Bush rule would force books to be tossed

Americans my age grew up on books like 'The Foot Book' and 'The Man Who Didn't Wash His Dishes'. But these and other classics are about to be consigned to the memory hole.

When someone on the Internet mentioned that a new government rule would force children's books to be burned under the guise of cleaning up lead, I thought this was just an urban legend. I thought it was like the time talk-shit radio made up the story about the farmer who got jailed by Bill Clinton's EPA because he accidentally killed a rat with his tractor.

But nope. It's true, it's true, it's all true!

Last year, the Bush regime issued a rule saying that all kids' books in libraries and elsewhere that were written before 1985 have to be tested for lead or discarded.

Yes, I know: Lead in paper? As late as 1985, no less???

Congress had intended to prevent lead-laden toys from being imported into the U.S. It had no intention of letting one of Bush's agencies make everyone throw away books, of all things.

Of course, the media has waited until now to raise a stink about Bush's rule - as if it just now passed. And we all know why the media waited.

No library has the money to test every book for lead. Everyone knows this. So - because of this rule - Cincinnati's public library system is now required to throw away 1,200,000 books or bar kids under 12 from the library.

When I learned this rule was actually real and was handed down by a Bush agency, it was immediately clear it had nothing to do with getting rid of lead.

It's about censorship.

Why 1985? That year was at the midpoint of the Reagan era, but it just followed the heyday of the type of novels for young people that conservatives have long attempted to ban. Kids' literature (and other media) after 1985 has often been cheesy and sheepish. It's also true that scholarship after then has been tainted by right-wing politics.

Does anyone still think this story isn't about censorship?

If I still worked at my local library, I would refuse to throw away a single book under this rule. I am not going to be a party to right-wing book-burning. If they want to fire me, I guess they'd have to be parties to Bush's censorship by themselves.

The American Library Association asked for libraries to be exempted from Bush's order - and last week, the ALA won a reprieve. But next year, this battle is going to have to be fought again - on the media's terms, of course.

The America we knew growing up is slipping into the memory hole, and the talk-shit radio droids don't want to place the blame where it belongs. The cutoff date for censoring books is only a year off from the one this story evokes.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090217/NEWS01/302170030/1055/NEWS)