Thursday, June 15, 2023

Don't be afraid, it's just a book...

     We can take living in Illinois for granted, as an oasis from the revanchist madness gripping parts of the nation. For instance, on Monday, the state banned book bans.
     "Book bans are about censorship; marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts," Gov. J. B. Pritzker said, stating the quiet part out loud. "Regimes ban books, not democracies."
     Illinois was the first state in the country to pass a law cutting funding to any library that restricts books because of "partisanal or doctrinal" disapproval. And while the devil is in the details, it means that any censorious individual can't count on the state as an eager partner if they get bent out of shape because a book acknowledges the existence of LGBTQ people, or goes into America's racist past in detail that makes them uncomfortable. They'll just have to be satisfied with not checking out books they don't like, instead of pretending those books are dangerous for everybody, and forcing their narrow outlook on the entire community, a common practice in the red-tinted regions of the country.
     Books help, not hurt, as I was reminded Wednesday, when I introduced readers to Sara Bader's newest book on pet love and grief, mentioning a column, gulp, nearly 20 years ago, when I wrote about her first book.


HIDDEN IN PLAIN VIEW

     History once meant the lives of kings, which grew old before somebody had the bright idea to also look at the lives of common people: laborers and farmers and artisans. Suddenly we understood the past a little better.  
       Researcher Sara Bader has had a similar insight, realizing that she could learn an awful lot about the past through old classified ads, and her lovely new book, Strange Red Cow, is an illuminating delight. She uses classifieds, mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries, to riff from the whimsical to the heartbreaking, from ads for lost livestock (the title comes from a plea, beginning, "Came to my plantation . . . A STRANGE RED COW . . .") to ads for runaway slaves ("RUN away from the Subscriber, on Saturday the 1st Instant, a Negro Woman named JUDITH, who carried her Child with her. . . .").
     Bader discovered that if you, for instance, are wondering what people kept in their saddlebags in 1777, you could find out by consulting the advertisement of someone who lost two between Worcester and Hardwick ("Lost . . . a pair of SADDLE BAGS containing a Cheese, some pulled Sheeps Wool, a number of Apples, a striped small Apron, and a small pair of blue Stockings . . ."). She writes well, too.
     "We can untie the twine that once wrapped up their parcels, rifle through satchels, empty out coat pockets," she writes, in the lucid commentary surrounding the old ads. "That our collective ancestors forgot their books in carriages, left their capes on battlefields, and dropped their keys and their cash is oddly reassuring."
     Like classifieds, the book is divided into subject headings "Help Wanted," "Lost and Found," "Swap." You'll learn things you never thought of before -- how after the Civil War, former slaves took out poignant ads in the black press, searching for their lost children -- and you will never look at the classified section of the newspaper in the same way again.
     —Originally published in the Sun-Times Dec. 26, 2005

10 comments:

  1. I remember when Joey "The Clown" Lombardo put a classified ad in the Trib years ago stating he wasn't a crook or something like that, even though he was a made man in The Outfit. It was obvious that the Metro guys at the paper hadn't seen it, so I called them & told them, the guy who answered the phone found it & started laughing, thanked me for the info & it became an article the next day!

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    1. Well I remember when Minnie Minoso was traded from the White Sox to the Cardinals, and some guy ran a classified ad for what seemed like months: BRING MINOSO BACK--MAKE YOUR PROTEST NOW. To no avail. Minnie spent a season with St. Louis, another with the Senators, and finally came back to the South Side for his farewell appearance in 1964...his third tour with Chicago.

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  2. The year it came out that the Trump administration was keeping immigrant children of color in cages, I declined to celebrate the 4th of July. Instead I drove to Montgomery Alabama to spend the 4th at the The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Every American should go there. You will leave a different person than when you arrived. In addition to the memorial, there is a museum, colloquially known as the "Lynching Museum". the museum has a wall of advertisements like the ones referenced in your column. They are heartbreaking - and necessary for us to read and understand. Ron DeSantis and others in the GOP asylum are trying to ban books teaching children about horrors such as these. Thank goodness I live in Illinois.

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  3. Looks like Gov. J. B. Pritzker has finally addressed a serious issue. Now like in the past, books about the basics of firearm safety and self-defense will be available in all public K-12 schools for the children to check out.

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    1. I would guess that books such as Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries (which provided Timothy McVeigh a game plan for his Oklahoma bombing) should not be readily available in school libraries. Likewise for NRA propaganda. Perhaps what Bernie had in mind was simply what he stated: "books about the basics of firearm safety and self defense" and not NRA material. I doubt it, however. Thank you, Bernie. Duly noted that the issue is not as clear cut as the Governor and we liberals would like to think and that banning the banning of books might not resolve that issue and could even turn out to be counter productive.

      john

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    2. Disagree. Children are not being radicalized by The Turner Diaries. And the NRA stuff is a red herring by Bernie — trying to pretend that liberals are somehow threatened by firearms safety manuals. He didn't come up with that; he's channeling some red state BS he heard on TV yesterday.

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    3. As you said, Neil, "The devil is in the details." But I have to thank you for touting books by Sarah Bader and Jack Clark. My sister's wife needs consolation from loss of Ollie, her 15-year-old Lab,and I really enjoyed "On the Home Front." I could relate, having almost as many cousins as Mary Jo. And now I await the Strange Red Cow which promises to bring me a little deeper into the past.

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    4. Well, perhaps a trollish comment and over the line. The last time I commented on the NRA is here. My opinion of the NRA then still stands. I know some people find it annoying, but if I'm echoing someone else’s opinion I will provide a link. I don't have cable or a subscription service, but I often watch programs like POV, Frontline, 60 Minutes, and Independent Lens. Which often influences my opinions.
      Our country has its share of groups tied up in their own agendas. Spreading their beliefs by indoctrinating children when they can. If a book or books they endorse are not in school libraries, they claim a ban is in place.
      A school library is not the library of congress, and the librarian needs to make choices. Really there should be a core of basic literature, history, geography, and STEM books available. Also books that teachers select to supplement their syllabus.
      I just see a serious problem and try to come up with an idea that may help. Children need to know the best practices when handling guns at an early age, or any age. All too often children not knowing what they are doing accidently shoot a sibling or playmate. Also in the news from time to time a law enforcement officer, DEA, FBI, ATF, or Judge while cleaning a firearm has a negligent discharge. It seems to me somehow the basics are being missed.
      Fortunately, Chicagoans have the Chicago Public Library and its resources available. One of my earliest memories is a CPL book bus that stopped in our neighborhood every Tuesday morning. In high school I made frequent trips to the main library downtown. And yes, they have books about the basics of firearm safety and self-defense available for checkout.
      For high school students, the city of Chicago has one of the best JROTC programs in our nation. A real plus for the students who take it whether or not they join the military after graduation.

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    5. Looks like I messed up the link. I hope this/a> works.

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  4. Illinois has indeed been an oasis...and for a long time, not just since the start of the Great Leap Backward. In 1962, Illinois became the first U.S. state in which it was not illegal to engage in homosexual activity--by becoming the first state to remove criminal penalties for consensual sodomy from its criminal code...almost a decade before any other state.

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