Sunday, October 15, 2017
Mississippi school district pulls 'To Kill a Mockingbird' because it 'makes people uncomfortable'
Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" was banned from a Mississippi school district. |
Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “To Kill
a Mockingbird,” was removed from a Mississippi school district lesson
plan because the book’s language made some people feel uneasy.
Administrators at the Biloxi School
District announced early this week they were pulling the novel from the
8th-grade curriculum, saying they received complaints that some of the
book’s language “makes people uncomfortable.”
The Sun Herald reported that the book was pulled from the lesson plan because the novel contained “the N word.”A message on the school's website says "To Kill A Mockingbird" teaches students that compassion and empathy don't depend upon race or education.
School board vice president Kenny Holloway says other books can teach the same lessons.
The novel, published in 1960, chronicled the adventures of Jean Louise Finch aka Scout and her brother Jeremy aka Jem and the racial inequality that existed in their small Alabama town. The book followed a court case their father, Atticus, was involved in.
In the story, Atticus defended Tom Robinson, a black man who was accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a young white woman. Despite strong evidence of Robinson’s innocence, he was found guilty of raping Ewell.
The book was adapted into a movie in 1962, starring Gregory Peck, who won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Atticus Finch.
The Sun Herald reported the novel was listed at No. 21 on the American Library Association’s most “banned or challenged books list in the last decade.”
Hustler founder Larry Flynt offers $10 million for dirt leading to Trump impeachment
Idiot |
Hustler founder Larry Flynt is
running a full-page ad in Sunday’s Washington Post offering a $10
million reward for information leading to the impeachment of President
Trump.
(REUTERS/Fred Prouser)
Hustler founder Larry Flynt is
running a full-page ad in Sunday’s Washington Post offering a $10
million reward for information leading to the impeachment of President
Trump, Fox Business reports.
Anchor Liz Claman tweeted a photo of
the ad, which reads: “Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine announce a cash
offer of up to $10 million for information leading to the impeachment
and removal from office of Donald J. Trump.”
In the ad, Flynt airs several grievances about Trump’s
actions as president, including his firing of FBI director James Comey
and his “gross nepotism and appointment of unqualified persons to high
office.”“Impeachment would be a messy, contentious affair, but the alternative – three more years of destabilizing dysfunction – is worse,” the ad reads. “Both good Democrats and good Republicans who put country over party did it before with Watergate. To succeed, impeachment requires unimpeachable evidence. That’s why I am making this offer.”
The porn producer notes in the ad that this “is not my first rodeo,” citing past rewards for information on Republicans like former Rep. Bob Livingston in 1999, who resigned from Congress after admitting to an extramarital affair, and Sen. David Vitter, who weathered a prostitution scandal in 2007.
“Sure I could use that $10 million to buy luxuries or further my businesses,” Flynt writes, “but what good would that do me in a world devastated by the most powerful moron in history?”
The NFL is attacking an America that has treated it very well. Time to end the tax breaks
While we glorify football players for
their accomplishments on the field, they are not heroes. I recently
visited with a real hero – a young Army sergeant from my congressional
district who still gets body tremors when he stands. Bombs bursting in
the air exploded over his unit in Afghanistan, leaving shards of metal
stuck in his skull.
When I entered his room at Walter
Reed National Military Medical Center, he proudly stood at full
attention, brimming with nervous energy. I had come to thank him on
behalf of a grateful nation, and the sergeant was as respectful as he
was inspiring in his patriotism. Although he winced with pain, he would
not take the meeting lying down.
We did not discuss his injury or diagnosis. He told me
how proud he was of his wife, a teacher at the local high school. And
how willing he was to go back to the fight – wherever that star-spangled
banner yet waves.The teacher and the sergeant are the regular folks who make up my North Florida district, which boasts of more military bases than Starbucks, and more veterans than pelicans. These are the folks who do not understand why NFL players would disrespect our anthem or our flag or why the NFL Commissioner's office has embraced this unpatriotic conduct.
Our nation is increasingly diverse in thought, values, and background. Yet throughout our history, America has given proof through many nights that our flag is still here, and that freedom still reigns.Taxpayers pay over 70 percent of the cost of stadiums. Our citizens pay more and more for tickets, and valuations of professional sports franchises have skyrocketed. Player compensation keeps growing. But the NFL Commissioner’s office can choose at any point to stop paying taxes altogether.
Choosing to disrespect our flag is an over-generalized indictment of the greatest nation on Earth. Kneeling for the anthem does nothing to advance solutions to racial injustice, police brutality, or any other social plight. It is a slap in the face to patriotism itself. It is a statement that America as a country is no longer worth standing for.
It is bizarre to see the NFL attacking an America that has treated it so well over the years. Taxpayers pay over 70 percent of the cost of stadiums. Our citizens pay more and more for tickets, and valuations of professional sports franchises have skyrocketed. Player compensation keeps growing. But the NFL Commissioner’s office can choose at any point to stop paying taxes altogether. Only in America, baby!
Nobody is saying pro-athletes must give up protest rights because of their job. They should simply protest on their own time, and on their own dime, like any other American. Owners who require their players to stand for the national anthem and flag should be commended, and the players who choose to play elsewhere have that right.
As for the NFL Commissioner’s office, why do they get special treatment in the tax code in the first place? Why do any professional sports leagues enjoy tax advantages unavailable to regular folks or small businesses? Special loopholes in the tax code for pro-sports leagues will shortchange the U.S. Treasury by over $150 million during the current budget window.
That money would be better spent at Walter Reed.
President Trump has called for massive tax reform to get our economy moving again. We must cut taxes for hard-working Americans, while ending the swampy loopholes crafted by special interest groups. Ending the exemption for pro-sports leagues is an obvious place to start — and President Trump agrees with that, too.
I have offered the PRO Sports Act to abolish these exemptions. Going forward, perhaps pro-athletes won’t just take a knee — maybe they will take a stand for the solutions to the social aliments they observe.
All Americans should and always must enjoy full access to First Amendment rights, but nobody has the right to expect special tax treatment while disrespecting our flag.
Republican Matt Gaetz represents Florida's 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Trump too tough on Iran, North Korea, Clinton says
Idiot |
With his tough talk and hardline stances on Iran
and North Korea, President Donald Trump is damaging America’s
credibility abroad – and could provoke a nuclear-arms race in East Asia,
Hillary Clinton says.
Trump's recent threat to decertify
the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, “makes us look foolish and small and plays
right into Iranian hands,” Clinton said last week.
"That is bad not just on the merits for this particular
situation, but it sends a message across the globe that America's word
is not good," said Clinton, who spoke in advance of Trump's announcement
Friday that he wants Congress and the other nations that negotiated the
deal to toughen the requirements for Iran."This particular president is, I think, upending the kind of trust and credibility of the United States' position and negotiation that is imperative to maintain."
For his part, Trump says that Clinton, as secretary of state under former President Barack Obama, helped negotiate a “terrible” deal with Iran."This particular president is, I think, upending the kind of trust and credibility of the United States' position and negotiation that is imperative to maintain."- Hillary Clinton
Getting tough on Iran is the right approach, the president said.
“We will not continue down a path whose predictable conclusion is more violence, more terror and the very real threat of Iran’s nuclear breakout,” Trump said Friday, according to the Washington Times. “Iran is not living up to the spirit of the deal.”
Clinton also denounced Trump's bellicose language toward North Korea, saying his verbal aggression has rattled U.S. allies.
"We will now have an arms race — a nuclear arms race in East Asia," Clinton predicted. "We will have the Japanese, who understandably are worried with missiles flying over them as the North Koreans have done, that they can't count on America."
Clinton stressed that a diplomatic solution was preferred, and suggested the inflammatory rhetoric played into Kim Jung Un's hands. She bemoaned Trump's public undercutting of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when he tweeted "Save your energy, Rex" after the nation's top diplomat had suggested negotiations.
“Diplomacy, preventing war, creating some deterrents is slow, hard-going, difficult work,” said Clinton, who declined to answer when asked whether Tillerson should resign. "And you can't have impulsive people or ideological people who basically say, 'Well, we're done with you.'"
Trump on Sept. 21 signed an executive order calling for a new round of economic sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The president said the actions were aimed at “a complete denuclearization of North Korea,” the Washington Times reported.
“North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development is a grave threat to peace and security in our world,” Trump said. “It is unacceptable that others financially support this criminal rogue regime.”
Clinton, who recently released a book that recounts her election defeat to Trump, has been an aggressive critic of the president.
In an interview with Britain’s BBC on Friday, Clinton called Trump a “sexual assaulter.”
Clinton made the comments when asked about the allegations of sexual assault made against Democratic mega-donor and Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
“This kind of behavior cannot be tolerated anywhere, whether it's in entertainment, politics,” Clinton said. “After all, we have someone admitting to being a sexual assaulter in the Oval Office.”
In the same interview, Clinton referred to the sexual transgressions of her husband – former President Bill Clinton – as being “clearly in the past,” Fox News reported.
Clinton’s comments on Iran and North Korea were scheduled to air Sunday on CNN. The White House did not immediately return a request to respond to her remarks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Tit for Tat ? ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the an...
-
NEW YORK (AP) — As New York City faced one of its darkest days with the death toll from the coronavirus surging past 4,000 — more th...