C'mon KY Get With the Times

Good ol' KY at it again. Library versus employees in a censorship battle: http://tinyurl.com/yjy3mjj

Are we that far behind the times? Is life that confusing us hicks, hillbillies, rednecks, and battle axes in rural and not-so-rural Kentucky?

What, pray tell am I talking about? Well it would the article found at the Lexington Herald-Leader website. It's rather ridiculous that in 2009 we're still fighting battles over publications and censorship that were waged in the 1950s and 1960s.

Long story short for those without the attention span to read a 3 page article. The Jessamine County Library had a copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier on its hallowed shelves.

No big deal right? It's a graphic novel. We're all familiar with those I hope. Surely you don't think that comic books are for kids. That would be a most serious mistake, and could be the mistake many people have made. There is far more happening in comics and graphic novels today than what most adults can imagine. These aren't Archie Comics people (And just for those who don't know, Archie was a

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He played Veronica and Betty as much as possible and had no qualms at all about having both girls with him). Some of these carry-on where modern science fiction abandoned us and challenge society.

Back to the point at hand. An employee at the library found it distasteful and repeatedly checked it out. When a patron of the library reserved it so they could read it. The employee used her privilege as an employee, found out who had reserved the it, and it was for an 11-year-old girl. Of course, it is the responsibility of the library to tell us what we can and cannot read and not a parent's or the individual's, so the employee refused to return the graphic novel. She lost her job along with another co-worker.

And guess what!

She still as it and the library has yet to replace it!

There's more to the article but you get the idea.

This stuff scares me. It's like we're being thrown back 60 years. Soon there will be book burnings and more monitoring of who is renting or checking out what at the library.

What's next? Video stores? Are employees going to start monitoring what we choice to enjoy and then the manager tell us, "We're sorry, we've decided this material is inappropriate for you because you have blonde hair and blue eyes, but if you had green eyes it would be okay."

C'mon people, get with it. Personal responsibility and the ability to make choices should lie with the individual not the administration.

The most frightening part may be that more people aren't up-in-arms about it. Are they next going to tell us that Stephen King, Dean Koontz, or any number of romance novels are pornography and can't be acquired at the library? What about removing Frankenstein or The Invisible Man or even To Kill A Mockingbird from print?

I don't know about you, but I love having the ability to choose.

In my experiences I have been shocked by some of the things parents teach their children or allow them to watch, view, play, or do, but it is their child and their responsibility. Believe it or not video games in which you kill people won't make you into a person who stalks from room to room with a semi-automatic weapon pumping round after round into friends, family, co-workers, or strangers.

Repression does that well enough. Ignorance contributes greatly. Over-bearing and oppressive control will lead to a true revolution.

Again I digress.

Make a statement. I plan to. Go to your local library and check out something controversial. Does it matter if you're in a repressive "conservative" area?

Not one bit.

Maybe we can't directly affect Jessamine County, but by-golly we can make sure our local establishments know we care about our right to uncensored, complete, controversial, and challenging literature.