UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 5, Page 7
October 1, 1992
In the news
Recent comments about the University and its community in the
media, both print and broadcast, are featured in this regular column.
Textbook censors
The classroom is a battlefield where an unremitting war rages for
the control of young minds....
The focus for most of the disputes is the textbooks that children
read. Often, the first response of adults who are offended is to try
to get the books banned.
Joan DelFattore, a professor of English at the University of
Delaware, provides a fascinating account of censorship of this kind in
What Johnny Shouldn't Read. She dissects several of the most
publicized federal court cases of the l980s involving attempts to
censor schoolbooks, then examines the impact on publishers and on
state education officials who authorize purchases of schoolbooks.
Her disquieting account is peopled with zealots who believe it is
their mission to insulate the young from authors who seek to corrupt
their beliefs about God, patriotism, family values, the role of women
and race relations....
What Johnny Shouldn't Read most concerns battles waged in
southern states, often in rural school districts, by Christian
fundamentalists....
The author...helps the reader to understand the passions and
convictions that motivate would-be censors. These are people-and their
numbers may be far larger than their detractors realize-who fear that
the orderliness of their world is threatened by the books their
children are asked to read.
Listen to a plaintiff in Alabama who wanted to ban a high school
home-economics book that had a "family life" section on decision
making:
"Is it wrong to tell a student that he can decide between right
and wrong?" he mused rhetorically in court. "I think it's a terrible
mistake and an abuse of the child to tell him that."
"Call the Book Cops"
The New York Times Book Review
Aug. 30, 1992
Teamsters & wiseguys
Washington-Suddenly, movie makers have discovered star qualities
in dead Teamster chiefs with links to the mob.
And if you thought you knew Jimmy Hoffa and Jackie Presser, you
may not recognize them in the five or so flicks soon to be released or
that are somewhere in the pipeline.
Mr. Hoffa, for example, acquires a new best friend in the 20th
Century Fox movie that features Jack Nicholson as the Teamster boss.
The film, coming out after Thanksgiving, casts the director, Danny
DeVito, as Mr. Hoffa's best friend. Never mind that in real life,
"Hoffa had no best friend," says Arthur Sloane, a University of
Delaware industrial relations professor and author of Hoffa, a 1991
book....
Those who have read the Hoffa script say the movie "is not
faithful at all (to Mr. Hoffa's life), and nobody pretends that it
is," says Mr. Sloane.
The Teamster craze officially begins... with the start of an HBO
Pictures television movie about Jackie Presser. He's the late
Teamsters chief who had ties to the Mafia and was an informant for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation for many years; he died in 1988.
That will be followed by as many as five television movies about
Mr. Hoffa, says Mr. Sloane, who has been fielding calls from a slew of
cable-television and home-video producers.
HBO officials are undoubtedly happy that they'll start showing
their Presser film first...
"From all the evidence, it'll show him in a much better light
than he's ever been shown before," says Mr. Sloane...
And Mr. Hoffa, who served a prison sentence for jury tampering
and mail and wire fraud, was "a bad citizen, but a great labor
leader," Mr. Sloane asserts.
"Coming Soon: Films on Teamster Bosses and
'Star Status' for Hoffa, Presser"
The Wall Street Journal
Sept. 11, 1992
Welcome back
Newark-From the Deer Park to the East End Cafe, in the aisles of
Rainbow Records and on stage at The Stone Balloon, you can hear Main
Street calling:
Students come back.
We love you. We need you. We've missed you.
All 20,000 of you.
This week, merchants and restaurateurs get their wish as Newark
almost doubles in size to become Delaware's pre-eminent college town.
For Jude McDonald, owner of Jimmy's Diner, it can't come a day
too soon.
"Thank God," she said..."It's been a tough summer for me. The
students are 75 percent of my business on the weekends."
"All I need is a few weeks back in school," McDonald said, "and
my sales will triple."
Newark Newsstand was stocked with countless magazines, everything
from Artspace to Wooden Boat..
"It's going to be bananasville," said clerk Milt Landis.
That other staple of college life- music-can be found in an
expanded Rainbow Records. Big sellers this fall, according to manager
Owen Thorne, will be rap groups House of Pain and EPMD..and a tape
titled DEEEE-LITE, Infinity Within.
If those titles don't move you, Main Street doesn't mind. Next
week, if all goes well, there'll be plenty of students buying Infinity
Within and carting away posters and potted plants from National 5&
10.
They'll be reading Artspace over cappuccino at the trendy 90 East
Main Cafe and talking philosophy and football at Jimmy's.
And Main Street will be happy.
"For Newark merchants, this week has a ring to it"
The News Journal
August, 30, 1992
Faculty and staff may submit material for "In the news" to Beth
Thomas, Office of Public Relations. Please include a copy of the
article, the sender's name and phone, as well as the name and date of
the publication in which the information appeared.