June 2007

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  Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. One of the core policies of Wikipedia is that articles should always be written from a neutral point of view. It appears you have not followed this policy at Peter Roskam. Please always observe our core policies. Thank you. ~ Wikihermit 21:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Signing Talk pages

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You can sign your name on Talk and similar pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~, which automatically inserts your name and the current date when you save the edit. -- DS1953 talk 13:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Allegedly unsound cites in Roskam article

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Do you have any sources as to why the material that was removed by a prior IP, restored with a stupidly snarky "summary", re-removed by you, and now restored by me, doesn't belong here? The IP editor made some claims, then rejected the idea of relying on an article in the Trib. You, I know as an editor; the IP, I don't. --Orange Mike 17:21, 24 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

OrangeMike,

The Zorn and Green articles do not support what is said in the Wiki article. Zorn writes, "But Duckworth's campaign deserves the raspberry for its new TV commercial* that attempts to make voters think Roskam wants to ban the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. Seuss from public libraries:" . . .Parental objections focused on certain stories and poems included in the larger anthology volumes -- some of which the publisher removed for later editions. But according to stories in the news archives, the objections had nothing to do with King, Wilder or Seuss, and focused instead on such entries as "A Wart Snake in a Fig Tree," a parody of "The 12 Days of Christmas," and the poem "I'm So Mad I Could Scream!" that includes a first-person description of anger so intense the author could "beat up my mother and dad."

The entry would need to indicate that Roskam objected to anthology volumes of Impressions that were in the Wheaton School District, not Arlington Heights. He did not want to remove Impressions as far as I can tell from the two cited articles, but parents did object to entries that parodied Christmas and talked about violence against parents by children. The Zorn article does not state that he specifically objected to these writings, but that parents did. It is not supported clearly what Roskam objected to or what specific bills he supported in the legislature. Show me what he co-sponsored in the legislature, otherwise this is virtual heresay. I will say that the suicide reference is cited by Biemer, but what did it say? He has never said nor have I seen reference to him saying that he would like to eliminate Romeo and Juliet or It's a Wonderful Life (One of my personal favorite movies of all time) which brings us to the Green article in Esquire.

The Esquire article states, "...And he believes suicide is such a temptation to impressionable teens that he wants to strike all mention of it from public-school curricula--and, yes, that includes Romeo and Juliet and It's a Wonderful Life. He'll have to convince voters that he won't follow his party off a cliff."

How did Green actually determine this? Did he ask the candidate? Obviously not: "While many of his views are standard-issue conservative--he's pro-life, antitax, and distrustful of the "liberal media" (he declined an interview)-"

So what we have and can prove is that: In 1993, Roskam sponsored a proposal in the Illinois Legislature to eliminate material in schools that "expressly counsels for suicide." Some opponents said it could have been applied to literature that some would categorize as an appropriate part of a schools curriculum.

-Love and Bubbles-


Reference: "In the 1990s, Roskam supported three different state legislative plans to remove books that some parents found objectionable from public schools: one to remove the textbook series Impressions from Arlington Heights schools, another to remove any book that "expressly counsels for suicide," and a third to allow local juries to determine whether a book is obscene.[21][22]"

Bubbler2222 18:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)Reply