Library of Alexandria artist rendition
This essay is dedicated to my well-read and erudite friend Woody Besse in Cedar Hill, Texas who puts up with my decidedly anti-Republican essays exposing the duplicity and double-talk given to education and learning, First Amendment rights and guarantees, and the equality of all people regardless of sex, gender, gender-identification, race, age, status, etc.
Burning books and other items containing knowledge is as old as time. Julius Cesar burned the Library of Alexander, that was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The Library1 was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts, and all documents in it. Later, when the restoration of the famed library was gaining momentum with the struggle of a woman, the emerging cult of Christianity saw it as an offense against its god and people. To silence the audacity of a woman who was learned and collected manuscripts, the christians called up the government to stop scholars from reading texts forbidden by an increasingly ignorant clergy.
Drawing from the Alexandrian World Chronicle depicting Pope Theophilus of Alexandria, gospel in hand, standing triumphantly atop the Serapeum in 391 CE
The result was that the Serapeum, a smaller library that was mainly used as a gathering place for Neoplatonist philosophers following the liberal teachings of Iamblichus, had to be destroyed with its famed librarian, Hypatia. Hypatia was the first known woman mathematician, and was murdered by a mob off christians who ripped of her skin with sharp tiles and seashells.
The philosophy of Hypatia of Alexandria
Her death was ordered by the Coptic Christian Pope Theophilus of Alexandra who gutted the library of its greatest works. The order was issued for fear that people would read them and revolt against his cruel rule. Theophilus was rewarded for his barbarities and declared a saint. Theophilus distrust of the public reading what he considered evil materials has been captured by a man who wants to ascend the political ladder of corrupt Texas politics: Matt Krause–every bit as evil, cruel, and uneducated as Theophilus.
Texas is an interesting state of Republican idiots who want to ban and burn books, as clarified by Landover Baptist Church (which gloated that “Baptist Students to Build Cages for Mexican Children” in Freehold, Iowa!2) that published: “We invented the practice over two-thousand years ago as a way to promote our faith in the Lord Jesus. In the early days of Christianity, when new believers in Christ were converted, they were naturally moved by the Holy Spirit to grab as many books as they could and pitch them into a fire. Unlike the sissy “Jesus is Love” fake-Christians (whom both the Lord Jesus and we loathe) we have running around today, the early followers of Christ were never ashamed to burn books”3 they consider pornography for having “explicit sexual references”, led by the undereducated, homophobic, racist, misogynistic
Racist Republicanazi Matt Krause wants to censor and burn books that offend him
Matt Krause.4 Some of the naughty-pornographic books that Krause is “concerned with” include: The Legal Atlas of the United States by Julius Fast and Timothy Fast,5 Teen Legal Rights by David L. Hudson,6 Gender Equality by Maureen O’Conner;7; and Identity Rights8 Also, Equal Rights (What Do We Mean by Human Rights) by Maureen O’Conner,9 We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and About Students by Jamin B. Baskin; Washington DC Congressional Quarterly,10, and Peaceful Rights for Equal Rights by Rob Sanders and Jared Andrew Schorr.11. I can find no reference that any of the authors are having erotic sex with co-authors.
Almost all of the Texas Republicans who want to ban and burn books having explicit sexual references are Southern Baptists and all are “christians who love the Bible.” Have they ever read in Exodus 23:2-8:12
Book of Ezekiel (parchment in author’s private library)
Son of man, there were two women, daughters of the same mother. They became prostitutes in Egypt, engaging in prostitution from their youth. In that land their breasts were fondled and their virgin bosoms caressed. The older was named Oholah, and her sister was Oholibah. They were mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem. Oholah engaged in prostitution while she was still mine; and she lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians—warriors clothed in blue, governors and commanders, all of them handsome young men, and mounted horsemen. She gave herself as a prostitute to all the elite of the Assyrians and defiled herself with all the idols of everyone she lusted after. She did not give up the prostitution she began in Egypt, when during her youth men slept with her, caressed her virgin bosom and poured out their lust on her.
and the story gets more erotic when reading Ezekiel 23:17-21:13
Ezekiel 23 plagiarized from Babylonian lore
Then the Babylonians came to her, to the bed of love, and in their lust they defiled her. After she had been defiled by them, she turned away from them in disgust. When she carried on her prostitution openly and exposed her naked body, I turned away from her in disgust, just as I had turned away from her sister. Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.
If it was not my fear of offending a few women, I would add more, but the account in the original reads far more heavily. I will see about an imprimatur from my good friend Paul Pearson before I translate what they “pushed and breathed heavily…etc.”
Among the Republicans targets for erotic pornography are The Reproductive System by Alvin Silverstein, and various titles on abortion (but not my Abortion Handbook any edition): Whose Life?: A Balanced, Comprehensive View of Abortion from its Historical Context to the Current Debate from 1991 (current debate, indeed!) or the adult book Abortion & the Politics of Motherhood from 1985. The Republicans want to ban and burn Protect and Defend by Richard North Patterson because it mentions pregnancy (oh! the horror! I wonder what Tempest her mother Sami would think of such grossness?) Krause and the Republicans are very worried about any book that mentions LGBTQ people! Krause and the Republicans are armed against any books that even mention LGBTQ, especially being afraid of books that like Thinking Out Loud: On the Personal, the Political, the Public and the Private, an adult book of political essays by Anna Quindlen from 1994 is on this list14 presumably because it mentions writing about “gays” in the description. Again Krause and the Republicans ignored my books that mention LGBTQ attacks by the Texas judiciary (Democracy Dies in Dallas 1989, published by Tangewüld Press, and And Justice for Some: Judge Jack Hampton & the Richard Lee Bednarskin Gang 1990, published by Monument Press). Of course you cannot have two members of the same sex kissing! they can, at most, only shake hands… This led to the ban and call for the burning of a five-book set of The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine and Eyes on Target: Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs. You cannot have a fraternity of males even in the military–I wonder if AAFES knows about this as it is headquartered in Dallas. Any book that “confuses gender” or intimidates gender confusion are also banned, as is the case with Pugdog, by Andrea U’Ren (2001), which is about a child realizing it’s okay for his girl dog to be slobbery and messy and not particularly “girly.”15: how he yielded to temptation, and the consequences. by V.W. Malyt? (1877) published by Torquay (Australia?).] Anything that mentions gender, race, culture, or sexuality is up for grabs.
Nazi book burning was organized by white christian evangelicals and Matt Krause applauds it
Of course Krause and the Republicanazis are radical racists16 banning award winners The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron and Harvey Awards Book of the Year The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nyuyen (2020)17 and Ruby Bridges Thus Is Your Time recounting her time as the first Black student to integrate into an all-white school. Then, with the uproar in Southlake, Texas, Krause and the Republicanazis include a book on the Holocaust: Life, Death and Sacrifice: Women and Family in the Holocaust by Esther Hetzog, editor. 18 The Republicanazis ignore Kiddush Hashem : Jewish religious and cultural life in Poland during the Holocaust by Shimon Huberband; Jeffrey S. Gurock; and Robert S. Hirt (1987).19 Krause and the Republicanazis, ironically, call for the censorship, withdrawal, and burning of The Year They Burned the Books by Nancy Garden (2017).20 It’s about a town’s controversy over the high school’s sex education program, and a school board member tries to get all the sex education material, including textbooks, removed from the school.
Texas Republicanazis see an avenue to political success and financial reward in attacking public libraries that offer a host of various books from different perspectives. Don Huffines, who is running in the Republican primary for governor of Texas, barked: “I am calling on the City of Denton to cancel ‘transgender storytime’ and fire the library employees who approved the event.”21
Denton library cancels ‘Rainbow Storytime’ because of complaints, safety concerns (screen capture)
One event was set for this Saturday, which is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Since the events often coincide with days that honor marginalized peoples, the library said someone “mistakenly” included the word “transgender” on a flyer about the event.22 The event would have featured the books Red: A Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall, I’m a Girl by Yasmeen Ismail, and What Riley Wore by Elana K. Arnold. None of the books involves LGBTQ characters and are instead about self-acceptance even if others don’t accept you.
Me in the library in my home in Peru in the west wing beside the three-stacks section of banned books.
Krause and the Texas Republicans will be upset with me. I own all of the titles on their list and many more (including Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf both in the German and English versions; all of works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engle’s including the Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). Communist Manifesto (1848 edition), Origin of the Family (1884) that are fronted by the complete collection of J.P. Migne (1857-1866) Patrologiae cursus completus, seu bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda, oeconomica, omnium SS. Patrum, doctorum scriptorumque ecclesiasticorum, sive latinorum, sive graecorum; all published papal letters; and even the first printing of Mao Tse Tung’s work 毛泽东论文艺 in Chinese; and القرآن in Arabic) stand proudly to the stacks devoted to banned and burned books. I am not concerned with Senator Josh Hawley‘s preoccupation with manhood… he is not much of a man in my estimation. He is easily upset when shown a picture of two men kissing–especially if they are of different races. Tsk! and I confess that my library holds books and photos of such kissing by both genders from 4000 BCE to the present–they never went to India, Egypt, or other places where such intimacies played a role in everyday life and were celebrated in religion, art, literature, and otherwise in all media. Texas Republicanazis ignored my library in Mesquite or I might have been roasted on an open fire… but Krause and his religious/political goods singled out Julie Anne Peters as the author who has authored the most books included on their list and still write LGBTQ books. I feel slighted that not one of my books has been cited to be banned and burned…but, maybe, my time is still coming.
NOTES
- The Library quickly acquired many papyrus scrolls, due largely to the Ptolemaic kings’ aggressive and well-funded policies for procuring texts. It is unknown precisely how many such scrolls were housed at any given time, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 at its height. ↩
- https://landoverbaptist.org/2019/june/cagesforchrist.html. ↩
- https://www.landoverbaptist.org/news1002/bookburning.html. ↩
- https://bookriot.com/texas-book-ban-list/. ↩
- 1997: Facts on File Publisher. ↩
- 2015, 3d ed. Greenwood Publishers. ↩
- 1998. ↩
- Foundations of Democracy series; 2017, published by Mason Crest. ↩
- 1997, published by Franklin Watts. ↩
- 2000, published by SAGE Publications and Congressional Quarterly. ↩
- 2019; published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers ↩
-
2 לֹֽא־תִהְיֶ֥ה אַחֲרֵֽי־רַבִּ֖ים לְרָעֹ֑ת וְלֹא־תַעֲנֶ֣ה עַל־רִ֗ב לִנְטֹ֛ת אַחֲרֵ֥י רַבִּ֖ים לְהַטֹּֽת׃
3 וְדָ֕ל לֹ֥א תֶהְדַּ֖ר בְּרִיבֽוֹ׃ ס
4 כִּ֣י תִפְגַּ֞ע שׁ֧וֹר אֹֽיִבְךָ֛ א֥וֹ חֲמֹר֖וֹ תֹּעֶ֑ה הָשֵׁ֥ב תְּשִׁיבֶ֖נּוּ לֽוֹ׃ ס
5 כִּֽי־תִרְאֶ֞ה חֲמ֣וֹר שֹׂנַאֲךָ֗ רֹבֵץ֙ תַּ֣חַת מַשָּׂא֔וֹ וְחָדַלְתָּ֖ מֵעֲזֹ֣ב ל֑וֹ עָזֹ֥ב תַּעֲזֹ֖ב עִמּֽוֹ׃ ס
6 לֹ֥א תַטֶּ֛ה מִשְׁפַּ֥ט אֶבְיֹנְךָ֖ בְּרִיבֽוֹ׃
7 מִדְּבַר־שֶׁ֖קֶר תִּרְחָ֑ק וְנָקִ֤י וְצַדִּיק֙ אַֽל־תַּהֲרֹ֔ג כִּ֥י לֹא־אַצְדִּ֖יק רָשָֽׁע׃. ↩
-
17 וַיָּבֹ֨אוּ אֵלֶ֤יהָ בְנֵֽי־בָבֶל֙ לְמִשְׁכַּ֣ב דֹּדִ֔ים וַיְטַמְּא֥וּ אוֹתָ֖הּ בְּתַזְנוּתָ֑ם וַתִּ֨טְמָא־בָ֔ם וַתֵּ֥קַע נַפְשָׁ֖הּ מֵהֶֽם׃
18 וַתְּגַל֙ תַּזְנוּתֶ֔יהָ וַתְּגַ֖ל אֶת־עֶרְוָתָ֑הּ וַתֵּ֤קַע נַפְשִׁי֙ מֵֽעָלֶ֔יהָ כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר נָקְעָ֥ה נַפְשִׁ֖י מֵעַ֥ל אֲחוֹתָֽהּ׃
19 וַתַּרְבֶּ֖ה אֶת־תַּזְנוּתֶ֑יהָ לִזְכֹּר֙ אֶת־יְמֵ֣י נְעוּרֶ֔יהָ אֲשֶׁ֥ר זָנְתָ֖ה בְּאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃
20 וַֽתַּעְגְּבָ֔ה עַ֖ל פִּֽלַגְשֵׁיהֶ֑ם אֲשֶׁ֤ר בְּשַׂר־חֲמוֹרִים֙ בְּשָׂרָ֔ם וְזִרְמַ֥ת סוּסִ֖ים זִרְמָתָֽם׃. ↩
- republished in 2010 by Ballantine Books. ↩
- Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux of New York. Krause overlooked Iné [a pugdog ↩
- https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-republican-party-racial-hypocrisy-and-the-1619-project. Cf. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2021/07/20/racism-america-what-my-fellow-republicans-should-understand/7989408002/?gnt-cfr=1. Cp. https://theconversation.com/texas-voting-law-builds-on-long-legacy-of-racism-from-gop-leaders-166807. ↩
- 2020, published in RH Graphics in New York. It should not be confused with Magic Fish by Freya Littledale and Winslow Pinney Pels, published by Perfection Learning Prebound, or The Magic Fish by Margia Orford and Lizza Littlewort (2011) published by Jacana Media in Auckland Park, South Africa. ↩
- 2008; published in Jerusalem by Galen. The book contains articles by some of the most prominent scholars in the field who tell the stories of women who were humiliated, tortured and murdered; their eternally etched-in-the-memory stories of struggle and survival. This collection of articles is based on two international conferences on women in the Holocaust, held in recent years at Beit Berl Academic College, Beit Theresienstadt, and the Ghetto Fighters House in Israel. The editor, Esther Hertzog, is a daughter of Holocaust survivors, who never spoke about the subject at home. She discovered a feminist perspective on the Holocaust at a conference at Oxford she attended, almost by chance, seven years ago. That experience motivated her to speak with her mother and document their conversations in the article that appears herein. ↩
- Published in Hoboken, NJ by KTAV Publishing House. ↩
- Published by Open Road Media Teen & Tween of New York. They forgot to ban and call for the burning of They Burned the Books: Ten Years Ago the Nazis Lighted the Way to Their Own Destruction. a play by Stephen Vincent Benét published in 1943 by Saturday Review Associates, etc. of New York. ↩
- https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/11/republican-proudly-claims-credit-violent-threats-shut-librarys-rainbow-storytime/?utm_source=LGBTQ+Nation+Subscribers&utm_campaign=f73a43835c-20211119_LGBTQ_Nation_Daily_Brief&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4eab596bd-f73a43835c-432379780. Cf. https://www.fox4news.com/news/denton-library-cancels-rainbow-storytime-because-of-complaints-safety-concerns. ↩
- https://www.fox4news.com/news/denton-library-cancels-rainbow-storytime-because-of-complaints-safety-concerns. ↩
The obvious reason for Krause’s “censorship” is he wants to kill any attempt of opposing thought that might interfere Texas conservative dogma. And, this gets him some much needed publicity since not hardly anyone in Texas knew who he actually was until he started this book banning campaign. He wants to replace Paxton as Texas AG in the 2022 election.
It is extremely doubtful he has actually read any of the books in question. Myself, I question that
he actually can read beyond the 8th grade level at all, much less understand what is written.
What I have read, so far, shows an 8th grade knowledge of correct grammar and word choice in the English language. Nothing indicates that he knows more than Texas English–and he is obviously illiterate of Spanish. Krause lists only Qué me está pasando?, Lucas y yo, and En el bosque are listed only in Spanish — presumably the English versions are okay to stock: they are alll LGBTQ. Then we’ve got three adult romances from E. Lynn Harris, which again suggests that adult romance or erotica books in general are fine, but just not these particular ones. The mistakes and strange choices on this document show how little care was put into it, and how little Krause must think of school officials, that they should comb their collections according to this hastily slapped together list.