Cursed Tongue: Permanently Checked Out

Posted by CursedTongue on September 6, 2007

The Chandler Library Board is hearing a record number of complaints against materials in the library’s collection. Four citizens will gripe, whine and moan about objectionable to the board this week.

In the children’s section a parent found Where Willy Went by Nicholas Allen. Willy is a sperm. The book, recommended for ages 4 to 8, details the journey that Willy takes. It apparently includes a picture of a naked man, with an arrow pointing to his genitals.

Concerned mother, Kathleen Subia, said, “We were spending a nice afternoon in the library and I don’t like being forced into having a discussion about sex with my 7-year-old who was just learning to read.” A strong believer in letting the public schools teach sex to children, Subia wants the book to be removed to a restricted parenting section.

Patricia Wira checked out an audio book called When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, written by George Carlin. Let me repeat that, it was entitled When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? and it was written by George Carlin. If there’s one thing to know about George Carlin, it’s that he performed a stand-up routine entitled, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” If you, Dear Sweet Reader, are unable to guess what the contents of this monologue are from the title, then it’s time to wipe the drool from your chin, honey.

It’s Carlin’s trademark to exploit profanities without regard to what some people like to call common decency. Carlin once said, “I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.” It’s not as if Wira watched Full House, picked up an audio recording by Bob Saget, and was shocked when she didn’t get Danny Tanner. If George Carlin had a family friendly alter ego, he probably ate it.

Wira said Carlin’s book was full of “sewer language,” and was extremely upset by the book’s anti-Catholic and anti-Christian views. The art on the cover is da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” with George Carlin inserted to the right of the seat where Jesus should be (it is empty, because they are waiting for him, and his pork chops). Giving Wira the benefit of the doubt for having the cultural I.Q. of a soggy Pop Tart, she should have at least picked up on the anti-Christian content of the book, which is clearly expressed by both the picture and the title.

Concerned citizen, Larry Edwards, wants the Chandler Library Board to remove issues of the Phoenix New Times, from the Hamilton Branch Library, which is located at Hamilton High School. The alternative newspaper contains irreverent stories about U. S. teenagers binge drinking in Europe, and ads for strippers. Apparently, he believes the newspaper endangers the virtue of the school’s students.

I had exactly zero interest in reading the New Times until now. Thanks, Larry. Lucky for me, and for the Hamilton Huskies, the New Times is available for free all over the Valley, and in its entirety on the “Grand Central Station” of corruption–the Internet. Making it entirely pointless to remove it from the library.

Of course, the most justified complaint was brought against the unwholesome and vulgar DVD of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theater. This utterly despicable series of live action fairy tales ran disguised as family entertainment from 1982 to 1987. It’s just as dangerous to pure, young minds as it sounds. I think we could even pin this subversive, star-studded show as the progenitor of the filth that passed for television entertainment in the nineties. Roseanne and Married With Children surely would never have existed if that amoral tramp, Shelley Duvall, hadn’t polluted the airwaves with her Faerie Tale Theater.

Offended mother, Sandy Ashbaugh, brought her complaint against the episode entitled The Tale of the Frog Prince, starring Robin Williams and Teri Garr. The Arizona Republic, where I learned of these complaints, does not mention any reason for her grievance against the children’s DVD. So, I am going to assume that she either objects to the interspecies kiss on moral grounds, or is worried that little girls with tiaras in their eyes will try to make their own princes and contract salmonella poisoning. (Little does she realize that these girls will recover from abdominal cramping and nausea, eventually girls will realize that the frog is simply a metaphor for a man that hasn’t been nagged into submission.)

Any library patron offended by something they picked out at the library, especially if it was written by someone who prides him or herself on being offensive, bears the responsibility for not paying attention. If someone is truly surprised and disconcerted by the misshapen indigenous tatas in an issue of The National Geographic, perhaps they could put it back on the shelf, instead of wasting the time of the Library Board with their whining.

Furthermore, if parents are concerned about the content of their children’s reading material, maybe they should read or view it themselves, as opposed to plopping them in front of a free-from-the-library DVD babysitter.

It’s a slippery slope, deciding which reading material to bar from public consumption. Just ask the Nazis. In this week before Banned Book Week, which is about reading banned books, not removing them from library shelves, let us reflect on the good old days, when only a few, highly educated people could read and not every idiot taxpayer with a library card could try to force their opinions on the community.

- Sarah Letnes

Filed Under: Cursed Tongue, Guest Blog - Comments: Be the First to Comment

Tags: books, humor, politics

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