STOP ME BEFORE I READ AGAIN

[defrog]

Incidentally, Banned Book Week kicked off in the US on Saturday.

I’ve posted before about why Banned Book Week is a good thing. If you missed it the first time, you can read it here.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d pass on this relevant passage from Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which I recently finished reading:

“Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws — always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: ‘Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop.’ Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them ‘for their own good’ — not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.”

I can’t add anything to that.

BONUS TRACK: Some interesting stats from the ALA:

Over the past ten years, American libraries were faced with 4,660 challenges.

• 1,536 challenges due to “sexually explicit” material;
• 1,231 challenges due to “offensive language”;
  
• 977 challenges due to material deemed “unsuited to age group”;
  
• 553 challenges due to “violence”
  
• 370 challenges due to “homosexuality”
  
• 304 challenges due to their “religious viewpoints.”
  
• 121 challenges due to being “anti-family”

For yr own good,

This is dF