A couple of friends are sharing this morning a graphic generated by the ACLU of Iowa, listing books ripe for banning in the Mason City public school district, selected by using Artificial Intelligence software.
Other lists, made using more traditional methods, have been published recently here and there, notably by Urbandale and Norwalk school districts.
But it's important to note that the credit for Iowa's current neofascist flirtation with book-banning, book-burning and such rests at the front door of Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Republican/Fundamentalist Christian-controlled Legislature. Not Iowa's public schools.
The school districts, already facing the loss of funding to private schools as the result of other legislative shenanigans and in the absence of guidance from Iowa's Department of Education, are trying to protect themselves from threatened punishment if, after Jan. 1, their libraries contain "descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act" or references to LGBTQ people.
Excluding the Bible, of course. I'm sure we're all relieved to know the Legislature sheltered that great compendium of incest, rape, genocide and more.
For more, tune into this longer piece of the ALCU, headlined "Banned Books in Iowa: Free Societies Read Freely!" And look back fondly on earlier attempts to ban books from public libraries in Pella, Vinton and Orange City.
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