{"id":722,"date":"2010-10-01T03:08:54","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T07:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=722"},"modified":"2010-10-01T03:10:13","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T07:10:13","slug":"banned-books-week-is-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Banned Books Week is stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From tweets and Facebook comments, it seems to be \u201cBanned Books Week\u201d!\u00a0 What is Banned Books Week?\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s actually a commercial ploy to sell books.\u00a0 However, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/bannedbooksweek.org\/index.html\">BannedBooksWeek.org<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>During the last week of September every year, hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The 2010 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 25 through October 2.<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of this Web site is to help the public join the celebration of our freedom to read.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What, as if censorship is always bad?\u00a0 As if the content and messages of certain books being challenged is bad in and of itself?\u00a0 Of course disputes will arise in any society full of people with different beliefs and values.\u00a0 That\u2019s not a problem, and it\u2019s not bad, as long as we can deal with it civilly.<\/p>\n<p>But I don\u2019t think anyone disagrees with me on that.\u00a0 So I guess Banned Books Weeks isn\u2019t really about \u201cthe problem of censorship\u201d or an attempt to stop books from ever being challenged.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s just about getting people to talk about books and their moral issues.<\/p>\n<p>What it turns into is more of a: \u201cHey!\u00a0 Pat yourself on the back for liking this book that some other group dared to say was bad!\u00a0 Can you believe it?!\u00a0 Some people!\u00a0 Hooray for freedom of speech at the level that most of us agree it should be at!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I think it\u2019s great to encourage people to think for themselves, and not accept censorship blindly.<\/p>\n<p>But I think if we need a \u201cBanned Books Week\u201d to remind ourselves of that, then we\u2019re awfully stupid.<\/p>\n<p>Hmmm&#8230; Banned Comics Week anyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From tweets and Facebook comments, it seems to be \u201cBanned Books Week\u201d!\u00a0 What is Banned Books Week?\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s actually a commercial ploy to sell books.\u00a0 However, according to BannedBooksWeek.org: Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[101],"tags":[279],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gI4B-bE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}