Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.
Potter Stewart


David Martin a CBS Pentagon correspondent admitted that he killed a report on how the military disarm bombs in Iraq. A senior military officer complained that it contained information useful to the enemy. That seems to be the second most used excuse in this government, right after you don’t support the troops. The people setting off the bombs are very experienced and don’t have much trouble figuring out how to make them go boom. Mr. Martin says he has killed other stories after objections. I wonder what they were about and who objected?

More serious in my mind is the actions of the school board voted not to buy 23 books for Southern California’s Vista San Gabriel Elementary School Library.
Some were: three bilingual Clifford the Big Red Dog books, Disney’s Christmas Storybook, two books from the Artemis Fowl series, and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The Harry Potter books are now in the top 10 percent of banned books in the United States along with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
In 2000 Sharon Toyne a school board member warned against the Harry Potter books. She’s now board president. She said the book’s wizards and magic all falls in the line of witchcraft. In our district we are trying to promote character with programs like Character Counts, and don’t see how the book promotes that. I think (the books) could arouse a child’s imagination and curiosity of the unknown, of the dark side.
This is one of the most ignorant statements I think I have ever read including what comes out of Washington D.C. I have read all the Potter books several times and the Clifford books too. They are filled with character building examples and have done more to get kids to read than anything the government has tried. Wouldn’t want to arouse that curiosity and imagination.

Something else I consider censorship is the plan by AOL to start allowing bulk e-mailers to bypass the spam filters for a fee. Not much use in having the filters then as the big spam senders can afford a fee while the small newsletters can’t. If it works look for Yahoo, Google and all the other e-mail systems to follow suit. Say goodbye to the free flow of information on the net.

I would like to have one day go by without reading or hearing about all the stupid, ignorant things that happen in this country.