It's Banned Books Week; I recommend ...
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 7896 votes
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 40 comments
To Kill a Mockingbird (Score:2)
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This is still banned? It was required reading in my public junior high school...
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I read it in school in 1994 as well. I can easily see it still being banned in some backwoods school district in the South, though.
Re:To Kill a Mockingbird (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. Nothing could be more effective in teaching people how utterly deranged Hitler was than Mein Kampf.
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Libraries are not, and cannot be, archival repositories of books. A library uses its fixed resources (in money, personnel, and space) to house a collection which is useful to its patrons. It's silly to complain about a library discarding books. How else would they have room for anything new? The librarians and administrators are the ones responsible for choosing and maintaining the collection. That's their call. If you think the collection should move in a different direction, send a letter to the librarian
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Libraries are not, and cannot be, archival repositories of books.
I've always thought of libraries of multi-use. They should stock a mixture of popular, rare, unique, useful, hard to find, controversial, etc...
I don't think it's unreasonable for some of a library's limited space be used for books that althought might not be constantly checked out
still increases the overall breath and depth of a library's collection.
Interlibrary loan is also useful for this and, if they don't already, maybe libraries should coordinate so that certain rare books still remain
available becau
Can't help plugging Atwood (Score:5, Interesting)
She denies it, but she's a Sci-Fi writer. I really liked the Oryx+Crake series -- it portrays a dystopian future that you can see developing before your eyes.
Re:Can't help plugging Atwood (Score:5, Interesting)
See, the reason she denies being a sci-fi writer is she writes the good kind of sci-fi. The kind that asks what effects abstract changes would have on how people live and think. The kind that uses contrivances to raise interesting philosophical, ethical, and sociological questions. This sharply contrasts with most sci-fi that doesn't bother to go beyond "narrative fiction, except in space."
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That's not good sci fi. That's good writing. You can do the exact same thing in any setting.
Most writing is 'X that doesn't bother to go beyond 'narrative fiction', except in X'
Re:Can't help plugging Atwood (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably, it's more like the reason Kurt Vonnegut did the same thing. Slaughterhouse Five, for just one of his works, really needs to be read like the reader isn't allowed to be sure whether Billy Pilgrim is objectively experiencing being unstuck in time and meeting Tralfamadorians and such, or has become a trifle unglued coping with tremendous shell-shock from WW2. If it comes prelabeled as SF, the deliberate ambiguity is ruined. Wondering if Tralfamadorian anatomy makes sense for a realistic alien is not even close to the biggest points Vonnegut hoped people would take away from Slaughterhouse Five.
Even Heinlein, who didn't usually mind being called things like the "number one Science Fiction author ever" and such, had cases like this - Glory Road deliberately switches at the very end from Fantasy tropes to SF, and Stranger in a Strange Land exists in two published forms, one more clearly SF, one deliberately deemphasizing those elements.
Re:Can't help plugging Atwood (Score:4)
I saw an interview once where she discussed this; she views sci-fi as meaning ray guns and space ships (i.e. space opera) and she prefers the broader umbrella of "speculative fiction" (SF) for down-to-earth stuff. Which is a fair cop; not everyone uses the same genre definitions.
Re:Can't help plugging Atwood (Score:5, Interesting)
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This is a stupid statement. Science fiction has about as much to do with science as mysteries have to do with forensics. Or fantasy with real world magic.
I'm sorry you can't see past the tone of a piece and somehow have an unhealthy fixation on it. That's got to be a sad world to live in.
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If you actually bothered to read her works you'd realize that she does not fault science. In the Madd Addam trilogy (Oryx and Crake, The year of the Flood, Madd Addam) she creates a world where science has run amok, but does not blame science for the disaster. Instead she pillories the hubris of the scientists, who sought to make themselves gods, and capitalism run amok, which has completely unmade the modern class system we have today and reverted it to the more stratified system of centuries past.
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Non-Fiction: purports to be an accurate portray of real life. Reason to write:You know 'what happened' and think other people want to know
mainstream Fiction: purports to be a realistic portray of possible actions in the real world. Reason to write: you do not know what happened, but are reasonably sure about what is possible.
Science-Fiction:
Margaret Atwood / The Tent (Score:2)
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Her marketing consultant may have advised her to not identify as sci-fi. Or maybe she figured it out herself. Either way, it's a smart move. Marketing matters to professional writers who need to eat. Atwood does NOT belong in the same marketing campaigns as the latest Doctor Who book. Even taking the "classics" approach, listing her alongside genre greats like Asimov and Heinlein would also be a disservice to her sales. Genre snobbery isn't changed by anyone's critical opinion. It's best for her marke
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About whom are you talking or in other words: who is "SHE"?
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I voted Handmaid's Tale because the US seems headed toward a conjunction of that an 1984 - a technology-enabled theocracy.
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Kids
Revolt in 2100
Pegged it 50 years before and with better accuracy right down to the likely methods
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1984, Brave New World, most of Hemingway and Steinbeck, Dune, Diary of Anne Frank, and the new release of The Autobiography of Mark Twain are all under copyright.
I can assure you, you can find any amount of bad writing in the public domain, as well. To quote Ted Sturgeon, "Ninety percent of everything is [crud]." The difference is, between then (the classics) and now (the current market), the worst of the old has had time to drop out of the reading lists and to be mostly forgotten. We can speed the p
There really is only one choice (Score:4, Funny)
Unintended Consequences (Score:2)
Kind of hard to find, but a good, long read.
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Fantastic book (not the best writing, but a great story). I took my CCW class with author, John Ross, and had him sign my copy.
Interesting Facts - John Ross single handedly got concealed carry passed in Missouri, paying for lobbyists out of his own pocket. Surprisingly, the legislature threw in the Castle provision (preventing civil suits if you kill an uninvited person in your home). As in the book, he actually owns a quarry which he uses as a gun range and he has quite a few Class 3 weapons (which you
His Dark Materials? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:His Dark Materials? (Score:4, Insightful)
We're constrained by the size of the poll ;)
Many, many books are missing from here -- it's a depressingly fruitful area of search ("banned science fiction"), but the poll system has a finite number of choices, whicih is one reason (of several) that we know the polls aren't very scientific, and like to provide some "opt-out" choices. Like most things on Slashdot, the posted part is just the kernel, hoped / intended to spark conversation, including comments about what's wrong with any given post (whether on the front page or here in the polls).
In short, you're right about Narnia, and raise an interesting point re: His Dark Materials.
A bit on that ...
When people make these lists (namecalling "censorship" or "banning"), they often stray toward the site that (depending on your viewpoint) you might consider "cautious," or "paranoid and misguided." If a privately funded school decides not to buy, or to remove from circulation, any particular book or author, are they "censoring"? Or just exercising discretion? That kind of distinction is the downside to claims of oppression -- some of them come off as "Boy Who Cried Wolf." I would be happy if every school library stocked The Anarchist Cookbook, but I don't *expect* it. Similarly, if I had a child in kindergarten, there are books that I'd be a little off-put by saw them on the shelf, just because not everything is appropriate (for some values of appropriate) at every age. Everyone's list for what books those might be might vary quite a bit ... would be an interesting excercise to figure out the answer from a wide range of people, with a list of options including titles that are
- really racy stuff (Fanny Hill? Things even more explicit?)
- "classics" of what might be called hate literature. ("Mein Kampf")
- perhaps gross-out traumatic (has The Human Centipede had a child-audience book version yet?)
- just crass (I know I read a lot of books collecting low-brow humor as a kid, much of which might make me chuckle but that I wouldn't repeat in public)
(etc.)
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It is interesting, isn't it, what differing standard there are?
I have some patrons that object to anything dealing with death or other "unpleasant" topics, but at least one parent who sought out Erlbruch's Duck, Death and the Tulip," Tan's Red Tree and The Rabbits or Greder's The City and for her first/second grade kids.
Discretion or Censorship? As a librarian, I try to remember to ask myself that every time I make a purchase decision. Hopefully, it informs my choices--mostly, I try to put interesting an
Re:His Dark Materials? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please. Atheists are so sensitive. Those were only banned in Catholic schools, which no one is forced to send their kids to. Public schools banned the Chronicles of Narnia, which is conspicuously absent from this list.
Sensitive enough to mod you down, even!
For those of you who still don't understand what should be moderated troll or flamebait:
A troll is someone who intentionally misrepresents a viewpoint while claiming to hold that viewpoint, in order to draw a reaction against it. I.E. "Like all good conservatives, I think a woman's place is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant." Another example of a troll is the "Thank you for being a friend" post with the word comforter replaced by cosmonaut.
Flamebait is someone who intentionally uses inflammatory language to attack or insult a person or a group of people. A good example of this is the old GNAA posts, which thankfully I haven't seen in some time. While opragost's post may have criticized a group of people, I wouldn't say the post was inflammatory. Besides, wouldn't modding operagost's post down prove their point?
The moderation system isn't supposed to be a banhammer to suppress free expression, it's supposed to help keep the level of the rhetoric to at least some sort of civility. If you disagree with someone, then reply to them, don't mod them down just because you don't like what they said.
I think operagost's post made a valid point. A series of books considered to be atheist classics made the cut, but books considered to be Christian classics did not. Interestingly enough, Chronicles of Narnia was criticized both by secular institutions & Christian ones [wordpress.com].
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If you disagree with someone, then reply to them, don't mod them down just because you don't like what they said.
If only we lived in your theoretical world, because people mod down posts they disagree with ALL THE TIME on this site. Have for nigh on two decades. Nice theory, though. Quaint, even.
Re:His Dark Materials? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Please. Atheists are so sensitive. " intentionally misrepresents a viewpoint - Troll
Granted, it is a pretty broad claim, but I'd say that your reaction validates his criticism. At least for some atheists, and particularly ones on Slashdot.
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Sorry but the truth really isn't flamebait while it can be a troll that something of a personal problem and people should be encouraged to realize that it is their problem not everyone elses
The extremes on both sides of this particular debate are horribly volatile and react exceptionally poorly to the idea that they are not in the right. This existence of this topic a proof by demonstration of this fact. If it weren't for both sides trying to silence the other and prevent people from coming to their own co
Re:His Dark Materials? (Score:5, Interesting)
Please. Atheists are so sensitive.
That's a pretty big assumption. Could it not be more likely that HDM made the list and CoN didn't because a) HDM being banned by Catholic schools was fairly recent and somewhat wide-spread, whereas CoN was, from what I can find, only ever challenged in a few school districts, some of which happened decades ago, and/or b) because the poll writer lives somewhere where CoN wasn't challenged or banned, and thus wasn't aware that it had been challenged/banned elsewhere?
FWIW, I went to public school, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was required reading in Grade 5. I didn't write the poll, but had I done so, I probably would have left it off too purely due to not being aware that anywhere had ever found it sufficiently controversial to keep away from young readers.
But hey, if it makes you feel better to blame atheism, have at it. Most of us have heard worse, and have had to form pretty damn thick skin.
Yaz
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I think HDM is an international mega-hit, and "banning" by Catholic schools was a godsend to the publishers. Yeah, I said godsend. I crack myself up. You guys know how baited protest marketing works, right?
anarchists cookbook? (Score:5, Funny)
Where the heck is the anarchists cookbook? I remember mail-ordering it in high-school and then promptly setting our shed on fire.
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This would be my choice, as it's actually banned!
It should be banned, but not because it contains forbidden knowledge; anyone who tries anything in the book can get themselves hurt! It should be banned as a public safety service.
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This would be my choice, as it's actually banned!
It should be banned, but not because it contains forbidden knowledge; anyone who tries anything in the book can get themselves hurt! It should be banned as a public safety service.
So chemistry textbooks would need to be banned by that argument. Bad premise for banning something, the possibility of harm. We'd ban everyting!
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I remember reading it when I was 13 thinking 'Mix bleach and ammonia together on the stove on high heat? Yeah fucking right!' Of course, for everybody that had enough sense to see that it was clearly dangerous without any actual proof/background behind their choices there were probably four people who tried it.
Of course, I did end up making napalm and lighting it in my backyard!
Mom coming home early from work seeing a 15ft high flame with a column of black smoke
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Most people wait until the book arrives before they burn down the shed, but I like your motivation!
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Where the heck is the anarchists cookbook? I remember mail-ordering it in high-school and then promptly setting our shed on fire.
Are the two events related? :)
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So a degree in chemistry and a job in the military means someone's irresponsible? That's a pretty offensive statement. I can speak for the man in question, but *both* of those things are indicators of responsibility in my experience.
Now if you had said "your husband is a manic depressive, and likes to torture animals"...then i would get it.
More choices (Score:5, Informative)
From the American Libraries Association: Banned & Challenged Books [ala.org].
Every book we read in school (Score:4, Insightful)
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not everywhere. In some place they are,or have been, banned. Religious nutters strike again!
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Not necessarily religious nutters. The get banned for all kinds of things, including various insensitivities frequently painted with the broad brush of "racism", or various patriotic misapprehensions.
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not everywhere. In some place they are,or have been, banned. Religious nutters strike again!
Given that I grew up in the Bible Belt, I don't the religious nutter comment applies.
Of course, they could have just been telling us they were banned to get us interested, but i specifically remember reading The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Beloved, and I remember other classmates of mine reading the Great Gatsby, of Mice and Men, and the Catcher in the Rye.
Looking at the banned book list, I have read about half of them. Not because they are on the list, just incidentally. I like Tolkien.
All of the above (Score:2)
Also "Where The Sidewalk Ends", just for the "Why the hell did they ban this?" portion of the quiz.
But basically, read more.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Score:4, Funny)
I recommend Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality [hpmor.com]. Once it gets popular enough, it will be banned by all institutions that hate having to deal with rational people.
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Fortunately, participating on Slashdot doesn't involve a whole lot of rationality.
Book Bans (Score:4, Interesting)
Almost all books have an appropriate place and time. At school libraries, I would expect only books appropriate for the ages of the students. At public libraries I would accept certain books in a special section where ID and / or a parental consent form is needed. The first two Harry Potter books are okay for 8- and 9- year-old children, but each book gets progressively darker. Parents should indicate if they want their children to read The Chronicles of Narnia or The Golden Compass. I, personally wouldn't want my son to read The Golden Compass until he can hear an opposing viewpoint, accept people's right to that viewpoint, but not blindly take the story as gospel truth. I support traditional marriages, but can see how My Two Moms could help children in a non-traditional family make sense of their situation. Again, it's about respecting the rights of others even when we don't agree with their viewpoint.
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I support traditional marriages....
Does anyone not support traditional marriages, or is that a code phrase for "I don't support gay marriages." I don't see many protesting against marriage between a man and a woman.
Re:Book Bans (Score:5, Interesting)
You may want to actually get to know me and my situation before going off the deep end. My first-born is less than a month old. As he grows I will discover his learning style and how much he can handle at what point. I'm responsible for turning him into a productive, stable member of society.
So basically, you don't want your kids to read Book X, and I don't want my kids to read Book Y, so the only solution is to ban both books from all public and school libraries?
You're putting words into my mouth. Ultimately each parent is responsible for educating their children. I (should) know what's best for my children and you (should) know what's best for yours. There should be some guidelines for books like movie ratings. I wouldn't let a 4-year-old watch a rated R movie, would you? I wouldn't teach calculus to a child who is just learning to calculate the area of geometric shapes (w*h is good enough for a rectangle at that juncture without knowing how that formula was derived).
School libraries should cater to their students. There's no need for The Anarchist's Cookbook in an elementary school library, right? Books appropriate for a 6th grader are not appropriate for 1st graders, so put them in a different section. If you feel your child can handle books intended for a higher grade level (and I'm talking content and not vocabulary), then send a note to the librarian. I think that sacred texts (from any religion) in general should not be in public school libraries - those can be had at public libraries. Biographies about religious people could be included, though Siddhartha may be in the older section because of its explicit description of the Buddha's sexual experimentation.
Public libraries should hardly ban any books at all. Books with adult content should be in a special section (like the adult section at the movie rental stores), but still available.
Be a parent and give them the necessary context.
Children in my family start reading at 3. How many 3-year-olds do you know that can always grasp contexts? Many of them think that Elmo is real.
Provide the opposing viewpoints.
Yes, but at a level the child can understand.
Hopefully, your kid has gone to church a few times? Sunday school? Vacation bible school?
My son is less than a month old. He has not yet gone to Church, but will in a few weeks. My wife and I generally go to Church every Sunday, but I'm staying home with her while she recovers from the travails of childbirth. When my child is old enough, we'll give him the choice to go to Church with us, go to Church with his friends, or stay home. Our sect doesn't provide Sunday School for children under 3 years old, but the nursery rooms provide a religious picture for them to color while playing with cars, blocks, dolls, etc. Our sect isn't extreme enough to provide a vacation Bible school. We believe we must be well educated in things secular and religious; otherwise we'd be walking through this life with just one leg.
If, after all that, your precious little angel can't figure out the difference between actual christianity and the fictional, other-universe church of The Golden Compass, then something is seriously wrong.
The Golden Compass is considered as dangerous by Christian parents as Narnia is by Atheist parents because it presents a profound concept wrapped in a story style loved by young children. They both influence the reader's faith, oft times without them realizing it. The Golden Compass portrays the Christian God as an old, feeble, impotent man and organized religion as stealing the souls of its followers. My son will learn the harsh truth of how greedy and manipulative men have used religion, but first let him know the pure love of Christ so he can distinguish between the religion and the people who attend Church.
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Sounds completely reasonable and agreeable for the most part, but afraid I have to take a big issue with "public libraries should put books with adult content in a special section". There's several big dangers there. First, it wrecks the decimal system...books aren't going to be where they are supposed to be, and if a reader doesn't expect a book to be in a special different section, they can easily assume it's just not present. It's a very very soft kind of censorship, but it still a problem--given that
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Sounds completely reasonable and agreeable for the most part, but afraid I have to take a big issue with "public libraries should put books with adult content in a special section". There's several big dangers there. First, it wrecks the decimal system
This. I started borrowing adult books from the public library, and now I use a base 9 numbering system.
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Hiding a book away in the "parental supervision only" section seems like overkill for most of that. Or do you think some parents are going to let their kids off without a beating if they find out a relatively innocuous book came from the adult section?
Would you beat your kid if they accidentally stepped on a bear trap in the woods? (kinda raises the question: when should a parent beat their kid?) Back in the day I typed "white house" in my browser's address bar expecting the government site; instead it brought up a porn site. The adult section is more to prevent accidental exposure than anything.
When I was younger and ran into "adult content" I wasn't interested in
There's the trouble. The human form is amazingly beautiful and many older children are interested in its mystique.
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The adult section is more to prevent accidental exposure than anything.
To which ideas do *you* want to prevent accidental exposure? It likely differs from my list. It likely differs from everyone else's list. Who defines what books are cordoned off? Who is allowed past the cordon? How do we describe the cordon to library patrons?
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To which ideas do *you* want to prevent accidental exposure? It likely differs from my list. It likely differs from everyone else's list. Who defines what books are cordoned off? Who is allowed past the cordon? How do we describe the cordon to library patrons?
I don't know the specifics. Obviously we would need a guideline, such as movie ratings [ign.com]. These ratings help parents choose whether they want their children to experience it or not. Other sites will even break it down further, indicating if the film was PG-13 for nudity, violence, or mature themes (so go as far as listing the frequency of each criteria such as swear words). If a parent feels their child is mature enough for the content, let the parent check out the book and share it, much as how only adults c
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So, would books be voluntarily rated? What about authors or publishers that don't want to front the cost of rating their book? Far, far more books get published every year than movies are put in theaters (by my quick rough research: 2.2M books per year versus 50k movies). Most movies are not rated in the US.
This all seems like a very costly and complicated system for essentially limiting access to information on behalf of parents' fears. In my mind, it's better to shift that cost onto the parents. If a pare
Re:Book Bans (Score:5, Informative)
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I think that sacred texts (from any religion) in general should not be in public school libraries - those can be had at public libraries.
The Library of America recently published Shakespeare in America: An Anthology from the Revolution to Now: [amazon.com]
It could do the same for the King James Bible, with only the slightest of changes in the wording of this introduction:
"The history of Shakespeare in America is also the history of America itself."
Shakespeare was a central, inescapable part of America's literary inheritance, and a prism through which crucial American issues---revolution, slavery, war, social justice---were refracted and understood. In tracing the many surprising forms this influence took, Shapiro draws on many genres---poetry, fiction, essays, plays, memoirs, songs, speeches, letters, movie reviews, comedy routine---and on a remarkable range of American writers from Emerson, Melville, Lincoln, and Mark Twain to James Agee, John Berryman, Pauline Kael, and Cynthia Ozick.
The Judeo-Christian sacred texts are woven even more deeply into our history, language and culture. You stumble about blindly if you don't know them.
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The Golden Compass is considered as dangerous by Christian parents as Narnia is by Atheist parents
So... not dangerous at all then? I'm an Athiest. I loved the Narnia series aged 7-11. I'll get my kids to read them. I know many Athiest parents who have allready bought The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe for their bubs before they can read.
I want my kids to be as wideley read as possible Most Athiest Parents I know feel the same way. Knowledge is something to be embraced. Not feared.
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" I would expect only books appropriate for the ages of the students. " and that is where you fail.
What is appropriated? Who are you to decide?
I never said that I should decide. There are experts in child development. We have ratings for movies, so why not a similar system for books. For a minor to see a rated-R movie in the theater, he must be accompanied by a responsible adult. Likewise, I propose that books appropriate for fifth and sixth graders be put in a section where they can get at them. If you want your child to access them, either send a note to the librarian so you are responsible or take your child to a public library.
" The first two Harry Potter books are okay for 8- and 9- year-old children, but each book gets progressively darker." And? YOU seriously underestimate children.
What do you consider to be a child? I go from newborn up through 17. Each child progresses at a different rate. Let parents determine what their children can handle.
". I, personally wouldn't want my son to read The Golden Compass until he can hear an opposing viewpoint" wow. You're a pretty horrible parent. I can't imagine my kids being old enough to read that and not being able to understand different view points. Or maybe you kids are just potato heads.
My son is less than a month old, so I don't know how quickly he will progress. Children in my family start reading at 2, and not many two year olds are sophisticated enough to entirely separate fantasy from reality. Or maybe you were a potato head who started reading later. As an adult, Gremlins is a comedy, but I was young enough when it came out that it shook me for a few days. My sister say V: the Final Battle when she was 3 and had nightmares for weeks.
MY kids have been reading since they where around 2. at 12, their reading level is well above what is laughingly called 'young adult'. ALthoug they still enjoy some YA titles.
Maybe you should realize that child includes those just learning to read as well as preteens and teens.
Maybe you should red to your kids and explain opposing viewpoints? No, of course not you want to indoctrinate them into what you like instead of respect and trust your children.
I prefer to green my kids instead of red them. Once my son (again, less than a month old) can grasp abstract concepts I will introduce him to opposing views. I respect my son too much to traumatize him with things he's not ready for yet (such as I won't give him oatmeal before he turns six months).
You're type of thing that permeated parents love the last 20 years is why no one can have discourse, and why education and critical thinking is failing.
I'm not sure permeated parents means what you think it does. I actually enjoy critical thinking and discourse. However, unlike you, I try to stick with the subject at hand instead of using strawment and ad hominem attacks.
Here is an example of you brilliant thinking that yo are foisting onto you poor children: " I support traditional marriages," WTF does that even mean? It's really nonsense.
Given the current political context, can you really not grasp what is conveyed by the sentence "I support traditional marriages"? It means that I believe that an optimal family has both a father and mother. Children need positive role models of both sexes (I use sex instead of gender because gender is a spectrum instead of discrete values). It means that I reserve the right to teach my posterity that the God I worship considers homosexual acts (as well as all sexual acts outside marriage) to be wrong. It does not mean I condone hate crimes. It does not mean I think homosexuals should be punished by the law.
Do you mean by state or by church?
Regrettably, both. The state has a way of imposing its will on religious organizations. Bakery owners have lost lawsuits because they refused to make wedding cakes for homosexual couples. My sect (which has been against slavery since the 1830s!) almost lost its tax-exempt status in the 1970s because Blacks were (mostly) excluded from our Priesthood. Religious store owners were prosecuted for not paying for contraceptive health care for their employees. How long will it be before my sect, and other religious organizations, will be forced to recognize same-sex marriages and / or perform such marriages or risk our tax exempt status? Perhaps it may end up that the government won't recognize our marriages and we'll have to get a civil marriage before religious marriage like what happens outside the US.
Part of the problem is that we lack separate terms for partnerships recognized by the government and partnerships recognized by religion.
do you know anyone who says traditional marriage should happen?
I think you a word there. I, for one, say that traditional marriage should happen. Again, it's not that anyone says that traditional marriages should cease, just trying to force everyone to recognize same sex couples as being as morally legitimate as heterosexual couples.
Or is it a passive aggressive message to remove rights from other people?
You can't take away what they've never had. Is it a right to have the government recognize your covenant with your significant other? You are legally free to cohabit with whomever you please. Heaven knows that lots of heterosexual couples live together (sinfully, in my view) without ever registering with the Church or government.
Do you not understand that marriage among anyone other then nobles is only a few hundred years old?
Your point being?
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He is the keeper of all that is pure and good.
How dare you question his purity!
Remember censorship starts with the "think of the children" thought pattern. Hitler was a big fan of it.
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Remember censorship starts with the "think of the children" thought pattern.
I can really see both sides of the argument, but I do agree that your point is valid.
If we step away from books for a moment and consider television, the point becomes clearer. On one hand, I would never want to censor my children from watching something about Jesus or hosted by Carl Sagan. Those are interesting topics no matter which side of the debate you may lie on. On the other hand, I wouldn't want them watching a majority of the crap reality shows, extremely biased political talk shows, and other tra
His Dark Materials--first book only (Score:2)
The "His Dark Materials" trilogy was good, but the first book was by far the best. It went seriously downhill after that. There was a lot of potential, but it just didn't deliver.
I made the obvious choice (Score:4, Interesting)
Right now, 1984 is more relevant than ever. But apparently we, as a society, didn't learn much from the book...
Re:I made the obvious choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, 1984 is more relevant than ever. But apparently we, as a society, didn't learn much from the book...
Sure we did. Those in charge are using it as an instruction manual.
Don't stop there (Score:5, Interesting)
* Mein Kampf
* Protocols of the Elders of Zion
* The Turner Diaries
* Anarchist's Cookbook
* Or one of these fine titles [google.com]
Make no mistake, I'm not endorsing any of these books. Just pointing out that there's nothing either heroic or difficult about recommending historically banned books that aren't banned anymore, and in fact are widely read in public high schools. However, if a student was caught today reading some of the above books, they might be directed to remedial counselling and in some cases be expelled. Heck, every now and then a kid in the news draws a picture of a gun in school, or eat their slice of bread into the shape of a gun, and is suspended. If you want to highlight today's censorship, that's a much more fruitful area to harp about than a bunch of books that were occasionally banned 50 or 100 years ago.
/rant
Copyright Term Extension Act (Score:2)
That copyright will expire next year.
That depends on whether the legislature pulls a Sonny Bono and extends the general term of copyright for another few decades before the end of the year.
All of the above! (Score:2)
"Stranger in a Strange Land" (Score:3)
Preferably in the uncut edition published at Mrs Heinlein's behest after RAH's death. After all, it was deliberately written as an attempt to offend as many moral beliefs as possible - and, I think, succeeds brilliantly in that. It's also clever, entertaining, thought-provoking, and very funny indeed (in parts). Recommended for anyone too young to have caught it yet.
Re: (Score:2)
As I happen to be re-reading "Stranger" at the moment, I see a parallel with Heinlein's expressed views on metaphysics. He said that the questions it poses are invaluable, even though they have no answers. "Stranger" is a bit like that: it raises all sorts of profound and stimulating questions, but it doesn't offer any (serious) answers. You have to think the issues through for yourself.
Why is 1984 in this poll? (Score:5, Interesting)
The American Library Association maintains lists of the most frequently challenged books (i.e. the ones people try to ban). Although 1984 shows up on the list of challenged classics [ala.org], there is only one challenge listed -- someone in Jackson County, Florida in 1981 thought that it was "pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter". The first part shows a massive failure of reading comprehension, not actual hostility towards the content. 1984 doesn't show up in the top 100 challenged books lists for 1990-1999 [ala.org] or 2000-2009 [ala.org].
1984 is definitely worth reading, and since its story features a banned book its presence in the poll makes a certain amount of sense. But it's not a great example of a challenged book, and the presence of several other dystopian works makes me wonder what the poll writer was thinking. Book banning in the U.S. is not a top-down government-led project to turn people into sheep for a New World Order. It's a bottom-up process where private citizens (mainly parents) try to "protect" children and teenagers from what they see as objectionable content.
As can be seen from the top 100 and top 10 by year [ala.org] lists, sexual content in books targeted at teenagers is the biggest concern. Most of the challenges are to fictional books, but a few non-fiction sex ed books make the list. The 2011 list even has a book for kids about what happens when their mom gets pregnant! Aside from sex, it seems like drug and alcohol use, offensive language (particularly racial slurs), and "religious viewpoint" (probably criticism of religion/Christianity) are popular reasons for challenging books.
The Handmaid's Tale prominently features all of those subjects, and is an excellent book as well. The first-person narrative really drives home the crushing horror of the setting. If you're looking for some dystopian fiction to read, I highly recommend it.
Re: (Score:2)
The American Library Association maintains lists of the most frequently challenged books (i.e. the ones people try to ban). Although 1984 shows up on the list of challenged classics [ala.org], there is only one challenge listed -- someone in Jackson County, Florida in 1981 thought that it was "pro-communist and contained explicit sexual matter". The first part shows a massive failure of reading comprehension, not actual hostility towards the content. 1984 doesn't show up in the top 100 challenged books lists for 1990-1999 [ala.org] or 2000-2009 [ala.org].
However, the US isn't the only country that bans (or tries to ban) books. Works like 1984 are much more likely to be banned by totalitarian regimes precisely because they encourage people to think about the ways in which the regime is trying to restrict them. Banning books is basically wrong anywhere, not just in one country in one part of the planet.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but the poll is about the ALA's Banned Books Week. You would expect totalitarian regimes to ban books; the point of Banned Books Week is that people try to do it in America too.
Re: (Score:3)
Great comment. I love 1984, but I'm tired of hearing how it's banned. I've never seen it banned.
Nabokov - Lolita (Score:2)
Parental Choice (Score:2)
As a father I recommend Perfectly Normal [npr.org]
The Tropic of Cancer. (Score:3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
One of the most heavily banned books of it's time.
His Dark Materials banning was a stunt (Score:4, Interesting)
AFAIK, the protest against HDM was baited, like the "rioting" at the release of the film "Do the Right Thing". The only people who protested HDM were gullible right-wing panic button types in the lead up to the release of a dud film that needed all the publicity help it could get. Not banned. Rushdie would be a better choice by far.
Missing Coyboy Neal option (Score:3)
The ultimate in banned books (Score:3)
"I, Libertine", by Frederick R. Ewing
Banned in Boston, in spite of the fact that the book and the author did not exist.
http://sniggle.net/libertine.p... [sniggle.net]
The Giver (Score:2)
I find it fascinating that "The Giver" rates #11 (1990-1999) and #23 (2000-2009) on the ALAs 'Most Frequently Challenged [ala.org]' lists (for (very mildly) discussing sexual arousal in adolescents) and yet, when it gets made into a movie, it gets championed by some as advancing conservative values. [cnn.com] (I've read the book but not seen the movie, so I can't comment on how reasonable this view is.)
I'm thinking they wouldn't like my take on the story.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
I interpret it as an allegory for the Garden of Eden story
Re: (Score:3)
I find it fascinating that "The Giver" rates #11 (1990-1999) and #23 (2000-2009) on the ALAs 'Most Frequently Challenged [ala.org]' lists (for (very mildly) discussing sexual arousal in adolescents) and yet, when it gets made into a movie, it gets championed by some as advancing conservative values. [cnn.com] (I've read the book but not seen the movie, so I can't comment on how reasonable this view is.)
I'm thinking they wouldn't like my take on the story.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
I interpret it as an allegory for the Garden of Eden story. The Community (with its absence of pain and want) can only maintain itself by evil means (e.g. infanticide and involuntary euthanasia) but to have citizens performing evil acts would also destroy its 'idealness'. The way they reconcile these contradictory requirements is by denying their citizens knowledge of good and evil. Jonas attempts to give them this knowledge, which, if he succeeded, would effectively expel The Community from their Eden, hence he is playing the role of the serpent.
There's two reasons no one complains about the movie. 1.) It wasn't remotely sexual. That part of the book was summed up in about two lines of G rated dialog. 2.) Only one person bothered to see it and is burdened with the memories of it.
His Dark Materials (Score:2)
...was a good read. At first. But somewhere toward the end of Book two it started climbing up its own ass. Book Three was a mess, too many Important Points to be made, not enough story to hang it on, and the allegory and archetypes got all hosed up. I liked the first movie they made of the series, but I was really afraid of how they would handle that last part, seeing as even the author of the book himself never got a good grip on it. ;)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Score:3)
People were trying to get it banned from the schools because "it is racist". Which suggests they either did not read the book, or failed to understand the entire point of the story.
Spoiler alert (and you should be ashamed of yourself if you had not read the book).
The story is basically about how Huck started as one who "knew" that blacks were inferior and their proper place was in slavery, and anyone who denied this was going to hell. After going through many an adventure with the runaway slave Jim, he came to realize that Jim was one of the finest men he ever knew, and if accepting him as an equal meant he was going to hell, then "fine, I'm going to hell."
It should be required reading in our schools.
Actually banned, authors went to prison. (Score:4, Informative)
The Illustrated Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.
This book was a factual record of the results of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, started by Lyndon B Johnson in 1969, which concluded that pornography was not harmful to consenting adults. Both Democrats and Republicans joined together in rejecting facts in favor of prejudice and roundly censured the report.
Two men gathered the results of the report, including the image material used of more or less every kind of porn in existence, and published about 100,000 copies of it before being pulled into court for publishing obscene materials. They both ended up serving time in jail.
Huffington post has an excellent article about it; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
The Bible. (Score:3, Insightful)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
- John 1:1 (NIV)
There is only one choice (Score:4, Insightful)
and that is clearly Fahrenheit 451 as the plot revolves around banned books and book burning. If someone has not yet read that book, it is certainly the most appropriate starting point for reading during Banned Book Week. Reading other books which have been banned or censored follows from that.
The Gulag Archieplago (Score:3)
Unlike the above books, it's non-fiction, and people were actually killed for the crime of reading it. ("In Soviet Russia...")
Re:I'll wager (Score:4, Insightful)
But of course YOU did - that goes without saying.
Re: (Score:2)
Ingsoc is atheist. Try reading.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There were a couple of lengthy speeches and the ending struck me as in the light of that Team America puppet movie in it's level of corniness but otherwise Atlas Shrugged was a pretty great book. It's fictional but it's based on the account of a woman who grew up when socialism was actually taking hold of her country. She saw firsthand how socialism ruins a people and nation while the people desiring it can be so seemingly simple-minded and incapable of understanding why their every action only makes it w
Re: (Score:2)
Ayn Rand wrote one thing worth reading: 'We the Living'.
And I agree with her philosophy, knowing philosophies are not practical.
Re: (Score:2)
As the sib pointed out pragmatism is a philosophy.
But aside from that one, they all put too much emphasis on philosophy and not enough on processing new information about new situations.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Ayn Rand was from Russia, and like most former Eastern Block countries Russia only enacted socialism in name and not in practice.
Socialism was tried, in practice, several time, along with communism. It failed in each time not because people enacted it wrong but because it is wrong. Social constructs are just that - constructs for social groups. If they don't work for the social group they are applied to, for any reason, they are incorrect.
What they practiced was totalitarianism which has nothing to do with socialism.
Totalitarianism is
Now, I am not saying that socialism as a whole is good or bad, but that there are aspects of every economic and civic model that have merit.
No. There is such a thing as "completely stupid and worthless" - any structure that ignores, misinterprets or otherwise tries to work against Human nature is just that. If yo
Re: (Score:2)
I can see not wanting lady chatterly's lover in a library, you can find better porn by just looking for slash fanfics.
These days it's more along the lines of vintage black and white porn.
Re: (Score:2)
These days it's more along the lines of vintage black and white porn.
Well it is a printed book, so it's exactly that, black and white porn. Now, if it was written in braille it would be 3D porn!
Re: (Score:3)
Salman Rushdie Satanic Verses was banned by Islam
Oh, that's too easy! Islam bans just about everything!
Even this smiley is banned by Islam:
This is the Prophet Mohammed smiling -> :-)
A colon, a dash, and a close parenthesis . . . the world's shortest banned book!
Re: (Score:2)
I agree. I honestly recomended it to people over 1984. Don't get me wrong. I like 1984 and there's a lot of good stuff in it. But I like the writing style of Animal Farm better and he makes some pretty amazing statements in it. It's a good introduction or Orwell's work.