Hero Librarians Protest Book Ban By Obeying In Advance

The United Conservative Party of Alberta has always been at war with the Edmonton Public School Board.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. (Photo: Hulu)

It’s not a good idea to fuck with librarians, no matter what you might’ve seen on Pornhub.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith learned this the hard way after bemused bibliophiles at the Edmonton Public School Board took literally her government’s order to get rid of any books with explicit sexual content and came up with an early list of more than 200 titles to comply. That list included Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and even George Orwell’s 1984 for scenes that might offend the delicate sensibilities of young readers or their parents.

Hilarity ensued.

“Edmonton Public is clearly doing a little vicious compliance over what the direction is,” said a visibly annoyed Aunt Danielle last week. “If they need us to hold their hand through the process to identify what kind of materials are appropriate … we will more than happily work with them to work through their list, one by one, so we can be super clear about what it is we're trying to do."

The irony is the UCP are being super clear about what it is they’re trying to do, and that’s get rid of anything that teaches kids it’s OK to be queer. Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides announced in the spring that new rules under his eye would be coming after parents raised concerns about certain coming-of-age graphic novels and signed a missive in July laying out the binding rules for books — which includes tossing anything with depictions of masturbation or penetrative sex — set to start Oct. 1.

Kidlit celebrating sorcery remains available in schools for now. (Photo: Warner Bros.)

The guy probably thought he was being clever by making an exception for religious texts so nobody could argue for also banning the Bible for its own smutty sections like the time Lot offered up his virgin daughters to be raped (Genesis 19:8) by townspeople or when a filthy whore named Israel craved some donkey dong (Ezekiel 23:20).

Although the defiant bookworms might’ve at least appreciated Smith wordsmithing the new term “vicious compliance” instead of going with the more common malicious compliance, which Wikipedia defines as:

the behavior of strictly following all orders, laws, and rules to the letter; ignoring things that go without saying and doing things only by the book, reducing efficiency. A form of passive-agressive behavior, it is often associated with poor management-labor relationships, micromanagement, a generalized lack of confidence in leadership, and resistance to changes perceived as pointless, duplicative, dangerous, or otherwise undesirable.

Librarians are literally known for showing spines and took a page from the Pentagon with the textbook example of malicious compliance by military brass who put on the hilarious birthday parade commanded by Cadet Bonespurs.

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John Hilton-O'Brien, the man in charge of the group Parents for Choice in Education responsible for creating this mess, certainly didn’t see the plot twist coming.

“No reasonable person can take this seriously," he fumed at CBC News. “We wanted schools to pull things like graphic novels with explicit content. We didn't ask for them to play book-burning roulette with Margaret Atwood and Maya Angelou.”

Which is weird, because the American right-wingers whose bookbanning footsteps they’re following are constantly banning Angelou and Atwood, every year like clockwork. These people ban To Kill A Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men, for pity’s sake. What did poor Lennie ever do to anyone?

Although the books were actually chosen with far more precision than spinning a wheel and it wouldn’t have taken them much effort to go far higher than 200 titles. You can see the full list through the link above but George R.R. Martin’s entire A Song of Ice and Fire series, for example, would’ve been banished beyond the wall but there’s only a single Stephen King entry. (Yes, it’s that one.) Both of Margaret Laurence’s novels The Diviners and The Fire-Dwellers would be verboten but not The Stone Angel, which is surprising since I studied it in Grade 11 and distinctly remember there was a blowjob given by a young Hagar. Maybe they felt they’d already made their Dewey Decimal point with the other cherished Canadian author named Margaret, who offered her own hot take on Substack.

And including Ayn Rand — likely the only female author Stephen Miller will admit to reading — seems like personal shade thrown at Danielle Smith, who’s since tweeted she’s sent her minions back to the drawing board with a new focus on just picture books:

I'm going to be more explicit than usual so there is no misunderstanding this policy: 1. Get graphic pornographic images out of school libraries. 2. Leave the classics on the shelves. 3. We all know the difference between the items in 1 and 2. Let's not play any more games in implementing this policy for our kids.

Like a game … of thrones? It’s a safe bet the comics version will be getting the Pedro Pascal treatment.

[Ceeb / In the Writing Burrow / Wonkette Blueskies]