This fucking Monday we look at the etymology of the word “obscene” and then try to decide if a statue of an opne-shirted young woman taking a picture of herself with her cell phone qualifies. We look at Konrath’s response to the fake Amazon review “literary scandal” and do our best to celebrate banned book week!
In a great post about what qualifies (or in this case, quantifies) as porn, Thomist James Chastek talks about the etymology of obscenity. I promise that is the last of STA you will ever see here.
The art of sexting is being discussed in an entirely new way thanks to artist Yu Chang whose donated piece entitled “Accept or Reject” in an Overland Park arboretum has park-goers up in arms. Up enough to initiate a grand jury obscenity investigation. Is it the nipples or the cell phone that render it artistically meaningless?
Author Joe Konrath talkes about the ethics of posting fake Amazon reviews and the equally problematic issue of censoring them: “I believe being able to post anonymously, or to post reviews, is an extension of free speech. I may not like what some people say, but I feel the need to protect their right to say it.”
It’s Banned Books Week! These are the ten most contested books in 2011 of the 326 reported to the American Library Association:
- ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group - The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group - The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence - My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group - Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Reasons: nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint - Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit - What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit - Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
Reasons: drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit - To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Reasons: offensive language; racism
Get one of each for your kids today!
On that note…. enjoy your fucking Monday as much as you can.