PENGUIN BOOK BARRED FROM LIBRARY SHELVES: PC GONE AWRY?

NOTE TO SELF: A FAMILY IS A FAMILY IS A FAMILY...SOME PEOPLE SEE SUBVERSIVE PLOTS EVERYWHERE, ESPECIALLY IN LOUDON

Given the fact that this is a place where there is reading matter covering a wide variety of subjects, one parent whose sensitivities were obviously jarred by the prospect of gay penguin parenting, has managed to get a book pulled from the library shelves. Some people see subversive plots at every turn, even within the pages of a children's book.

A children's book about two male penguins that hatch and parent a chick was pulled from library shelves in Loudoun County elementary schools this month after a parent complained that it promoted a gay agenda.

The decision by Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III led many parents and gay rights advocates to rush to the penguins' defence. Many say that the school system should not have allowed one complaint to limit children's literary choices. Some are calling for an overhaul of the book review policy. Besides, many say, what could be wrong with a book about penguins?

"The book is based on a true story . . . of what happens in the animal kingdom," said David Weintraub, director of Equality Loudoun, a gay rights organization. "It's about the joy of being part of a family. These penguins love each other. They take care of each other. The book, "And Tango Makes Three," by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, draws on the real-life story of Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in New York. It also appears to make a point about tolerance of alternative families.

As the book says, Roy and Silo were "a little bit different" than the boy and girl penguins who noticed each other and became couples. "Wherever Roy went, Silo went too." After they tried to hatch an egg-shaped rock together, a zookeeper gave them a fertilized egg to nurture. Experts say male chinstraps typically share incubation duties with females.The 2005 book, written with simple words and colorful pictures and dedicated "to penguin lovers everywhere," topped the American Library Association's list of banned or challenged books in 2006. Parents challenged the book in Shiloh, Ill., and Charlotte. Administrators in Charlotte initially yanked the book but later restored it, according to news reports.

Read the whole story here:

http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2008/feb/16/tango/

Extra Information regarding penguins found on the Sea World site: http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/Penguins/hatching.html:

"Care of the chicks
1 . Chicks require attentive parents for survival. Both parents feed the chick regurgitated food. Adults recognize and feed only their own chicks. Parents are able to identify their young by their chick's distinctive call (Marchant, 1990; Simpson, 1976).
2. Male emperor penguins exhibit a feature unique among penguins. If the chick hatches before the female returns, the male, despite his fasting, is able to produce and secrete a curdlike substance from his esophagus to feed the chick (Marchant, 1990; del Hoyo, et al., 1992) allowing for survival and growth for up to two weeks (Pr6vost and Vilter, 1963-1 Stonehouse, 1975).

Chesnut from Anne Frank's Tree Up for Sale on eBay

NOTE TO SELF: How sad and pathetic that eBay allows this "auction"

Talk about living off the avails of a dead person. Is it just me or does this news item leave a bad taste in one's mouth?

Anne Frank's tree may be doomed, but you can have a chestnut from it for only a few thousand dollars.

Charles Kuijpers, who lives next door to the famous house in Amsterdam where the German-Jewish girl was hidden from Nazi occupiers during World War II, has put what he says is a chestnut from the famed tree up for auction on eBay.

Anne wrote in her diary, which became a bestseller after her death, that during the two years she was hidden in the house's attic, the horse-chestnut tree was her only reminder of the natural world.

"I had this idea for a few years, then I saw that the tree was in the news and I decided to put the chestnut up for auction," Kuijpers told Reuters.

The tree, estimated to be between 150 and 175, has been in poor health for several years as it fends off parasites, and municipal authorities are set to tear it down Wednesday, pending a court hearing.

In August 1944, Nazi police raided the hiding place, and Anne and her sister Margot were deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they both died during a typhus epidemic in March 1945.

British soldiers liberated the camp in April. Anne Frank's body has never been found.

It would be acceptable and even a commendable act if Mr. Kuijpers would indicate that he plans to use the money from the auction towards some type of charity that helps homeless children or children living in war-torn countries.