In which the pond's Sunday meditation turns to tourism, of a limited kind ...

 

As a travel blogger, the pond feels the need to show off the vast swathes of Melbourne that it's experienced to date ... but the deep freeze has tended to the pond inside. It's hard to rustle up the motivation to explore an ice chest ...

Still, there's a grand feeling of freedumb ...

Not so much avoiding news as avoiding reptiles, but with the same result. 

The pond hasn't glanced at the lizard Oz, not once, and has no idea what's going down in the fevered swamp of the reptile hive mind ...

Feeling guilty - freedumb versus the deep freeze - the pond has occasiionally ventured out and seen some bizarre oddities, like setting up a celebration of the Beatles landing in Melbourne... twist and shout and such like ...

For the most part the pond has stayed anchored in Smith street, brooding about the past, with plaques to remind the pond of the old days ...

Much loved by Swinburne types wanting to make a cheap student film on location, but truth to tell, in its glory days, unless the plods had some six of their kind to hand, they wouldn't dare enter ... it was such a rough pub that it put Maguires in Tamworth in the shade, and in its hey day, you could always count on a brawl out the back of Maguires.

Now you just wander down the road a little and you can end up with a spiffy NFT shop with shoes ...

The pond's eyes immediately glazed over, but as well as in your in your digital face shops, there were shops that looked deeply mystifying and impenetrable ...

The pond has no idea what was being sold - only vulgar youff knows - but did like the reflections ...

The pond also had to catch up on queeraoke ...

The pond's gaydar was on constant alert, pleased that simply being in the area might produce a reptile meltdown ... with ample proof the Pellists had lost this part of town ...

Sad to say the rainbow looked the worse for wear, but the feral bunny had its charms ...

And then there was Melbourne's irresistible desire to turn almost anything into a form of street art ...

Finally certain stores offered a reliable way for nature detectives to track millennial hipsters ...LP scat is way more easy to follow than tracking bunnies using scat ...

And with the travelogue out of the way, the pond can note that it missed a few 'toons relating to yesterday's nuking of the country to destroy Paris ...

And so cartoons out of the way, at last a Sunday meditative featuring not a single reptile.

This one was on the topic of book bans...

The pond happened to note a droll story in WaPo (paywall) through the week, rich in the calcium and irony every body needs ...

The pond was bemused, but gorged on the irony ...

...Jennifer Pippin, the chair of the Indian River, Fla., chapter of Moms for Liberty who filed the complaint about “Ban This Book,” told The Post in text messages Wednesday that she wanted titles with “sexually explicit content” removed from schools. She said she complained about “Ban This Book” because it referenced other banned books with sexual content. Pippin added that parents could still access the book through public libraries and online bookstores.

Gratz said he wrote the book in 2017 to call attention to challenges against books, an issue he said was “relatively unseen” at the time. He recalled religious objections to the Harry Potter series’ portrayal of witchcraft and challenges to the Junie B. Jones books because their titular 5-year-old character had poor grammar.

“Ban This Book” was meant to push back on that phenomenon, Gratz said.

“Nobody has the right to tell you what you can and can’t read, except your parents, and they shouldn’t have the ability to tell other parents what books their kids can and can’t read,” he told The Post. “And that’s the core message.”

Books have been swept up in the culture wars in recent years as school officials and lawmakers have tussled over how to teach about race, history and sexuality in classrooms. Last year, 4,240 titles in U.S. schools and libraries were challenged, a 65 percent jump from the previous year, according to the American Library Association. Seventeen states attempted to restrict more than 100 titles each — including Florida, where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation making it easier for residents to challenge books, before limiting who could file challenges in April.

Pippin’s complaint about “Ban This Book,” which follows a girl as she creates a locker library of banned titles, said the story was “inappropriate for unaccompanied minor children in schools.” In the complaint, Pippin cited pages in the book where the characters mention other materials that reference sex.

The complaint was one of 245 book challenges Pippin has submitted on behalf of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, she wrote to The Post. She files complaints on behalf of the group’s members to protect their safety, she said.

Two middle schools and one elementary school in Indian River County had “Ban This Book” on their shelves, according to Pippin’s complaint.

After Pippin complained, a district committee reviewed “Ban This Book.” Most of the committee’s members recommended that it stay in schools, but the school board on May 20 voted, 3-2, to remove the book from shelves.

School board member Kevin McDonald said during the meeting that he disagreed with the review committee’s recommendation to keep the book. He said “Ban This Book” encouraged undermining district officials and promoted “inappropriate books.”

“I thought it was ironic that this book is intentionally and overtly saying that school boards shouldn’t matter, only 9-year-olds and librarians should matter,” he said.

In motioning for the vote to remove “Ban This Book,” McDonald said the title was “offensive to a large segment of our parents.”

Gratz, the author, said the ban felt “inevitable” after years of following the stories of other books removed or nearly removed across the country.

“It doesn’t mean that I want to accept it,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that I won’t fight back against it.”

Some of his titles have faced challenges before, Gratz said. Last year, a middle school in Pennsylvania canceled a reading of “Two Degrees,” a book he wrote about climate change, after district officials questioned whether it was appropriate for students.

But the spectacle of banning a book about banned books brought new attention to Gratz and his work, he said. He’s spent the week fielding calls about the ban, he said.

With his and other books being removed from school shelves, he said he worries the message he was trying to share about bans will be lost.

“I wish that ‘Ban This Book’ didn’t need to exist as a book,” he said. “I would happily take it back.”

Just before heading south, a street library disgorged a book sure to delight Florida school board members ... (you could still find it on Amazon too, proof that street libraries offer bargain pricing)

The pond was pleased to see that it had a pretty good strike rate and had read a lot of the banned books, but it was still a good guide for details of books yet to be looked at ...

The pond recalls reading the bible - one of the said banned books - at a very early age, from cover to cover, including ploughing through all the begats. 

You hit them early, in Genesis 5 and it begorrah it starts to chew up time and cause a loss of focus ...

…Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
6 And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:
7 And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters:
8 And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.
9 And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan:
10 And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters:
11 And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.
12 And Cainan lived seventy years and begat Mahalaleel:
13 And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters:
14 And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died.
15 And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared:
16 And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters:
17 And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died.
18 And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch:
19 And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
20 And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died.
21 And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah:
22 And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
23 And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:
24 And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
25 And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech. (begin begatting here)

And that was just the beginning of the begatting which went on forever, and sometimes featured remarkable life spans, and the pond suspects that tall tales of long lives was the moment when a tendency not to believe anything you're liable to read in the unreliable bible might be handy.

...Wadoo, zim bam boodle-oo
Hoodle ah da wa da
Scatty wah!
Oh yeah!
Well, it ain't necessarily so
Well, it ain't necessarily so
Dey tells all you chillun
De debble's a villun
But it ain't necessarily so!
To get into Hebben
Don' snap for a sebben!
Live clean ! Don' have no fault!
Oh, I takes dat gospel
Whenever it's pos'ble
But wid a grain of salt
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years
But who calls dat livin'
When no gal will give in
To no man what's nine hundred years 
I'm preachin' dis sermon to show
It ain't nessa, ain't nessa
Ain't nessa, ain't nessa
Ain't necessarily so!

Still, by the time the pond put the bible down after finishing the read, the pond emerged with an astonishing list of sins and crimes, from genocide through kinkiness of all kinds to the pleasures of righteous slaughter - which perhaps explains why Xians are so good at sinning, what with having such a marvellous guide to endless possibilities ...

Speaking of sins, what a blessed collection of sinners has been on parade this past week, and with that the pond can wrap up its Sunday meditation, while praying to the long absent lord for a change in the Melbourne weather ...