It’s National Library Week, so I’ve been thinking a lot about knowledge and the idea that knowledge should be readily available – for all. An informed populace is crucial to the health of the nation and a bulwark of democracy. The ability to think, to reason, to avoid being fooled, all these notions are tied to reading and easy access to the wisdom of the ages.
And this is exactly why libraries – and their contents – are under siege these days.
HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery recently told readers:
“Librarians are living in constant fear. They have become the targets
of Republican politicians and far-right groups like Moms forLiberty
Liberty that are hellbent on burning books about LGBTQ+ people,
people of color and racism. Some librarians are quitting their jobs
because of constant harassment; others are getting fired for
refusing to clear shelves of books that conservatives don’t like.”
If that’s not bad enough – and it is – Bendery informs us there’s another evil twist in the tale: “The GOP’s censorship campaign has shifted from book bans to legislation threatening librarians with jail time.” Idaho’s tried several times to enact such legislation; this February, West Virginia passed a bill “making librarians criminally liable if a minor comes across content that some might consider obscene.” Idaho, Iowa, Alabama, and Georgia are also considering various means of keeping books they don’t like off the shelves...and they’re not alone.
The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom shared some frightening statistics: “The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges in 2023; school libraries saw an 11% increase over 2022 numbers.”
Given these ever-more-frequent, ever-more-strident attacks, what can a concerned reader do to stem the tide of book-banning?
PEN America, an organization whose mission “is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible,” offers a number of ways to make one’s voice heard. Whether you’re a student, a parent, an author, or a librarian, PEN America provides advice, assistance, and resources to keep you informed and ready to push back.
The need to support the nation’s libraries is more urgent than ever. In Bendery’s HuffPost piece, American Library Association President Emily Drabinski draws a chilling conclusion: “What gets lost in conversations about book banning is that it’s really about eliminating the institution of the library, period. It’s not about the books. Well, it is about the books, but the books are the way in to gut one of the last public institutions that serves everyone.”
“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture,” Ray Bradbury once said. “Just get people to stop reading them.”
Bradbury was one of the 20th century’s finest fabulists, the author of The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the worldwide blockbuster Fahrenheit 451. Published in 1952, the novel Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future where books are illegal and firemen don’t put out fires – they start them. Printed matter is what they burn.
Bradbury was writing in the tense, paranoid early years of the McCarthy era. But he might as well have penned those words last Thursday.
Support your local library. Speak up for the voices the hate-mongers would shut down. Before – as history’s proven again and again – they try to shut down yours.
---
Students fight a book ban by giving away free banned bookswww.youtube.com
The New York Public Library has also weighed in on the matter, you can find its suggestions here.
Should You Boil Your Drinking Water? Microplastics Are A Hidden Menace
In the iconic film TheGraduate, Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), a young man wondering what do to with his life, is approached by a well-meaning family friend who advises: “There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it.”
That’s the difference between then and now. In 1967 Braddock was urged to get into plastics; in 2024 we’re looking for ways to get the plastics out of us.
Such paranoid thoughts are prompted by a Washington Post piece about microplastics. But first, a quick science class.
Q: What are microplastics?
A: “Primary microplastics are tiny particles designed for commercial use, such as cosmetics, as well as microfibers, shed from clothing and other textiles, such as fishing nets. Secondary microplastics are particles that result from the breakdown of larger plastic items, such as water bottles. This breakdown is caused by exposure to environmental factors, mainly the sun’s radiation and ocean waves.” (National Geographic Society)
Microplastics have been found in human blood, breast milk, liquid and solid waste, and even placentas. It’s in our drinking water and myriad products such as toothpaste. The world’s precious oceans and the marine life that inhabit them are teeming with microplastics.
Plastic has transcended its already horrible reputation as an environmental problem and turned into a matter of health. ClientEarth puts it like this: “Due to their persistence and the chemicals they are made of, studies suggest they can be highly detrimental to the organisms they come in contact with, including by causing reduced feeding, poisoning, and increasing mortality. They also tend to facilitate the transfer of contaminants along the food chain, with potentially grave consequences for human health.”
So how should we deal with these insidious things?
As the Post reports, scientists “Zhanjun Li and Eddy Y. Zeng report that...
...boiling and filtering water helped remove up to nearly 90 percent of the tiny plastic particles, which they write, can be found in 129 of 159 tap water samples from 14 countries worldwide.”
Li and Yeng found that “At high enough temperatures, calcium carbonate (which is commonly found in tap water) will become solid, effectively encapsulating or ‘encrusting’ the plastic particles, and making them easy to remove through a simple filter, such as a coffee filter.”
Is it time to start boiling water before we filter it for use? Li and Yeng state that their research is more about stimulating deeper research into what microplastics do to the planet than household tips. But if you want to be safe, it’s not a bad idea. Boiling water also “kills potentially harmful microbes, parasites, and viruses.” Let the water cool down for 5 to 10 minutes after boiling so any solids present can settle. Then filter the water with the device of your choice.
Scientists are still investigating microplastics’ negative effects on our health. No doubt further means of reducing and, perhaps, eliminating microplastics from our lives will be discovered and codified in the future. Until then, it’s worth doing what we can to maintain our health. It certainly can’t hurt. Chris Reddy — a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — is quoted in the Post: “You will always want to limit non-natural things in your uptake.”
