Censorship

Here's a link to an article by E. Stephen Burnett about censorship and rules in Christian and in Secular book markets:
http://www.speculativefaith.com/secular-fiction-better-christian-fiction/

Here's my response:

When I lived in North Pole, the school system bought an entirely new set of English literature books and told the teachers they must get rid of the old books and only teach from the new books. The teachers in our church told all of us why they were outraged by the books and a bunch of us got together. I was assigned to check out the 4th grade book. Whoa. At a fractious school board meeting where, among many testimonies, an Aleut or Yupik woman said that we wanted to censor the stories of her people, her heritage. When my turn came I stood and said that much in the new 4th grade book was good. I read one of the lovely poems to my kids. I liked the mini-biographies of the woman veterinarian and woman (some other job). I was glad this book included some Native American myths. Then I said I was glad for censorship. I was glad my Jewish children didn't need to read the Jules Verne story with the description of Jews with yellow, grasping fingers. I was glad my black children didn't need to read racist stories that depicted them as evil and subhuman. However, agreed, some censorship is stupid. I knew a writer who had to remove all references to cookies in his story for it to be accepted in a school book, lest children think cookies are good. This textbook had fantasy and science fiction, which I appreciated because that's what I write. However, this is what was censored in this book. All nonfiction except for the women in careers. All nonfiction about our nation, our inventors, my heritage. There was nothing of my heritage in this book. There were gruesome stories of torture and suicide, but no stories of the devastation left behind by those who kill themselves. There were no stories of hope, no stories of Christian myths, no American folktales, no patriotic stories, no positive depictions of the military in a town dominated by military families (Eielson AFB), no stories of men accomplishing anything. Don't tell me you're fighting censorship by disagreeing with those of us who find these books disgusting.
After some hours of testimony, the president of the school board said that they were not going to bow to our attempts to censor such fine literature books.
The teachers in our church told us that a short time later, the new literature textbooks were quietly collected and the old ones given back along with the admonition to not tell anyone they had done so.

Dean Koontz permission

Whoo-hoo! Today I received a signed snail mail letter from Dean Koontz giving me permission to use excerpts from his novel The Taking in the textbook! He said my book sounds like a worthwhile project.
He also said he's working 80-90 hours a week on a novel. Whew.

Eagles

The other day as I was walking home I was thrilled to see a bald eagle circling overhead. I see them so often now, and each time is a thrill. When I was a teen, the bald eagle was on the verge of extinction. Draconian laws were passed to protect them (I can't own an eagle feather even if I just pick the feather up from the ground? Really?) and slowly, slowly, as the decades passed, the numbers of bald eagles increased.
I came upon our Russian landlord sweeping the parking lot and told him about the eagles. He told me of watching the fishermen around the pond below the hill we live on. One caught a fish, laid it on the grass, and tended to his hook. The local bald eagle swooped down and stole the fish from him. Considering how impressive those raptors are up close, I'm guessing the fisherman had a tale to tell when he got home.