Someone posted that as late as the 1980s books were being banned in this country. Try as late as Oct. 18th 1999.
To those who corrected the terminology angle. Yes, *banning* no longer exists in the sense that books become illegal and possesion is a crime. However, there is still a congressional list of books that for lack of a better term is called the banned books list. This is the list I was refearing to, in the sense that a list existed started by a goverment sponsered agency to investigate appropriate reading material. This list is meant as a guide as to what books may be *dangerous* for children and others to read and has in the past included Huck Finn, James and the Giant Peach, Alice in Wonderland, the Bible for a short time, and so on. It existed as late as the 1980's and I've been told an *advisory* list and panel still exists as a congressional sub-sub-panel somewhere. Also, many churches and evangelical organizations have these types of lists. Also, it's not all christians doing the banning, Many groups try to supprese what they don't like. I'll use and example: last year a childrens book called Nappy Hair or somesuch was boycotted because of a precieved racism. The book was highly reguarded by many teachers and children as having a positive message about being oneself and it was boycotted and removed from a school because a person who hadn't read it assumed a racist intent. It went so far that the teacher who read the book to her class faced disciplinary actions as a result. Thankfully they were all cleared when the book was reviewed by parents and found to be not racist in the slightest. Talking to one of the local librarians I've found that many of the town's library books like Catcher in the Rye, and magazines like Cosmo (sex articles and the like) are routinly vandilized. The fellow who owns the local bookstore tells me that at least once a day someone complains about his stores content and demands he remove things like D&D games, Buddist texts, science fiction, etc. Beyond all that, let's try not to start a mudslinging contest between countries, okay? The taboos and censorship that exists in different countries all suck. Sure, Clockwork Orange may be banned in London (is it?) but Dogma was effectivly banned for awile because Kevin Smith couldn't get anyone to release it thanks to possible backlash from christians. As Steve mentioned banning ( or suppresion, or taking out of circulation, or whatever nomenclature you use) exists everywhere in America and other countries to certain degrees, and what gets banned depends largely on what cultural mores are present in what area. - Jim +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+