Library Backs Book on Same Sex Parent

I thought that this was a very interesting article indeed. In a county in Maryland, a parent upon discovering that her child checked a book out about same sex penguins hatching an egg together, appealed to the library that the book be taken out of the children's section of the library. The article quotes her as saying: "It is a great book for a certain family, but not for my family and a lot of families I know," Bubser said at the meeting. "I believe in everyone's rights. I believe in freedom of speech, but this is not right for my family." By saying this she was basically saying that her daughter did not have the right to choose a book that she wanted to read because he mother deemed it as inappropriate. The article stated previously that the young girl didn't even have an idea that the penguins were both male. A 7 year old child i would think would not need or care to make that distinction. She simply wanted to read the book.
By arguing that the book be taken out of the childrens section and clearly labeled that it is one about a same sex couple, that is certainly taking away people's right to choose a book for themselves. I feel very strongly against the labeling of anything, and especially literature. It is our responsibility to foster the youths desire to read, not take away materials that they are interested in reading. Just because it involved a same sex family, it does not mean that it is not a good family. We need to be teaching youth that it doesnt matter, as long as there is love. We need to be open-minded and read a variety of literature. That is how we become learned individuals. If we accept only one type of love and only one type of family, how can we expect growth and change in this world.
I whole-heartedly agree with the library's decision to keep the book where it was. Let the children decide what they want to read.

Sharing Your Notes Online-And Getting Paid For It

Site founders Benjamin Wald and Tyler Jenks of a website called Knetwit have found a way for people-teachers, and students alike to upload notes and get paid for them. Students can upload notes , papers and stuff like that if they think it can benefit others and get paid for it through PayPal, which is a feature also used on sites like eBay. The article cites potential pitfalls of this site could be that people can upload anything. Material that they could post may have been plagiarized, or scanned copyrighted text, which is illegal. Conversely, students could take papers that someone else has written and instead of using this as a "resource" or use it to gain better understanding of the material, they could just put their name on it and turn it in as their own work. The article states that it "does not condone plagiarism" but I see this as an obvious result of this idea. I compare it to paper mills or sites where you can buy papers that others have written or get them custom made for your purpose. I think overall this site has good intentions. You can upload notes that a friend or someone could use but it has too many areas that it could be changed into something like cheating. I think that students need to be held accountable the old fashioned way--take your own notes and write your own papers. It saves you having to worry about others plaigiarising and it helps you become a better student if you do your own work.