{"id":51292,"date":"2023-03-25T16:50:48","date_gmt":"2023-03-25T23:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=51292"},"modified":"2023-03-25T16:50:48","modified_gmt":"2023-03-25T23:50:48","slug":"do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2023\/03\/25\/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night\/","title":{"rendered":"“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do not go gentle into that good night,<\/em><\/p>\n

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;<\/em><\/p>\n

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.<\/em><\/p>\n

~ Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As someone who takes Dylan Thomas\u2019 advice to heart, I\u2019m please to let centenarian and \u201cCraftivist\u201d<\/em> Grace Linn<\/strong> introduce herself to us all:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am Grace Linn.\u00a0 I am a hundred years young. \u00a0I\u2019m here to protest our school\u2019s district book-banning policy. \u00a0My husband, Robert Nicoll, was killed in action in World War II at a very young age. \u00a0He was only 26, defending our democracy, Constitution, and freedoms.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And with that opening salvo clearly aimed at DeSantis earlier this week, Grace Linn brought the house down at the latest Martin County School Board meeting in Florida!\u00a0 Most of the 500-plus overflow crowd was there to show their support for Ms. Linn\u2019s personal and heartfelt protest of Ron DeSantis\u2019 fascist book banning obsession.<\/p>\n

She continued:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the freedoms that the Nazis crushed was the freedom to read the books they banned.\u00a0 They stopped the free press and banned and burned books. \u00a0The freedom to read, which is protected by the First Amendment, is our essential right and duty of our democracy. \u00a0Even so, it is continually under attack by both the public and private groups who think they hold the truth.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While addressing the crowd comfortably seated on her walker, a friend of hers displayed the quilt she made last year of just some of the books that have been banned.\u00a0 At DeSantis\u2019 goading, Florida\u2019s public schools\u2019 libraries have now banned close to 200 \u201coffensive\u201d tomes from their shelves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Each square of Linn\u2019s quilt shows a stack of books that have been banned and targeted \u2013 many of which have been penned by authors honored with numerous literary awards, including several by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison.<\/p>\n

Linn said that burning books and banning books is done for the same reason: fear of knowledge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

She made clear she was there to oppose Florida\u2019s schools that are being goaded by DeSantis to ban books that irritate right-wingers and evangelical fundamentalists \u2013 a danger she compares to the evil her first husband fought and died for fighting against Nazism in WWII.<\/p>\n

\u201cBanning books and burning books are the same. Both are done for the same reason. Fear of knowledge. Fear is not freedom. Fear is not liberty. Fear is control. My husband died as a father of freedom. I am a mother of liberty. Banned books need to be proudly displayed and protected from school boards like this. Thank you very much.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On her departure, Ms. Linn was greeted as the hero she truly is \u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

During a later interview Ms. Linn explained the purpose of her quilt:<\/p>\n

\u201cTo remind all of us that these few of so many more books that are banned and targeted need to be proudly displayed and protected\u2014and read, if you choose to.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Having lost her first husband in WWII\u2019s battle against Nazis and Fascists, along with two brothers (one who was wounded while battling Hitler\u2019s forces and the other suffering PTSD from personally participating in the liberation of Auschwitz), Ms. Linn (who still drives and lives by herself) promised to continue the good fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always feel that it\u2019s my duty.\u00a0 When history is forgotten or not used and not allowed to be used, history will repeat itself and we had enough of that during the Nazism that occurred in Germany.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ~ Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)   As someone who takes Dylan Thomas\u2019 advice to heart, I\u2019m please to let centenarian and \u201cCraftivist\u201d Grace Linn introduce herself to us all: \u201cI […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5359,5358,4970,5361,4283,5357,5363,3732,5360,5362],"class_list":["post-51292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-5359","tag-book-bans","tag-desantis","tag-fascists","tag-florida","tag-grace-linn","tag-husband","tag-nazis","tag-quilt","tag-wwii","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}