I Don't Know if I Should Talk About This or Not......

 I just took at look at the list of books banned by the State of Texas in Public Schools. Most I have never heard of, nor do I plan to read. 

2200 books. 

And why are some listed and others, well, are not. 

Karl Marx's Das Kapital,  The Communist Manifesto, Mao's Little Red Book, are not included, and for some reason, I expected them to be on the list. 

 And of course John Locke's Two Treatises on Government and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations,  were not on the list...

But Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings, and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five are on the list. I read Vonnegut's stuff in high school. I know it has some rough stuff, but dadgum, have you been down a hallway at any high school in America? The language can often rival any construction site in America. 

Jack Kerouac's, On the Road was not on the list, which sort of shocked me.  I know I read it my senior year at Vidor, and wanted to get a backpack and travel Europe. My son read it, and decided to wait until he got a degree(s) and go to Asia for almost 7 years. 

Jack Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World, which I discussed in class and at one time the Buna High Library had 2 copies was not on the list and sort of shocked me it was not.

And of course The Bible is not on the list.....

The Song of Songs, which was covered literally in 10 minutes in the seminary Old Testament class....Basically the professor saying, " Someone messed up including it....." And it is pretty erotic in nature. Every minister I have heard try and cover the Song of Songs well, they were embarrassed trying to preach/teach on the subject/ 

The trouble is, every kid knows where to find this materiel, online.  And already people are saying the list is not long enough and want to include things like Plato's Republic, and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird....

I'm the last person to want to ban books. I wanted my seniors to read stuff, get different ideas. Heck, I never stopped Reid from reading whatever was on the shelf.  

And then the Lt. Governor threatens schools with lowering grades of the districts because they have the wrong book on the shelf of a high school library, because, let's face it, you'll be hard pressed to find the banned books on elementary library shelves.  

Again, so glad I am retired......