Breaking News: New York Libraries Have Books In Them

The Rant is very alarmed by these findings.

Hard-line Islamic books that justify violence against non-Muslim societies – including texts used as terrorist “recruiting tools” – are freely available in New York City public libraries.

A Daily News spot check found a book by an Islamic theorist who inspired Osama Bin Laden and terror Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, as well as others that promote the hatred of other religions and one with the misogynistic title: “Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell.”

Several of these texts can be found at the Brooklyn Public Library’s main branch, a mile from the Al Farooq mosque, where Rahman once inspired followers to try to blow up New York.

What kind of fiend allows books to be put in a library? And what was the librarians’ defense of this heinous act?

“We don’t censor what people read,” said Mary Haines, director of the South Country Public Library in Bellport, L.I., which just added “Milestones” to its collection.

Brooklyn Public Library spokeswoman Ruth Wagner said libraries have the responsibility to be inclusive, and “efforts are made to represent the widest possible diversity of views.”

Right…like librarians are supporters of free speech or something.

Just for the reporter’s peace of mind, I hope he didn’t go looking amongst the shelves for this, or this, or this, or…well, you get the idea.

Coming soon from the crack reporting squad at the Daily News: “Breaking: Some Cabdrivers Have Surly Personalities”.

 

Comments: 50

 
 
 

I’d go see how freaked out Pam Atlas is by this, but her site always crashes my browser.
Also, she’s batshit insane.

 
 

I hope one of those links led to Mein Kampf.

 
 

The reporter’s* head exploded when he found a copy of ‘Farenheit 451’ and a pack of matches left behind by an asbestos-removal contractor near the fireplace at the Bronx Public Library’s Burnside Avenue branch.

*Jillian’s term for this gormless twit, not mine

 
 

When is the Rant NOT alarmed?

 
 

Like I would ever disappoint you on that score, Humboldt! It’s the first one.

 
Johnny Coelacanth
 

Their last graf: “The availability of such controversial books in public libraries points out the difficulties a society faces in balancing an aversion to censorship against the need to prevent terrorism.”

They make an excellent point. If only Bush had pulled these books out of New York public libraries in August of 2001…. Don’t mourn for lost opportunities. The horses are already out of the barn, or jihadists out of the madrassa, if you prefer. What we can do, however, is to remove any books that might cause future terrorist attacks. We can start with the oeuvre of Ann Coulter and work our way down the list from there.

 
 

“Junky” is a great book. If I still had a copy, I’d read it right now. I got “Naked Lunch,” but I have read that so many times I’m kinda burnt out.

 
 

The Rantards are upset over those books but not one mention of Nicolas Sparks?

Selective outrage, indeed.

 
 

It never seems to occur to them that someone might read a book-length screed by some nutcase and think “wow, that’s a book-length screed by some nutcase”.

 
 

“wow, that’s a book-length screed by some nutcase”.

Example A: In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War II and the War on Terror (Regnery 2004)

Example B: Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores (Regnery 2002)

Example C: Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild (Regnery 2005)

And goddammit, I didn’t know Malkin was a goddamned Philly native … what the fuck? Really? Now I gotta tell people I was born in Allentown, or Chester, or Yeadon or something.

 
 

Hmm. New York Library, huh?

Not surprising that Rudy has the solution.

“Just kill the mooslems. Then they can’t kill us. Oh. NINE ELEVEN!!”

mikey

 
 

“wow, that’s a book-length screed by some nutcase”.

Dont forget the Turner Diaries

 
 

And don’t forget My Pet Goat, for never in the history of mankind has a book been so riveting, so engulfing that it would keep the leader of the free world engrossed while crazed men flew airplanes into tower in Manhattan.

 
Johnny Coelacanth
 

“Now I gotta tell people I was born in Allentown, or Chester, or Yeadon or something.”

I know what you mean. Six years of Bush in the White House has effectively squelched any residual pride I had about being a native Texan. Fortunately for me, I got out a long time ago. Those people are nuts. True story, when I moved back there briefly in 1991, the state legislature was up in arms and banned the sale of a beer because it was named Blackened Voodoo. I moved away again within six months.

 
 

I am similarly surprised that there has not yet been a kulturkampfer effort to reclass Dewey Decimal 911 from the heretical secularist “Historical geography” to the more-appropriate “Biography – GIUL throu GIUM”.

 
edub the librarian
 

Lotta those books are circulating, too.

Wouldn’t want the FBI sniffing around those library records with subpoenas or nuthin’, would we?

 
 

If Osama had flown the planes into the New York Public Library instead of the twin towers we could all be fwiends.

 
 

I’d like to point out that if every copy of the New York Daily News was burned before anyone had a chance to use it as bird cage liner, the general public (and birds everywhere) would be well served.

Back in the days when I lived in New York (and cared about baseball box scores) I would buy the NY Post before I would buy the Daily News. And I hated the NY Post, even then.

 
 

“Breaking: Some Cabdrivers Have Surly Personalities”.

More importantly, lots of them are Muslims!!! Or they have dark skin, and often talk in languages I can’t understand, which is the same thing, right???

 
 

“Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell”

Islamo-fascist screed, or Ann Coulter’s next book?

 
 

the perfect end to an imperfect day: Bush talkin’ the talk
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=111129

 
 

BREAKING: Confderate Yankee is reporting that the NY Public Library doesn’t carry the Wall Street Journal.

UPDATE #1: Evidently CY has learned that the Library in fact does carry the WSJ. He suspects that the Islamocommies who are famous for reading and stuff, tricked him into thinking that this was not the case in a terrible attempt to subtly convince the public that capitalism was dead. More on this story as information comes in.

UPDATE #2: Ace notes that there are fewer than 100 copies of the Bible at 42nd Street branch of the Library. We are operating under the reasonable assumption that this is also a part of the treacherous Islamocommie conspiracy.

 
 

Man, Blackened Voodoo is good. I drank it a few times when I was in Miss. and La. when I was working on my master’s thesis.

And they banned it in Texas because … ?

Is this a joke?

 
 

I mean, if it’s true, then I just don’t see how conservatives can get so mad when their opponents ridicule them into a corner in a rolled-up, humiliated, shrieking ball of stupid.

It’s a joke, right?

 
 

I don’t understand why any single state would need more than 100 Bibles.

Nobody reads it. All you have to do is talk to a fundie for a few minutes to see that they have no idea what’s in it.

I’ve read it. It has a few good ideas.

The Unquestionable Word of God?

Gah! I hope not! If it is, then I want as little to do with God as possible. And I will not hesitate to say so to His face if it ever comes to that.

 
 

From Majikthise:

Bush: It’s not a genocide, it’s a historic mass killing!

Congress defied President Bush today and passed a resolution acknowledging the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks in the early 20th Century.

Here’s a statement from committee chair Tom Lantos on the passage of H. Res 106.

Eager to preserve relations with Turkey, Bush urged Congress to reject the resolution:

Congress rejected a plea by the Bush administration yesterday over a resolution officially recognising as genocide the deportation and massacre of Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman empire.

George Bush warned of the negative repercussions should Congress use the word genocide to describe the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians and their exile.

“This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in Nato and in the global war on terror,” Mr Bush said. [BBC]

Earlier this week, Turkey’s president, Abudullah Gul, wrote to Bush to warn that relations between Turkey and the USA would suffer if the bill passed.

Update: In 2000, Bush used the word “genocidal” to describe the slaughter of the Armenians.

Yeah, but that was before he warmed to mass killing.

 
 

That’s a good point.

He WAS limited to killing one poor brown person at a time when he was governor….

mikey

 
 

Since becoming preznit, Der Chimpenführer has discovered synergy.

 
 

Don’t these people understand that if they really wanted to oppose these hard-line Islamics, they ought to go read these books themselves? Didn’t Iraq teach them that “victory through ignorance” isn’t a workable plan?

Sadly, no, of course . . .

 
 

Oh. I get it. Sure.

Kenzie and Gennaro make it to the big screen.

What. Spiderman was busy that day?

Anyway. They START with “Gone Baby Gone”?

That’s nothing short of fucked up.

That’s practically the END of the story.

I hate movies…

mikey

 
 

Since when was TURKEY a key NATO ally?

Ohhhhh,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Map_of_NATO_countries.png
that’s why.

 
 

God, the sad thing is that we should want these books available, so we can read what the actual terrorists are reading, and learn how they’re being taught, so we can learn how to convince them that this is all a bunch of crap.

Heck, I’m even in favor of having my library stock In Defense of Internment, for precisely the same reason.

 
 

The end of Ann Coulter? She can insult blacks, Muslims, gays, and anyone to the left of, well, her, but someone going on national Tee Vee and saying to CNBC’s Donny Deutsch, well, this:

From Larisa Alexandrovna, “Ann Coulter Thinks That Jews Need to be Perfected by Becoming Christians,” Huffington Post.

… COULTER: Well, OK, take the Republican National Convention. People were happy. They’re Christian. They’re tolerant. They defend America, they —

DEUTSCH: Christian — so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?

COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?

DEUTSCH: So I should not be a Jew, I should be a Christian, and this would be a better place?

COULTER: Well, you could be a practicing Jew, but you’re not.

DEUTSCH: I actually am. That’s not true. I really am. But — so we would be better if we were – if people — if there were no Jews, no Buddhists —

COULTER: Whenever I’m harangued by —

DEUTSCH: — in this country? You can’t believe that.

COULTER: — you know, liberals on diversity —

DEUTSCH: Here you go again.

COULTER: No, it’s true. I give all of these speeches at megachurches across America, and the one thing that’s really striking about it is how utterly, completely diverse they are, and completely unself-consciously. You walk past a mixed-race couple in New York, and it’s like they have a chip on their shoulder. They’re just waiting for somebody to say something, as if anybody would. And —

DEUTSCH: I don’t agree with that. I don’t agree with that at all. Maybe you have the chip looking at them. I see a lot of interracial couples, and I don’t see any more or less chips there either way. That’s erroneous.

COULTER: No. In fact, there was an entire Seinfeld episode about Elaine and her boyfriend dating because they wanted to be a mixed-race couple, so you’re lying.

DEUTSCH: Oh, because of some Seinfeld episode? OK.

COULTER: But yeah, I think that’s reflective of what’s going on in the culture, but it is completely striking that at these huge megachurches — the idea that, you know, the more Christian you are, the less tolerant you would be is preposterous.

DEUTSCH: That isn’t what I said, but you said I should not — we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or —

COULTER: Yeah.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Well, it’s a lot easier. It’s kind of a fast track.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey.

DEUTSCH: You can’t possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: You can’t possibly — you’re too educated, you can’t — you’re like my friend in —

COULTER: Do you know what Christianity is? We believe your religion, but you have to obey.

DEUTSCH: No, no, no, but I mean —

COULTER: We have the fast-track program.

DEUTSCH: Why don’t I put you with the head of Iran? I mean, come on. You can’t believe that.

COULTER: The head of Iran is not a Christian.

DEUTSCH: No, but in fact, “Let’s wipe Israel” —

COULTER: I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention.

DEUTSCH: “Let’s wipe Israel off the earth.” I mean, what, no Jews?

COULTER: No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn’t really say that, did you?

COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we’re all sinners —

DEUTSCH: In my old days, I would have argued — when you say something absurd like that, there’s no —

COULTER: What’s absurd?

Now, even though the general point is one made by many Talibangelical Christians, Ann throws an extra frisson of blunt meanness on there, so it just doesn’t roll off as though her heart is troubled by the fate of Jews’ eternal souls.

Finally, we won’t have to see the Coultergeist so much on the TeeVee no more.

 
 

‘Fraid not, El Cid. Coulter and the right wingers have proven time and time again there is literally nothing they can say or do that will get them removed from the airwaves. If she had finished up her segment by throwing live babies into a wood chipper while screaming racial slurs, she’s still be invited back, if she can find time in her schedule of other appearances.

 
 

El Cid, Ann Coulter can say anything about anyone, unless she attacks the right. As long as the wingtards are safe, Ann’s golden.

 
Sadly, Cambridgeport
 

Obey, submit, or as they say in Arabic, islam

 
 

Yet another case of conservatives making “political” something that isn’t political in nature – another Terry Schiavo, only for libraries.

Libraries have a moral responsibility to make sure that all the information exists and is available to a patron. This is their fundamental reason to exist.

This is a moral imperative that transcends politics. Everyone deserves to have access to information. This is why libraries, though limited by the amount of books they can have in the stacks, can order books and have interlibrary loan services, ALL FREE, to get people what they need. This is just like roads and traffic laws and courts, a fundamental need of a civilized society.

Is a book crazy, or worthless? If people have access to knowledge, they can make that decision for themselves.

The most striking thing about ignorant assholes the world over, all over history, is how little they read.

…and Jesus, are people STILL on about how media causes people to do bad things? What is this, 1984? Despite what Tipper Gore says, the only socially unredeeming thing Heavy Metal ever made me do was play “why won’t you stop hitting yourself?” to my little brother when he borrowed my CDs without permission.

 
 

I must be sleeping, because I thought for a second that Ann Coulter used a “Seinfeld” episode as proof of something.

What’s next, Ann? Should we be looking out for Pig Men? Should stores start marketing lucky jackets? Should I build a TV studio in my aparment?

Coulter and the right wingers have proven time and time again there is literally nothing they can say or do that will get them removed from the airwaves.

Except when enough people make noise about it, like Imus. If enough people threatened never to watch/read/buy from advertisers of venues where Ann appeared we might never hear from her again. Sigh, what a pleasant thought.

 
 

And, if so, what exactly does the Elaine Dance prove?

 
 

And when can I buy a manziere? Or is it a bro?

 
 

Except when enough people make noise about it, like Imus. If enough people threatened never to watch/read/buy from advertisers of venues where Ann appeared we might never hear from her again. Sigh, what a pleasant thought.

As Spocko has shown, you can effectively attack them by convincing advertisters to leave their show, thereby removing the revenue stream.

 
 

Ha ha ha ha ha! Omigod, the screed about NYC libraries as havens for terrist propagander is funny enough… but scroll down a bit further and take a peek at this site’s solution to the immigration problem: a goddamn CANAL running across the entire Me-hi-can border, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Quoth they:

“Wouldn’t a 21st Century “Panama Canal” along the entire Southern border be the optimal solution? It would create a daunting barrier, create jobs in its construction, create tourism jobs when finished and secure a waterway alternative to the Chinese controlled Panama Canal.”

Oh stop, PLEASE. I’m suffocating. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

 
Johnny Coelacanth
 

““Wouldn’t a 21st Century “Panama Canal” along the entire Southern border be the optimal solution?”

Oh yeah, it’s insane, obviously, but wouldn’t it cost less than the Iraqi boondoggle? Let’s end the war and start a canal!

 
Sadly, Cambridgeport
 

Mexican Canal you say… hmm…. love it!

We can even take all of the dirt and build our own Iraq-shaped island with no Mooslims. Just think of the benefits: we win the war in Iraq, we can keep all the oil ourselves, and we can stay as long as we like.

 
 

“Wouldn’t a 21st Century “Panama Canal” along the entire Southern border be the optimal solution?

Back in the Fifties they actually considered the use of atomic weapons to dig Panama-style canals. Bury a bunch of A-bombs in a line, set ’em off, PRESTO! instant canal.

Maybe THAT’S what those “loose nukes” at Barksdale AFB were going to be for?

Oh, and re: books in libraries –

As a reader, enthusiastic patron of libraries, former bookseller and son of a library employee, I say let them carry everything they can get their hands on. “Bad” books, good books, whatever. I just wish our local library would restrict itself in NUMBERS of copies, though. They have something like eight copies, just at the Main branch, of Babs Olson’s last book. Imagine all the good books that that money could have been spent on.

 
 

as well as others that promote the hatred of other religions and one with the misogynistic title: “Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell.”

Sounds like something Daddy Dobson would put out.

 
 

3,100 km of border. Think you could dig a canal for $600 million a kilometer? I think so – and that’s cheaper than the Iraq War will be.

In fact, you could dig a big, canal-sized (20m deep, 200m wide) ditch all the way along the border for just $62 billion. Digging big holes is (pardon the pun) dirt cheap.

 
 

“Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell”–wasn’t that a particularly nice Playboy feature in 1998? Is it available in reprint?

 
 

What I wanna know is how does one become a “terror Sheik”? *I* wanna be a terror sheik, dammit!

 
 

In other news, Middle Eastern countries have Muslims in them.

The bombing starts in five minutes.

 
 

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