Texas GOP Rep. Matt Krause e-mailed a list of 850 books to superintendents, including works by Margaret Atwood and Harper Lee asking if these books were on their library shelves.

The next night, at a school board meeting, parents accused a librarian of poisoning young minds. What began as a debate over social studies curriculum and critical race studies has evolved into an effort to ban books. Governor Abbott has taken aim at library shelves, directing education officials to investigate “criminal activity in our public schools involving the availability of pornography.”

In California a school district ruled that OF MICE AND MEN and THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN were “radically insensitive and no long mandatory reading.”

Rep. Krause compiled the list of books “that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish because of race or sex”. As a result one San Antonio district librarian was ordered to pull 400 books from district shelves for review.

“Similar disputes over public school curricula and books arose recently in Virginia . . . . where they became a major issue in Republican Glenn Youngkin’s successful campaign for governor.”

Such books as 1984, BRAVE NEW WORLD, THE BLUEST EYE, A HANDMAID’S TALE, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and CATCHER IN THE RYE have come under fire.

As a former English teacher, I have to wonder whether politicians or people who complain about them have ever read them all the way through. Yes, there are racially offensive words in Huckleberry Finn but they’re used in reference to Huck’s black friend Jim who travels down the Mississippi with Huck on a raft. The same words were used by the villain Bob Ewell in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and a racist old lady who lived near Scout Finch. I taught that book sixteen times and never got sick of it. The theme of the book was that a black man couldn’t get a fair trial in the South. Nitpicking about a few offensive words is just ignorant. These charges are being brought by the same people who complained about wearing masks at school board meetings. They could care less about suspect books. They just need an issue. And it certainly worked in Virginia.

Also, if you haven’t read 1984 and BRAVE NEW WORLD you’ve missed two of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. Of course I’m a perverted book worm who reads the back of a cereal box when he’s not reading the newspaper or a door stop novel like WAR AND PEACE.

And another thing, liberals don’t complain about books like MARXISM by Mark Levin; he has a right to publish political nonsense misleading people about what’s going on in 2021-22 America. Essentially everything social democrats pass is leading us down the road to socialism and even communism according to some dimwitted QAnons. And what’s wrong with socialism as practiced in Norway, Denmark, and Finland, three countries that take turns being the happiest country in the world? They have free medical care and free education. I had to sell my soul to the United States Canoe Club to get an education.

Another series of conservative books I found offensive was Tim LaHaye’s clueless Rapture novels that claim those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior will be taken up to Heaven by Jesus when he returns while us non-believes suffer for a millennium. Tim LaHaye made millions off those books. He and his wife non run several non-profits in Washington DC supporting the delusional conservative cause. Would I ban those books if I could? Nope. If you burn one book you start a conflagration and the First Amendment, which these same yokels claim they love so much, doesn’t mean a thing.