The Nature of Things

They are still out there, even in 2016. They are the people who obsess over stopping the dissemination of ideas which they find offensive. Specifically, they try to stop books that contain such ideas from becoming widely available to the public. They are the would-be book banners. These are the people who challenge books available through libraries and schools and ask for them to be taken off the shelves. They would say that they are just trying to protect children, but it generally turns out that they are trying to keep children from reading about things which they find offensive, without regard to whether such knowledge is actually harmful to kids. Over the years, a dazzling variety of books have been challenged. For example, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and, of course, Harry Potter have been the subjects of concerted campaigns to get them off the shelves. In 2014, even Dr. Seuss's Hop on Pop came in for criticism and an attempt to ban it. The argument was that it promot...

It was just a matter of time I guess. As the mommy porn book Fifty Shades of Grey and its two sequels gained notoriety through word of mouth from its satisfied customers and then whipped past the competition to the top of the best seller list , it was bound to come to the attention of some of the more prudish among us and their reaction was thoroughly predictable. "Ban that book!" It was reported this week that libraries in at least three states have either refused to purchase the book or have removed it from circulation. Their excuse is that it is semi-pornographic and too poorly written. I guess they don't have any other books that are crappily written with steamy masturbation-inducing scenes in them on their shelves. Anyway, several  libraries in  Wisconsin, Georgia and Florida have either declined to order the book or pulled it from their shelves. No doubt libraries in other states will follow. Who knows? It might even finally displace  And Tango Makes Three   ...