Maus School Ban Inspires CA Retailer to Offer 100 Free Copies to Tennessee Residents

A Tennessee school board's decision to ban the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic Novel Maus from its curriculum has attracted a flurry of online attention, including an act of generosity from one California comic shop owner.

"As I've offered before with other banned comics, I'll donate up to 100 copies of The Complete Maus to any family in the McMinn County area in Tennessee," tweeted Ryan Higgins, owner of Comics Conspiracy in Sunnyvale, California. "Just DM me your address!"

The tweet went viral and has received over 10,000 likes and 3,000 retweets at the time of writing -- including a retweet from CNN anchor Jake Tapper. CBR reached out to Higgins, who said he was "blown away by the response to my offer."

"Already a few dozen kids and parents have replied, and we'll have copies going to them shortly," Higgins said. "It's great to see so many people interested in reading Maus for the first time, but to also see many others willing to provide copies. It's sad that people are still willing to ban ANY book these days, but especially such an important work as Maus. I've made this same offer a few times in the past and had a couple people reach out (recently for Y The Last Man and V For Vendetta being banned in Texas), but this seems to be getting a lot more attention!"




https://www.cbr.com/ryan-higgins-donating-maus-after-tennssee-school-ban/

Spotify is no longer letting people cancel subscriptions.

VA-04: Andy Parker, father of reporter killed during live TV broadcast, to run for Congress

Andy Parker, the father of a journalist who was killed during a live TV report in 2015, is running for Congress in south-central Virginia. Parker is a Democrat running in Virginia's 5th district against Republican freshman Congressman Bob Good, who he called the "Marjorie Taylor Greene of Virginia."


"This district is not being represented the way it should be," Parker told CBS News before his launch. "Since Alison was killed, I've always tried to honor her life through action. Given the atmosphere we face right now, this is the time to jump in and make a difference."

Parker's daughter Alison was a TV reporter at CBS Roanoke affiliate WDBJ-TV who was shot and killed, alongside cameraman Adam Ward, by an ex-coworker in 2015.

Parker, a former member of the Henry County Board of Supervisors, has been an advocate for gun rights reform since his daughter's killing. But after failing to get Facebook and other social media to take down video of his daughter's killing, he has been vocal about reforming Section 230, a law that protects social media companies from lawsuits over content on their platforms.




https://www.cbsnews.com/news/andy-parker-congress-democrat-alison-parker/

Noem's lawyer compares transgender sports participation to 'terrorism'

PIERRE, S.D. — Gov. Kristi Noem's interim chief of staff on Wednesday, Jan. 26, likened banning transgender girls from participating in girls' sports to thwarting terrorism.

Senate Bill 46, which sailed through the full Senate last week, was passed Wednesday by a powerful House committee after a heated debate. The bill would give the legal green-light to sue school officials over allowing transgender girls and women to participate on all-female teams.

Following public testimony in the House State Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Mark Miller, interim chief of staff and legal counsel to Noem, told lawmakers that even though the state has seen only one transgender girl perform during the last decade, the goal of the measure is preventative.

"It's sort of like terrorism," Miller said. "You see it over there, and don't want it to get to here."
The committee proceeded — over "no" votes from the two Democrats — to approve the controversial measure 8-2.




https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/south-dakota/gov-noems-lawyer-compares-transgender-sports-participation-to-terrorism-committee-approves-sports-bill

Marvel Actress Evangeline Lilly Attended D.C. Anti-Vax Protest

Folks, Evangeline Lilly is at it again.

In a recent Instagram post, the Lost and Ant-Man and the Wasp actress said she traveled to Washington, D.C. this weekend to speak out in support of “medical sovereignty”—in other words, to protest vaccine mandates. Lilly attended the same protest where speaker Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a notorious anti-vaxxer, compared vaccines mandates to the Holocaust.

Lilly wrote Thursday that she believes “nobody should ever be forced to inject their body with anything, against their will” under threats including “violent attack,” “arrest or detention without trial,” homelessness and starvation, and “excommunication from society.” (Note: Nobody is forcing anyone to get the vaccine, and these threats are not real.)

“This is not the way,” she wrote. “This is not safe. This is not healthy. This is not love. I understand the world is in fear, but I don’t believe that answering fear with force will fix our problems. I was pro choice before COVID and I am still pro choice today.”

It’s unclear what Lilly’s vaccination status is; her post includes a photo of someone with a sign that reads “Vaxxed Democrat for medical freedom.” That said, her post carries a whole host of misleading implications. Vaccine mandates remain divisive among the public but no politician or official has called for punishing anyone who declines the vaccine. And as popular as the co-opting of “my body, my choice” rhetoric might be among anti-vaxxers, the parallels are questionable at best.




https://www.thedailybeast.com/marvel-actress-evangeline-lilly-attended-dc-anti-vax-protest

Tennessee school board bans Holocaust graphic novel 'Maus' - author Art Spiegelman condemns the move

A Tennessee school board has voted to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” from an eighth-grade language arts curriculum due to concerns about profanity and an image of female nudity in its depiction of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust.

The Jan. 10 vote by the McMinn County School Board, which only began attracting attention Wednesday, comes amid a number of battles in school systems around the country as conservatives target curriculums over teachings about the history of slavery and racism in America.

“I’m kind of baffled by this,” Art Spiegelman, the author of “Maus,” told CNBC in an interview about the unanimous vote by the McMinn board to bar the book, which is about his parents, from continuing to be used in the curriculum.

“It’s leaving me with my jaw open, like, ‘What?’” said Spiegelman, 73, who only learned of the ban after it was the subject of a tweet Wednesday – a day before Holocaust Remembrance Day.

He called the school board “Orwellian” for its action.

Spiegelman also said he suspected that its members were motivated less about some mild curse words and more by the subject of the book, which tells the story of his Jewish parents’ time in Nazi concentration camps, the mass murder of other Jews by Nazis, his mother’s suicide when he was just 20, and his relationship with his father.








https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/26/tennessee-school-board-bans-holocaust-comic-maus-by-art-spiegelman.html

When my life flipped upside down, my mother's pho helped me heal

I did everything I thought they wanted in a daughter; I tried to be the daughter their sacrifice deserved. I got good grades, earned a masters degree. I’d learned how to earn my own money and stand on my own two feet. I got married. The next step was to have a family of my own.

But I couldn’t. Not with this man.

When I decided to get divorced, I felt like I had broken a promise — not to him, but to them.

For so long, I had remained a child to my parents, a little sister to my older, loving, and protective brother.

They hadn’t noticed I had grown into an adult who was struggling, with needs of her own.

That winter, I finally faced them, exhausted and no longer able to keep up the charade.

“Mẹ không biết làm thế nào để con vui,” my mother told me. “I don’t know how to make you happy again.”

And I didn’t either. We had been worlds apart, both physically and culturally for so long.

“Mẹ sẽ dạy con cách nấu phở, duoc khong?” I asked, in my broken Vietnamese. “Will you teach me how to make pho?”

Pho was a language we both knew how to speak.







https://www.inquirer.com/food/recipes/pho-recipe-family-essay-20220126.html?cid=Philly.com+Twitter&utm_source=t.co&utm_campaign=Philly.com+Twitter+Account&utm_medium=social

Bonus Tweet of the Day

500 acres of giant Redwood forest are being returned to a confederacy of 10 Northern California Indi

Aaron Rodgers: Fans wanted me to lose because of my vaccination status

Aaron Rodgers saw your memes. He wasn’t laughing.

The Packers quarterback sounded off at the legions of fans who he believed were only rooting against him during their game Saturday against the 49ers – which Green Bay lost, 13-10 – due to his outspoken views on COVID-19.

“There were a ton of people tuning in, rooting against us for one reason and one reason only,” Rodgers said Tuesday on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “It’s because of my vaccination status and them wanting to see us lose so they could pile on.”

To be fair, there’s probably some truth to this. Rodgers instantly became one of the most polarizing athletes in the country when he tested positive for the virus earlier this season, admitting that he had misled reporters about his vaccination status. There was no shortage of people who reveled in Green Bay’s playoff loss because they wanted to see Rodgers lose.

At the same time, Rodgers didn’t help the matter with his play. After a season that earned him MVP consideration, even amid the controversy, the Packers could only manage 10 points in the snow. That’s not entirely on Rodgers, and the elements didn’t cooperate, but it’s not the kind of football he played all year.







https://nypost.com/2022/01/26/aaron-rodgers-fans-wanted-me-to-lose-because-of-my-vaccination-status/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow