Thursday, February 12, 2009

Miami Herald (sort of) takes a stand on censorship

The Herald's very own "Some Cranky Guy."

If you read the Herald cover-to-cover on Tuesday, you may have noticed an interesting - if somewhat out of place - column on the op-ed page.

I'm referring to Glenn Garvin's column bashing the ACLU for daring to stand up to censorship in the Miami-Dade School system.

For a minute I thought I was reading another disjointed rant by the Some Cranky Guy guy or a column in the far right New York Post!

Garvin blasted the ACLU with somewhat overheated, over-the-top and very purple prose for daring to challenge a decision by the school board to remove the book "Vamos a Cuba" four years ago from school library shelves.
"But don't worry. Now that I've brought it to their attention, I'm sure the ACLU will be down at the federal courthouse sometime this afternoon securing the rights of Miami-Dade kids to get stoned, spout racist gibberish and blow things up, all on the taxpayer tab.
It was an interesting choice of subjects for a first column by Garvin - who will write a bi-weekly column on the op-ed page - in a newspaper that has always stood up against censorship and the radical right-wing element in Miami, a stand which some say has cost the paper subscribers.

I thought perhaps that the Herald had finally gotten someone at the paper to write from a conservative point of view on local issues; something the Herald sorely needs.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

A source at the Herald warned me this morning: "Don't pigeon-hole Glenn Garvin. The only thing predictable about Glenn is that he's not predictable. He has the potential of becoming the most interesting columnist the Herald has."

My source continued: "Glenn has always stood up against management when he thought they were wrong on things. He's not afraid to take an unpopular stand."

Indeed, a few years ago Garvin revealed that he is an atheist.

However, with all due respect to Mr. Garvin, I think that censorship in any form is wrong. And providing young children with only one point of view on a subject is considered brainwashing in some circles.

Or as the New York Times put it so beautifully in an editorial in Wednesday's paper: "If the [Miami-Dade school] board wants to oppose the totalitarianism of the Castro regime, banning books is an odd way to go about it."

1 comment:

  1. Garvin's column managed to mash in both Hitler and slavery in the opening paragraphs and contained a few whoopers of misinterpretation and omission which I pointed out to him in the comments. It reads like the work of an amateur ranter than a professional columnist. Not holding out my breath for his upcoming columns.

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