School system staves off book banning attempt in Fairfax

MoonHowler

wickedwitch

Washington Post:

The book Laura Murphy wants removed from Fairfax County classrooms is considered a modern American classic. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a masterpiece of fiction whose author’s 1993 Nobel Prize in literature citation said that she, “in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”

But Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” Murphy said, depicts scenes of bestiality, gang rape and an infant’s gruesome murder, content she believes could be too intense for teenage readers.

“It’s not about the author or the awards,” said Murphy, a mother of four whose eldest son had nightmares after reading “Beloved” for his senior-year Advanced Placement English class. “It’s about the content.”

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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reject latest compromise on contraception

MoonHowler

bewareofdogmabillboard_jdean

Politico.com:

Catholic bishops on Thursday rejected the White House’s latest attempt at  compromise on contraception, saying it did not adequately accommodate religious  organizations that object to covering free contraception in employee health  plans.

“Throughout the past year, we have been assured by the administration that we  will not have to refer, pay for, or negotiate for the mandated  coverage,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president  of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement. “We remain  eager for the administration to fulfill that pledge.”

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Something to think about…

MoonHowler

From www.nasa.gov:

Small near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass very close to Earth on Feb. 15, so close that it will pass inside the ring of geosynchronous weather and communications satellites.

NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office can accurately predict the asteroid’s path with the observations obtained, and it is therefore known that there is no chance that the asteroid might be on a collision course with Earth.

Well, that’s reassuring. Perhaps the Mayans were off by a couple of months and NASA is off in its calculations?

That would be one hell of a rude awakening. Perhaps ‘awakening’ is the wrong choice of words.