Keep all books circulating during Banned Books Week and beyond

Banned Books Week is Sept. 18-24, and it’s a perfect time to tell librarians thank you.

Thank you for helping us find books.

Thank you for helping to keep books available.

Thank you for helping to ensure that the local library’s collection reflects the diversity of the people who live in the community.

In today’s hot-button political climate, libraries are at the center of the culture wars. Groups in neighborhoods across the nation are working hard to limit the materials that circulate there. They are trying to put certain titles out of reach, either through outright bans or by policies about who may borrow them.

And when they don’t get what they want, these groups threaten library funding, pressure elected officials and promote candidates who support similar restrictive philosophies. All legal, to be sure, but with a result that, if successful, would decimate people’s ability to access information freely.

A recent Time magazine story chronicles an attempt by some conservative residents in Victoria, Texas, to compel the local library to remove 44 books, many with LGBTQ themes. When library officials resisted, the residents leaned on the county commissioners, since the county owns the building that houses the library. At least one commissioner supports serving the library with an eviction notice.

Curtailing access to library materials is especially dangerous because our libraries, much like our courts, are the great levelers. This court philosophy was popularized by Atticus Finch, a character in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a book that has taken a turn or two on the American Library Association’s Top 10 Most Challenged Books list.

The ALA notes that a challenged book is one that somebody, somewhere, has tried to have removed from library shelves. If the attempt is successful, the ALA then characterizes the book as “banned.”

Just to show that the practice isn’t exclusively right-leaning, one of the reasons given for the most recent appearance by “To Kill a Mockingbird” on the list, in 2020, is that it includes a “white savior” character, often a complaint by people on the left who oppose certain mainstream texts.

And while the potential trauma from exposing students to racism of the past with the “n-word” in books like “Mockingbird” and Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is a topic worthy of discussion, it’s not reason enough to restrict access to the books.

It would be easy to see book banning as a purely academic issue, far removed from day-to-day concerns about the economy or the environment. But consider this: Suicidal thoughts and attempts by LGBTQ youth are significantly higher than among their non-LGBTQ peers. One of the reasons is a sense of alienation and lack of community support.

The library is one of the few places these kids can go to find materials that answer questions about their lives and make them realize they are not alone. When these materials are removed from shelves or require parental consent, these kids lose access, especially if they live in households that are not supportive.

For these patrons, libraries and freely circulating materials could be the difference between life and death.

Even people who are indifferent or opposed to the struggles of LGBTQ youth should recognize the perils of letting any group dictate the contents of taxpayer-supported libraries.

While today it might be about content that they too disagree with, tomorrow it could be something central to their way of life. German pastor Martin Niemöller, writing about the rise of Nazism, voiced a similar sentiment in these often-cited lines: “First they came for the ________, and I did not speak out / Because I was not a __________.” Readers likely know how the quote ends.

So, during Banned Books Week, visit a library, peruse the shelves, find something you already like and something that challenges you. Read with an open mind, and if you still disagree with that tough book, talk about it and write about it, but don’t deny others the same opportunity you had to experience it.

And while you’re there, thank the librarians for helping to keep the doors of knowledge open for everybody.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

@cschillig on Twitter

Biden's mistakes in addressing extremism

In Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” pilots who fly dangerous missions are categorized as crazy and are therefore ineligible to fly dangerous missions. But when they recognize these missions are dangerous and ask not to fly them, they are demonstrating their sanity, and can no longer claim the exemption.

President Joe Biden faced a similar paradox in his decision to speak last Thursday in Philadelphia.

As president, Biden has a responsibility to call out dangers to the nation. MAGA extremists are such a danger. They refuse to recognize the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power, and they are increasingly comfortable advocating for violence to achieve their ends.

Yet calling out a small but nonetheless significant sliver of Americans risks further entrenching their MAGA identity and could serve as a catalyst for the very violence the president seeks to prevent.

Catch-22 territory, for sure.

Biden’s speech was laudatory in many ways. He noted the zero-sum fallacy that motivates many far-right radicals: the mistaken belief that there is only so much freedom to go around. “The MAGA Republicans believe that for them to succeed, everyone else has to fail,” Biden said, the opposite of a nation that is “big enough for all of us to succeed.”

He noted legislative successes that will make life better for all Americans, including a new gun safety law, health care reform and a climate initiative.

And he was correct in noting that American democracy is not guaranteed. Election deniers are working “in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies.”

We need a president to speak out forcibly about such issues, even if by so doing he can no longer claim to be above the fray when it comes to politics.

However, Biden’s speech had significant missteps, too.

The first was a failure to separate hardcore MAGA supporters from Republicans. The president was clear that only a very small number of Republicans are truly aligned with MAGA philosophy, despite the party today being “dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans.”

However, we’ve reached a point where it is helpful to more forcibly separate rank-and-file Republicans from this extremist faction, which seeks to align itself with the GOP as a means to an end, since their numbers alone are insufficient to win elections.

Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. Many rank-and-file Republicans have also felt it necessary to align themselves with MAGA supporters to win elections. This allegiance has proven somewhat effective in the short-term but threatens to delegitimize the party in the long-term.

Similarly, Democrats have done themselves no favors in instances where they have supported MAGA candidates in primaries because they believe that such individuals will be easier to defeat in general elections.

All these “politics-make-for-strange-bedfellows” moments have helped to solidify and legitimize the MAGA brand and bring the weird QAnon-inspired theories that motivate many followers into the mainstream. Biden shouldn’t have called them MAGA Republicans; they are just MAGA.

Biden also erred in branding their extremist perspective a fait accompli. “MAGA Republicans have made their choice,” he said. “They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live, not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.”

This may be accurate, but it doesn’t have to be permanent.

I recently read that instead of asking why MAGA supporters believe what they believe, we should ask what they gain from believing it.

One answer is that MAGA provides an identity, a place of belonging. Better to think of MAGA supporters as fervent fans of a sports franchise. No matter how many times the Cleveland Browns disappoint, most fans aren’t going to one day show up in Steelers jerseys.

But even for super-fans, there is a breaking point. If a team moves to another city or signs a player whose off-field actions are too appalling, some fans jump ship.

No matter how many times Trump lies about the election, foments dissatisfaction with anybody who disagrees with him and leads crowds in chants of “Lock her up!” after the FBI has removed hundreds of classified documents from his home, many fans are going to continue to wear his jersey.

But just as with sports franchises, a movement’s supporters can reach a breaking point. Republicans are increasingly removing Trump references from their websites and distancing themselves from his extremist views. And some MAGAs are awakening to the realization that where there’s so much smoke, there might be a fire. That’s a heartening sign.

Instead of writing off an entire demographic, Biden and the Democrats need to ask how to better publicize what they’ve done to help MAGAs. Then they need to ask themselves what else they can do to make their lives − and the lives of all Americans − better.

Listening and finding common ground is the first step. Consigning them to oblivion only makes the MAGA agenda, such as it is, more appealing. And that’s a Catch-22 to which Biden can’t afford to succumb.

'Today I am a man!'

This column is an oldie, but I can't say how old. Harvey Pekar passed in 2010, and this predates that. It still accurately describes my aversion to home repairs, although I've gotten better at making them over the years. But not much better.

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“Today I am a man!” shouts Harvey Pekar, plunger over his head, kneeling before the porcelain god he has successfully unclogged.

In “Another Day,” a collection of vignettes presented as comic-book stories, Pekar compares fixing a toilet to a Bar Mitzvah, how he was reluctant at age 13 to utter the five words that signal the change from childhood to adulthood because he was a “klutz” who “couldn’t do mechanical stuff … couldn’t fix anything.”

I know exactly how he feels about the agony and ecstasy of being all thumbs at home repairs.

This week, the sole toilet at Casa Schillig started to work overtime, gurgling water long after it should have. Luckily, it didn’t overflow, but for a few days, gallons were wasted, driving up the water bill and making us poster children for “Conspicuous Consumption.”

The solution, I found, was to jiggle the handle. If that didn’t work, removing the lid from the tank and pulling the lever on the filler valve did the trick.

Being the adaptable sort, this fix could have lasted me indefinitely. My wife and daughter, however, accustomed to the luxury of fully operational indoor plumbing, demanded more. Apparently, waiting around while the tank refills to see if one must manually stop the water flow isn’t convenient. Some people have no patience.

This left me with a conundrum. Behind door number one, as Monty Hall says, was the professional plumber, who would charge a fortune and look at me askance for not fixing such a simple problem myself.

Behind door number two were helpful family members who know full well that I can handle nothing more complex than changing a light bulb (if that) and who would make smart comments while handling the problem for me.

Door Number Three was the most frightening: Fix it myself.

A few years ago, I invested in the greatest do-it-yourself book ever, “The Stanley Complete Step-by-Step Book of Home Repair and Improvement.” It’s not great because it shows you how to fix lots of things (to be honest, I’ve never gotten past the table of contents), but because in the introduction, people like me are told to take a hike.

The book “warns you away from potentially dangerous or difficult jobs and suggests when to hire professionals for the tasks you don’t feel qualified to tackle or ones where you know you will need help to meet codes,” writes the author.

I’ve quoted the line many times when the subject of home improvements comes up. Repaper the dining room? Potentially dangerous. Paint the ceiling? Not qualified to tackle. Hang a picture? It won’t meet code.

Yet I knew something would have to be done. I was spending too many nights worrying about the toilet, jerking out of a sound sleep because I feared somebody had forgotten to jiggle the handle after flushing. (The dog is particularly bad at this.) When I compared the cost of fixing the toilet to sleepless nights or the other alternative – selling the house – I decided to follow the path of least resistance.

For 12 bucks, I bought a toilet repair kit. The box shows a simple three-step method: Take out old guts, drop in new guts, start sleeping again.

Once I got it home and opened it, the three-step plan became the thirteen-step plan, with A, B, and C subsets illustrated with lots of pictures and filled with warnings about how the new unit would devour the bathroom if not properly installed.

My daughter saw me with the kit and promptly ran into her bedroom and shut the door. “This measly door won’t keep you safe from a solid wall of water,” I shouted.

“I know,” she answered. “But I just feel safer in here.”

Within ten minutes, I had a minor flood (they aren’t kidding when they say to drain the tank before starting), a stripped nut (on the toilet, ye of dirty mind) and a repair job that was going south fast.

Ten minutes later, things got better. I tightened everything up, pushed down on the flush button, and ran into the closet to hide. Nothing bad happened. Water went out, water came in, water stopped running.

Success!

I’ve learned not to get too excited when I fix something, because usually in a week or two it needs fixed again, this time by a professional who undoes whatever mess I made the first time.

But for right now, today, I refuse to think about that. Tomorrow I may well come home to find the toilet has fallen through the floor into the kitchen, but for now, I am joining Harvey Pekar and poet Walt Whitman in sounding my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world:

Today I am a man!