Up to 150 students at a Missouri high school that ordered “Slaughterhouse-Five” pulled from its library shelves can get a free copy of the novel, courtesy of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library…

The offer for students at Republic High School comes on the heels of the Republic School Board’s decision to remove Vonnegut’s novel and Sarah Ockler’s “Twenty Boy Summer” from the curriculum and the school library shelves.

“All of these students will be eligible to vote and some may be protecting our country through military service in the next year or two,” Julia Whitehead, the executive director of the Vonnegut library in Indianapolis, said in a statement.

“It is shocking and unfortunate that those young adults and citizens would not be considered mature enough to handle the important topics raised by Kurt Vonnegut, a decorated war veteran. Everyone can learn something from his book.”

Slaughterhouse-Five, considered Vonnegut’s most influential and popular work, is a satirical novel centered around the bombing of the German city of Dresden during World War Two.

The Republic School District took the move at its April 18 meeting following a complaint lodged by local resident Wesley Scroggins in the spring of 2010.

In his complaint, the Missouri State University associate business professor called on district officials to stop using textbooks and other materials “that create false conceptions of American history and government or that teach principles contrary to Biblical morality and truth.”

The school district members immediately rolled over and stuck all four hooves in the air in response to this Christian command.




  1. Twotothehead says:

    #5

    Die Körper sind bereits brennenden.

  2. Twotothehead says:

    #6

  3. NobodySpecial says:

    Does anyone know how I go about getting a book banned in the US?

    I have a python book from a few years ago that never really sold very much – I think a nationwide book burning might help with the publicity

    I could claim that the snake in the garden of eden was a python and so I’m encouraging satanism?

  4. Not Insane says:

    I read Slaughterhouse 5 as an assignment in high school, and it didn’t negatively impact me. The movie’s great too, Valerie Perrine looking particularly appealing …

  5. Animby says:

    # 31 So what said, “1 Samuel 15:2-3
    … go and smite Amalek” etc.

    Deuteronomy 4:31 “For the Lord your God is a merciful god. He will not forsake the, neither destroy thee…”

  6. MikeN says:

    Liberals have been exposed as not caring about free speech. Any examples to the contrary are just opportunities to bash views they don’t like. Liberals were exposed with their calls for a Fairness Doctrine and to take away licenses for Fox News. And before that they passed the anti-free-speech campaign finance reform bill, signed on to by a Republican President who saw it could help him get reelected. Then there’s also the Citizens United case where they took the position that it is OK for the government to ban books.

  7. So what says:

    #36 I guess that flood, plus the Sodom and Gomorrah thing was a mercy killing, or a minor lapse in judgement.

  8. Animby says:

    #38 – Not at all. Just an example of his infinite compassion and love.

  9. NekiM says:

    Conservatives have been exposed as not caring about free speech. Any examples to the contrary are just opportunities to bash views they don’t like. Conservatives were exposed with their calls that corporations (well not the whole corporation actually just the board of directors) were exactly equivalent to living breathing humans and could speak! (Three guesses as to which part of their anatomy corporations will be speaking out of now that blaspheming Republicans have made them human.) Fox News was exposed when they tried to suppress news about the phone tapping scandal in England. Conservative churches have regularly and proudly promoted the destruction of unapproved free speech by multimedia burnings of books and music.

    Ergo as I and my esteemed alter ego have unassailably demonstrated both liberals and conservatives hate all forms free speech (excepting their own of course).

    So I guess that’s pretty much it for free speech.

    Unless of course everyone wants to grow up and actually think for themselves.

    LOL

    JK

  10. Uncle Dave says:

    Christianity has built into it — via the creation myth of Adam and Eve and the apple — the idea that humans must not be exposed to other ideas least they be tempted into sin and become unbelievers if they know more than they are supposed to.

    This is just a part of that effort to control learning that there are other ways of thinking about things than the proscribed way.

  11. gmknobl says:

    Gotta say, those people that banned the book or asked for it are not Christian-in-deed and give real Christians a bad name.

    Of course, conservative “Christians” have been doing that for a long time and since Christ’s core message is a very liberal one, they really aren’t into doing Christ’s work that much at all.

  12. Huck Finn says:

    This level of political correctness is amazing
    yet there is more snide racism in our world than ever before
    Huck Finn – forget that
    you might learn bad words – or perhaps even had an understanding that racism existed once more
    Never go out of your house and speak to no one might be the logic

  13. “courtesy of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library…”

    Not the local taxpayers who have every right to decide what their local tax dollars will support in regards to their children’s education.

    And that’s the point of this entire kerfuffle.

  14. MikeN says:

    #40, not sure what any of that has to do with what I wrote. Fox News covered the News of the World scandal every show I’ve seen, so not sure what you are talking about there, maybe other networks are covering it even more. Either way, what that has to do with free speech, I’m not sure, unless Fox is arguing that results of hacking should not be published.

    Also, allowing corporations to speak is not a restriction of free speech. So all you have left is churches, and really your post appears to be mostly random blather.

    On the other hand, I posted that liberals pushed for a law that used government power to restrict ads against candidates. They didn’t ban them outright, just insisted that all ads say I’m X and I approve this message with the idea that it would cut down on the speech they dislike.

  15. kamagra says:

    Kurt Vonnegut illustrates not only his subtle outcry against the stupidity of war, but also his cynical views on the meaning of life.


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