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-   -   Cancel culture's war on children's books authors continues (https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/showthread.php?t=850491)

  • Feb 21, 2023, 06:37 AM
    tomder55
    Cancel culture's war on children's books authors continues
    They went after JK Rawling . They went after Dr Seuss . Who's next ?

    Add Roald Dahl to the list . His lifetime accomplishments speaks for themselves . A fighter pilot in WWII for the Brits ,an intel officer ,a diplomat .... he went on to become a famous author /poet . Some of his more famous work include. 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' ,and 'Matilda . His books have sold more than 300 million copies and have been translated into 63 languages, while there have been numerous adaptations of his work for both the big and small screens. According to CNN.

    Roald Dahl book changes spark censorship spat - CNN Style

    Recent editions of his works have been altered like they did to Mark Twain to eliminate words no longer acceptable to the woke mob. "Sensitivity readers" were hired to scrutinize the text of his works with parts rewritten for a modern audience.

    Quote:

    Edits have been made to descriptions of characters’ physical appearances. The word “fat” has been cut from every new edition of relevant books, while the word “ugly” has also been culled, the Daily Telegraph reported. Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is now described as “enormous”. In The Twits, Mrs Twit is no longer “ugly and beastly” but just “beastly”.
    Hundreds of changes were made to the original text – and some passages not written by Dahl have been added.
    Roald Dahl books rewritten to remove language deemed offensive | Roald Dahl | The Guardian

    Who is there to defend Dahl ? Salman Rushdi ;perhaps the first modern victim of the cancel culture jihad has piped in .

    Salman Rushdie on Twitter: "Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed." / Twitter

    Rushdi suffered for his courage in writing 'The Satanic Verses' with multiple stab wounds that cost him an eye as he spoke at a literary conference in upstate New York. His words have weight . He lives with the threat every day.

    Perhaps the words of Rushdie and Rawlings and Mario Vargas Llosa ,the Peruvian novelist who bravely speaks out and writes against dictators ,wokeness and censorship will some day reverse this trend of literary cancel culture ;for the sake of civilization
  • Feb 21, 2023, 09:44 AM
    Wondergirl
    Someone is going to have a lot of fun rewriting the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads, the Bhavagad Gita, and so on.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 10:47 AM
    Curlyben
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Wondergirl View Post
    Someone is going to have a lot of fun rewriting the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads, the Bhavagad Gita, and so on.

    Gonna have a coronary when they get to Shakespeare, especially Romeo & Juliet...
  • Feb 21, 2023, 11:45 AM
    jlisenbe
    Well written post, CB. Sad commentary on the West as it exists now.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 04:50 PM
    jlisenbe
    Yet another example of the thought police at work.

    Quote:

    After a Christian charity worker who walked away from homosexuality following his conversion to Christ offered his powerful testimony on a radio show, law enforcement threatened him with possible jail time and a stiff fine for allegedly breaching his country’s law banning LGBT “conversion practices.”

    https://ads.lifesitenews.com/www/del...&cb=8162463b34
    The Maltese government’s action against Matthew Grech, 33, is believed to be the first of its kind and is being viewed as a test case by free speech groups and Christian organizations that aim to protect the rights of former gays and lesbians to tell their stories and live freely without harassment from LGBT groups. Some of the latter assert that Christian teaching on marriage and debate surrounding LGBT lifestyles must be treated as criminal offenses.

    Grech’s message is simple: A decade ago, he experienced conversion to Christ, realized that sexual acts outside of male/female marriage are a “sin,” and freely chose to give up the homosexual life he had been living.

    If convicted, he faces up to five months in prison and/or a fine of 5,000 Euros.
    Grech is one of a not insignificant number of former homosexuals and transgender men and women who face increasing opposition from media and government to telling their often-heroic stories to the public.
    Ex-gay threatened with jail time, fines for testifying about leaving homosexuality - LifeSite (lifesitenews.com)
  • Feb 21, 2023, 04:55 PM
    Wondergirl
    One doesn't "walk away from" homosexuality.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 07:14 PM
    jlisenbe
    He did.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 07:21 PM
    Wondergirl
    Temporary. He can't escape.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 07:30 PM
    jlisenbe
    He did.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 07:47 PM
    Wondergirl
    Nope, it's not a choice. Ask him in a year how he feels. Ask in six months!

    "Being gay is simply a matter of one's nature; it's not a choice, despite what religion tries to claim. The people of religion have never truly known a homosexual if they feel this way. Most people can pick out a gay child at an early age; shouldn’t people of religion consider that before marking a person as damned? They could never know what it’s like to struggle against what society tells a person and what they know they are inside. Besides, if homosexuality was a choice, do you really think homosexuals would willingly choose the hardships, rejection, discrimination, and self-loathing that commonly come with “choosing” such a lifestyle?"
    https://pairedlife.com/gender-sexual...-Homosexuality
  • Feb 21, 2023, 08:50 PM
    jlisenbe
    Quote:

    Nope, it's not a choice. Ask him in a year how he feels. Ask in six months!
    If you had bothered to read the article, you would know that it has been over ten years since he became a Christian and abandoned a homosexual lifestyle, so six months is not going to be a big deal.

    I don't know that he would say he no longer has a desire for same-gender sex, though that is possible, but he would say he has found the one who is far greater than the temptations of this world. That's what all of us say who are genuinely committed to Jesus. We are bombarded with temptations everyday, but the opportunity to move on with Christ is a far better opportunity and so we take it, regardless of what kind of temptation(s) we have to deal with. It's a matter of abandoning the lessor in order to have the greater.

    Quote:

    Being gay is simply a matter of one's nature
    There is not so much as a shred of evidence to support that. It's just the usual pro-homosexual propaganda.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 09:09 PM
    Wondergirl
    Jesus certainly doesn't condemn the LGTBQ+ community. He understands how they came to be, what happened in the mother's womb during pregnancy.

    As that article says -- Besides, if homosexuality was a choice, do you really think homosexuals would willingly choose the hardships, rejection, discrimination, and self-loathing that commonly come with “choosing” such a lifestyle?

    P.S. And I don't believe that guy has "given up" his homosexuality. It doesn't work that way.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 09:26 PM
    jlisenbe
    Quote:

    Jesus certainly doesn't condemn the LGTBQ+ community. He understands how they came to be, what happened in the mother's womb during pregnancy.
    And how do you know this? And please stop with the "mother's womb" nonsense. There is no evidence at all that differences in the womb account for same-sex desires. Not one ounce.

    Quote:

    P.S. And I don't believe that guy has "given up" his homosexuality. It doesn't work that way.
    It did for him.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 09:35 PM
    Athos
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Wondergirl View Post
    As that article says -- Besides, if homosexuality was a choice, do you really think homosexuals would willingly choose the hardships, rejection, discrimination, and self-loathing that commonly come with “choosing” such a lifestyle?

    No one chooses homosexuality, just as no one chooses heterosexuality. It's what a person in born with.

    There's ample evidence to prove that, and anyone wishing to see that evidence only needs to do some investigating on the internet. When they say there is no evidence and can't find any, they're not trying hard enough.

    Homosexuals can choose to be celibate, but that does not change their sexuality.
  • Feb 21, 2023, 09:39 PM
    Wondergirl
    If you do some honest googling, you can find scientific information about what happens and can happen during pregnancy.

    Psychology Today said -- In a commentary published with the review, Cornell Human Development Professor Ritch Savin-Williams offers evidence of a continuum of sexual orientation that includes a wide variety of classifications, including people who are "mostly straight" with a small degree of same-sex attraction or people who are "mostly gay or lesbian" with some attraction to opposite-sex partners. Taking into account these groups, the prevalence of people experiencing at least some same-sex feelings may be much broader than is represented in many studies.

    "Traditionally, we’ve thought of sexual orientation in terms of three categories: you are or identify as straight, bisexual, or gay/lesbian," he explained. "But recent research from a different perspective strongly suggests that this view mischaracterizes a significant number of people who have varying degrees of opposite-sex and same-sex romantic and sexual attractions and the ratio might well vary across contexts and time. That is, rather than categories there is a spectrum of sexualities and the in-between points along a continuum constitute perhaps a quarter of all individuals, especially if you consider their infatuations, crushes, and romantic feelings."

    What the data do not tell us definitively is why people have different sexual orientations. But there is evidence that there are multiple contributing factors, some of which we don't yet understand.
    The most scientifically plausible theories, according to the review, propose that sexual orientation is a product of biology and social factors, to varying degrees for different people. --
  • Feb 22, 2023, 05:43 AM
    jlisenbe
    Quote:

    There's ample evidence to prove that, and anyone wishing to see that evidence only needs to do some investigating on the internet. When they say there is no evidence and can't find any, they're not trying hard enough.
    That's just the usual pitiful appeal, "I can't find it, so please do my work for me." No thanks. Do your own work.

    Quote:

    What the data do not tell us definitively is why people have different sexual orientations. But there is evidence that there are multiple contributing factors, some of which we don't yet understand.

    The most scientifically plausible theories, according to the review, propose that sexual orientation is a product of biology and social factors, to varying degrees for different people. --
    Saying that, "sexual orientation is a product of biology and social factors, to varying degrees for different people," is basically an open admission that they have searched diligently and yet don't have a clue. Thank you for posting that, WG.

    People have a wide variety of sexual dysfunction. There are men who lust after little girls or little boys. Many people are addicted to porn. Some people want to have sex with animals. Many men want to cheat on their wives as frequently as possible. The list goes on and includes same-gender sex. They are all legitimate problems and should be viewed in that manner, as problems.

    I do know this. Jesus still changes lives for the good, and no problem is too great for him. If I had not chosen to follow him and trust in him when I was 23, then my life would have turned out much differently than it has. I certainly still have problems, but I would have been in darkness with very little hope without Jesus. There are many out there who once lived a homosexual lifestyle but then committed to Christ and overcame that. I know some of them.

    At any rate, the point was that Matthew Grech should be free to express his life experiences on radio in Malta or anywhere else. Others are then free to express publicly their agreement or disagreement with him in an open exchange of ideas. There is no acceptable reason for him to be jailed for doing so. It's woke culture on steroids.
  • Feb 22, 2023, 06:10 AM
    tomder55
    I am still in the DeSantis camp . However Vivek Ramaswarmy has announced his candidacy and I find his message appealing . He has has authored 2 books related to the discussions on this posting .
    'Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam' and 'Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence' .


    Summary from his article in the WSJ

    It may seem presumptuous for a 37-year-old political outsider to pursue the highest office in the land, but I am running on a vision for our nation—one that revives merit in every sphere of American life.

    We must restore merit for who gets to come to America. ....That means securing the border unapologetically and eliminating lottery-based immigration in favor of meritocratic admission.

    We must embrace merit in who gets to succeed in America. The Supreme Court appears poised to overturn racial preferences in college admissions. As president I will eliminate affirmative action across the American economy.

    We must revive merit in who gets to govern in America. Democracy depends on a simple principle: The people we elect to run the government must be the people who actually run the government. The next time unelected bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci or Merrick Garland reach beyond their legal scope, I commit to doing what the president is constitutionally empowered to do: fire them. I will repeal civil-service protections for federal employees, by executive order if necessary, and replace these managerial protections with sunset clauses. If the president can’t hold his position for more than eight years, neither should most bureaucrats.

    We must restore merit in determining which ideas win in America. The best ideas are born when no ideas are censored. Yet our government pressures technology companies to censor disfavored political speech and gives them special protections to carry it out.

    Viewpoint censorship extends beyond the internet and pervades our economy. If you can’t fire someone for being black, gay or Muslim, you shouldn’t be able to fire someone for his political speech. I will work with Congress to enshrine political expression as an American civil right, and I will enforce existing civil-rights laws to protect workers from invidious viewpoint discrimination.


    He says China is the real threat ;not Russia. Unlike the Soviet Union in 1980, China today powers the modern American way of life. We must declare economic independence.

    He wants America to become semi-conductor self sufficient . He wants America to become energy self sufficient and . He wants to reject the demands of a new climate religion that shackles the U.S. and leaves China untouched.
    He wants to hold China accountable to for covid. He wants to restrict and /or ban trade with China until they end technology theft and other mercantile predatory practices.

    Why I’m Running for President - WSJ
  • Feb 22, 2023, 06:24 AM
    jlisenbe
    Support Vivek Ramaswarmy!! Seriously, I do like his ideas. Maybe DeSantis can hire him in a couple of years.
  • Feb 22, 2023, 07:07 AM
    tomder55
    Candidates have come out of nowhere before .No one knew about Jimmy Carter until he started shaking hands with people in New Hampshire . Then there was another businessman turned politician .

    Too early to tell . Currently in the DeSantis camp. My favorite beat reporter did an article about him last week . Blue collar roots ;excelled at Yale and Harvard Law school . Joined the Navy out of college . As Guv he delivers .

    I like the cut of his jib .

    “Too much power has accumulated in DC and the result is a detached administrative state that rules over us and imposes its will on us,”

    Ron DeSantis takes The Post on tour of his Florida hometown (nypost.com)
  • Feb 22, 2023, 07:38 AM
    jlisenbe
    It's true that candidates have come "out of nowhere", but it's not to say they were unknown. Carter was a Georgia gov. Trump had been known for twenty years from television and business. Vivek Ramaswarmy? That would be a new definition of "nowhere".

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