Letter from Elaine Cunningham. Topic: Banned books

[Anubis]

Why is Mark Twains name mentioned?

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You shall sit in judgment with Osiris

[Epona]

I recall hearing that the Harry Potter books had been banned from schools in some states because they argue the stories promote paganism (in some people's eyes this is muddled with satanism, not at all the same thing) because the main characters are wizards and perform magic or something like that.
Some people are just small minded, unfortunately they form quite a powerful lobby in some areas.

Banning does happen in Britain - Reservoir Dogs was banned from VHS release for ages because it was 'too violent'. During the gulf war some songs were banned from radio air-play (Queen's 'Another one bites the dust' and a few others). The BBFC - British Board of Film Censors - was set up originally to prevent any portrayals or mention of class on our screens - the early banned/censored films were often political or social comment. Now they mainly concern themselves with violence and sex, although politics does still fall foul of their moralism. Many films from the states are released here in shortened version, because the BBFC will only allow release with some scenes removed.

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Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Epona of The Laughing Hyenas
Proud winner of the 'Most Useless Post 250 Has Ever Seen' Award 2001. "I'd just like to thank my friends and family, without whom none of this would have been possible..."

[Melusine]

Me and my boyfriend did a presentation on banned books once...
I don't see why you are so surprised at books being banned, it used to happen all the time! Like Epona said, some people are so small minded!!
Some states of America have banned the story of Red Riding Hood because she brought her granny wine (encourages alchol abuse!!!). Can you believe it? Mark Twain, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce are only a small part of the list. I'll look up the stuff I used for the presentation if anybody's interested...

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Melusine, Sultry Elflet, High Queen of Fluffies, Archbabe of the OHF, LH and HADB

Your voice is ambrosia
Amy Brown Fantasy Art

[Zbyszek]

Banned books. But have you ever read censored book, hehe? You read something (even poetry) and then you bump on [erazed by (office name) according to act number ...... published in ... ]. They wanted to delete a few words and had to put like two or three lines of text. Now I think it was funny, but I remember how frustrating it was while reading. But later they erazed whole chapters and didnt even mention it. For example I have Paul Hogan's "Invasion from past" (my on-line translation) without prologue because of description of worlds political situation.

[adam warlock]

Originally posted by Melusine: Me and my boyfriend did a presentation on banned books once... I don't see why you are so surprised at books being banned, it used to happen all the time! Like Epona said, some people are so small minded!! Some states of America have banned the story of Red Riding Hood because she brought her granny wine (encourages alchol abuse!!!). Can you believe it? Mark Twain, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce are only a small part of the list. I'll look up the stuff I used for the presentation if anybody's interested...

Red Riding Hood???? If they only knew of the original version of it!

most of the old children's stories have been revised (meaning cleaned up) so many times that when one read the original, he/she will pale in horror...

compare these versions to the today's ... you'll find out how much our point-of-view has change thru the centuries....

To Kill a Mockingbird, I watched the movie and read the book in school, in alabama. Its a great, great novel amongst other books on that list. Pity the narrow-minded, their minds are so small, they cant even concieve that they are narrow-minded.