BOX BOOK BANNED IN HULETT: School administrators in Hulett have pulled C.J. Box’s mystery “Savage Run” from its Guided Reading program. According to a 12/7 article in the Casper Star-Trib, parents of seventh graders complained about “profane language” in Box’s book. Hulett High School Principal John Balow said that Box’s book was chosen “to get the students hooked on reading” and the Box book was chosen because it features the adventures of a Wyoming game warden, is set in rural Wyoming, and “appeals to a lot of young adult readers.” Box, a best-selling author who lives in Cheyenne (and a recipient of a WAC writing fellowship), says that he is surprised by the Hulett decision since “my books are now used more and more in schools in Wyoming and Montana because, and I think this is a cool thing, because a lot of the English teachers have found these are books that boys like to read. It’s hard to find books that boys like to read. Especially teenagers.” Box wrote a letter to Crook County School District Superintendent Jeffery Carrier urging him to let offended students opt out of the reading program because it wouldn’t be right to “shut it down for all those who didn’t have a problem.” A reasonable suggestion, but one not heeded. Administrators have agreed to pull “Savage Run” and Dean Koontz’s “Watchers” from the program. “White as Snow” by Tanith Lee was pulled from the book list last year. To date, Box has written four Joe Pickett novels and a fifth is set for April 2005. He will be signing books on Saturday, Dec. 18, 10 a.m.-noon at City News in Cheyenne. Go out and buy a banned book for Christmas! His web site is http://www.cjbox.net.

This comes from the 12/17/04 issue of wyolitmail:

JEFFREY CITY, THE REAL STORY: The December issue of The Sun magazine features an essay by David Romtvedt, “The Penis that Killed Jeffrey City.” Despite the flip title, Romtvedt’s piece is a meditation on what it is to be an outsider in the rural West, specifically a city-boy poet conducting residencies in rural schools around the state. During one Wyoming Arts Council-sponsored residency in Jeffrey City in 1990, Romtvedt read one his own poems, “Our Distance,” in class. That evening, a girl student reported incorrectly to her father (a member of the school board) that the poem had a line about massaging a horse’s penis. The next morning, the JCHS principal sent David packing. As Romtvedt notes, “I apologized and went home, thinking that was that.” But there was a lot more to it. The students and teacher loudly complained about the principal’s action, the WAC got involved, the Casper Star-Trib covered the story. In Romtvedt’s home of Buffalo, the grocery store put up a sign on its window that said: “What’s the matter, Jeffrey City, never seen a horse’s penis?” By the time I came to WYO in 1991, the incident had achieved legendary status, sometimes referred to as “The Jeffery City Incident” or “The Poet and the Penis.” Now, more than a decade later, Romtvedt looks at the incident through a different lens. You can read an excerpt of the article at http://www.thesunmagazine.org/december2004.html. You have to buy the mag to read the whole thing, which I strongly suggest.

This is more concerned with freedom from illegal search and seizure than freedom of expression, but it could be about both:

BARLOW VS. TSA: Pinedale’s John Perry Barlow is known as a rancher, Grateful Dead lyricist, writer, and a leading advocate for free expression on the Internet. He was interviewed on NPR Dec. 16 about a lawsuit he brought against an “illegal and unnecessary search” into his suitcase at the San Francisco airport that turned up some marijuana. Barlow contends his bag was searched because of his activist background. His lawyer’s request for details of the search to the Traffic Safety Administration (TSA) was turned down. Although his misdemeanor drug possession charges were upheld by a San Francisco court, Barlow plans to appeal. You can listen to the NPR story at http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgDate=16-Dec-2004&prgId=2. Barlow’s web site is http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/.

Finally, this one is in an upcoming issue and concerns a different kind of banning:

WHICH HISTORY?: This comes from “Cultural Commons,” the Center for Arts and Culture web site: “At the urging of Lynne Cheney, the U.S. Education Department ‘destroyed more than 300,000 copies of a booklet designed to help parents and children learn more about America's past. Cheney objected to the booklet's reference to the National Standards for History, guidelines for teaching history in secondary schools that were developed at UCLA in the 1990s and that suggest that American history should be taught with an eye not only to America's successes but to its struggles and dark moments as well.’ “ For the full article, written by Stephen Ross in the L.A. Times, go to the reprint at http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/6215/1/243. Cheney is a Casper native and UW grad who once ran the National Endowment for the Humanities. She actively worked to scuttle the NEH and the NEA in the 1990s. Her latest book is "When Washington Crossed the Delaware: A Wintertime Story for Young Patriots." This is Cheeney's third children's book featuring her version of historic events.

So what the heck is going on here?