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Banned books debate goes local

Start the debate.

The Sioux Falls School District has removed a graphic novel from student access at two middle school libraries. The book, Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age, now is available only for school staff to check out and use in class. Although I blog frequently about banned books, I […]

Go. Look. Read. NOW

From a photographer who’s spent the last five years on the Pine Ridge Reservation: “I think I honestly want these photos to hurt the viewer.” (H/T Prof. Newquist.)

And while it doesn’t address this level of poverty, it is still an appropriate time to remind you to read John Scalzi’s “Being Poor.”

Poverty is like […]

Is a brain drain “hollowing out” rural America?

Two sociologists say the meltdown of rural America has reached a tipping point, one which is “transforming rural communities throughout the nation into impoverished ghost towns.”

In an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, husband and wife Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas say a brain drain led to a “hollowing out” of […]

South Dakota’s ‘hate groups’ quartet

What do neo-Nazis, skinheads and fundamentalist Mormons have in common? In South Dakota, they comprise the “hate groups” identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC has created an online map of organizations and groups it considers to be “hate groups,” which it defines as having “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an […]

Does Dutch pot mean fewer prisoners?

“Coffee shops” are quite popular in Amsterdam and other parts of the Netherlands. That’s because although cannabis, a/k/a/ marijuana, is technically illegal, authorities take no action if it is smoked in a “coffee shop.” The shops are licensed and regulated by the government and marijuana and hashish can be consumed on site, although the shops […]