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PAGE 2A PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 23. 2010
Celebrate freedoms during
Banned Book Week
It was recently brought to our attention that
the week of September 25 through October 2
is “Banned Book Week,” which the American
Library Association (ALA), a sponsor of the
18-year-old national event, says is a celebra
tion of “the freedom to read and the impor
tance of the First Amendment.
“Banned Books Week highlights the bene
fits of free and open access to information
while drawing attention to the harms of cen
sorship by spotlighting actual or attempted
bannings of books across the United States,”
the group says.
Many libraries and educational facilities
across the nation celebrate
the week with displays and
programs, and booksellers
will run specials on banned
books.
Neat. But even neater is that
there are currently no black
listed books in the United
States. Still, the ALA has a
laundry list of the most com
monly challenged books of
today, as well as a list of
books “banned” at some
point in American history.
Banned book lists at most
libraries and bookstores are
surprisingly tame to modem readers. Classic
titles, often assigned to younger students as
school projects, fill a large majority of the top
100. Books such as Ray Bradbury’s Fahren
heit 451, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World,
even Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged
Bird Sings at one time provoked the ire of cen
sors somewhere.
In response to this list The Onion, an online
satirical news source, ran a piece way back in
2000 entitled, “Nation’s Teens Disappointed
by Banned Books.”
Here’s a little excerpt:
"I was really psyched to read Huck Finn
when my English teacher told me it was
banned, because I figured, you know, it would
be dirty. But it was totally lame: There was no
sex or violence or anything...,” said a ficti
tious sophomore in the story.
The Onion report continued, “In a letter
sent to the ALA, the American Association Of
High-School Students cited its members' other
complaints with banned books, including: the
monster in John Gamer's Grendel isn't scary
at all and doesn't even act like a monster;
William Golding's Lord Of The Flies is not ac
tually about a mutant insect man who can con
trol the world's flies with his mental powers;
and there is no reason to read Stephen King's
Cujo when you can see it on cable 24 hours a
day; plus, it's not that good, anyway.”
All joking aside, there are many countries
where free access to written
word is severely oppressed.
We Americans
should be thankful we enjoy
life in a country where im
portant, thought-provoking
books can be published.
Let’s not take them for
granted.
Here are a few books
on the ALA’s banned list that
may surprise you. Consider
picking up a copy and cele
brating Americans’ freedom
to read and print what we
want.
• The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger -
Banned because of profanity and portrayal of
events such as prostitution, depression, and
alienation.
• Harry Potter Series, J.K. Rowling -
These have been a frequent target of those
who feel the need to restrict the rights of oth
ers. The most common complaints lodged
against the young wizard and his friends are
the books use of witchcraft and fantasy, which
could confuse reality for children. Violence
has also been an issue.
• The Color Purple, Alice Walker - This
has been challenged and banned over the
years because of its explicit sexuality, profan
ity, violence, and use of drugs.
We should be
thankful we enjoy
life in a country
where important,
though t-provoking
books can
be published.
Agree or Disagree? Tell us your thoughts on this week’s editorial either online at
the message board on the Progress Online (www.pickensprogress.com) or with a letter to the
editor that will be published next week. Letters may be e-mailed to
news@pickensprogress.com. All letters must have a valid e-mail address, full name and a
telephone number for verification. Phone numbers are not published. Letters may also be
sent regular mail to Pickens Progress - P.O. Box 67 - Jasper, GA 30143. All names are pub
lished. The Deadline for letters is each Monday at noon.
The Essential Bad Attitude
By Alan Gibson
Morality is not a series of tests
There reposed on my living piece of debris. Having spotted it
room floor a small but prominent from across the room, I knew I
PUBLIC HEARING
The Northwest Georgia Regional Commission, Area Agency on
Aging, will hold two Public Hearings during the month of October
2010. The purpose of the meetings is to gain input into services
needed for our aging population within the 15-county Northwest
Georgia service area. Information received will assist in developing
future Area Agency planning. BOTH MEETINGS WILL BEGIN AT
12:00 NOON.
Meeting #1, Friday, October 8, 2010
The first meeting will be conducted by the State Division of Aging
Services to be held at the Rome/Floyd Nutrition Center, 406 Riverside
Parkway, Rome, GA30161 (706-291-0760).
Meeting #2, Monday, October 11, 2010
The second meeting will be held at the Pickens County Nutrition Cen
ter, 400 Stegall Drive, Jasper, GA 30143 (706-692-6133).
All interested persons are invited to attend and voice their concerns.
Written comments may be submitted to be received no later than
one week prior to meeting.
Send to: Debbie Studdard, AAA Director
Northwest Georgia Regional Commission
P.O. Box 1798
Rome, GA 30161
For further information, contact Frances Beard, Office Coordinator,
Area Agency on Aging (706-295-6485).
(USPS 431-820)
Published by Pickens County Progress, Inc.
94 North Main St. P.O. Box 67 Jasper, GA 30143
(706) 253-2457 FAX (706) 253-9738
www.pickensprogress.com
JOHN R. POOL DAN POOL
Publisher Editor
WILLIAM E. POOL
Managing Editor
Published each Thursday at Jasper, Pickens County, Georgia.
Entered at the Post Office at Jasper, Georgia 30143 as Mail Matter
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PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS, P. O. Box 67, Jasper, GA
30143.
One Year’s Subscription: $21.40 in Pickens County and in Gilmer,
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should pick it up. The trouble
was, I didn’t want to.
I walked over to the debris to
survey it more intently. There
was no rationalizing - to leave
it on the floor would be sloth.
Here was a defining moral
choice.
I bent down, picked up the
debris, threw it in the trash and
went on my way feeling good
about the whole thing. Morality
is not a series of tests. It is a se
ries of pop quizzes for which
one is perpetually unprepared.
[ Gibson hosts Pickens
County’s Friday Morning Dis
cussion Group. All attitudes are
welcome. For info: 770-893-
2578.]
Corrections
• In last week's article
"Point, counterpoint: Multi
person & Sole- Commis
sioner advocates go head to
head at forum," the League of
Women voters of Dawson
and Pickens Counties website
was listed incorrectly. The
web address is www.daw-
sonpickenslwv. org.
• In the same article a
quote was also incorrectly at
tributed to Bill Horton. The
speaker was, in fact, Bill
Murphy.
• In a photo caption show
ing retiring Jasper Police
Chief Harold Cantrell as a
young man, the name of Nel
son’s Police Chief at that time
was misspelled. The name of
former Nelson Police Chief
was Pat Raye.
Have you spotted an
error in our pages?
Let our staff hear
about it.
706-253-2457 or
dpool@pickensprogress.com
This week’s quotable quote --
"The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps."
- Benjamin Disraeli
“You’d think my parents would be concerned about the State's
SAT scores, but for some reason, they're just focused on mine!"
OTHER VOICES FROM THE COMMUNITY
Beauty Pageant Fever
with Aunt Wildcat
By Bettina Huseby
The Bethany-Salem Fire De
partment has hosted another suc
cessful beauty pageant which
celebrates two of Pickens
County’s most abundant natural
resources: pretty girls and mar
ble. I’m a girl and am surrounded
by ’em all the time, so they’re no
mystery to me.
Sometimes they get a little
sour but, mostly, girls are made
of sugar and spice and every
thing nice. But exactly what is
marble made of?
Webster’s says crystallized
limestone which began as ocean
life. I never knew. I also learned
that artists like marble for sculpt
ing because it’s soft and translu
cent.
It looks a whole lot like
human skin. Anyone who’s been
eye-to-eye with a classic sculp
ture might agree that they look
almost real enough to blink.
The most sculpted female in
history is Aphrodite, the mythical
Goddess of Love. The story goes
that Aphrodite was created as a
fully grown woman, out of sea
mist.
She was so beautiful, her fa
ther was anxious to get her mar
ried off. He saddled her with a
dour fellow who had no sense of
humor. She kept herself amused
loving things like pretty clothes
and jewelry. She also kept up a
full social calendar and raised a
large brood of chilluns.
Aphrodite is celebrated in many
countries.
In Italy she’s known as Venus.
Sculptures of her exist all over
the world. Because the pieces are
old and were not all designed
with a sturdy base, some of her
parts have fallen off. But the ones
she has left are lovely.
The female form has contin
ued to be celebrated in every art
form there is. More recently,
photography took a turn. The
first American beauty pageants
were actually held in newspa
pers. They printed photographs
of local beauties and the readers
voted. Modem pageants are held
in public, just like our 2010 Mar
ble Festival Beauty Pageant. It’s
a fact that North Georgia doesn’t
have as many pageants as South
Georgia. And they start them off
young too.
You can’t do a three-point
turn down there without stepping
on a Little Miss Vidalia Onion
Sprout or a Peanut Princess.
Maybe North Georgia daddies
are more old-fashioned or some
thing. My own dear Daddy was
like that.
My Sunday dresses had to be
nun-like in their design (although
we were Presbyterian). If he
could see the TV screen between
my thighs, he made me go and
put on a second slip. Oddly
enough, I grew up and married
into a clan full of contested
beauty queens. In fact, one crisp
and clear September afternoon
both my sisters-in-law rode in the
Duluth Wildcat Homecoming
Parade.
I caught pageant fever, but
hesitated to put my babies in
them. Images of Jon Benet Ram
sey were on every newsstand and
gave pageants a bad name for
awhile. Although professional
pageantry didn’t ruin her short
life, they surely did take up her
time.
She might have used it better
playing outside. It seems that Jon
benet had one very sad thing in
common with Aphrodite - both
lacked a childhood.
It wasn’t until middle school
that my girls tried a pageant. It
began early in the day with ba
bies and worked its way up to
high school seniors by nightfall.
There was one colossal fail: the
pageant planners had put the tod
dler prizes in plain view. Neatly
lined up on stage left were cute
little animal chairs. When the lit
tle beauties saw the chairs, they
ran for them and sat down!
Their segment of the pageant
was essentially over at that point
because nobody could convince
them to get back up and partici
pate. A couple of ugly fights
broke out too and hair was pulled
in a very unladylike manner. It
was the cutest thing we’d ever
seen.
My daughters were 50/50
after the first pageant. One hated
it, but the other one loved it. So I
called up her Aunt Wildcat who
introduced us to a professional
pageant coach. He went over the
basics like posture, stance, grace
ful walking and public speaking.
Then he added the polish:
hair, gowns and makeup. Of
course, she was to smile! To keep
it going he suggested putting a
coat of Vaseline on the uppers.
The most important lesson of all
was to strive to be her best, not
the best, and to know the differ
ence. Inner beauty gets better all
the time.
Overnight, our shrinking vio
let blossomed into a Venus fly
trap. At the fourth grade science
fair, she presented her experi
ment on growing rye grass like
The Price is Right lady on TV.
She kept the crowd enthralled
explaining how it grew differ
ently in North, East, South and
West facing windows. Rye grew
taller in the South, hotter in the
West and thinner in the East. But
the North produced the healthiest
specimens, which were a nice
height and luscious.
She went “pro” after that, log
ging miles going to towns she’d
never seen and smiling for
judges she’d never meet. It got
old. And my old-fashioned hus
band was getting irritated with
us. She decided all by herself to
retire from pageants completely
and forever, at the ripe old age of
12. Not long after that, the pu
berty fairy visited and was very
generous! When it became obvi
ous exactly what we were deal
ing with, we were mighty glad.
She and her sister are cut out for
other things.
There are so many opportuni
ties for young people these days.
I congratulate all of our recently
crowned queens and their atten
dants and look forward to seeing
what they will do in the coming
year to represent Pickens Coimty.
Maybe some will take up a sec
tion of road and keep it clean.
Others may collect pet food for
Pickens Animal Rescue. They
might glam up a few ribbon-cut
tings and grace the pages of the
Pickens County Progress, as they
do so very beautifully, in today’s
issue.
[Huseby is a freelance writer
living in Jasper who contributes
occasionally to the Progress.]
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