Blog Post #5

4. What is the one thing that you found most surprising, shocking, or disturbing about What Johnny Shouldn't Read so far? What about it surprises, shocks, or disturbs you?

What I found most shocking about the book thus far was the fundamentalists themselves. It's difficult because I am Catholic but don't share any of these views with the fundamentalists or "born-again" Christians. As a matter of fact they don't associate themselves with Catholics either and think Catholics are not Christians.. hmm I wonder where their religion stemmed from then.. I can't believe these parents would rather their children not learn about other religions or cultures at all. When I have children I want them to learn of all cultures and all people around the world. I want them to learn it is okay to be different and that it doesn't mean these people are evil. When I was a little girl I used to read books from a series in which unicorns ruled a world other than our own and there were little delvers that were the bad guys. A little earth girl whom the book was about got stuck in the other world. I have the fondest memory of those stories and I think it helped give me imagination (oh wait that's bad right?) In "Johnny" the fundamentalists don't want their children to read anything of the sort. My book would have been banned from school because of the "magic" aspect and the fact that the unicorn cold speak and understand any language. (he also had healing powers in his horn but we won't go there) My magical fairy tale stories never affected my beliefs in God. It is a story, and children know that in most cases. These people are trying to give their children a childhood in which reality has no place. When they grow up and see what the outside world really looks like they won't be ready. And lastly, I just have a problem with these parents because they give all "Christians" a bad name. And Delfattore is right on when she says it's not really about religion for these people but more about politics.

Blog post #4

2. California and Texas dominate the censorship of textbooks at the publication level. Does the fact that one state is traditionally liberal and the other traditionally conservative help or hinder the accuracy of textbooks? Why?
This definitely hinders the accuracy of text books in my opinion. In either state certain facts are left out. It is understandable that there is not enough room for everything in the texts. However the fact that special interest groups are the people deciding what stays and what goes is very scary. Text books should be written from a completely unbiased standpoint. They should be as accurate as possible in order for students to get a full understanding of the subject matter and make what they want to out of it. In Texas they are very conservative and clearly want the generations to follow to be the same. As is the case with California but from the liberal standpoint. This is working very well for them, as Texas continues to become more conservative and California continues to become more liberal. Which is, in a way, pitting these people against each other. In the reading it states "in 2004, both publishers and the Texas board of education agreed to a proposal, at Frey’s urging, that clearly defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman in health textbooks." This is ridiculous to me because the institution of marriage is a very new idea in the western world. In ancient Rome there were recognized marriages between both sexes and it was not shameful nor wrong in those times. Why can't we just get the facts? Do California and Texas think people in their states are so dense that they can't know the truth because they wouldn't know what to do with it? Or do Texas and California simply want to shape and mold each generation into exactly what they want them to be? Another quote from the reading that really bothered me was, "These guidelines have become increasingly complicated and dictatorial, to the point that they include a list of over 500 words that are banned from all textbooks. For example, to satisfy the feminists, according to Ravitch, “words that include the prefix or suffix man or men must be excluded; such words as manpower, chairman, forefathers, freshman, businessmen, and mankind are banned.” How ridiculous? Really, what are we supposed to change the vocabulary and dictionary of the country because some feminists say so? NO! I JUDT WANT THE FACTS MAN!!

Disappointment and such..

Sad to say I did terribly on the first essay. I am disappointed in myself! UGH i hate bad grades.. I need to practice writing I guess. Hope everyone else did better than me.. or do I? Misery does love company. lol.. no I really hope everyone did well. that's all for now..

Tyranny of the Majority and the Trail of Tears..

Think about the American experiment in democracy. Discuss one specific example of tyranny of the majority in American history or contemporary American society

This was difficult to find a good example, however I remembered in my history class last semester about how the whites in America forced the Native Americans to up and leave their homes so they could expand further towards California. I believe this was the time of Andrew Jackson. They felt America as a nation was "destined" by God to expand from "sea to shining sea." Jackson had many followers at the time and it was not difficult to persuade the majority to go for this "Manifest Destiny" So many Native lives were lost and ruined. We learned about the "Indian Removal Act" how Jackson quickly signed off on this, and the "Trail of Tears." They treated a minority of human beings as savages and marched them off their own lands to either re-locate or die along the way (which many did) The majority felt Natives were savages and therefore this was justified. Sad and sickening really. However what the Spanish did to South America some might consider far worse.. The past is filled with disheartening facts that are sometimes difficult to hear..

John Milton's Areopagitica

Milton argues that truth becomes "heresy" when people believe things only because their pastors or governments say they are true. According to Milton, why is this dangerous?


Milton argued that believing everything that pastors or governments say was dangerous because you are trusting these people in places of power to make decisions for you. There are corrupt people in every walk of life; so who is to say just because one is a pastor he/she will be honest, or do the make the right decisions for the majority of the people. Governement officials (especially) are not to be trusted to look out for the people's best interests. Milton felt this went back to the Stuart Tyranny, and that they were taking a step backwards in history. We cannot let others think for us or filter the truth. Milton argues that truth can't exist in a world of censorship. It is best we are given all the facts (real facts, not just whatever they feel like telling us) and judge and think for ourselves. It is scary to think that the population of America watches the news and makes decisions based on partial facts that are being filtered to us. And yet we think we are so free. RIGHT...