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FEMA Removes 9/11 Coloring Book For Children From Website
FEMA has decided to pull a children's coloring book entitled, "A Scary Thing Happened" from their website. The coloring book contained three images of the twin towers on fire for children to color. Rose Olmsted, the coordinator behind the book said, "I stand firm that it was a very well thought-out and useful resource for kids, but it's obviously being misinterpreted by a lot of people." Since people are so upset about the coloring book, I can only assume FEMA's plan for a human remains concentration game will be put on hold.
Censorship is a bigger danger to the American Public than any FEMA publication.
Bruce Perens.
But given the level of ignorance and PCness in this country, not at all surprising. Games and coloring books are two ways kids learn, remember and process things. I recall growing up with coloring books that depicted, for instance, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Nazis, etc. It didn't turn me into a hateful monster or give me terrible dreams; it helped me learn, remember and understand. I've talked to several friends about this (I have friends across most spectrums you can come up with) and they reached the same conclusion.
We've become absurdly over-sensitive as a nation.
It's like trying to take guns and cannons out of civil war coloring books.
It happened and it's history. People need to know the truth.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Where the hell did you grow up? Certainly not in the U.S.A., if you think that coloring in a terrorist attack is so worrisome, what's your opinion on the public television they'll be watching in just a few years? I say we quit pretending and come to terms with reality, this happened. It was a very real thing, a 'turning point' (using this term lightly) in American history.
What happened to "9/11 - Never Forget". When did it become "9/11 - Never Forget, But Don't Tell the Children!!".
I'm sorry but I think exposing children to this sort of material will desensitise them to such actions if (when) they happen again..
Ummm you need to look up what desensitize means. It doesn't mean that you don't care when something happens, it means you don't get tied up into an ineffective emotional knot.
For example, someone who is "desensitized" to violence (like a soldier) is not going to not notice, or not care about killing, but they will be able to kill without having huge emotional issues. At least that's the theory, in practice it usually ends up still bothering people quite a bit.
Your argument is like saying that showing kids pictures of the Holocaust will "desensitize" them to genocide, so that they won't notice or care WHEN it happens again. Which simply isn't true- it makes them MORE aware of such things, which is good.
As for this book, it was intended to give kids an outlet to help them deal with constantly seeing stuff about 9/11 on TV, on the news, at school, etc. They don't really understand what's going on at that age, but still need an outlet to help deal with the fear that they pick up from the adults around them.
It doesn't seem very politically correct, but that's because LIFE is not politically correct, and attempting to shoehorn life into a nice tidy little box is going to cause the kids bigger problems in the long run.
As a final thought, if this really was an issue, then why do most kids who played the board game "operation" still vomit when a coroner opens up a corpse in front of them?
This isn't about us pretending, it's about children pretending. Learning about the futility of existence should be a suprise saved for later in life.
I remember when I was between the ages of 6 and 10 I use to draw battles with tanks, jets, and stickmen. I had people falling into volcanoes, getting blown in two by bombs, getting hit by "tracer" round gunfire, etc. Guess what, I'm still pretty normal. I don't have the urge to blow anyone up or shoot anyone.
While I agree it's a bit odd to have the twin towers getting hit by airplanes in a coloring book, I wouldn't have a problem with my kids coloring the picture.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Yes.
One thing that I have never really understood.... whats so bad about being desensitized?
I mean really, do we think that the proper reaction, in just about any situation, is to immediately reduce yourself to a quivering blob of jelly? Isn't desensitization exactly what you want when a major event happens and you have to keep a calm and level head and act rationally?
I mean seriously, other than a bunch o fhand waving about the bogus dangers of "desensitization" is there really any way at all that this could be, in the least bit, harmful to children?
Seriously, if we had been a bit more "desensitized" to this extremely rare event, by a very small number of people (who are mostly all dead or captured), then maybe we wouldn't have overreacted so badly.
At current count, adding security to cockpit doors is the SINGLE change I have seen since 9/12 thats made anyone any safer. In reality, the attack vector was one that relied on passengers believing they would be involved in a bloodless standoff that was exploited. 9/11 was a 100% self correcting problem, as it educated airline passengers to a new type of terrorist plot.
As of about 11 am on 9/11 the plot could not have been repeated ever again. No new "security measures" were needed. However, being nation of ultra-sensitive cowards who like to hide behind big police forces and military might, we did a lot more than that.
I see desensitization as a good thing. Lets have them color in some suicide bomb belts while they are at it. so maybe next time we can act like mature adults rather than sacred little children.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
OK.. so after flipping through it the only thing related to 9/11 is the cover and ONE page. The rest of the coloring book doesn't refer to any specific events, just "disaster". It looks to me like a good effort at educating children about disaster and coping with it.
Why can't they change the cover, change the image on that page, and MOVE ON!
Nonsense. 9/11 helps whoever is in power by whipping the nation into a patriotic government-worshiping frenzy. Remember all those people who thought that criticizing the president was akin to treason? That's the power of 9/11. Both Democrats and Republicans want that power.
This coloring book was pulled for a completely different reason, namely that people didn't want their tax dollars supporting such a thing.
I notice YOU haven't published the coloring book on YOUR site either, Mr. Perens. Therefore, by your own logic, you are a censor.
Except that is not censorship. Nobody is banning anything. FEMA is choosing not to use our tax dollars to publish a coloring book on their own web site. Calling that censorship dilutes the meaning of the word, and it demeans the struggle against real censorship.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Exactly, things always end up on a larger scale later in life. The sooner you have certain life experiences the better you are. Think about chicken pox, when you are 4 or 5 chicken pox is just a few days sick, a few oatmeal baths and some lotion, on the other hand, when you are 40, chicken pox can get you hospitalised rather quickly. Or think about drinking, the kid who drinks a bit when he is 15, throws up and then only occasionally drinks compared to the kid who is 21 and drinks enough to have alcohol poisoning because he doesn't know when to quit.
Early exposure to things almost always leads to better handling of it and less severe consequences then later in life.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
By your logic, anything the government published at one time but no longer publishes has been 'censored.' Do you really not understand how that dilutes the real meaning of the word 'censorship?'
FEMA was not 'forced' to remove anything. FEMA is a government agency, with limited funds. They put up something they thought would be useful. People did not find it useful, and they asked FEMA not to waste any resources on it. FEMA took it down. The work is still available, if anyone wants it. The government has not banned the coloring book. The government is just not wasting our tax dollars hosting that worthless content anymore.
Calling this censorship is simply hyperbole, and a knee-jerk attempt at whipping up some anti-government, anti-PC hysteria.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Because the people who are asking them to take it down are silly, that's why. Things like coloring or drawing pictures (and talking about the pictures thus drawn) of traumatic events is good therapy. Removing something that supports that is silly.
So yes, the government should be accountable to the people. But they should also know when a few people are being silly and complaining about something that is actually worthwhile.
On the other hand, kids that are of a coloring-book age (like my 5-year-old) at this point probably don't remember September 11, 2001, anyhow.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Umm... it's still torture, even if you can argue that it was defensible.
If I walked into a camp in Pakistan and shot Osama Bin Laden in the head, it would still be murder, or at the very least, assassination (aka, fancy political murder). Whether it was justified or not does not change what the action was.
Now, given that everyone tortured under the Bush regime had *not* been committed of a crime, that multiple serious studies have shown that torturing is not a useful way to acquire reliable information, and that there has been no proof submitted to the public that the torturing was in any way useful... I'd argue the justification of it, too.
Yeah, it's only torture when other countries do it. When our country does it, it's a valuable interrogation technique.
But hey, just because torture is generally considered an unreliable method of gaining information, why shouldn't we do it anyway? It proves we're tough, right?
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Whoah there, Bruce. Please point out where the article claims that FEMA took down the coloring book due to pressure. Actually, the article does not state WHY the book was removed. Unless you have access to information we don't, you are making completely unwarranted assumptions.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton