Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 11:27:15 -0400
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Anti-Potterism
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Strong, Lee wrote:
> 	An amusing interpretation of Oz, but I doubt that it's really what
> the Royal Historian intended.
> 	Getting back to my original question, it appears that Harry Potter
> is objectionable and the Wizard of Oz was perviously objectonable, but
> Tolkien and the Hobbits, Earthsea, Conan, Frfhed and the Grey Mouser and
> other fantasies are not objectionable.  I have a theory as to why, but I'd
> like to hear from others before going further.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Walsh [mailto:MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu]
> Sent: Friday, April 18, 2003 9:45 AM
> To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
> Subject: [WSFA] Re: Anti-Potterism
>
>>StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL 04/18/03 09:38AM
>>	Thank you.  What about _The Wizard of Oz_?  Anything on that
>>front?
>
> Nope; the furor of bimetallism has died down.
> See: http://www.ryerson.ca/~lovewell/oz.html
>
> mjw

There's lots of info on banned books online;
<http://www.mountainsplains.org/censorship.html> has a list of
censorious activities.  I don't know how they rank things; Harry Potter
is  #27 on their list.  Tolkien is at #34.  Lotsa Potter problems; LoTR
was burned by Christ Community Church in Alamagordo, who also doesn't
like HP.  Both are "Satanic".

My favorite reason given for banning books:  Anaheim, CA banned several
books from junior high libraries: "Some school officials said the book
was too difficult for middle school students and could cause harassment
against students seen with it."  Thinks I, this is a school district
with some pretty serious problems ....

Most ominous: "10. Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-68,
Volume XXVI, Indonesia, Malaysia-Singapore, Philippines, Edward C.
Keefer, U.S. State Department: Banned and recalled from hundreds of
libraries in the U.S. and abroad by the U.S. government because it
details the U.S. role in Indonesia’s deadly purge of communists in the
1960s."

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."