On my way home from a Chucky Cheese B-Day party (I have a 4 yr old son) my phone buzzed with a message regarding Sarah Palin's banned book list. As I read through the list I was both appalled and delighted; A Clockwork Orange, Brave New World, Catch-22, Lord of the Flies, on and on. I had an ear to ear grin and showed the list to my wife who agreed that Palin must be nuts. These were all books I'd read in high school and that got the class talking / thinking. I thought that maybe this would be the nail in the coffin and put an end to Palin's VP run. Nope.
This list was no good. Most of you probably knew that. Maybe not. Initially, I'd wanted to forward the list to all the friends and family who I know to be McCain supporters (Mom!). I decided that this info might be a little too good and that was, in fact, the case. I'd spent only a few minutes on the internet before I realized that the info was no good.
Banned Book Response (pdf) from Wasilla Library
Essentially, the record shows a total of 4 books ever challenged in the town of Wasilla; one occurred before 1986 and then one in each of the following years:1986, 2005 and 2007. Palin was mayor of Wasilla from 1996-2002.
Apparently, the termination letter from then Mayor Palin to the Wasilla Mary Ellen Emmons didn't contain any reference to Palin's question of book banning, but stated that Emmons was being terminated for not "fully supporting" Palin. I'm sure that the banning of books was the issue... what other support had Palin asked of the librarian?
While it's extremely important that we continue to dig, to determine just who Sarah Palin is and what's she's done (and not done!), we need to focus on making sure we do some groundwork and that the main stream media reports accurately and that they don't don't let ANY campaign say just anything they want. We need to write email, donate, get on the phone and hit the streets. These are the things that will make a difference.
Don't believe what you read or hear until you've checked it out for yourself.
I'm heading out to Scranton on weekends as much as I can until election day to help register voters. DO SOMETHING!