Anne Frank censorship attempt fails

From the New York Daily News in the USA:

May 13, 2013 11:24 AM

School officials in Northville, Mich., refuse to ban unedited version of Anne Frank’s diary

BY Taylor Malmsheimer

Last month, a mother in Northville, Mich., filed a formal complaint against her daughter’s school district, stating that the unedited version of “The Diary of a Young Girl: Anne Frank” contained “pornographic” passages that were inappropriate for her seventh grade daughter and her classmates.

The Northville Patch reports that following a deliberation by a review committee, Northville Public School officials have decided not to remove the definitive edition of Anne Frank’s diary from its middle school’s reading options.

Assistant superintendent for instructional services Robert Behnke wrote a letter to the community regarding the school’s decision, stating that the committee worried that removing the book would constitute as censorship.

“The committee felt strongly that a decision to remove the use of ‘Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl — The Definitive Edition’ as a choice within this larger unit of study would effectively impose situational censorship by eliminating the opportunity for the deeper study afforded by this edition,” Behnke wrote.

The committee, which consisted of elementary, middle school and district administrators as well as two middle school English teachers and two parents in the district, also suggested the district should better communicate information about the units of study in middle school literature classes, Behnke said. It suggested that when possible, middle school English classes should provide parents with booklists that can be reviewed by parents before students make a selection.

The school’s decision is a welcome hiatus from a recent troubling trend, in which parents and teachers request that various books be banned from school libraries and reading lists in communities across the country.

Related articles

• Anne Frank’s Diary in US schools censorship battle (guardian.co.uk)
• Michigan Woman Believes Anne Frank’s Diary is Indecent, Wants It Pulled From Middle School Reading Lists (complex.com)
• Michigan mom deems Anne Frank’s unedited diary too naughty for junior high (redalertpolitics.com)
• Is the unabridged ‘Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl’ too much of a good thing? (csmonitor.com)

Arab emirates ban Guy Fawkes masks

This video from the USA is called Arrested For Wearing a Guy Fawkes Mask (Occupy Lansing).

By Kris Holt:

November 19, 2012

If you’re a member of hacking group Anonymous, it’s now illegal to show your face in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Dubai police have declared the Guy Fawkes mask, the disguise most strongly associated with Anonymous, illegal. Police issued a warning was issued to anyone considering wearing the mask ahead of the UAE’s National Day on Dec. 2. They claim it symbolizes resistance to state authority.

Related articles

• UAE fears Anonymous, bans Guy Fawkes mask (examiner.com)
• Guy Fawkes Day: A Brief History (history.com)
• V for Vendetta, with no mask. His face IS the Guy Fawkes mask (imgur.com)
• What You Should Probably Know About That Guy Fawkes Mask (humor.gunaxin.com)
• Anonymous movement protests on Guy Fawkes night (seattlepi.com)

More child poverty in the USA

This video is called Child Poverty Has Risen to 16 Million in the United States of America.

By David Brown in the USA:

New report shows rising US child poverty

31 July 2012

A new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Kids Count Databook 2012” [PDF], reveals a sharp decline in economic well-being for children in the United States over the past few years.

Among the report’s more stark figures, the number of children living in poverty increased by 1 million between 2010 and 2011. This is an astounding increase for a single year. It is particularly telling given that such a drastic increase in poverty continued well after the Obama administration officially declared that the recession had ended.

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of children living in poverty soared upward by nearly 30 percent, from 12.2 million to 15.7 million. “The additional 3.5 million children living in poverty is nearly equivalent to the entire population of the city of Los Angeles,” the report notes.

The report gathered data from various government agencies to rate each state on 16 different criteria. The criteria were split into four different categories: economic well-being, family and community, health, and education. All four indicators reveal a dramatic increase in economic stress on children.

A full 22 percent of all children in the US now live below the poverty line, which was a meager $22,113 for a family of four in 2010. The artificially low poverty cutoff leaves out many families that suffer from deprivation. According to the report, “families need an income of roughly twice the official poverty level to meet their basic needs, including housing, food, transportation, health care and child care.” Nearly half of all children, 44 percent, live in low income families that earn less than twice the poverty threshold.

Seventy-one percent of Detroit children are living at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty line: here.

A report by Washington, D.C. non-profit Action for Children has provided a detailed analysis of the living conditions of the District’s children in the ongoing economic recession. The report, entitled D.C. Kids Count, is the result of a joint effort between Action for Children and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which released the nationwide Kids Count Data Book, surveying economic, health, and other measures of well-being for children across the country: here.

Over the last 9 years, the Bush tax cuts have delivered $1 million in tax breaks to the average millionaire: here.

Travis Waldron, ThinkProgress: “America’s 10 most profitable corporations paid an average corporate income tax rate of just 9 percent in 2011, according to a study from financial site NerdWallet reported by the Huffington Post. The 10 companies include Wall Street banks like Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase, oil companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron, and tech companies like Apple, IBM, and Microsoft”: here.

Gar Alperovitz, The Democracy Collaborative: “We often forget that it was once simply assumed the United States would move inevitably in the direction of ever greater equality. A 1963 American Economic Review article observed that ‘most recent studies’ of US economic history take for granted that ‘since the end of the depression the nation’s wealth has been redistributed and prosperity has been extended to the vast majority’”: here.

Poverty in Michigan has increased a staggering 66 percent since 2001, the largest increase of any state in the country: here.

Poverty up, income down in San Diego: here.

USA: cougars still alive in Michigan

This video is about cougars.

From Live Science:

Michigan Cougars not Extinct, Animal Droppings Indicate

By Sara Goudarzi

LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 19 May 2006

Cougars may be the most controversial of Michigan’s 10 million-plus residents.

While the state has a history of cougar sightings, whether any actually remain is a source of debate.

Wildlife officials have claimed that cougars were wiped out of Michigan by the 1930′s.

Yet people have reported mountain lion sightings in 12 areas of Michigan. Cougar and mountain lion are two names for the same animal.

Now a study of DNA from animal droppings may be the first concrete evidence that could lead to a resolution of the state’s ongoing catfight.

If the government in Michigan is better than Jeb Bush’s administration, mishandling their close relatives the Florida panthers, then there is some hope for these cougars.

Does New Hampshire have mountain lions? Here.

A mountain lion killed on a road in the US state of Connecticut had walked halfway across the US before it died in June, scientists have said: here.