Ban books now!

A blog by request.
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Seriously.

Ban books.

I am not kidding.

Hold mass book burnings. Build that pyre. Run 'em through a shredder. Compost them. I don't care so long as mass efforts bring about the widespread destruction of books.

Someone poke Ray Bradbury (never mind he's dead) and tell him we're trying to make Fahrenheit 451 a reality.

This is most decidedly not a joke.

Hold protests. Call the library and school board and demand books be removed from the shelves. Stand outside book stores with protest signs. Again, I don't care so long as people come together and demand books be destroyed, never printed again, etc, etc, etc.

Light the pitchforks and sharpen the torches folks! Let's storm the press room!

This is National Banned Books week. As to what are the top 10 all time banned books, that depends on what list you read. Tropic of Cancer is the only book I can find that appears on all of 'em. I find that I've read about half the most banned books.

I stress, once again, I am absolutely serious about this. I am not kidding. I mean this.

Some years ago I was asked to serve on a book committee at an elementary school. A parent raised an objection to one of Shel Silverstein's books. The parent complained that one of Shel's illustrations was of a man's naked posterior.

The book stayed on the shelves at the elementary school, with my full support.

How's that for a non sequitor?

No doubt for a while now you've been asking how and why I can support banning books. You may point out I am an author with several books in print. Some of you still think this is a joke. It's not. I point you to the book The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. This is a massively banned book which I have not read.

Here's why I support banning books. Rushdie's book was banned in some countries and "religion of peace" leaders demanded his actual head on an actual plate, once removed from his body. An otherwise obscure book that would have sold under 100,000 copies was a million-seller overnight.

Tell someone he can't have something and he'll run over you trying to get to it.

In a society that is increasing fixated on idiocy and determined to be stupid - witness the attention given to intentionally limited-run TV series like Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy - the only way to get some people's attention is to slap them in the face and tell them no.

Ban books. Now. Because when books are banned, people will break the law to get a copy of the book to read it to find out what the fuss is about. Ban books because people will demand to read them.

Ban books and cure ignorance because people are too stubborn to realize they are being led like sheep to an infinite pasture of clover and sweet water springs with no predators within thousands of miles.

In a less serious vein, can we start by banning my books?