All right. My unannounced, indefinite vacation is over. Many issues over the past month have caught my eye as I sipped boat drinks and eyed the girls sunning themselves. The Pats winning the Superbowl (don't do enough sports here). W's state of the union address. The befuddling fact that Arafat is still (a) in power and (b) alive. Campaign finance passing the House. Many topics gone by and one (the Pats) that I will take up later. The winning topic that has this morning brought me back to railing at the servants is in today's NY Times:

"An ad hoc group of librarians, bookstore owners, educators and others has quietly hatched a plan to turn New York City into a giant reading group." I love the idea of New York engaging in the same practice that Chicago did a year ago. I think it's a wonderful way for those that are so inclined to engage in a kind of civic activity. The naysayers? Let's listen to a few, shall we?

• "We are not quite sure we should go with `Native Speaker.' I certainly want to finish reading it before I can say anything, to see if there is anything derogatory toward Korean-Americans or Asians at this point."
• "I don't like these mass reading bees," said Harold Bloom, unofficial custodian of the literary canon, professor at Yale and part-time New Yorker. He said reading was too private an experience for such municipal orchestration. "It is rather like the idea that we are all going to pop out and eat Chicken McNuggets or something else horrid at once."
• Phillip Lopate, an essayist and editor of the anthology "Writing New York," said the temptation to promulgate salutary values with a citywide book was fundamentally at odds with the promotion of "great literature," and resembled a kind of groupthink. "It is a little like a science fiction plot � `Invasion of the Body Snatchers' or something."

Praise to the Times for both finding and asking these ninnies what they think. That the first ninny listed here is on the committee is disturbing and makes me wonder just why the committee is doing what it's doing. I suspect it is not for the reasons a rube like me thinks it is. Why shy away from a book because it is potentially offensive? Does it seem to anyone else that only in the height of freaky-left political correctness can an immigrant American-Korean write a book and have it be offensive to ... American-Koreans? Also, since the committee is hoping to get 11th and 12th graders to read the book next year, they want to screen the books to make sure the language isn't too rough. Yes that's right, the committee is worried that 16-18 year-olds in New York City might encounter some rough language. In what cave does this committee live? Finally, the committee member list at the top of my UL said that she wants to finish the book before making her decision. Makes sense, except that her reason for wanting to finish is to make sure there's nothing offensive in the book. Everything's fine up to where she stopped reading last night, but she's holding out her opinion just in case a character goes on a profanity-racist-anti-semitic laced tyraid for a chapter or three to end the novel. Wouldn't a book that is potentially offensive be good? Controversy might spark (hold on to your hats) conversation amongst those reading the book. They don't want anything that might be offensive. They're not sure and nothing they read was offensive to them, but in true freaky-leftiness they're on the lookout for anything that might offend anyone. It is better to rule out 100 books than to have one reader be offended. Does this attitude of looking out for the goodness and purity of all minds (be they juvenile or otherwise) strike anyone else as being an element more usually associated with the wacky-right? The politics of forming a centrist party that chops off the gangrenous ends of each party is a subject for another day.

Just pick a book already. Few if any will read it, and those that are so inclined will surely find something about which to be offended.
- posted by levinson @ 2/19/2002 07:55:00 AM