burnin' books in 2009

Every few years a few maniacs come along who want to ban books. This time it is happening in Wisconsin, with brave and righteous elderly Christians at the helm who don't want to even so much as hear about gay-coming-of-age sexuality that they'd like to literally cease the existence of said book. Censorship is not what this country is about and when we go back to book burning we also go back to public flogging on the square.
The article states that some of these outraged elderly citizens are not library card holders and some are not from that particular town. I don't understand the meddling. Reading through the Amazon reviews, it becomes apparent to me that a.) this book was first published in 1995 b.) The author is an established teen serial writer, and c.)all the reviews I read were glowing, vibrant reviews, with one person warning about adult issues. My question is, what took these octogenarians so long? By this time, nearly everybody that wants to read this book, already has, and they are only increasing visibility to this once-dormant teen lit.
Besides the fact that censorship is un-American, I don't this it is very Christian either. Jesus wouldn't ban books.

Censorship and the media

Those who followed my blog on Myspace are familiar with my fond alliance with the First Amendment. Also a librarian and voracious reader, I wonder what my life would be like if I where never to have been allowed to read Henry Miller or Catcher in the Rye. Censorship still goes on today and it is very real. Not too long ago, shock jocks Opie and Anthony were suspended off Free FM (what??) and Imus was temporarily fired for his "racial slur" over the summer. We are a hyper-senstive society ready to sue and attack at the slighest ruffling of feathers.

This week in censorship: David Shuster from MSNBC gets suspended after making a comment that the Clintons "pimped out" their daughter Chelsea to campaign for Hilary. Two little words...First of all, I believe he was well within his right to speak his opinion; the Clintons should have just acted duck-like and let that wash right off their backs. Second of all, the powers that be at MSNBC are spineless tools for suspending Shuster. I'm having a hard time accepting this. We live in a mediatocracy where real opinions and real events are shadowed by the FCC and whether we might hurt someone feelings. Come on. Get spines people, (er...clintons) and show we can rise above insults, not be hampered by them.
Insulted or not, the point is that we are a species of varied opinions. We are humans trying to fight against a uni-lateral society of one thought one idea one mind.