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Posts Tagged ‘Banned Books Week’

In the News (#1634)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Why are immigrant businesses being targeted by large-scale investigations…over fire code violations?  –  MPOP

An Avalanche of Bullshit (#976)

If your raid can’t find evidence of any real crime, just punish your victims with “code violations”:

…police [raids in Bothell, Washington] are simply the latest example of discrimination and state violence against Asian women and immigrant workers.  “You’re patting your own back for solving fabricated issues based on your own sexist, racist ideas, and Asian massage workers are paying the price,” said Lee Chen at an April 20 rally outside of the King County Jail…organized by the Massage Parlor Organizing Project …Whose Streets? Our Streets, Red Canary Song, and the International Migrants Alliance…Two of the raided businesses—including one just feet away from the Bothell police headquarters—are owned by Lizhen Yang…who was booked into the King County [jail but]…released the next day, without charges.  All five massage businesses were shut down, with authorities citing fire code violations…[as justification for] “ripp[ing] security cameras from walls…knock[ing] down doors, [tearing] signage…and artwork from the walls…[and robbing] workers” …[who] are now [all] out of jobs…[as cops] offered no indication if or when the five [targeted] businesses may be allowed to reopen… “advocates said the [pogroms] were a publicized effort to ‘clean up’…ahead of this summer’s FIFA Men’s World Cup matches in Seattle”…

Permanent Record (#1506)

Clearly, they were concerned he’d carry dangerous sex rays to other wrestlers:

…Jamie Bigg, known as Giant, has left the BBC show [Gladiators] following the end of this series.  Bigg…said: “I made it clear that I was planning to go public with my relationship, including the fact my partner works as an OnlyFans creator, and shortly after that I was told I wouldn’t be continuing on Gladiators“…

Thought Control (#1509)

Now that “sex trafficking” hysteria is over, one of its propaganda texts has become the biggest target of some of the hysteria’s biggest pushers:

The American Library Association…has reported a record high in the number of books banned in US libraries.  In 2025, 5,668 books were banned – representing 66% of the total number challenged – with an additional 920 censored through access restriction, such as relocation …The most-banned book in 2025 was Sold, a [tragedy porn] novel by Patricia McCormick [sensationalizing “]sex trafficking[“] in India…challenges were recorded against 4,235 unique titles…the second highest since the organisation began tracking censorship data…topped only by 4,240 titles in 2023…40% of the materials challenged…involved representations of LGBT…people or people of colour…challenges are becoming more coordinated and politically driven: 92% came from pressure groups, [politician]s or [bureaucrat]s, compared with 72% in 2024…2.7% were attributed to [random busybodie]s and [only] 1.4% to [act]ual library users…

Sold was once so highly regarded among “sex trafficking” fetishists that the 2014 film adaptation was later released in a PG-13 digital version for propaganda use in schools and churches.

Thought Control (#1519)

Several states have banned book-banning, but some libraries are working to circumvent existing bans in more censorious states:

A Books Unbanned library card gives teens across the United States free digital access to ebooks and digital resources, including banned and challenged books—no matter where they live.  Books Unbanned helps ensure teens can read what they like, explore new ideas and form their own opinions.  This is a free digital library card for teens, created to protect the freedom to read in the face of growing book censorship…

Torture Chamber (#1541)

Though this article is a year and a half old, it has statistics and reports I haven’t seen elsewhere:

…Several courts have ruled that extreme temperatures in prison violate the Eighth Amendment’s provision against “cruel and unusual” punishment.  But these rulings have not led to a widespread adoption of…methods to cool prison facilities or prevent heat-related deaths.  Public health researchers at Brown University estimate that just one day of above average summer temperatures is associated with a nearly 4% increase in prison deaths.  Suicides spike 23% in the three days following a heat wave.  And for every 10 degrees above the average summer temperature, prison deaths increase 5%…Below, we’ve published stories from 42 writers across 27 states…reveal[ing] the brutal reality…

Nightfall

In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history…When digital materials are vulnerable to sudden removal—whether by design or by attack—our collective memory is compromised, and the public’s ability to access its own history is at risk. Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record [is a free, downloadable collection of] essays from…the Internet Archive…and [many]…humanities scholar[s]…detail[ing] recent instances of cultural loss…and emphasiz[ing] the critical role that public-serving libraries and archives must play in preserving these materials for future generations…

Walled Garden (#1618)

Surely you didn’t think this would stop with the internet?

If some [politician]s get their way, Americans could have to show IDs or submit facial scans to so much as open a laptop or power up an iPhone.  A [uniparty] federal bill [with the propaganda name] the Parents Decide Act would require age verification at the operating system level.  That means most computers, smartphones, and tablets would all be age-gated…It would also require operating systems to share “any information as is necessary…to verify the date of birth of a user” with app developers…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Nightfall

Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2025| 2 Comments »

When belief trumps facts, feelings trump reason, and violent psychopaths declare themselves the only legitimate arbiters of Truth, darkness can be the only result.  –  “The Oncoming Night”

There’s no good reason to rehash my columns for last year’s “Banned Books Week” and those of 2023 and 2022; my records have not yet been censored, so those essays, all heavily-fortified with links to earlier writings on the subject, are still there for your perusal.  Instead, it seems more urgent to call your attention to the fact that the impending dark age I have warned about for years has now arrived.  Lest some of you (especially the ones who used to call me a crank for warning what facial recognition would become) think I’m exaggerating, let me reiterate what a dark age actually is.  People who know nothing about history tend to think of the term as synonymous with the Middle Ages, despite the facts that A) only a small part of that thousand-year period qualify as “dark” in the historical sense; B) there have been a number of dark ages in human history; and C) the term in and of itself says nothing about technological progress per se.  In reality, a dark age is one lacking reliable records, so historians cannot be certain of what actually happened.  Of course, censorship is typically part of that; if a government or religion burns books, anything recorded in those books is not available to future historians.  And if too many of the burned books contain scientific or technical knowledge, the result may indeed be a reversal of technological progress.  But such a decline is not the defining characteristic, and indeed one of the major causes of the dark age we’re now entering is the misuse of technology.

The way people of later times view a dark age is, due once again to the lack of reliable records, not at all the same as the way people living in such an age view it; the only people who are in a position to recognize that they’re living in such an age are those who understand what the term means in the first place.  So it’s doubtful that the authoritarian rulers of countries like India and the United States recognize (or care) what they’re doing to future history; what’s important to this discussion is that they are using modern computer technology to do it.  In the last century, it would’ve been impossible for a Trump, Modi, or Xi to eliminate every single instance of a fact or opinion they disliked; Mao and Stalin tried, but books and other physical records cannot be eliminated by merely ordering the creation of search-and-destroy algorithms or threatening large, centralized fascist companies into censoring their own highly-indexed media.  20th century tyrants could never hope to find and destroy every copy of a banned book, film, recording, etc, but when physical media are no longer the norm, universal censorship of a work enters the realm of the possible.  And now that it has become child’s play to flood the world with computer diarrhea presented as fact, even electronic records which somehow escape a purge will be lost in a vast fecal sea, making it difficult for even experts to know what is real.  And if the techlords get their way, there will be a lot fewer experts in the future to attempt it or even care about it.  And if you can’t see that as a formula for a dark age, why are you even bothering to read this?

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The True Story of Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »

When you see the word “illicit”, you can be sure you’re reading prohibitionist propaganda.  –  “Full of Themselves (#1176)”

It is not only the right, but the duty, of moral people to break unjust laws.
–  “Late Summer Tweets”

All ethical people need to resist the book-burners and website-wreckers, loudly and defiantly, in the hopes that at least some of our fellow-humans will come back to their senses before it’s too late.  –  “Banned Books Week 2023”

Ads pay the bills, but they are distracting and annoying, and readers have good reason to suspect that any publication which carries them will be biased against offending those advertisers.  –  “Paying the Bills“

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Dark Throwback Thursday

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on September 25, 2025| 4 Comments »

Nothing infuriates violent, self-important busybodies more than the knowledge that there are private affairs that are none of their business.
–  “I Spy (#1173)”

I’m honestly unsure where this will end; we’re well into uncharted territory my librarian self would’ve found unbelievable.
–  “The Book Burners”

Some people are such economic imbeciles I wouldn’t even trust them to make change.  –  “Tweetledee”

Censorship is extremely popular in dark ages, which of course is a large part of what makes them dark ages in the first place.  –  “The Oncoming Night“

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Throwback Thursday vs. the Mummy

Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Busybody control freaks…don’t give a damn about women’s dignity, but are happy to use it as an excuse for oppression.
–  “The Enlightenment Police”

The urge to censor is a mental illness.  No normal person wants to control what other people think, and no sane person could believe that he can control what anyone else thinks.
–  “Thought Control”

My sex appeal is about as gentle and understated as a brick to the face, and some men have even described me as “intimidating”.  –  “Your Move”

In true horror, there is little to no “explanation”, because the unknown is far more horrifying than any trite Hollywood “origin”.  –  “No Explanation“

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The Oncoming Night

Posted in Current Events, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

All ethical people need to resist the book-burners and website-wreckers, loudly and defiantly, in the hopes that at least some of our fellow-humans will come back to their senses before it’s too late.  –  “Banned Books Week 2023”

Censorship, correctly viewed in the more enlightened times of the 20th century as the province of tyrants, bluenoses, humorless scolds, and other closed-minded nitwits, has in the 21st achieved a level of  worldwide popularity unseen since the Index Librorum Prohibitorum went out of fashion.  Governments around the globe threaten individuals and groups with violence for daring to speak or write words, or share images, that the rulers of those countries have declared off-limits, often for the most childish, disgusting, or even absurd reasons.  And while in the past the educated could be counted upon to oppose such repression, nowadays they are more often at the forefront of censorship efforts, demanding harsh penalties for wrongthink and groveling in the most grotesque manner before idiots who, unsatisfied with merely being subjected to such thought control by their masters, demand the power to lobotomize themselves and everyone else within their reach.

In the year since the last Banned Books Week, we’ve seen innumerable efforts to sterilize libraries of anything offensive to the State or the most rigid and tiny-minded fundamentalist, complete with siccing the cops on librarians; the imprisonment of a respected journalist for disagreeing with the government; a “monkey see, monkey do” parade of attempts to either directly censor the internet, or to intimidate websites into censoring themselves; and many people harassed or even arrested by cops and spooks merely for expressing opinions the government dislikes, and that’s just in the so-called “liberal democracies” of the West.  Where will it stop?  There’s no way of knowing, unfortunately; censorship is extremely popular in dark ages, which of course is a large part of what makes them dark ages in the first place.  When belief trumps facts, feelings trump reason, and violent psychopaths declare themselves the only legitimate arbiters of Truth, darkness can be the only result.  The only variables are how widespread the Night will be, and how long it will be before Enlightenment comes again.

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Banned Books Week 2023

Posted in Current Events, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »

I’m honestly unsure where this [new wave of censorship] will end; we’re well into uncharted territory my librarian self would’ve found unbelievable.  –  “The Book Burners”

It may be difficult for my younger readers to believe that when I was a librarian, “Banned Books Week” was little more than an academic exercise.  The first few years of my blog demonstrate just how negligible a threat so-called “book banning” actually was.  In 2010, I didn’t even remember to write about the observance; in 2011 I simply noted a number of frequently-challenged books (because the number was small enough to do that), and in 2012 and 2013 I used the occasion to attack the concept of censorship from a philosophical perspective.  2014’s “Censor Chic” was the first harbinger of things to come, as I discussed the new indirect form of censorship: authoritarians both in and out of government getting risk-averse corporations to do their dirty work for them by issuing threats to either smear those companies’ reputations or attack them with increased government meddling.  The latter tactic has grown from the relatively-veiled threats issued by the Obama administration’s “Operation Choke Point” to the Biden administration’s jawboning so egregiously even federal judges couldn’t be persuaded to give it a pass.  And in the past two years, pro-censorship politicians have crafted terrible laws to empower isolated cranks to censor any books their “thought leaders” tell them are “bad”:

…School book challenges reached historic highs in America in 2021 and 2022, according to the American Library Association.  And just a handful of people are driving those records.  A Washington Post analysis of thousands of challenges nationwide found that 60 percent of all challenges in the 2021-2022 school year came from 11 adults, each of whom objected to dozens — sometimes close to 100 — of books in their districts….

2015’s “Moral Climate” pointed out that most censorship nowadays is neither top-down nor obvious nor based in pearl-clutching about “obscenity” (though in the past two years that has again become a popular excuse among censor-morons who label themselves “conservative”); rather, it is disguised lateral censorship by censor-morons who label themselves “progressive”:

…What if you read different words in your books and never even knew the original language was changed?  That’s where publishers’ growing penchant for revisionism and censorship of written works comes in — often through the use of so-called “sensitivity readers” — to eliminate “problematic” content…From Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming to R.L. Stine and Agatha Christie, this trend of editing and rewriting authors’ books…without their consent…should alarm us all…the publishers who commission it foster a chilling effect on free speech, a sanitization of art, and a corrosion of our larger cultural discourse…

Of course, some “progressive” censorship is just as blatant and top-down as that of “conservatives”:

Peel District School Board…students, parents and community members…are concerned about a [bizarre] approach to a new equity-based book weeding process implemented by the board last spring in response to a provincial directive from the Minister of Education.  They say the new process, intended to ensure library books are inclusive, appears to have led some schools to remove thousands of books solely because they were published in 2008 or earlier…neither Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce’s office, nor the Education Ministry, would comment on PDSB’s implementation of Lecce’s directive…But in a [later] statement…the education minister said he has written to the board to immediately end this practice…

By 2017, my “Banned Books Week” essays had pivoted to dealing with the new reality of “adults…not merely accepting, but demanding they be shielded from ideas they find uncomfortable for one reason or another“, and in 2018 top-down censorship enforced by violence returned with a vengeance, starting with the internet.  In 2019 I summarized developments as follows:

…in this century, the sick need to control others’ thoughts grew as the internet made it easier for those thoughts to be shared, and early last year top-down government censorship returned with a vengeance thanks to the Great Unwashed eagerly swallowing racist claims about “human trafficking” and magically baneful effects of anything to do with sex.  The US enacted FOSTA, leading to a wave of internet censorship; the UK is trying to build a massive firewall comparable to China’s; the EU has enacted law after law allowing greedy corporations and finger-pointing Prunellas alike power over others’ web-browsing; and every two-bit dictatorship has recognized that all it needs to do to justify thought control is parrot Western “hate speech” idiocy…

The pandemic gave governments a new excuse, “misinformation” (a euphemism for “disagreeing with the government”), and that year I wrote, “We are watching the advent of a new dark age, and in such times no light is entirely safe from being snuffed out by zealots, speech-cops and bureaucrats whose ideal model for human society is the anthill.”  I was, as usual, not wrong; the following year saw the arrival of a wave of censorship even the mainstream media couldn’t ignore, excuse, or hand-wave away.  My primary tag for filing items about written-word censorship is “Thought Control”; only 7 items appeared there in 2012-2020; then there were 9 in ’21 alone; 27 in ’22; and 14 so far in ’23.  And that does not include the explosion of attempts to shut down large portions of the internet because politicians, useful idiots, and other censor-morons don’t like what other people say or watch.  As I said at the top, I have no idea where this will end, but in the meantime all ethical people need to resist the book-burners and website-wreckers, loudly and defiantly, in the hopes that at least some of our fellow-humans will come back to their senses before it’s too late.

 

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The Book Burners

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on September 19, 2022| 2 Comments »

Institutions writers could once count on to defend them…now race to see who can kowtow most obsequiously to the censor-morons.
–  “Censorship Ascendant”

Until a few years ago, traditional top-down censorship was largely a thing of the past, something I wrote about annually at the beginning of Banned Books Week to remind people that it could happen again.  As recently as 2016, I used the occasion to write,

…top-down state censorship…is very rare now in the United States, and has been for decades; the majority of “challenges” now (despite the celebration’s name, it’s pretty rare that books are actually removed from public collections) originate not with state officials or other “authorities”, but with individuals seeking to “protect the children” from thoughts their parents don’t want them to have…

Of course, none of that is true any longer.  Top-down censorship has returned with a vengeance, mostly implemented by fascist corporations acting on behalf of governments.  But in the US, politicians in many states have implemented traditional censorship in school libraries, even to the point of threatening librarians with criminal charges.  The “Thought Control” tag, which formerly appeared only once in a while, has had several entries a month since this new book-burning fad took off last November.  Meanwhile, the “cancel culture” censorship which has been growing for years has grown so pervasive that even the somewhat pro-censorship New York Times can no longer endorse it.  I’m honestly unsure where this will end; we’re well into uncharted territory my librarian self would’ve found unbelievable.  So if you haven’t been paying attention, I suggest you peruse the aforementioned “Thought Control” tag, and revisit the columns I’ve quoted from below.  Because there’s only one thing about this situation which is certain: like all authoritarianism, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

We are watching the advent of a new dark age, and in such times no light is entirely safe from being snuffed out by zealots, speech-cops and bureaucrats whose ideal model for human society is the anthill.  –  “The Convergence of Censors”

Every two-bit dictatorship has recognized that all it needs to do to justify thought control is parrot Western “hate speech” idiocy.  –  “The Return of the Censor”

Though lily-livered fools have been demanding they be “protected” from ideas they don’t like for several years now, it’s terrifying how quickly this terrible idea has moved from the lunatic fringe to the mainstream.  –  “Suppression”

[Many young adults] not only display an ovine passivity in the face of censorship, but actively run to the nanny-state to hide in her skirts lest they see or hear some idea or word, or see some image, that will cause some ripple in the placid lakes of their privileged lives and perhaps actually require them to think rather than merely consuming and regurgitating the dogma they’ve been spoon-fed.  –  “Unwise Monkeys”

The censor-morons are loose, and they’re coming after everyone who dares to disagree with them.  –  “The Censor-Moron”

It doesn’t matter whether the excuse is “sin” or “feelings”, or the injured party is conceived of as an individual or collective, or the suppression comes from above or below, or the method is violence or economics; the suppression of thought and speech is evil, tyrannical and socially self-lobotomizing.  –  “Moral Climate”

Thinking people must not let themselves be intimidated by…self-appointed guardians of the public morality; we must speak out against all forms of censorship and speech suppression, whether advanced by guns, threats, intimidation or appeals to nebulous “harm”.  –  “Censor Chic”

The belief that the state or collective has the right to [censor] is an abomination; it is nothing less than the dogma that the state owns every individual, body and soul, and has the right to torture or maim those individuals as it pleases.  –  “Crippling Thought”

The important thing to remember when listening to any demand for censorship is that no matter what excuse the censor presents to attain his goal, he is ultimately lying.  It’s not really about “public safety”, or the “children”, or “community standards”, or whatever else he may claim; it’s about the fact that his leaky mind is unable to keep unwelcome thoughts out, so he demands that society do it for him.  –  “Thought Control”

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Censorship Ascendant

Posted in Current Events, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2021| 2 Comments »

Censorship, once condemned by all ethical people, has now become almost universally popular.  –  “The Convergence of Censors”

The last week of September is “Banned Books Week“; over the 11 years I’ve been writing this blog, my columns on the topic have changed as threats to intellectual freedom have dramatically increased worldwide.  As I said last year,

When I was a librarian, [this] Week was little more than an academic exercise; censorship was an intermittent and generally impotent threat proceeding from small numbers of narrow-minded busybodies, which was easily defeated by librarians and other guardians of our shared cultural heritage.  But that was a generation ago, and would-be censors have become numerous, aggressive, well-organized and (most concerningly) popular.  Few of those under 30 even understand what free speech is or why it’s important, and the majority or those over that age imagine all sorts of exceptions that they believe should be reasons to violently suppress speech…the censor-morons…are…multiplying like bacteria and have already infested all the centers of power…

The links are all there for your perusal, but just in case you’ve been asleep for the past three or four years, here are a few stories from the past six months so you can see for yourself that I’m not exaggerating.  There’s still plenty of old-fashioned, bluenosed, school-based censorship conducted in the name of THE CHIIIIIIIIILDREEEEEEN!!!™, but now they’ve learned to pretend ideas they don’t like constitute a “crime” so as to threaten their enemies with police violence.  Furthermore, institutions writers could once count on to defend them, including libraries and publishers, now race to see who can kowtow most obsequiously to the censor-morons, sometimes even volunteering to act as censors themselves, and institutions which need free speech the most are lobotomizing themselves by peddling pro-censorship sophistry and even conducting literal book burnings.  Governments are increasingly claiming the “right” to declare which facts are “correct” and to suppress ideas they declare “disinformation” or “fake news”, and in our increasingly-connected world governments are increasingly able to cause trouble for people who say things they dislike far beyond their own borders (China is the worst offender, but is far from alone).  Soon, ideas the mob, the government, or other violent simian gangs dislike may become impossible to acquire outside of caches of virtual samizdat, at which point the censor-morons will pivot to criminalizing avenues of access to such caches while “intellectuals” cheer and pen screeds about how obedience and conformity are far better for “society” than imagination and critical thinking.

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The Convergence of Censors

Posted in Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 28, 2020| 9 Comments »

The censor-morons are loose, and they’re attacking the small targets so their totalitarian masters can expend their energy on big ones like the internet.  –  “The Return of the Censor”

Censorship, once condemned by all ethical people, has now become almost universally popular.  From the most totalitarian of governments down to the youngest of adults, it seems everybody without a functional moral compass (which is to say, the great majority) wants to impose their ideas of “right” thinking and “correct” speech on everyone else.  China, of course, is leading the way, with a new Maoist-type campaign to purge schools and libraries of books deemed insufficiently pure, but the West isn’t far behind.  In the UK, cops are knocking on doors to intimidate people who made statements online that the cops didn’t like, and early this month a woman in Melbourne was actually arrested for posting on Facebook about a protest against totalitarian “lockdown” orders imposed by the Victorian government.  In the US, the pandemic is only one of many popular excuses for censorship; others include “hate speech”, criticizing the police, and (for social media platforms) either engaging in censorship on their own or not censoring often enough for the tastes of censors.  I know that last is confusing, so let me state it a different way:  Some politicians and other control freaks want to censor Facebook, Twitter, et al for engaging in censorship themselves, while others want to censor the same entities for not censoring enough.  Yes, it’s complete lunacy, and it isn’t limited to the internet; culture warriors in academia, Hollywood, and even corporate America are firing,expelling, or otherwise ostracizing people for engaging in wrongthink, or even for failing to chant approved party slogans with sufficient enthusiasm.

When I was a librarian, Banned Books Week was little more than an academic exercise; censorship was an intermittent and generally impotent threat proceeding from small numbers of narrow-minded busybodies, which was easily defeated by librarians and other guardians of our shared cultural heritage.  But that was a generation ago, and would-be censors have become numerous, aggressive, well-organized and (most concerningly) popular.  Few of those under 30 even understand what free speech is or why it’s important, and the majority or those over that age imagine all sorts of exceptions that they believe should be reasons to violently suppress speech, ranging from “it hurt my feelings”, to “it was said or written by a dead person who did things considered normal then, but which are now mortal sins”, to “it contains ‘bad’ words”, to the ever-popular “But SEX!”  As I wrote last year, the censor-morons (a term coined by D.H. Lawrence, one of many writers now considered “problematic”) are loose; furthermore, they are multiplying like bacteria and have already infested all the centers of power.  For now, the courts are mostly still defending the rights of those with enough money, resources, and patience to fight “cancellation” through official channels.  But if you will take the time to read all of my essays for this occasion starting in 2012, and working your way up a year at a time to the present, I think you’ll see a very frightening trend.  We are watching the advent of a new dark age, and in such times no light is entirely safe from being snuffed out by zealots, speech-cops and bureaucrats whose ideal model for human society is the anthill.

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