06 October 2007

banned book week - the closer...

so this is the end of banned books week and i thought that i couldn't let it pass without saying something, so...

U.S Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read
"They are noting people's race and they are writing down what people read"
"The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment."


really the whole article is about the censorship of travel... soon they will decide when and where you are allowed to go... the loss of personal freedom is huge, and when you start with small things like what people are reading and what they are allowed to read - it very quickly leads to bigger things... "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings."- Heinrich Heine

some links in the fight against censorship...
Delete Censorship
The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000

Banned Book T-shirts
The Forbidden Library
Controversial & Banned Books
some more quotes on censorship...

"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education."
-- Alfred Whitney Griswold, Essays on Education

"If the human body's obscene, complain to the manufacturer, not me."
-- Larry Flynt

"Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance."
-- Lyndon Baines Johnson, February 11, 1964

and my personal favorite...

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who will watch the watchers?"
-- Juvenal

so, go read a banned book...

2 comments:

  1. Reminds me of my favorite refrigerator magnet - it says "Everything I need to know about life, I learned by reading banned books."

    ReplyDelete