Free Republic

Once They Burned Books by Ari Bussel The flames could be seen clearly in small streets far away from the city square. It was not the smoke or ashes, rather the sense of excitement that provided warmth and exhilaration. Jan came running in from the outside, his face red, eyes shining. His mother looked at him puzzled. Short of breath he exclaimed: They are burning books – tomorrow we are not going to school! It was many years ago in a different part of the world books were burned. Treatises on philosophy, history, culture, the arts, sciences and medicine were...

Some cash-strapped British pensioners are buying books from charity shops and burn them to keep warm as freezing temperatures gripped the UK, a London newspaper reported Tuesday. Workers at a charity shop in Swansea, in south Wales, told London newspaper Metro that pensioners were looking for thick books such as encyclopedias — which are sold for a few pennies second hand — as a cheaper alternative to coal.

Volunteers have reported that ‘a large number’ of elderly customers are snapping up hardbacks as cheap fuel for their fires and stoves. Temperatures this week are forecast to plummet as low as -13ºC in the Scottish Highlands, with the mercury falling to -6ºC in London, -5ºC in Birmingham and -7ºC in Manchester as one of the coldest winters in years continues to bite. Workers at one charity shop in Swansea, in south Wales, described how the most vulnerable shoppers were seeking out thick books such as encyclopaedias for a few pence because they were cheaper than coal. One assistant said:...

Liberal booksellers have banned Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" and refuse to carry it. They are retarded. I thought Liberals were against banning books. This is anti-free speech. The public in San Francisco demand the book, though, as it is #3 on the San Francisco bestseller list by being sold at Costco in San Francisco (among other stores).

Visit most public school libraries and you'll find an array of books that address the subject of homosexuality. Many include sexually explicit content, and some even include graphic images. But if you're looking for a book that refers to the possibility that homosexuality can be "reversed," a Chicago-based group says your best bet is the banned books list. Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) says there's an entire community of people across the world who say that their sexual orientation changed from gay to straight. But they're not getting their message out, the group says, because libraries across...

Let's fill some trucks with books, drive them downtown and burn them in front of the Chicago Public Library. Let's drive other trucks to the regional libraries and burn them, too . . . I mean the books, not the libraries, though libraries are the source of the problem. If it weren't for the libraries, it would be hard for innocent young people to be corrupted by the filth pouring out of the country's printers. Instead of burning books or libraries, perhaps we ought to start smashing printing presses. They have served as tools of sin and the devil since...

Get the scene. The McCain/Palin ticket wins in November and soon afterwards mobs of wild eyed bible-toting evangelicals will burn stacks of books in giant bonfires. Sound ridiculous? Well, that is exactly what Andrew Greeley is laughably claiming in his latest Chicago Sun-Times column ominously titled, "Next Chapter for radical right: Burn books." Years ago, Greeley sounded somewhat sane but lately he has gone off the deep end such as his claim in June that it is racist not to vote for Obama. Greeley's latest sanity-challenged screed presents a bleak future of crazed book-burning evangelicals taking over the country. Try...

Book Store Owners Protest 'Decline In Reading' KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The owner of a midtown bookstore set fire to hundreds of books on West 39th Street on Sunday. "We hope to spark a conversation about the importance of books in the face of a marked shrinking in reading trends, and staggering waste streams of actual books," said Prospero's Books owner, Tom Wayne. Prospero's has publicized for months that it was looking for a good home for thousands of books, and saying it would burn the books if no one wanted them. Prospero's maintains three outdoor shelves of books for...

Cambridge University Press—in sharp contrast to Yale University Press—has agreed to recall and destroy copies of Alms for Jihad, a critically-acclaimed examination of terror finance which a Saudi businessman found inconvenient (I'd link to the Amazon.com page which listed the accolades, but Amazon has now erased the book's listing as if it has never existed). When those involved in terror finance-soiled charities sued Yale University Press over Matt Levitt's examination of Hamas, Yale University Press stood up to them, defended academic rigor and free speech, and won. How disappointing it is, then, to see that the American Political Science Association...

NEW YORK, July 26, 2007 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Charles Merrill, the artist who recently edited the Holy Bible with a black marker and pair of scissors, has lately burned a rare Islamic Holy Book, The Koran, valued at $60,000.00, in an undisclosed Chicago location. "The purpose of editing and burning Abrahamic Holy Books is to eliminate homophobic hate," Merrill stated. "Both ancient books are terrorist manuals."..."Airplanes are flown into buildings because of words, and hate crimes against gays," Merrill said.

For years, I have been covering the Castro regime’s imprisonment — often for very long sentences — of what Amnesty International accurately calls “prisoners of conscience.” Among them are independent journalists, labor organizers, women’s rights supporters, authors and independent librarians. The latter are brave Cubans and women’s-rights supporters who make available books that their neighbors and other Cubans are not allowed to read in the state-controlled library system. Whatever direction a post-Fidel government takes, this punishment of free thought will continue. From kangaroo-court records I have seen, when independent librarians are sent to the gulags, certain confiscated books — and...

Best-sellers were once made by being banned in Boston. Now a pair of New Jersey state legislators are trying to ban a book already atop the best-sellers list. Once again, the book stirring all the controversy is Ann Coulter's "Godless: The Church of Liberalism." Two Democrats – Assemblywomen Joan Quigley and Linda Stender – are pushing to ban "Godless" from all bookstores in their state because of Coulter's biting criticism of four 9-11 widows known as "the Jersey Girls," who demanded investigations into President Bush's role in allowing the terrorist attacks. No one in New Jersey should buy this book...

ITHACA, NY—Another college newspaper was stolen and thrown out to protest its “racist” coverage earlier this month.According to published reports, “hundreds” of copies of the April 21 edition of the Ithacan, the official student newspaper of Ithaca College, were stolen and thrown out that evening.One of the thieves was later identified, reports indicate. “She said she had been upset with the paper for …what she saw as the lack of coverage of the Erase the Hate rally,” the Ithacan editors reported. The “Erase the Hate” rally was a billed as a response to a series of “racial slurs” that were...

DUXBURY - The parent of a Duxbury Middle School student wants a book banned because he believes it teaches hatred toward Arabs. George Shamma filed a formal complaint about the use of ‘‘One More River'' by Lynne Reid Banks in his daughter's reading class after she came to him upset about passages that use expletives and slurs to describe Arabs. He wants it out of the seventh grade reading curriculum and said he may take legal action if it isn't. Use of the book is being reviewed, Superintendent of Schools Eileen Williams said. She said the book has been part...

LOS ANGELES(AP) - A group of Hispanic activist is promising to "punish" Governor Schwarzenegger for his veto of legislation that would have let illegal immigrants get drivers licenses.Leaders of Latino Movement USA held a rally today in Los Angeles. The group is soliciting the donation of movies the former actor starred in for a symbolic destruction in December.Last month, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have let up to two million immigrants drive legally.The legislation's supporters have vowed to go after the governor, whom they think caved in to public sentiment.Schwarzenegger has said the bill ignored his requirement of key...

Take a second to read through the astonishing postings (link below) on Borders unions website. As you will see... the attached postings are primarily from really annoyed liberals, and a couple of them refer to ongoing tactics to keep UNFIT FROM COMMAND away from the public. Here's one example: "We're 'finding' that most of the few copies we're getting are damaged and need to be sent back, so sad. Too bad, Bushies! Regnery needs to be more careful. I'm hearing from people at 2 other stores that this seems to be common.Why should we help destroy what's left of our...

<p>That's all there is right now...developing. This should be interesting.</p>

Unfit for bookstores The Kerry campaign calls on a conservative publisher to withdraw book after the Washington Post torpedoes the veracity of a Swift boat veteran. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - By Eric Boehlert Aug. 19, 2004 | The Kerry campaign has told Salon that the publisher of "Unfit for Command," the book that is at the center of the attack on Kerry's military record by the Swift Boat...

Town Refuses to Ask Citizens If Library Porn Should Be Filtered Out; Plan2Succeed.org Seeking Pro Bono Counsel. Something is wrong when a small group of people called a Library Board of Trustees determines that a public library must continue to allow access to pornography despite admittedly being outside the library's mission, the Township Committee claims it is powerless to stop the Board, and the citizens have no say.

Library books burned by court order NEW YORK, Sept. 28, 2003 (Friends of Cuban Libraries) - On April 5, after a one-day trial before the State Security Court in the city of Santiago, Cuban dissident Julio Valdés was convicted of conspiring with U.S. diplomats to commit "crimes against the national sovereignty and economy of Cuba" and sentenced to 20 years in prison. One of the accusations made against Julio Valdés was the founding of a "self-proclaimed Independent Library" to "ideologically subvert the reader with the clear purpose, by means of inducing confusion, to recruit persons for the counter-revolution..." After sentencing...