I’m not one to dive much into politics on this blog, there are too many political blogs to count if you’re looking for your politics fix. However, given that it is an election year and this next election will very much decide the new (or same) course the country will take, I can’t help but chime in now and then. And when the issue is libraries and books, you can bet I’ll have something to say.

News reports continue to surface about the past of the McCain presidential VP nominee Sarah Palin. Most of the reports are disturbing, to say the least. The latest sent a shiver down my spine as I read this article on CNN’s Time website that Palin wanted certain books banned from the library when she was mayor of a small Alaskan town:

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

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Back in March I wrote this post about  a new law in Indiana that would require retailers to register with the state if they (the retailers) sold material that was considered "sexually explicit." Registering meant that retailers would have to pay a $250 registration fee and provide detail to the state about the types of sexually explicit material to be sold.

Well, in a clear victory for freedom of speech/expression, a judge shot the law down pretty quickly. Here’s a snippet from this Publishers Weekly article:

Judge Sarah Evans Baker (who also struck down, in 1984, an anti-pornography law) said in her ruling that the law has too vast a reach "as written." She elaborated: "A romance novel sold at a drugstore, a magazine offering sex advice in a grocery store checkout line, an R-rated DVD sold by a video rental shop, a collection of old Playboy magazines sold by a widow at a garage sale–all incidents of unquestionably lawful, non-obscene, non-pornographic material being sold to adults–would appear to necessitate registration under the statute." Ultimately, Judge Baker said that "such a vague mandate will be unduly burdensome" and "will have a chilling effect on expression."

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What happens when a bunch of lawmakers decide that it’s a good idea to make booksellers register with the state government if they sell "sexually explicit material"?

I’m not sure what the answer is, but we’ll probably see a few lawsuits and some good court battles as a result. Basically, on March 13 the governor of Indiana signed into law a bill that requires booksellers to register with the state if they sell sexually explicit material. How do they define sexually explicit material, you ask? Here’s what Publishers Weekly is reporting:

"Sexually explicit material" is defined as any product that is "harmful to minors" under existing law.

I’m glad those genius lawmakers were specific enough so there’s no gray area (sarcasm!). Basically, any sexual content in a book sold at a bookstore could be seen as sexually explicit and thus is harmful to minors. This means that even classics like Shakespeare could qualify, not to mention a lot of contemporary literature, books on human sexuality, photography books with nude photos and…well… you get the idea.

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Back in August 2007, I wrote a post (In China, internet propels novel popularity) about people in China embracing internet technology to produce and consume literature. I presented a fairly optimistic view of China’s infant literary scene.

However, there are still many problems in China for writers, especially concerning censorship. According to an article published in the Guardian Unlimited, censorship still exists, but the line that separates what is considered appropriate and what is taboo has been blurred:

"Censorship’s not quite the blunt instrument it used to be," says the Beijing-based journalist and translator Eric Abrahamsen. "Writers can publish books, but then there’s pressure exerted on publishers not to reprint them, or media organisations not to cover them."

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A few days ago I wrote a post about how a Catholic school board in Canada decided to ban The Golden Compass because of its perceived anti-religious stance (Canadian Catholic school board bans fantasy novel). Much to my dismay, I came across another article from the American Library Association website that the ban is spreading to the United States. Of course, just like every other book lover out there, I fell out of my chair upon reading this news.

According to the article, a public school in Colorado pulled The Golden Compass from its shelves. Then, when a brave librarian complained to the higher ups in the school district, the book returned to its proper spot on a library bookshelf a few days later. The other school to pull the book is a Catholic school in Wisconsin.

It should be noted that in the Colorado case, the book was removed after a middle school librarian raised concerns over the book’s "age appropriateness". Mindy Wandling, the librarian in question is also an evangelical Christian – making her justification for removing the book complete rubbish. While I hate to put words in people’s mouths, I can say with certainty that Wandling was probably offended by the book’s theme, and that it was written by a self-professed atheist.

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There’s one thing in this world that really makes me cringe: the banning of books! Whether a book is banned for insulting a particular belief system (usually religion), or because it contains too much violence, and there’s the always infamous "this book should be banned because it contains too much sex!"

Many people mistakingly think that banning books is a thing of the past. No one would dare ban a book in today’s enlightened age. Guess what? It still happens. Even books that most of us consider to be classics are banned. Contemporary books are banned as well. No book is safe from the elusive Big Bad Book Censor.

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Sometimes I read a story in the news and just shake my head, this just happens to be one of those stories. According to a Yahoo! news article, a teacher in Texas has been placed on paid leave for "allegedly distributing harmful material to a minor":

A popular English teacher has been placed on paid leave — and faces possible criminal charges — after a student’s parents complained to police that a ninth-grade class reading list contained a book about a murderer who has sex with his victims’ bodies.

As disturbing as this case is, for an English teacher to be punished for giving a student a book by a well-known and respected author (in this case the book is Child of God by Cormac McCarthy), it’s even more disturbing that this has turned into a criminal matter. What I also find disturbing is that this book was pulled from a list compiled by high school English teachers because of this one complaint. The vast majority of students and their parents think this teacher should be reinstated:

Last week, more than 120 parents and students crowded into a meeting where the school board voted to keep Tierce on paid leave.

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I don’t know if this story is simply the knee-jerk fallout from the recent Virginia Tech shootings, or if this student would have been arrested anyway. But it appears that an Illinois student was arrested for writing an essay as part of a creative writing assignment, in which all students were told not to censor what they write.

Here’s an excerpt from cnn.com:

According to the complaint, Lee’s essay reads in part, "Blood, sex and booze. Drugs, drugs, drugs are fun. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, s…t…a…b…puke. So I had this dream last night where I went into a building, pulled out two P90s and started shooting everyone, then had sex with the dead bodies. Well, not really, but it would be funny if I did."

Disturbing? Depends on how you look at it. As in exercise in creative writing, where one just lets the thoughts flow, it looks like exactly that, the writer let the thoughts flow and this is what came out. Certainly I have written some things in my day that people might find "disturbing" and I have never gotten arrested.

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