A majority of book challenges come from organized movements

My Sunday movie was Lover of Men: The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln. Several years ago I saw stories in the press about Lincoln perhaps being gay. This is a documentary exploring that possibility in more detail. The movie shows many letters by Lincoln and others that are evidence of his relations with other men. The letters are authentic. The movie uses actors to portray scenes. We see emotions (mostly tender glances) but hear no words. Where possible the scenes are enacted in the location where the original happened. From what I heard before Lincoln shared a bed with four men at various times, the most famous was Joshua Speed. This movie says Lincoln shared a bed with Speed for four years, declining housing where he would have a room and bed of his own. The two men were seen as great friends. Speed was instrumental in turning Lincoln from a country bumpkin into a man ready for national politics. This was at a time when mattresses were rare and men sharing a bed, especially in a tavern, was common. It was also a time that was homosocial – men and women socialized separately and all of one’s friends were of the same sex. Photos with fingers intertwined and with hands on thighs were not seen as strange. Letters mentioned Lincoln as being uncomfortable around women, perhaps having an aversion to them. But to get anywhere in politics one needed a wife. Speed introduced Lincoln to Mary Todd and they became engaged. But since that caused a rift with Speed Lincoln broke the engagement. Speed soon inherited the family plantation in Kentucky. Lincoln went to visit, which is where he saw the Speed family wealth and the human cost of slavery. Back in Illinois Lincoln resumed courting Todd and married her. There was another man, Billy Greene, who shared a cot (even smaller than a bed) with Lincoln for 18 months. They really had to want to share it. There was Elmer Ellsworth when Lincoln campaigned for and became president. And there was David Derickson who was Lincoln’s personal bodyguard and shared his bed at what became the “Lincoln Cottage” when Mary was away. The history of Derickson’s regiment mentions that Derickson was seen wearing Lincoln’s nightshirt and the mention includes no shame. Towards the end of the 19th century science replaced religion as the source of morality (well, to some extent). But science institutions were led be white men. And we get eugenics, the effort to “prove” scientifically that black people were inferior. Also a part of that effort was to show sexual difference also meant inferiority. Science supported hierarchy. Sigmund Freud said that doing a certain type of thing showed that you were a certain type of person. Have sex with men and you were a homosexual, which according to their “research” claimed homosexuality was not natural and homosexuals were inferior to heterosexuals. So sexuality became performative. One had to act in a way that removed all doubt one was straight. That’s why images of the American West of the time were filled with rugged men. Since homosexuality was said to be not natural it became punishable. There were brutal and abusive treatments in hopes of turning men straight. Lincoln is easily seen as the best president our country has had. He was the most invested in the country and in democracy. He is the closest we have to a national saint. How could one be so masculine as to win a war and also be queer? One of the historians is tired of that question because it implies stereotypes. Was Lincoln gay? There is strong evidence and no proof. Also, there was no concept of sexual orientation at the time. I quite enjoyed this movie and recommend it. There is, of course, a lot more information than I can include in my discussion of it. I finished the book The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills. This is a good science fiction novel that mirrors our current political climate. The story is about Zemolai, nicknamed Zenya. She lives where there is a domain of five gods. Arthur C. Clarke’s phrase “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” might be useful here or maybe, “... indistinguishable from divine intervention.” The gods are in charge of creation (engineering), scholarship, workers, farming, and security (mecha). Those that follow the mecha god, if they’re good enough, can earn mechanical wings to help with their security duties. The story begins with an incident 26 years after earning her wings that causes Zemolai to lose them. The rest of the novel has alternate chapters on how she earns her wings and what she does after she loses them. With this alternating format the two parts of the story highlight and parallel each other. When Zenya is young she is captivated with the idea of flying. When old enough she leaves her father and brother to begin training. She becomes a student of Vodaya, the top teacher who seems to be in direct contact with the mecha god. Vodaya drives Zenya to excel, and she does, and also becomes a tender mother to her. The five parts of the society are supposed to be an interrelated community. But rivalries develop. The scholars want to know all about the gods, even if the knowledge can upset current understanding. The mecha don’t want to disrupt the current stability, though the rivalries do exactly that. And the mecha shift from protectors against external threats to enforcers of internal doctrine. Spoiler alert: After Zemolai loses her wings she is cared for by rebels while her body recovers from the withdrawal of drugs that made control of the wings possible. As she maintains her devotion to Vodaya there is a long process to understand how abusive Vodaya had been to her and the rest of the community. Zemolai had earlier interpreted that abuse as just a tactic to make her stronger and more fit to receive the wings. She also begins to realize the abuse she doled out to stay in Vodaya’s favor and stay within the theology Vodaya upheld. Zemolai’s desire for the wings blinded her to the abuse. I enjoyed and recommend this book. I saw similarities to the nasty guy supporters. They also want something desperately – a restoration of the middle class and the hierarchy that places straight white Christian men at the top. They see the nasty guy getting it for them, certainly he’s blaming and hurting the people they want blamed. But their lives are being made worse as the nasty guy’s policies are implemented. They may need a long time to see he is abusive and has always been abusive. I found a page of Arthur C. Clarke quotes. A few:

The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system. Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all. In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say 'I have been happy.’

While I’m discussing a book... The American Library Association is marking Banned Books Week by releasing the list of the top ten most challenged books of 2024. From their top ten page:

The 2024 data reported to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) shows that the majority of book censorship attempts are now originating from organized movements. Pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members and administrators initiated 72% of demands to censor books in school and public libraries. Parents only accounted for 16% of demands to censor books, while 5% of challenges were brought by individual library users. The 120 titles most frequently targeted for censorship during 2024 are all identified on partisan book rating sites which provide tools for activists to demand the censorship of library books. The most common justifications for censorship provided by complainants were false claims of illegal obscenity for minors; inclusion of LGBTQIA+ characters or themes; and covering topics of race, racism, equity, and social justice.

There were 821 attempts to ban books, down from 2023, but up from 2021. Those 821 attempts included 2,452 unique titles. That’s significantly up from 2001-2020. The LGBTQ books in the list. 1. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George Johnson. This had 39 challenges. 2. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. 3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. 10. Flamer by Mike Curato. All of them on the list, including those above, were challenged for a claim to be sexually explicit. Also related to literature is the end of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. I realized that I hadn’t heard about this year’s winners, which had usually been announced around Labor Day, so I looked for the website. That’s where I learned Scott Rice, the guy who created and ran the contest since 1983 announced his and the contest’s retirement back in March (sheesh he’s older than Biden). The archive of winners will be maintained. In August Deena Prichep of NPR talked to Rice about the contest and retirement. He explained the contest (which I’ve mentioned several times over the years) is to create the worst possible opening sentence for a novel. The rest of the novel is irrelevant. Last year Rice got 6,000 entries. The contest is named for Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a 19th century author who wrote best sellers, but is remembered for the bad opening sentence of his novel Paul Clifford, “It was a dark and stormy night.” An example of a contest winner included in Prichep’s report:

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss - a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.

I never submitted to the contest, though thought the worst first sentence would be one where there was no possible second sentence.

I could tell you about my life but thought it’s none of your damn business.

I searched previous blog posts for contest winners. I found these:

This dishonorable mention in the Fantasy category from the 2009 winners is by Shannon Gray of Wichita, KS. Detective Pierson mentally reviewed the group of suspects milling around the recent crime scene – two young siblings eating gingerbread, a young girl in a red hoodie, a beautiful girl with narcolepsy, and seven little people with the profession of miners – then gave his statement of "It's a grim tale" to the press. A winner in the Vile Puns category for 2015 is by Matthew Pfeifer of Beaman, Iowa: Old Man Dracula forgot to put his teeth in one night, and so had to come home hungry, with a sort of “nothing dentured, nothing veined” look on his face.

From 2018:

In preparation for visits by African dignitaries, we had redecorated the West Wing of the White House in an African motif with numerous artificial plants and animals, but the President asked that we remove the papier-mache wildebeests, saying he was "tired of fake gnus." Wm. "Buddy" Ocheltree, Snellville, GA

From 2023 and working with the inspiration for the contest:

It was a dark and stormy night at the harbors of Sydney, where wind whipped the seawater across the docks and the torrents of rain soaked everything that the waves could not reach, but luckily for James Tyche this story begins at a beach in Southern France, where it was currently day and James was gradually developing a healthy tan and less healthy sunburn. Robin Alberts, Ludenscheid, Germany

And from last year’s contest:

Stepping outside just after dawn, Chef Billingsworth was pleased to discover that for once the morning fog was not as thick as pea soup—or even lobster bisque for that matter—but was more a chicken velouté, or perhaps a beef remouillage. Mark Meiches, Dallas, TX

I’ll miss this fun. A while back I wrote about Kat Abughazaleh, who is Gen Z and running for Congress in a district that’s a long strip in Chicago’s northern suburbs. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos interviewed her. She’s a person I’d very much want to see in Congress right now, willing to take on the fascists (she’s been taking on ICE) as well as the stodgy Democratic leadership.