I’m so tired of this.

I’m so tired of silly, small-minded, screamers being the ones we have to listen to as they shrill inane statements. I’m tired of listening to the undertones of how terrified they are they someone, somewhere might say something that upsets them personally. Or something that tells people there are choices in life, people who live different lives, people who are not just like the small-minded screamers.

I’m so sick of this.

Yes, we could post these stories every day. But at some point – I don’t even want to draw more attention to these idiots who squall for attention. (Can we just give them bottles, new diapers, and put them down for naps???) And please understand that this DOES happen every day now.

It’s terrible. It’s shameful. I’m so embarrassed for people who feel this compulsion to share their own personal psychodramas with the world. While I’m outraged as a librarian, I’m so baffled as a person: why would people act like this???

So, I was not surprised but resigned to see McMinn County Schools board choosing an extremely unusual strategy to “celebrate” Holocaust Remembrance Day. (To be fair, this would be terrible if it was just “Tuesday.” It’s terrible every single day.)

Maus was a frequent target of book banners back in the 80s and 90s, but people really came around to the value of a book that helped to demonstrate how terrible Nazi German was – but with the softening of the stories that involved drawing people like mice. These books are classics, and written by a person whose parents were in concentration camps, actually had his family murdered.

That personal, first-person experience is irreplaceable – and we need to hear this. Because yes, it’s awful. It’s terrible. But – and I’m kind of horrified that I need to say this – too many people need to be reminded that THE NAZIS ARE THE BAD GUYS. Being aligned with Nazis is bad. Being sympathetic to Nazis is bad. Refusing to talk about the bad things Nazis did IS BAD.

You can read this in a bunch of different places, but I’m looking at the report from the BBC because it’s nice to get a more “outside” perspective on news. This is an excerpt, and you can read their full article here.

“A school board in Tennessee has banned a Pulitzer prize-winning novel about the Holocaust from being taught in its classrooms.

Board members voted in favour of banning the novel because it contained swear words and a naked illustration.

The graphic novel Maus: A Survivor’s Tale depicts how the author’s parents survived Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

Author Art Spiegelman said he was “baffled” by the decision.

Six million Jewish people died in the Holocaust – Nazi Germany’s campaign to eradicate Europe’s Jewish population.

Mr Spiegelman’s parents were Polish Jews who were sent to Nazi concentration camps during World War Two.

His novel Maus, which features hand-drawn illustrations of mice as Jews and cats as Nazis, won a number of literary awards in 1992.

n a McMinn County Schools board meeting in January, members said that they felt that the inclusion of swear words in the graphic novel were inappropriate for the eighth grade curriculum.

In the meeting’s minutes, the director of schools, Lee Parkinson, was quoted as having said, “there is some rough, objectionable language in this book.”

Members also objected to a cartoon that featured “nakedness” in a drawing of a mouse.

Initially, Mr Parkinson argued that redacting the swear words was the best course of action.

But citing copyright concerns, the board eventually decided to ban the teaching of the novel altogether.

Some board members did back the novel’s inclusion in the curriculum.

In an interview with CNBC the author of the novel, Mr Spiegelman, said he was “baffled” by the decision and called it an “Orwellian” course of action.

Speaking on Wednesday about the ban a day before Holocaust Memorial Day, he said: “I’ve met so many young people who… have learned things from my book.””

I don’t even have a snappy closing line.

I just leave here with disgust at this kind of foolishness. And deep pity for the people involved.

Never Forget.