Last night I went up to the local library branch and picked up some books that had come in from my hold queue. Nothing earth shatteringly deep – my first pick from the pile is “Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O’Reilly”. Amusing.

I also picked up a book from the “Banned Books Week” display, “God’s Little Acre” by Erskine Caldwell.

I will never understand the fear that drives the desire to stop people from expressing ideas. It’s not the expression of multiple, even contradictory, thoughts that’s a danger to society. The real danger is conformity of thought and refusal to acknowledge that sometimes, just sometimes, new and different is beneficial to all of us.