Dear Editor
Dear Editor Margolis The Concerned Parents group described by Richard J. Margolis in his article, "A Tree Grows in Eden" (NL, March 22), represents an attitude which has allowed our technological...
...he may argue that "four of the books are available for use now...
...Indonesia's laconic editors seem to have no sense of the urgency or perishability of news...
...Weingast said to me in our telephone interview were "absurd on the face of it," and I can understand why he might now wish to deny them...
...I am not willing to accept either point of view...
...the remainder may be used as soon as the curricular information is completed...
...Rather than interfere, the government would be better advised to stand aloof and let the press' narrow partisan self-interest discredit itself...
...Shapiro and asked him about his use of the word...
...I directed that these two books be moved into the senior high school...
...Although a compromise was finally reached between the two, official interference--probably designed to blunt the press campaign against government corruption--has been undeniably crude...
...Thus these papers serve only marginally as a source of news and information for the general public...
...Dear Editor Margolis The Concerned Parents group described by Richard J. Margolis in his article, "A Tree Grows in Eden" (NL, March 22), represents an attitude which has allowed our technological progress to threaten our environment while making too little progress in solving the social problems that threaten a breakdown in the basic fabric of our society...
...Once received, a story may be held several days before publication...
...The basis of our government has been developed by critical reasoning...
...In its own writing, though, Indonesia's press still suffers a hangover from years of intoxication on Sukarno's rhetoric, betrayed by its failure to distinguish between propaganda and objective reporting...
...Weingast's paperback decision--a decision he believes to have been "consistent with academic freedom...
...Weingast keeps insisting that nothing worrisome has occurred at Ridgefield's junior high school, when in fact at least eight controversial books have been effectively removed from the classroom...
...Intellectualism" is the term usually invoked to disguise propaganda...
...Language Gap In "New Left Growing Pains" (NL, January 25), Harvey D. Shapiro uses the term "greasers...
...Many teachers and townspeople, to whom Margolis makes no reference, have indicated their support for my position...
...Weingast doubts that his teachers have gotten the message, let him recall that English teachers in the junior high school must now submit "written rationales" to justify their use of such innocuous books as William E. Barrett's The Lilies of she Field and Booth Tarkington's Seventeen...
...Weingast may quibble about whether the books were actually "banned" or merely held "on reserve...
...A chauvinistic patriotism that denies the reality of social injustice has no place in a free society...
...As a result, not only does pure hearsay pass as news, but often rumor is given the aura of fact by appearing in a variety of publications...
...He knows perfectly well, given the climate of uncertainty which he has helped to foster, that no teacher with any sense of self-preservation is likely to use these books...
...To an earlier generation, "greaser" was a derogatory label for Chicanos...
...Margolis attributes to me the statement "I've tried to satisfy both extremes...
...I think Margolis has provided an objective, perceptive analysis of what is wrong in America...
...As soon as these statements satisfy the indicated staff members, the books go back into use...
...These are not hypothetical examples...
...Police, Courts and the Ghetto, gives a somewhat biased interpretation of the role of the police...
...David E. Weingast Superintendent of Schools Richard J. Margolis replies: I agree that some things Dr...
...Djakarta, Indonesia R. H. Ellington...
...We are governed by policies that mandate Board of Education-approved courses of study and textual materials...
...and he may prate, as school officials are wont to do, about shiny new "curricular guidelines...
...The most serious defect in Mr...
...All too often the so-called ideals of capitalism and the Protestant Ethic are confused with or substituted for democracy and Christianity...
...These "curricular guidelines" are being written now...
...While it is true that America was built in part by hard work, it is also true that some of the hard work was, and still is, provided by some form of involuntary servitude...
...Reporting events days and sometimes weeks after they occur is the rule rather than the exception in Indonesia...
...He told me that to him it meant "the black-jacketed Hell's-Angel type" of person...
...Jefferson and Voices of Dissent--appeared to me to be beyond the maturity level of most junior high school boys and girls...
...That leaves eight paperbacks intended for use in junior and senior high school English classes...
...No paper has more than a handful of reporters, almost all of whom are assigned to local beats...
...Fort Worth, Tex...
...A fourth book...
...Joe D. Hopkins Harvey D. Shapiro replies: Unfortunately, dictionaries are rarely able to keep pace with the constantly changing usages of American slang, particularly the rapidly evolving argot of the youth culture...
...I was not aware that some dictionaries still enshrine its historical meaning, and I apologize to any reader who was offended by the word...
...My request that the paperbacks have some clear relationship to our program of studies is, I believe, a reasonable one...
...In fact, four of the books are available for use now...
...Weingast believe that the new guidelines, for which we are breathlessly waiting, will ban fear...
...The other extreme wants the 12 books removed from our schools...
...People like those mentioned in Ridgefield, Connecticut, pay lip service to protecting the ideals upon which our country was founded...
...What I do not understand is why Dr...
...Does Dr...
...Since all major publications are owned by political parties, the military, religious groups, or other organizations with vested interests in public opinion, intellectualism is determined by the apologetics necessary for political survival...
...Ridgefield, Conn...
...We are educating boys and girls in public schools paid for by taxpayers' dollars...
...Will they protect teachers from threats of dismissal, public censure and pedagogical "advice" from the local police force...
...Spunky paperbacks are no longer welcome in the Ridgefield school system...
...More accurate, at least, is the equally common practice of running foreign news reports translated from Time, Newsweek, the New York Times and the international Herald-Tribune without attribution...
...It seems to me The New Leader owes an apology to its readers and contributors of Latin American or Mexican origin...
...But what it finally adds up to is a slick and hasty surrender to Right-wing pressures...
...At issue in Ridgefield were 12 paperback books intended for secondary school English and social studies classes...
...Loyalties, merited no special comment from me and its use was not altered...
...one who or that which greases...
...Yet they insist that the rights expounded by Thomas Jefferson as being endowed by our Creator be earned, particularly by anyone in a lower social status, especially minorities...
...Items lifted verbatim from other local papers as well as from government news releases are printed without acknowledging the source...
...A third book...
...Among today's youth, however, the term is commonly understood to refer to the motorcycle and hotrod set, or anyone who slicks down his hair with "greasy kid-stuff...
...An inefficient delivery system delays the distribution of dispatches to the local press...
...I believe that my decision was consistent with academic freedom and with my responsibilities under the law...
...Joseph E. C. Martin I would like to comment on Richard Margolis' article "A Tree Grows in Eden" because I feel it is flawed by serious inaccuracies...
...and a degree of social justice, such as voter registration, has been established by critical dissent...
...But there was no indication of how teachers planned to use these books or how they were related to our program of studies...
...Indonesia's Press In the December 14 issue of The New Leader, which only recently caught up with me, Louis Kraar ("Asian Press Squeeze") laments the Suharto regime's heavy-handed treatment of the Indonesian Journalists Association...
...National affairs are covered even more poorly than international events...
...Even the two volumes I moved into the senior high school are equally accessible to advanced junior high school classes...
...Aside from bureaucratic meddling, however, Indonesia's press has more basic problems affecting its freedom and acceptance as a responsible Fourth Estate...
...To supplement their single news service, editors read papers from other parts of the country and talk to eyewitness travelers...
...After T read the books I concluded as follows: Two of the books--Hamilton vs...
...Limited by low budgets, the country's papers rely exclusively on the Antara National News Service which, in turn, depends more on Reuters than its own reporters...
...We are not a graduate school of independent scholars...
...This is absurd on the face of it...
...2. Mexican or Latin American: hostile and contemptuous term (slang...
...Teachers themselves had previously agreed that when they used this book they would introduce other material that gives a more favorable interpretation of the police role...
...One extreme feels that any book a teacher wants to use is necessarily OK...
...they have all occurred in the wake of Dr...
...According to Webster's 20th-century Unabridged Dictionary, the word means...
...I asked that these titles be held "on reserve" until the teachers prepared a plan for their use, to be approved by the department chairman and the principal...
...Since I hardly thought anyone's occupation was being referred to, I called Mr...
...Wayzata, Minn...
...My decision confirmed the judgment of the staff...
...If Dr...
...and the justification given for the existence of most local papers is that they are intellectual...
...Margolis' article is the suggestion that the 12 books have been banned...
Vol. 54 • April 1971 • No. 8
