Happy Banned Books Week!

I used to blog about Banned Books Week every year, but looking through my old posts, I see it has been a while.  I just found out it was Banned Books Week from an announcement on another blog, but it has been a while since I've "celebrated," so I decided to read a frequently challenged book.

My criteria for making a decision were that the book had to be an ebook (so I can start reading right away), had to be affordable (I hate paying more for an ebook than I would for a paperback), and had to be a fairly fast read.  I also preferred to read something I either haven't read before, or haven't read for a very long time.  All of the books in the top ten list of banned books for 2009 were either ones I'd already read, not available in ebook form, or too expensive ($13 for The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things?!), so I headed over to the list of challenged classics.

There were a few on the list that I already had in my ebook collection, thanks to Barnes & Nobles free classic ebooks promotion (which ended September 14th — I'm still sad about that).  However, I eventually settled on The Awakening.  I may have read it or part of it in high school, but what I don't remember won't hurt me!

(Anyone notice, by the way, that Huckleberry Finn is not on that list of challenged classics?  Very odd.  I was pretty sure that was something like one of the most frequently challenged classics ever.)

Anyway, here is a cute video listing the top ten challenged books of 2009, with explanations of why each one was challenged.  There are a few classics (To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye), and of course the Twilight Saga, but I was surprised to see my favorite Jodi Picoult book, My Sister's Keeper, on the list.  It's not a young adult book by any means, but I suspect since a recent movie was based on it (a generous statement, since I hear they changed the most pivotal plot twist in the book), a lot of high school English teachers were probably teaching the book in their classes, in the usual desperate attempt to interest today's kids in reading.

Anyway, enjoy the video — and if you are reading a banned book this week to celebrate, please share your choice in the comments!

Freedom of speech, blogs, and censorship

My regular readers probably know from my previous posts that I do not believe in censorship. However, I so frequently see bloggers decry comment moderation as a violation of their First Amendment rights that I wanted to post on what constitutes freedom of speech...and what doesn't.

Yes, the Constitution gives you the freedom of speech. But what does this mean? For starters, it means that the U.S. government (theoretically) can't do what China does and punish bloggers who say things that "the man" doesn't like. However, the First Amendment does not mean that you have the right to talk on someone else's dime. It also does not guarantee that anyone is going to listen to you.

For instance, if you send your book of brilliant political commentary to a publisher and he turns it down flat, you can't coerce him into publishing it by calling upon your First Amendment rights. You can, however, decide to self-publish the book. Your right to free speech allows you to say or write or publish anything you want, but it doesn't absolve you from having to foot the bill.

How does this relate to blogging? Simple. I am paying to publish my own blog. (Just because I use a free blogging service doesn't mean I am not paying -- I pay for my own website hosting, and host my blog on my own URL.) That means that your right to free speech doesn't mean that I have to pay for you to have it. Since this blog is my space, I can decide whether or not I want an insulting comment to appear on it. While it is a mild form of censorship to delete someone's nasty comment, it's not real censorship, because you are quite able to self-publish your comment -- that is, to get your own blog and use that space however you see fit. That's the right the First Amendment reserves for you.

Hopefully this will clarify what is or is not a violation of someone's First Amendment rights. With this in mind, I am going to change my blog's settings to allow anonymous comments again, in the hopes that my "anonymous" commenter from several months ago has given up harassing me. Although I will, of course, refuse to publish any unreasonably nasty comments, I also reserve the right to turn off anonymous commenting again should the need arrive.

I look forward to again hearing from some of my readers who don't have Google accounts!