Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read

Ban and Burn: the way to disaster.
Ever notice the connection between banning and/or burning books and totalitarian take over? Think of these examples:

Muslims take over Egypt and order all material in the Library of Alexandria that offends Islam to be burned;
Spain and Portugal invade the Americas and destroy all the Quipu strings, the history of the indigenous people;
Hitler and his boys ban and burn Jewish and other books that are not “correct”:
Stalin destroys books that are unfavorable to his vision and rewrites history;
Fundamentalist Christians burn books that mention Evolution in a positive way.

The list goes on and on. It seems that the easiest way to control a people is to remove their sense of history and replace it with your own, and control what they read. Look at the last 50 or so years in this country. The list of the 100 most commonly challenged books is very long and includes such titles as “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London and “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. Shocked? How about the Harry Potter series and the Clan of the Cave Bear series (officially “Earths Children”)? Why these fun series? Or “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston and “The New Joy of Gay Sex” by Charles Silverstein and Felice Picano? Yes, somebody wants these and thousands of others banned.
It turns out the nearly everything that has been written is on some bodies list to be banned or burned. The way to counter this is to find all the banned books you can and read them. See why someone doesn’t want you to know something. You will quickly find the thinking of bigots and extremists out to control the agenda of us all, and sometimes for sinister purposes.

Banned Books Week is September 25−October 2, 2010. Go ahead and make your day: Read a banned book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-commonly_challenged_books_in_the_United_States
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sungazing/galleries/72157622581205178/

UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! Thank you Log Cabin Republicans

What? Not the ACLU?
Whatever is the world coming to? It looks like millions of conservatives who decry liberals as “card carrying members of the ACLU” will have a new mantra. Yes indeed. “Card carrying members of the Log Cabin Republicans.” I like the sound of that.
The issue is easy. In 2004 the Log Cabin Republicans sought an injunction to ban the implementation of “don’t ask don’t tell” arguing it has no effect on readiness and drives highly qualified personnel out of military service. (1) This is a liberal agenda if I ever saw one, and these LCRs are gay and lesbian Republicans (don’t ask me why any GLBTQ would EVER be a Republican). John Boehner and his boys must be writhing in angst over the outcome of this suit. A federal judge has declared the policy UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! My god, we will all die in our sleep or have our dipsticks fall off as a result of this activist liberal (probably feminist and lesbian) judges’ decision.
The beauty of this is that the very group that supports the agenda of the Republican Party has finally bitten the hand that strokes them. I know, the suit started in 2004, and who knows how they feel now. Maybe elated. Maybe embarrassed. Maybe most of them forgot they had sued. But sue they did, and got a stunning LIBERAL decision.
And about time too. Anyone with half a brain could see this policy was wrong and mean-spirited. A half-assed compromise. Well, hopefully it is gone. But don’t count the bigoted Republicans out yet, though. There are probably countless more appeals to come. Meanwhile the LCRs still send checks to the RNC and cuddle up with the likes of Boehner at fund raisers. Time the LCRs came out again and declared themselves Democrats or Indies or maybe Intellegents.


1. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129763013&sc=nl&cc=brk-20100909-2215
Image: thespiritofthelaw.blogspot.com/2009/09/us-rec...

Burn a Holy Book for Christ

The “Dove World Outlook Center” in Gainesville (Florida) is planning to burn a Koran (sic) on 9/11 to support their radical view that Islam is a religion of the devil. There are so many things wrong with this that the mind boggles. First and most obviously the only devil in this picture is the pastor of the “church”. A nutcase with about 50 followers.
Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity. The holy book, the Qur’an, is as important to millions of Muslims as the Bible is to Christians. And it is subjected to much false interpretation, as is the Bible. Much has been said and written about the terrible things Muslims do to themselves and others in the name of Islam, but the religion itself does not support these deeds.
Burning any book is as lame a way to protest as is flag burning. It only ignites a rage in the “believers “of whatever symbol is being burned, and more trouble follows. Burning a Holy Book is a bad idea in any context, but burning a Qur’an is guaranteed to get mobs of Muslims whipped up into a killing frenzy and innocent Americans and other non-Muslims, soldiers and civilians, will pay the price. Not the pastor and congregation of the DWOC.
The only question that need be asked is the now-famous “WWJD”? Damn sure not burn anything. I wonder if the DWOCers have ever actually sat down and thought about Jesus and what He would do. I seriously doubt it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100907/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
Image: http://www.doveworld.org/