Uhhh…How can it be swift and sweet if I’m starving myself to death?

My hugs are to die for! If only they knew HOW dead a person could get from hugging me spontaneously… Talk about appropriate!

I do believe in truth in advertising.

I laugh at things like this.

I do not laugh at things such as this.

It makes me want to cry. Or kill people. Or cry while killing people…

She’s WAY perkier, though…because…she did have surgery. I have not.

I’m liking this idea of letting people know how asinine censorship can be by showing what great works have at some point or another been banned. I find it incredible that some of these books have been seen as obscene, or bad, or wrong…

Apparently, in the minds of some, humanity is supposed to remain ignorant. Information is dangerous, hm?

“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.” (German: “”Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”)—Heinrich Heine, from his play Almansor (1821)

– From the ALA site

‘And yet on the other hand unless warinesse be us’d, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image, but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye.’ — Milton, Areopagitica

– Header used on the Green Man Review site, What’s New page with Banned Book Week info.

The most frequently challenged books 1990-2000

Come on, people. Huckleberry Finn??? Of Mice and Men…

Harry Potter. Ah, yes, let’s ban a book that has sparked the imagination and desire to read of an entire generation of youth. Oh, good call.

Forever by Judy Blume. Yeah, it’s explicit, especially for the 9 or 10 year old I was when I read it, but I don’t believe I was particularly influenced to be any more sexually active than I might have otherwise. In fact, it may have had the opposite effect. I remained virginal FAR longer than 99% of my peers, because I’ve never viewed sex as ‘the great and exciting, mysterious taboo’. It was just something fun you did with someone you loved, AND… it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, much of the time. Or, at least, it’s not what it’s built up to be in the mind of a curious pubescent.

A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I must be a heathen. I’m trying to GET my kid to read that. I loved that series.

Go Ask Alice. That one helped me form my opinions on the stupidity of drug use. I’ve never had any use for drugs in a recreational sense. It didn’t so much scare me, though, as just make me see what a waste of time they can create in a person’s life. I didn’t want to waste my time in that way. I’m not that shallow. And the party girl died in the end. Talk about the ultimate end to bad decisions…

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Puh-leeeeze. Yes, let’s destroy everything that provokes thought. Thought is dangerous. We can’t have people questioning the way a society looks at females and femininity, and it’s role IN that society.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Another thought provoker. God forbid people should see a viewpoint that isn’t standard, or see life through the eyes of a character that isn’t homogenized.

Grr. I’m not even half through the 100 list and I’m about to burst a blood vessel.

Stephen King, Roald Dahl, Shel Silverstein… Oh my God! Lord of the Flies is on there? What mental olympian wanted THAT one banned? I loved that book for how much it made me think at age 14!

Little Black Sambo. I read that as a child. Like, when I first learned to read. It did not cause me to stereotype in any way. It was just a book. Kind of like… well… I viewed it in the same light as the Shoemaker and the Elves. It was just another fairy tale. Tigers don’t talk, or turn into butter and pancake mix. Sambo could’ve been any little kid wandering through the forest/jungle, as far as I was concerned.

10 most frequently challenged of 2003

Wow. At least I’m not the only one who feels as I do:

GQS – re: censorship, I’m damned tired of people wanting to make legislation to subsitute for parenting

GQS – or any age of responsibility, accountability

GQS – You can’t make the world ‘safe’, you can only try to teach your child to be safe in it

Me – Which is the whole point. I WANT my daughter to read some of these controversial books, and I want to read them…

Me – and then I want to talk to her about them, and help her see the way *I* view the subjects and ideas…

Me – and help her form her own ideas in that way.

GQS – But you know it’s work for you and you’re not one of those lazy people who wants the law to do it for you, so your child can be an unthinking lazy individual too.

Me – “Yes, honey, some people believe it’s ok to do that. I don’t, and here’s why… but we also should not try to force other people to do things our way if they don’t want to, and they aren’t hurting anyone by NOT doing it.”

GQS – sheep herding is not the way to run a society

GOF – exactly..

GQS – right

GOF – but there are always those who feel we must be protected from our over curious minds

GOF – unless, of course, it’s a book they like…

GQS – even if things are allowed at home, yuo can teach a child when and where it’s appropriate outside the home, etc

GOF – left or right..both sides

Me – Grrr…grrrr.

Me – You’re right about that…both sides do it. A lot.

Me – Thing is…ignorance is deadly. It’s what makes people try to hurt other people, because of a lack of understanding.

Me – And understanding doesn’t have to mean condoning, or even tolerating, it’s simply realizing that not everyone is going to agree with what I believe.

GQS – yes

Me – You can exist as you like, but don’t you DARE try to tell me I can’t exist as I like.

GQS – right

GQS – and do not limit my options because of your options

Me – You cannot MAKE me believe that homosexuality is ok. It’s not going to happen. I, however, am also not going to tell you that you should consider yourself a horrible person if you ARE gay.

GOF – of course, that’s how I think..censorship is wrong..which is why the bs about the Kerry books hit me like it did

GQS – But you see, you are intelligent enough to realize that homosexuality isn’t harming you. There are groups who believe it is harming them (in thier ignorance).

Me – Rabble rousers have to have something to rouse the rabble with, or they can’t sell ads for their radio shows.

GQS – The most insidious vice… defense of social order, or humanity or some other grand ’cause’ disguising a defense of their own ignorance, fears, prejudices

Books are wonderful, grand, precious things. They are the collected thoughts of individuals. Some are fantasy, some are fact, some are opinion, and they’re all informative. They all have something to teach us, even the ones I might consider most vile. I will not burn them. I will not ban them. I may decide they aren’t for me and mine. But information is NEVER…never a bad thing. I value that I can CHOOSE to read what I wish, and I can choose what I allow my child to read. And I will defend the same right for others.

Read a banned book. Read several. You might learn something. You might deepen your convictions, or you might change your mind and become enlightened.

It’s not going to hurt you.

I say again, our society is sick, and I don’t know how to heal it. I do know that cutting people off from information is NOT the way.

I think I’ll be voting Lib this November.

Yes, I know that’s going to pull a vote from GW. Yes, I know that may make it easier for Kerry to win.

The former, I’m not sure I care about, given some of the things I’ve seen in the last year or so. The latter scares me to death, because I don’t want THAT guy in charge, either. But I have to vote my conscience, and my conscience is telling me that Reps and Dems just aren’t doing it for me. And haven’t been for years now. Like…oh…12 to 16 years.

So what do I want? Less government interference in private lives. More state and local responsibility for governing. Let the people vote for what they want in their communities. Legalize non-lethal drugs, with similar restrictions as we have on alcohol. Lower income taxes…raise taxes on luxuries like tobacco, alcohol, and drugs.

Don’t tell me if I can have an abortion. If I disapprove, I simply won’t go to a doctor that does them. That’s simple enough.

Marriage… Frankly, that is a religious agreement, for the most part. So let churches decide who they will ‘marry’ and who they will not… as for the legal status of it, it’s simply a contract. People enter into contracts all the time.

We need to change our American culture from one of trying to force everyone to think the same way and validate differing beliefs. They shouldn’t be INvalidated (unless actually, clearly detrimental to others), but we shouldn’t be forcing people to accept them, either.

If the Boy Scouts don’t want to let gay people influence kids, fine. If the Camp Fire girls do, fine. I can find that out, and put my kid in the organization that falls in line with my beliefs. Pretty simple. Nobody is entitled to ANYthing.

So…what do I do? I’m going to vote my conscience…truly. Finally. More people should. There ARE alternatives to the two evils, we don’t have to pick a lesser. But no one seems to want to recognize this.

Too many people, on both sides, are going to vote for a name, because someone told them they should. You have to be A or B, they’re told…and are never informed that there are alternatives, that there are other viewpoints.

Our society is sick. And I’m not sure it’s going to get any better.