Kill a Mockingbird, like we mentioned harper Ley's classic
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  Speaker 1: because of offensive language and racism. And those are just
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  Speaker 1: the few of the nine I'm sorry, ten most challenged
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  Speaker 1: books of last year. Right. Um. You'll also of finding
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  Speaker 1: just about every list. The most challenged series since two
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  Speaker 1: thousand is the Harry Potter books. Um. They received three
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  Speaker 1: thousand challenges. Um, and that was from up to I
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  Speaker 1: believe like two thousand eight or nine, maybe to know
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of two thousand ten. They were from two thousands to
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  Speaker 1: two thousand ten, they received three thousand challenges and and
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  Speaker 1: it was because it had satanic overtones or undertones, one
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  Speaker 1: of the two, that's how or mid tones people challenging
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  Speaker 1: it felt at least so for the most part, when
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: you see a book being challenged your band, it's because
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  Speaker 1: people are concerned about its influence on children. But as
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  Speaker 1: we've seen, the American Library Association says, hey, man, kids, kids,
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  Speaker 1: there's free There should be free access to information for kids. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Judy Blooms Forever is one that's always on the list
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  Speaker 1: too for that reason because it deals with a uh,
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  Speaker 1: young girls, burgeoning sexuality and confusion and the awkwardness and
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  Speaker 1: the thrill that comes along with that. And that is
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  Speaker 1: that was a great description. Yeah from a forty one
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  Speaker 1: year old man with a beard. Well, dude, that was
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  Speaker 1: fourteen Once the girls and boys are all like, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we're all scared and awkward and thrilled. So how do
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  Speaker 1: you how do you do this man? How do you
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  Speaker 1: how do you issue a formal challenge to a book?
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  Speaker 1: And what does that consist of? What does it mean?
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  Speaker 1: It means that you have gone to a library, a
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  Speaker 1: single library and said I want to challenge this book,
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  Speaker 1: and the librarian decides whether or not to ban it.
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  Speaker 1: So it's as simple as that. That's how book banning works. UM.
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  Speaker 1: And you don't even have to use such lofty language
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  Speaker 1: like I want to issue a challenge. You can just say, like,
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  Speaker 1: this book needs to be taken out of this library.
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  Speaker 1: This book is filth um, this book is pervasively vulgar.
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  Speaker 1: That's a big one. Um. And the librarian at that
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  Speaker 1: moment decides whether a book gets banned or not, and
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  Speaker 1: for the most part, they air on the side of
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  Speaker 1: not banning them. But when they say okay, let's take
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  Speaker 1: that book out, that book has just been banned. So
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that a banned. That a book has
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  Speaker 1: been banned, it doesn't mean it's been banned across the country,
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  Speaker 1: although some some countries have like banned books and its entirety,
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  Speaker 1: like the country's entirety. But in the US and in
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  Speaker 1: the modern world, it usually means that somewhere in the
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  Speaker 1: United States, there's a group of people, whether it's kids
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  Speaker 1: in a school district or kids people who are served
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  Speaker 1: by a public library, who don't have access to a
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  Speaker 1: certain book because one person found it offensive and convinced
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  Speaker 1: the librarian to to make the decision for everybody else
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  Speaker 1: based on that person's objections. That's a banned book, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: person or persons. A lot of times it's a group
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  Speaker 1: pointed together with like a list, even, and they'll rally
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  Speaker 1: the troops and say, you know, come on out from
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  Speaker 1: your your homes and let's get together and submit a list.
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  Speaker 1: And the librarians, like you said, most times will say
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  Speaker 1: no because they generally have the courts on their side
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  Speaker 1: if it gets to that point. For the most part,
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  Speaker 1: the courts like to defend the right, you know, the
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  Speaker 1: First Amendment. But I mean, think about that pressure, especially
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  Speaker 1: if you, like you are a school librarian and the
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  Speaker 1: school board is telling you, like, hey, don't forget what
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  Speaker 1: we you employ you, and we're telling you remove this book,
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  Speaker 1: and the librarians like, no, ts, that's that's against the
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  Speaker 1: First Amendment. Um, so should talk about some of the laws.
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  Speaker 1: I think we should. Let's talk about Do you want
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  Speaker 1: to talk about the history of it? Yeah? Um who
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  Speaker 1: wrote this one? I think this was congered too, and
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  Speaker 1: I don't think so. Oh yeah, it was a freelancer, Okay. Um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, basically since the days of Socrates, they've been
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: trying to ban teachings of some sort. At the other um,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: he was heavily scrutinized, and back then if you wanted
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  Speaker 1: to ban something, he just burned the few copies of
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: it that existed and there was no problem. He was
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  Speaker 1: made to drink hemlock for what he for what? T Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, I feel like if there's two copies of
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: in existence and you get both copies and you set
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: them on fire, and then what happened? What came along
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: well the printing press and all of a sudden you
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  Speaker 1: had to officially try and ban a book because there
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: were too many to gather up and burn. And you
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: remember the Star Chamber starring Michael Douglas. Did you ever
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: watch that? They were the real Star Chamber? Did you?
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  Speaker 1: Did you? There was a real okay, so the real
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  Speaker 1: Star Chamber UM that was I think created in Stuart England.
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  Speaker 1: Um Stewart era England. Man, I probably shouldn't even say that,
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  Speaker 1: because I'm not sure. In England in the seventeenth century,
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  Speaker 1: there was a group of judges that were in charge
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  Speaker 1: of like they were like the elite judges. They were
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  Speaker 1: the censor board. Basically was one of their roles, and
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  Speaker 1: then Henry the Eighth came along and got rid of them,
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  Speaker 1: but he started his own kind of censorship with licensing laws.
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  Speaker 1: They basically said that the state had the opportunity to
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  Speaker 1: censor things before they were even published. So that was
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  Speaker 1: one of the earliest forms of straight up book banning,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: book censorship. Good point, it happened a long time ago. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Two Board of Education Island Trees School District v. Piko. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's a mouthful. Um. They said basically that you couldn't
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  Speaker 1: remove library material just because like a school official doesn't
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  Speaker 1: agree with the ideas. They said that the books on
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  Speaker 1: the on their list were quote just plain filthy, and
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: some people said, now you were going to sue you
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  Speaker 1: for that? Well, the Supreme Court said, so basically, it
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  Speaker 1: has to be pervasively vulgar. I guess that's why they
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  Speaker 1: use those words, because that's what they can actually ban
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: a book if who finds it that is there. I
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  Speaker 1: think society basically well, for for the most part, um
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  Speaker 1: as far as books go, for banning a book really
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  Speaker 1: tough to do, as once it reaches the Supreme Court,
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  Speaker 1: they're going to be like, no, it's a book put
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: it back. It's obscenity. That's not protected at all. Right, Well,
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  Speaker 1: because the kicker there is the number three rule that
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  Speaker 1: they decided, you know, should be used to determine if
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  Speaker 1: something is I guess filthy, was it could contain no literary, artistic, political,
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  Speaker 1: or scientific value. And that's the one where you know,
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  Speaker 1: you can pretty much say claim any book has value
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  Speaker 1: like that. That's how we have hardcore pornography. Still, I'm sorry,
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  Speaker 1: so you can say this is art that's true. Um
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  Speaker 1: So that that case, that two um Island Trees case
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  Speaker 1: or Pico case, I don't know what they call it,
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  Speaker 1: that was a really big deal because it took place
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  Speaker 1: in a school library and um it basically the Supreme
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  Speaker 1: Court said school libraries are special places. Schools are places
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  Speaker 1: of inquiry, and so their repository of knowledge, meaning their library,
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  Speaker 1: has special protection. Like we understand that you're worried about
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  Speaker 1: the children's minds being corrupted, but you don't get to
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: decide that, like, this is information that's out there, and
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: as long as it's basically not like hardcore pornography, child pornography,
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  Speaker 1: obscenity like it should it has every right to be
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: in there. Under the first first Amendment. It was a
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: big deal. It was a big deal. Uh. So was
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I remember this one because I was on a newspaper
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: staff at the time and I got interviewed for the news.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, like the local news came out Hazelwood
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: School District v uh kur maya. Um. That was very
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: famously when newspaper. High school newspapers basically were said to
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: not have the same rights as like if you were
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: an adult running a newspaper, and it was not a
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: form of public expression, so schools could, uh, in the end,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: kind of censor what was going in these things, at
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: least in like school curriculum. I thought it was in
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the paper in the paper too. I'm sorry, I thought
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you meant in these things meaning libraries. Yeah, no, no no, no,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: in the in the but it was extended into classroom
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: curriculum too like that, which was a big deal. Yeah.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Did you read that article about Texas. Yeah, let's get
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: to that. You want to Yeah, okay, So, um, Texas
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: has this um very controversial textbook review committee that wields
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of power because textbook or Texas is the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: biggest textbook buyer in the country, and so if you're
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a textbook manufacturer and one state is ordering most of
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: your textbooks, You're just gonna print one and send it
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to everybody. Yeah. It's basically Texas and California are the
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  Speaker 1: two states that wield the most power because they spend
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the most dough because they have the most school aged
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: kids basically, right, exactly, so they basically say what Texas
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: decides goes in their textbooks goes in the textbooks for
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of other states as well, not just Texas. Right. Yeah.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I looked at the expense of a textbook and I
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: think one of the manufacturers said something like several million
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: dollars can go into a like a major biology textbook
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: because of like the illustrations and everything that goes into it.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And they're like, we can't make one of these for
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Texas and one for other states. It's just everyone's gonna
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: get Texas version of the truth. Exactly. So Texas has
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: this committee that is largely conservative that um starting and
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I think two thousand nine, uh basically held hearings on
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: revisions that they wanted to see done to social studies curriculum.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: These are elected people too, by the way, which is
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: important because apparently a lot of them can buy their
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: way right on that list. Okay, so social studies, you've
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: got history, sociology, economics, and um. A lot of the
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: stuff that they were adding in there were like, um,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I guess kind of slanted everything toward a little more
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: towards the idea that the founders of the United States
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: were Christian. Um, that the the they One of the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: things they wanted to get in there was not just
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King's non violent civil rights protests, but the
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Black Panthers violent civil rights protests were another one. Um.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And if you're a conservative, you you're like, well, okay,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I I agree with a lot of what these people
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: are saying. The problem is is what they were saying
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: was that there's a liberal slant to ecademy and that
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: they were taking it upon themselves to correct that by
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: putting a conservative slant. Yeah. One of the other amendments
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: was to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: who inspired revolutions of the late eighteenth century in nineteenth century,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and they said let's replace him with Thomas Akenis and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: John Calvin instead. Another one in economics, um, they wanted
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: to add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, champions of
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the free market economic theory. To the list of economist
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: studies we talked about, well, Milton Friedman in one where
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: basically he used Chile as a laboratory for UM reagan
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Omics before Reagan was president, the trickle down economic Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I remember that. UM and then one of the ones
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: that was shot down by Democrat Mavis Knight, wanted to
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: introduce an amendment requiring students study the reasons for the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: founding Fathers protecting a religious freedom by not saying one
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: religion is good above all else. And that was actually
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: struck down. They said, you can't put that in this book. Right,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: she was a Democrat who introduced it. Yeah, it was public.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: The Conservatives said no, Well they you know, basically vote
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: along party lines. So the vote was tend to four
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. So it was a big deal,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: like it had. It was one of those things that
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: kind of went under reported and underestimated. But there's a
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: really good documentary out there that came out and I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: think two thousand nine, the Revisionaries UM and I think
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: it's up on Netflix streaming right now. It is Scott
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Thurman and uh al I saw it was a trailer,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: but it looked pretty good, and I mean it was
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: a big deal. It's not just like some people in
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Texas want to change some textbooks. It's like has national implications, right,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: It's an info war basically, And that's what book banning
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: is based on. In a lot of ways as well.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: It's like if you can remove a different viewpoint, especially
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: when when it's being presented to kids, and you can
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: keep that viewpoint from taking from German eating in there
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: and they're emerging mind or worldview absolutely, and so books
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: like UM, Daddy's New Roommate gets banned. Yeah, about a
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: boy whose dad has a new boyfriend. Now he's a
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: divorced dad and his new roommate moves in as gay
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: and UM Sarah Palin herself asked for that to be
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: removed from the library when she was UM the mayor
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: of Wasilla, Alaska. Oh yeah, I remember that. And that
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: guy came out and said that woman is my mortal enemy.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Really and thanks for the press. That's what he should
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: have said to UH. In the meantime, in Texas, UM
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Mary Helen Barlanga UM has tried repeatedly to get Latino
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: figures um included in textbooks as role models for the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: large Hispanic population in Texas, and she's been repeatedly denied,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: to the point where in two thousand ten she stopped
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: out of a meeting saying, they can't just pretend this
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: is white America and that we don't exist. These aren't experts,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: these aren't historians. They're just rewriting history. So pretty hard words. Yeah,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: things job. Do you want to hear some other challenged authors,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Let's man, because there's there's challenges all over the place,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: apparently Judy Bloom of course, Robert Cormier or Cormier? Uh,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: did you ever read I Am the Cheese when you're
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: growing up? Nope? Or The Chocolate War. I think I
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: read that one Great books band many times. J. K. Rowling,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: she is uh, like I said, she is, I guess
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: of the devil because a lot of people have a
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: problem with the Harry Potter books. Um, Katherine Patterson Bridge
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to Terri Bethia, I'm Stephen King may Angelou can't have
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: any of that. Yeah. The Alabama State Textbook Committee said that, um,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I know why the Cage Bird Sings encourages bitterness toward
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: white people. R. L. Stein who was sort of like
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a Stephen King for kids. Yeah, goose Bumps. Yeah, and uh,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I think I actually worked on one of his little
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: TV shows, The Nightmare Room was a nightmare room, I
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: think so, uh yeah, back in the day. And John Steinbeck,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of course, yeah, in nine of Mice and Men was
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: banned in Chattanooga because Steinbeck was well known for his
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: anti business attitude. Um. And then Alvin Schwartz was number
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: one and hero one of my favorite sets of books,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: scary stories to tell him the Dark. I never heard
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: of this. Oh man. They were scary with the most
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: ghastly illustrations you've ever seen. They're awesome. And those bands
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: because they're scary, and I guess so I was probably
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: satanic to um. So we were talking about how if
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: if a book is challenged, UM, it's probably if it
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: gets to the Supreme Court, Supreme Court is probably gonna
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: rule in favor of the librarian who said no. Um.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: But that's that's not the case with obscenity, like obscene
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: literature like it is specifically excluded in US case law
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: from First Amendment protection. And that's kind of emerged over
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the years, um, starting in eighteen seventy three with the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Comstock laws. It basically said like you can't sell obscene
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: literature in interstate commerce, right, and then people are like, okay,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: well then we we won't or don't enforce or whatever,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and it just kind of went went enforced or unchallenged
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: for like three quarters of a century. And then in
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the fifties you had um Roth versus the United States,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: where all of a sudden, we're like, wait, we need
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to start explaining what obscenity is because you can't just
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: say that's just whatever. That's what they started as though,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Like in the fifties they basically said obscenity pornography basically
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: is what that means um has utterly or is utterly
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: without um social value. That was a big quote, so
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: that basically was a mark against anybody who's pro obscenity, right.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And then in the seventies there was one called Miller
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: versus California, and this guy basically sent out a mass
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: mailer chuck of an advertisement for his adult magazines. So
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: everybody got him old people, kids, housewives, business meant everybody
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: into their mail that they opened it up and like
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: there's like, basically obscene advertising, and so California arrested the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: guy and it went to trial, and the Supreme Court said, okay, um, yes,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: obscenities not protected, but we need to say what obscenity is.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And they came up with this three point test called
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the Miller tests, which is has that one problem you
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: were talking about her? Yeah. The third one is no
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: no artistic merit basically literary, political, or scientific value. Which
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: it's probably the terms that they nailed this guy for. Yeah.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: You know, if it was just a flyer of like
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: pornographic ads, he couldn't really say no, this is literature,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: like check these out. Um. The other two were involved
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: patently offensive sexual conducts or appeal to prurient interest. When
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: taken as a whole, there it is. That's what connected
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: a sexuality curient is that it? Yeah, um, but the
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: big point with those, chuck, is that, um, the the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: prurient interest is local, so basically like if everybody in
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: your town would be offended by this, then that's the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: local judgment that's for that standard. But then the scientific
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: artistic literary standard is national, so like if your town
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: thinks it's science, but your town is a note as
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: talking about that's not a standard, right, So that's obscenity,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: that's subscendity. But the good thing is it's like, if
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: you are trying to um ban something as obscene, the
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: burden of proof is on you to prove these three
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: This thing passes all three points of the Miller type,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that's true, and that's a tough, tough burden to get
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: passed into court. Is tough. I'm surprised that more book
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: banning fans aren't trying to infiltrate the library community, you
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. I think they do constantly. Librarians. Yeah,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, if that's where the power is,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I think the librarians like really um like the library industries. Yeah,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: it's very powerful, and like if they find out that
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: you're you're a wolf in sheep's clothing, they'll kill you. Boy,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: have you ever talked to librarians. Chris Poulette here is
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: a librarian. They're really passionate, passionate people. It's it's it's
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: almost like a public service in a way. Yeah, because
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they don't make a lot of dough and
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: they just all really believe in knowledge and protecting, protecting freedoms. Yeah,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. Yeah, librarians. Yeah, could give your local
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: librarian a pat on the back today. Yeah, give him
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: a hug. Ask him first and then give him a hug.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: And if they say no, don't give him a hug, right,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: just shake their hand and politely not Yeah, maybe a
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Curtesy and um, that's great, Chuck, I like the courtesy.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Al Right, Well, if you want to learn more about
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: banned books, we suggest you go to the a l
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: A site. Uh it's I believe a la dot com.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And then you can also write in banned books in
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the search bar at how stuff works dot com and
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: it's going to bring up this, uh, really great article. Finally,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: it's time for a listener Matt Okay, Josh, I'm gonna
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: call this disco fever from Diane in Kentucky. Hey, guys,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: your disco episode brought back fond memories for me. In
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the summer of nine, I was in my early twenties
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: and I've just made it from the Sticks to the
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: big city, New York City. It's a big city. I
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: had very little money, the city's infrastructure was crumbling. Then
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: this kind of what we pointed out, you know, the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: bad economy, and I was separated from my boyfriend by
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: a continent, a bigger obstacle in those days before cell phones,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: in the internet and reasonable airfairs. Like that was back
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: when a long distance relationship was like serious. You know,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: um remember those days, like is it long distance? Don't
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: talk too long? It's long distance? Yeah, Now it's like what, Yeah,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I forgot about that, um ten, ten to twenty or whatever,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Like certain times a day we're cheaper or something. No,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: there's like a number you could dial out, like real
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: cheap long distance, remember that, I think is one. I
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: was questioning the decisions I had made in my life,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: and it was pretty much a struggle for me. But
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I had disco. I would go with a guy friend
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: to a place on Third Avenue that was more or
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: less the equivalent of an Applebee's with disco music and
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: a dance floor complete with disco ball. It certainly wasn't
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: what you would call a discothequer or a cool played
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: by any stretch of the imagination. But she was broke
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and we could order the cheapest thing on the menu
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: and spend a whole night dancing. I was completely oblivious
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to any social or cultural implications of the music, but
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: just knew that it was cheap entertainment and so much fun. Yes,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the lyrics were silly and the beat was rather unimaginative,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: but coming off the era of Vietnam, Watergate and a
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: plethora of social upheavals, that was the great part of
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the appeal. Dancing to disco and laughing at the lyrics
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: was play. It was easy to learn the moves and
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: much for her, not for me. Uh, and much more
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: fun than the mindless dancing um which attended rock music,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: which I like to listen to. But let's face at
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: dancing to rock music it's pretty boring, pretty fast. I
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: don't know if I thought it was the best disco song,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: but one of the most fun and exhilarating and inanely
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: silly for me was Donna Summers MacArthur Park. Still brings
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: a smile to my face just thinking about it. I
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: didn't know Donna Summers, did MacArthur Park. I had listen
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to that. Then. That was Diane Rally in Louisville, Kentucky.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Huh So glad we could bring back some good memories
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: there for you. Yeah, thanks a lot, Diane and Salston
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: and we heard from a lot of people who are
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: like guys, you're saying that, Um, if I hate discoats
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: because I'm homophobic, don't be stupid. No, we didn't say
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: that specifically. We said, if you hate disco outright with
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: a burning passion, but for no real reason, you can't
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: really tell why it's getting to you like this, maybe
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: it's time to step back in examine it. Sure. We
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: also said that there's plenty room for people who just
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: don't like disco, just don't like the music, and it
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're hobopholic, so of course, lighten up and
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: listen more clearly. Um, if you want to get in
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: touch with me and Chuck, you can tweet, tweet to us,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: twit um to s y s K podcast. You can
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: also join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Should Know. You can also read us the Riot Act
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: via via email, uh tow stuff podcast at how stuff
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H