▪️This is an incredible story. In the past year there have been countless memes shrieking about “book bans” in red states, which are typically a single school board deciding a few books are not age appropriate, often moving them from the elementary to middle school section or similar action. Now, Ontario schools are removing giant swaths of books, as much as 50%, for equity initiatives!
▪️The school board describes this as simply a “weeding process” (book bans only apply to conservatives). The board said, "Books published prior to 2008 that are damaged, inaccurate, or do not have strong circulation data (are not being checked out by students) are removed”
▪️This follows Directive 18 from Ontario’s Ministry of Education, which tells school boards “to complete a diversity audit of schools, which includes libraries.” This instructs librarians to “review” books published before 2008 based on the MUSTIE acronym:
🔹Misleading- information may be factually inaccurate or obsolete
🔹Unpleasant– refers to the physical condition, not content, of the book
🔹Superseded– book been overtaken by a new edition or a more current resource
🔹Trivial– no discernible literary or scientific merit
🔹 Irrelevant– doesn't meet the needs and interests of the library's community
🔹Elsewhere– the material in it may be better obtained from other sources
▪️With the exception of unpleasant and superseded, this standard is HIGHLY subjective, essentially giving librarians the power to determine what is misleading and relevant!
▪️It gets worse, of course. Step 2 of curation is “an anti-racist and inclusive audit, where quality is defined by "resources that promote anti-racism, cultural responsiveness and inclusivity."”
▪️And step 3 is “a representation audit of how books and other resources reflect student diversity.” What could possibly go wrong with that?
▪️The absolute kicker is this quote:
🔹 “When it comes to disposing of the books that are weeded, the board documents say the resources are "causing harm," either as a health hazard because of the condition of the book or because "they are not inclusive, culturally responsive, relevant or accurate." For those reasons, the documents say the books cannot be donated, as "they are not suitable for any learners."”
▪️So while not literally burning books, they are destroying them. This includes such dissident works as the Hungry Caterpillar and Anne Frank’s diary. Imagine, for a moment, the reaction if this was happening in a conservative school district.
▪️There is thankfully some pushback on this from, presumably, left wing people in Canada. But it’s based on worries that older books about Japanese internment camps or the Holocaust might be removed. Not revulsion over the equity “weeding process” itself.
▪️While this is in Canada, there is no real ideological difference between Ontario’s equity initiative for books and progressive areas in the US. This would be championed by the left in the US if they could get away with it, which tells you everything you need to know about the “book ban” hysteria.
Full story here:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/peel-school-board-library-book-weeding-1.6964332
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
▪️This is a proposal that pertains only to graduate level nursing degrees, not undergraduate ones (which were never considered professional degrees). The proposal will have a 30-60 day public comment period next year, where groups can object, before the DoE will decide on it.
▪️This is about how much federal student loans someone can take out for a particular degree. The cap on graduate degrees is $100k ($20,500/yr), while a “professional degree” limit is $200k ($50k/yr).
▪️Under the new rule proposal, professional degrees include:
🔹Pharmacy
🔹Dentistry
🔹Veterinary medicine
🔹Chiropractic
🔹Law
🔹Medicine (including osteopathic medicine & podiatry)
🔹Optometry
🔹Theology
▪️The nursing degrees excluded are ones like master of science in nursing (MSN), doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and PhD in nursing. These degrees would be limited to $100k in federal student loans, like all other graduate degrees.
▪️These changes came from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s...
