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/r/fednews is going wild about what's going on with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This is in-line with this executive order. If this really does goes forward and a significant chunk of federal funding is cut from museums and libraries nationwide, I might really just start go kick a rock somewhere. I love libraries, I love museums, and I really don't think they're that wasteful either. I've read and somewhat understand where other posters are coming from with regards to institutional-ideological-capture, but on this I am struggling to see how that weighs so much compared to the good being provided.
Literally over the weekend on a day trip, my wife and I stopped at the local town's library for a midtrip break and I was absolutely astound at the many services this small town library provided. There was weekly notary service, children activities, a display of locally important quilts, a plethora of tax-season offerings, etc. Personally, in my childhood, my school library was open on Saturday and it was common for my mum to unload us kids there for the day and let us roam the stacks as we please. As a middle schooler, the library was great for a socially anxious kid. And in adulthood, on every exploration walk I've made, if there's a library open, I'm walking in.
For any trip to any world-class city, museums are the first thing on my list. The artifacts, the stories, the experience of seeing things you've only seen in books or through the internet with your own eyes, letting those electrons hit those retinas. Washington DC would be a lot less inviting or exciting without the many museums that dot its map. Even the small libraries can be a great experience as they often document a subject I've never thought of before.
The US greatest treasures are its national parks and forests and public land. Thankfully at least that nature would survive when there are less humans, though I still fear for the actual long term consequences. Not so the libraries and museums. Can someone explains to me why this is a good thing?
My wife takes our kids to our local public library. The YA section is overflowing with [unasked for aggressive child targeting LGBTQ evangelism] graphic novels (I get that that's a unkind way to describe this shit, but they are overtly targeting my early middle school aged daughter - I didn't start this). There are giant, proudly displayed pride flags up all the time. Jack Turban "hooray for trans!" book endcaps. Lots of community "witchy knitting circle!" outreach. I am not exaggerating here. We live in a purple area, politically, although our particular corner of it is more like 66% blue. I legitimately find it all very frustrating - if I took my kids to a "pray the gay away" church, it would horrify my wife, but our local library is quite literally that, and then some, for a different ideology (or secular religion, really), and one that appalls me. But, you know, it's a public library. Reading is good. Libraries are good. This is currently a really vexed issue for me, actually.
Anyway, I'm not saying burn it down, exactly, but if Hercules came along to reroute a river through it to clean it out, I wouldn't shed any tears. And I grew up loving my time in libraries, too. Very depressing.
Yeah, children's books are fucking terrifying these days. Our local library, that our daughter's school occasionally takes the older kids too, had a bit of a kerfuffle with them pushing inappropriate books on kids, Gender Queer chief among them. There were protest, the usual mealy mouthed euphemisms about "book burning" to dodge the issue of graphic novels with graphic depictions of gay sex being recommended to children. Instead of removing the books or putting them in an "adult only" section, they created some fake "New Adult" section, which really changes nothing? Because their terminal goal seems to be showing pornographic material to children.
Turns out the library was being run by an NGO despite being funded 75% by the county. The conservative county has now forced a conservative board onto it by threatening to withhold funds. So I guess sometimes you can vote your way out of problems. At least until the state or the feds decide to steal the institution away from you, or some interloper in a black robe decides "Actually, making pornography available to children is mandatory".
I could swear having LGBTQ themes is now mandatory in children's publishing. I made the mistake of wondering into a random bookstore with my daughter in my state capital, and virtually every book was queer. A curious girl falls in love and kisses a mermaid. A curious girl falls in love and kisses another girl. A curious girl pony falls in love with another girl pony and they kiss. Some lesbian unicorns, etc, etc. Basically there was a book for every type of little girl with the subtext of "Have you considered being gay?" With rainbows and sparkles, and god damnit the mermaid one really caught her attention because she loves mermaids. It was virtually every book prominently displayed cover out instead of spine out. That and some picture books proselytizing about Taylor Swift. Weirdest fucking shit I ever saw. Had to distract my daughter with something shiny behind her and then make an excuse about needing to be somewhere.
My wife, who does more of the shopping and the picking out of books notices this shit a lot more than I do, and virtually every day she comes home with tales of what she saw in a kid's section today.
Just, what the fuck? It's exhausting all the directions this shit keeps flying at us from. And then some parent you've been friendly with the last few years of your daughters school invites you to see a "family friendly drag show" and you wonder if all the people in your life have been replaced by pod people. There was a before time right? Like.... 5 years ago? 10 years ago? I'm not imagining it, am I?
Edit: Upon further research, the library in my anecdote chose to have their funding cut rather than accept a more conservative board of directors from the county, and ceasing showing pornography to children. I guess some thing you actually can't vote your way out of, and these.... people get to destroy one of the oldest libraries in my state. Alas.
Luckily, that kind of propaganda is only a small subset of the children's books available in Germany.
Most is still propaganda of the sort of "be a good little meek cheek-turner", "work smart, not hard, or don't work at all" and "a just-so solution will come to you", or ethically incomprehensible gibberish. And why, just why, must nineteen out of twenty children's books feature anthropomorphic animals? It's not a new trend, I didn't mind it as a kid, and I don't want to make a big deal out of it now, but it does frustrate me.
Other than those, we subsist on children's books from 30+ years ago. Those are far from perfect too, of course, but at least you needn't worry about the very modern maladies. Something something C.S. Lewis.
Err...
Yeah, I'm not arguing. I just feel like after decades of that being water to swim in, I'd like to know why.
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