The fallout from the withdrawal of Mindy Atwood for State Librarian continues to amuse. I think I made the points that needed making yesterday here (If Book Banning Is Bad, Why Can You Do It?) and here (Actually, Libraries Are The Problem), but when proglodytes give you low-hanging fruit…you make jam out of them.
InDepth NH has a piece that quotes a local State Rep peddling some nonsense that needed fisking.
State Rep. Nick Germano, D-Keene, wrote on social media that “this is where we are – the governor caves in to extremists who opposed the appointment of a state librarian who opposes censorship. He has no problem appointing an Education Commissioner with zero job qualifications but can’t support a nomination of an eminently qualified professional who defends the First Amendment?”
Someone should ask Nick about the Twitter files, the Biden Admin’s effort to pressure Amazon to ban books, The NSF’s 39 million dollar investment in institutional censorship, Government censorship as election interference, or why 70% of Democrats approve of government censorship, and if he is one of them. I could keep going, but I’d like to get back to the topic (libraries, and NH’s DOE).
As I’ve already demonstrated, what libraries shelve is a choice, and exclusion is neither censorship nor book banning. At the same time, choosing sexually explicit titles directed at children is as deliberate an act as accusing parents who don’t think their kids are ready for that censorship or book banning. Especially when, as retiring State Librarian Michal York noted, “In terms of materials like that getting into the hands of young children, all of these kids have phones. They’re getting a lot more off their phones than they are from the pages of the book.”
So, it is neither censorship nor book banning, and I’d like to thank Mr. York for blowing up the idiotic arguments of partisan mules like Nick Germano. The absence of these taxpayer-funded texts is not a barrier to access but another choice for the people paying the bill. And parents do have rights. Kids’ phones fall under their purview.
The other observation Germano makes is more blind partisan water carrying. That Sununu “has no problem appointing an Education Commissioner with zero job qualifications…“
We are bigger fans of Frank Edelblut than Chris Sununu even after his years at the Department of Education, but riddle me this, Rep. Germano. Imagine a system like public education, whose leadership has, over decades, so eroded the perception of its value that parents are looking for alternatives. That system has skyrocketed in cost, while results (the education part of public education) are flat or in decline. A majority of the local property taxes Democrats pretend to care about get swallowed by schools that can only teach 10-30% of kids to read or do math at grade level. In part, because schools try to do things they should not (especially given how bad they are with math, reading, and history), while an increasing amount of the money is consumed by non-productive admininstrative overhead, meaning neither teachers nor students benefit.
How did we get there?
It seems to me that the easier answer is to allow the same old experts to run the Department of Education at every level. This is a mistake that continues in SAUs and school boards across New Hampshire.
Edelblut hasn’t exactly been able to do a lot of good, and that may be in part due to direction from Sununu, but suggesting that what made things go from bad to worse is what we need more of to make things better is as anti-progressive an idea as there is.
While Edelblu was an appointment based on politics – Sununu didn’t want him challenging him in two years, it was also a progressive decision. The old experts had long ago failed NH students. Smart, articulate, capable people who understand the cost of doing business and measure cost and value are sorely needed in every executive branch agency. Not pencil pushers but innovators.
None of that matters to Rep Germano. He exists in a Democrats safe political ghetto in Keene. Thinking outside the blue bubble is unnecessary and (in fact) politically dangerous. His own party has no qualms about priming him if he dares to step off the narrative plantation, which informs his comments.
His job is to hate Edelblute and pretend Dems are not the leaders in bans and censorship, even when it’s demonstrable nonsense.
And I’ll leave you with this. At least a few librarians opposed Mindy Atwood’s nomination, even though we only needed one (if experts were all that mattered).
