Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week begins today and runs through October 2. There are a few reasons this annual celebration resonates with me.

First - I'm a librarian and librarians are all about open access. I abhor censorship.

Second, I'm a reader. As a reader, I want to choose what I want to read...for myself. I don't want someone else to ever have the right to tell me I can't read something I want to read.

Third, I'm a writer. Not only am I a writer, but I write erotic romance and sex is one of those things people rush to censor, usually without have read the book first.

Banning and challenging books injures our society. In fear, censors try to protect everyone from anything they deem "questionable." But the first amendment guarantees free speech. You don't have to listen to it. You don't have to read it. But if you support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, then you have to tolerate it.

In The American President, Michael Douglas as the President states the following:

"America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free"."

And when you get right down to it, that's what Banned Books Week is all about. It's about defending your enemy's right to say whatever they will, because if they have that right, then so do you. It's hard. There are a lot of individuals out there saying stuff I don't like and I don't agree with. But in the end, it's about protecting the rights of all and not just the privileged few.

Go out this week and read a banned or challenged book. You'll be glad you did.

VOTE on Tuesday - Some quotes on Democracy, liberty and freedom

Attributed to Benjamin Franklin:

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.

Attributed to John F. Kennedy:

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

Liberty without learning is always in peril; learning without liberty is always in vain.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity.