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Banned Books published by Google
Lens Hood Man writes "Marking the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week, Google is inviting users to celebrate their freedom to read by making Banned Books available to all. From the Google Blog: "...you can use Google Book Search to explore some of the best novels of the 20th century which have been challenged or banned." Those books challenged this year include 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Lolita'."
When Humbert Humbert has sex with Lolita at the Enchanted Hunters for the first time, is Nabokov describing a rape or consensual sex?
these books are actually banned? this lists sounds more like a list of required-reading books than banned books.
put Anarchist Cookbook on there. i dare you.
If it weren't for these free speech forums, then information could possibly be censored so that no person knew about it! Examples include books about what's under the clay (if you dig 3 ft. you get clay), and books that claim yet cannot prove that certain politicians are cheating. Luckily those things can be posted here.
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The backyard hole / claymine website: http://amtgard.shop.tm/
Heinlein. Card. Asimov. Sturgeon. Ellison.
King's very good, but "the best"?
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Which is especially annoying for the books that are public domain...
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I can't help but notice that most of these books have been carried everywhere since they were published: in every library, in every book store. Perhaps one small rural school system somewhere decided not to order it, hence they start crying about it being banned. That doesn't seem to be much of a ban. In contract, books that have really been banned don't appear on the list anywhere. For example, "Jewish Supremacism" by David Duke is officially banned in Canada and gets intercepted at the border and burned. That to me constitutes a real, actual banned book.
Sounds like someone doesn't live in hickville. Or belonged to a PTA anywhere. To believe that banning books is either temporally remote or over with is naive AND incorrect. These days parents seem to just are about different stuff, like 'promoting witchcraft' (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings). And sometimes, they succeed for a time (till a suit or injunction slaps them back into shape). Same shite, different decade.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Seriously: So many of the books on this list are completely and totally harmless. I can understand the challenges to "My Dad's Roommate" from a Christian perspective (Don't agree, but understand). But WTF is wrong with Waldo? "How to Eat Fried Worms" is a nice, innocent book. My mother is a conservative Mormon, and she loves to read it to her First Grade class every year.
The fact that many of these books make these lists says a lot about the mentality of people who want to ban books.
I'd hardly call Heinlein a "hack". I'm not saying he's the most important writer ever, but a "hack"? No.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
If they are banned how is it I can go buy them? A more honest and less inflammatory term would be controversial books. At least in the US they are not truly banned. Maybe not available in some school libraries or even some public libraries but that isn't the same thing as banned.
Frankly I would like to see libraries "ban" more books.
Chariot of the Gods would be a good start.
Why wasn't the Bible on the list? It is banned in and or restricted heavily in many countries.
Also I didn't see any Holocaust denial books or pro Nazi books on the list. Those have been banned in many countries as well.
If you are going to pretend that you support freedom of speech I guess posting a list of books "banned" in some US high schools is a freaking safe way to do it.
I have to admit that publishing a book online that you can can buy at most any book store in the US really does make up for censoring pro-democracy cites in China. Good for you Google. Let us all bask in your "Celebration of the Freedom to Read".
I think I will go puke now.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Perhaps the reason behind banning such books is to PREVENT "the ability to think freely and creatively, and develop critical thinking and reasoning skills".
Such abilities are dangerous to existing power structures, be they governmental or religious.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Uh, no. We get a picture of Tipper Gore. I dislike the republicans as much as the next guy, but it doesn't mean I forget that the Democrats are a bunch of assholes too. Tipper Gore (as per the link) got all hot and bothered when she heard her daughter listening to a Prince album and it flustered her so much she went the wrong direction and tried to get all kinds of great music banned.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I dislike the republicans as much as the next guy, but it doesn't mean I forget that the Democrats are a bunch of assholes too.
That's why they're called Republicrats. Two sides of the same coin.
It's cool - I've read about 60-70% of the books on the list.
It's odd - Call of the Wild has been challenged?
It's informative - I've just started reading The Satanic Verses, and now i have a new reading list
It's missing? - I can't believe Farenheit 451 isn't on that list...
It's scary - many people in the world are denied access to these books.
It's scarier - many people in this country would have these books banned
It's sad - in 100 years, who knows if we'll all still have access to these books.
It's encouraging - challenges, even recently, to these books in schools and libraries have failed - let's hope history repeats itself in such a fashion for years to come.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Notably absent from these pages are the words "in the United States". This list would be a hell of a lot longer if we included books banned by, for example, Nazi Germany. (Uh oh, I feel a Godwin coming on.)
I realize Google is based in the US and this isn't necessarily even an accusation of USA-centrism (why would I even object? I'm a US citizen myself..) but it is a factual omission that seems important considering this will be seen by Google's hundreds of millions of users all over the world.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Sort of ironic to celebrate Google's showing these banned books when Google China agreed to censor itself.
The box said I needed Windows XP or better so I bought a Mac.
Let me remind you that the Islamic-Fascist's go one better: attempt to kill the author. Salman Rushdie and the cartoonists that drew the Mohammed cartoons in Denmark have had to live in hiding
I find the news coverage and people's opinions of the cartoon issue very interesting. Certain rabble rousers intentionally tried to cause trouble over the cartoons, the the point of sending ones they created and which had never been published anywhere to newspapers and to religious zealots in many countries. And yet, I saw not in one place, but in many, Muslim clerics placing themselves between an embassy and a mob throwing stones and trying to calm the situation and prevent violence. Islamic culture won big points in my mind that day.
I just picture a bunch of hicks from rural America showing up at an Iranian embassy after the widespread publication and promotion of pictures of jesus being sodomized. Then, to put it in context, I picture this happening in Texas, months after an army of middle easterners had conquered Mexico, bombing cities and sending frightened refugees to hide in the USA. Where each of these hicks knew some old friend or relative or friend of a friend or friend of a relative who had lost a mother or son or child to the bombings. And then I pictured all this happening after the President of Iran had made comments about how they should invade the US too, since the US had aided Mexico and all those christians were violent sodomites. With this picture in my mind, I wondered how many local pastors and priests in texas would be there, placing themselves between the rocks and the mob, and the Iranian embassy.
Yes Virgina, evil exists and it wants to kill you.
I don't approve of censorship or murder, but I do understand why people are convinced that both are right in certain circumstances. Lets just be sure not to pre judge people based upon religion or ethnicity. A catholic, muslim, or atheist is equally capable of promoting fascism.
Plus, may I be the first to say, that putting online all books that have been banned at one time and at one place in human history would be a very huge work and probably would result in a digitalization of the entire litterature.
I believe digitization of our entire literature is the goal. Think big.
No need to let people know the actual consequences of letting governments sensor reading materials...
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
I suspect "challenged" means that someone attmpted to ban it.
A "ban" would typically refer to a law or ordinace passed which either removes said book from libraries, or prohibits its sale. Due to the way our Federal government works a lot of power devolves on states and on small municipalities, which aren't always run by the sharpest tools in the shed, if you know what I mean. They can ban or attempt to bad all sorts of stupid stuff for the most trivial of reasons. Getting something like that overturned on constitutional grounds is a long process.
For example, when I was a kid in the early 80's our city government banned The Garbagepail Kids because they thought they were gross and would thus hurt kids somehow. Of course all that did was generate a heap of free publicity for the stupid things. Kids who'd never heard of them suddenly started collecting them.
The same thing goes on constantly with "Huckleberry Finn" - at least I assume it's similar - it is always presented in the press as being motivated by use of the N-word, but is perhaps more sophisticated than that (if still just as wrongheaded in my view)
BTW - minor point - Harper Lee is a woman
Maybe, but fascism is a good discription of what they, the Islamo-Fascist, want. A world wide totalitarian society with scrict information control, progroms, purges, and thought policing by a central Islamic government called the Caliphate.
Fascism is also a good description of the ideology of the Neo-Cons here in the US. It's almost funny how we have one group of fascists calling another group fascists. It brings to mind that old quote from Huey Long:
When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in an American flag
Or, Long's response to the question of whether or not Fascism would ever come to the US:
Yes, but in America, we'll call it anti-fascism.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
I just picture a bunch of hicks from rural America showing up at an Iranian embassy after the widespread publication and promotion of pictures of jesus being sodomized.
Listen to yourself - you are equating a funny picture showing the real state of affairs (i.e. the trend of Islamic states heading towards terrorism) to an intentionally offensive one of showing a religious head performing sexual acts.
Did they show Allah making out with a naked guy? All they did was have a comic commenting on Islamic terrorism, and a very valid one at that.
I'm sorry, Islam by itself may not be violent, but a significant chunk of Muslims out there are increasinly turning to a violent version of the religion. You can say all you want about hicks and conservatives, but their percentages are way lower.
Heck, you see comics and cartoons involving almost every religion in a lot of democractic countries -- the thing is, you can publish a funny cartoon of Jesus in the US and people would perhaps even laugh at it. Good luck trying to publish one in Saudi or Pakistan.
It takes a frustrated fundie to even notice that...
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.