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 for Liberty
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.
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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.
How to Live Well In a 24/7 World of Bad News
A recent survey from the American Psychological Association found that more than half of Americans say the news causes them stress, with many reportedly feeling anxiety, fatigue or suffering from sleep loss. Here's how to deal.
No matter where you are on the political spectrum, we're all caught in a deluge of devastatingly bad news. According to a 2011 study, we take in the equivalent of about 174 newspapers' worth of information—five times as much as we did in 1986, the New York Times reported. And that study is seven years old; since then, the pings are only coming faster and more furiously.
A recent survey from the American Psychological Association found that more than half of Americans say the news causes them stress, with many reportedly feeling anxiety, fatigue or suffering from sleep loss. Here's how to deal. One in 10 adults checks the news every hour, while 20 percent cop to "constantly" checking in on their social media feeds, Time reports. Women especially, who are twice as likely to be plagued by anxiety as men, tend to feel overwhelmed by the never-ending cycle of bad news, psychiatrist Gail Saltz wrote in Health.
"Compassionate people are overwhelmed now with the deluge of terrible news," Krista Tippett said recently on On Being. "The pictures are too present and too vivid. The news cycle is too relentless. I see pictures of children in faraway places that wreck me for a day."
What can the compassionate person do?
What we're experiencing now, Roshi Joan Halifax told Tippett, is "empathic distress." "When we are more stabilized, then we can face the world with more buoyancy, more capacity to address these very profound social and environmental issues," she said. Here are some ideas for what that can look like in your day-to-day life.
Limit your news—and be strategic
Instead of considering your phone and its news alerts an extension of your body, set aside time—at lunch, say—to check in with what's going on in the world. We're big fans of NPR's "Up First," a 10-minute podcast segment that tells you what you need to know to start your day. Loretta Breuning, author of Habits of a Happy Brain, advises banishing the news from your bedtime routine.
Whatever you do, don't feel guilty about creating distance between you and the news in the name of emotional wellbeing. "It's important to maintain healthy boundaries, practice self-care. It's your life. Time is really precious," Kriss Kevorkian, who teaches classes on trauma, crisis and disasters in the Master of Social Work program at Walden University, told Quartz. If people find you selfish, she advises reminding them of the airplane air mask principle: "Tell them, 'Yeah, I am, because I come first.'"
Too many of your devices provide access to breaking newsNew York Times
Ask the right question—and then move on
When the news triggers your compassion ask yourself once, and only once, What can I do to solve this problem? On Tiny Buddha, Lori Deschene emphasizes the importance of thinking small. "Whether you have grand plans or not, I think it's important to play small every day—even while keeping your eye on a larger goal. The little things make a huge difference, both for us and the people whose lives we touch." Try not to ruminate and spin your wheels in compassionate distress. "If you can't think of a plan or solution that's realistic, rational, and logical, move on," Saltz wrote.
Go to a holy place
The news whirs, buzzes, drones, and whirls. Replace it with quiet and stillness. "I think there are many antidotes, actually," said Roshi Joan Halifax. "A setting...which is so physically beautiful and psycho-socially safe, is important. I think there are houses of worship in many denominations here, so people can go and touch into the stillness and, as well, into the inspiration." For you, it may be a Quaker Meeting, group meditation at the candlelit yoga studio, or a woodland grove. "This is coming back to the value of a contemplative practice," said Roshi Joan Halifax. "Within any tradition or non-tradition is that when you are in a state of deep internal stillness, you see the truth of change, the truth of impermanence that's constantly in flow, moment by moment. And so that becomes a kind of insight that liberates you from the futility of the kind of grief that disallows our own humanity to emerge."
Practice loving kindness
This form of meditation extends feelings of compassion, love, peace, and safety from the sitter to the greater world. Begin by extending blessings to yourself: "May I be happy. May I feel love. May I have peace." Then, visualize people you love—your mother, your best friend, your spouse—and extend blessings to them, eventually expanding the circle of compassion until it encompasses your town, country, and the planet. "May all beings be happy; may all beings feel love; may all living beings experience peace."
Broaden your field of vision
It's not only spirituality, meditation, and nature that can restore our feelings of interconnectedness and equanimity. This is also the dominion of great art and literature. "We've turned our vision to being so superficial and outward," said Roshi Joan Halifax. In addition to turning your attention to the wider world, focus your attention on works of art and beauty. News isn't the only form of media; remember verse, sculpture, sonnets? Artists have been working through questions of compassion and meaning in novels, poetry, and painting for centuries. Be restored by the answers there.
The takeaway
"There's a potential for a new kind of enlightenment in our time," said Roshi Joan Halifax. "And that is, I think, a yearning that many of us experience, as we see the world distancing itself from its own heart." Seeing this yearning, this desire, fills her with hope rather than futility. Follow the longing you feel. Reframe your discomfort as vital information—your body and soul are telling you they want to reconnect to the heart of the world.
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