24 Comments
User's avatar
Carrie Lynn Bailey's avatar

Wow… the increasing slant of your articles is less and less lining up with the “fair and balanced”news approach that you share in your mission/about section 😞 Seems more along the lines of grabbing attention and inflaming differences or at best just showing where your biases are…

Ryan's avatar

Misgendering the author is a bad look. They identify as they/them so using he/him pronouns is inappropriate. Facts matter and it's important for a journalist to get them right.

Williamsburg Watch's avatar

You're right. We corrected that on the page.

Ryan's avatar

Thanks! Figured it was an honest mistake

Anne Smith's avatar

I hope that the planning is realizing theres only so much water. Our bills keep going up due to expansion. I know we pay for water and the more we need the more it cost.

Ryan's avatar

Just have to build more water infrastructure. No big deal, we can just get it done

Anne Smith's avatar

Ok Ryan, where from? We already buy it from somewhere else

Anne Smith's avatar

Thanks I was happy to read it

Ryan's avatar

Glad to hear it. Feeling better about welcoming new neighbors and keeping housing prices low?

Ryan's avatar

Just build the infrastructure. There's plenty of water, we just need to treat it.

Anne Smith's avatar

Yes, that I know and with all the new tech. Im sure it won't be hard

Kyra Cook's avatar

understand why parents want a sense of control over what their children are exposed to, especially when it comes to timing and context. I’ve certainly had moments where a book my kids brought home made me pause—and it wasn’t a conversation I would have chosen, or chosen then.

That said, some of the most meaningful conversations I’ve ever had with my children came from books they read through programs like Battle of the Books at WRL—stories I didn’t select and didn’t anticipate. Those moments opened the door to honest, deep discussions where I could share my values, listen carefully, and give my kids space to develop their own.

I’m not sure many of those conversations would have happened otherwise. In hindsight, I’m deeply grateful for those unexpected opportunities and for the librarians and educators who created them. They turned surprise into connection, and that’s something I’ll always value.

Robin C's avatar

Who are these "professionals" rating these books for the rest of us?!!

How about we respect how every parent wants to raise their children, especially elementary age and make a special section for books that have sexually explicit content whether it is girl/boy, girl/girl, boy/boy or any other way someone identifies as and prefers their sex. It is up to the parent to decide when their child is ready to be exposed to sex not society. Quit pushing the sexualization of our children as normal. It is NOT!!!

Ryan's avatar

How is them knowing that people are bisexual different from them knowing that men marry women?

Naomi Voss's avatar

Mr. Williams should monitor what the kids read and run everything through common sense media. That’s what I did when mine were younger.

Ryan's avatar

Or trust that their kids can reasonably interpret facts.

Robin Jester Wootton's avatar

Does daddy know 10 year olds can get their periods and get pregnant? Maybe he needs to stop avoiding sex and gender talk. Parents need to model healthy attitudes toward sexuality and gender identity not mask it in shame and judgment. Using fiction to talk about issues is so helpful for all of us. Now I’m going to get that book out!

Robin Jester Wootton's avatar

And btw the issue isn’t in parental rights to raise your own child the “way you see fit” but that these folks don’t stop there. They then want all children everywhere to have to live by their moral compass and deny other parents the right to give them access to what they see fit. It doesn’t go Both ways iykwim. It’s always the side of more freedoms for ALL. Or else it’s a touch fascist, no? 👀

H MacGill's avatar

Then the parents of that 10 year old can direct her to the information she needs. Judgemental about the father much? He'll parent his children as he sees fit just like you will yours.

Ryan's avatar

Why should we let him pretend that hearing about homosexuality or bisexuality is less child appropriate than hearing about heterosexuality?

Robin Jester Wootton's avatar

Great point too. The normative principle sets up a whole lot of grey areas for what is offensive or shocking.

Ryan's avatar

and makes it our responsibility to not go along with not normalizing talking about all sorts of sexuality.

Robin Jester Wootton's avatar

At what point is it possible that a parent is making a decision that is harmful to a child and puts them at great risk and that child then goes to school and finds a trusted adult to talk to. Then that school gets in trouble for trying to help a child. It gets tricky fast so maybe I’m not judging so much as I am outlining the reality of childhood and how we all learned a whole lot without our parents ever knowing a damn thing. 🙃