The author is a bibliophile who loves to wax poetic about books, so what better way to do so than to talk about Banned Books Week?
Banned Books Week was first started in 1982 to combat censorship and promote the freedom of ideas, specifically in the literary community. For 2018, Banned Books Week takes place right now, from September 23 to 29. The titles of frequently challenged books are compiled into an online list by the ALA annually, and include titles such as Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and a new edition from 2017 – Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give. Reasons can range from drug use to profanity to the mere mention of sex. Any mention of sexuality seems to draw the ire of conservatives who believe that literature should be scrubbed clean of such “indecency.”
I wonder if they’ve ever picked up a biology textbook and turned to a chapter titled “Sex and Reproduction.”
Unfortunately, America is not alone, as there are more countries that like to subject their citizens to unwarranted censorship. Ireland is no stranger when it comes to banning media it deems improper. In the article “‘Smut for the English’: An Age of Censorship,” Prosecuted Irish authors recount the years when “birth control” and “condom” couldn’t be featured in any books or newspapers, and when a Catholic Truth Society policed the country with an iron fist, spreading propaganda that labeled television a tool of “the Antichrist.” Frank O’Connor describes one such instance:
“One day during my time as a librarian, a young man complained about an indecent book. I asked what was indecent about it? He said there was a dirty word in it, on page 164. Obviously page 164 had printed itself indelibly on his brain. I read the page and asked ‘Which word?’ He said ‘That word’ and pointed to the word ‘navel’.
State censorship in Ireland led to self-censorship, as newspapers refused to print articles with words such as “tampon,” as Catholic bishops felt that tampons could “harmfully stimulate young girls at an impressionable age.”
For the Irish, Banned Books Week only serves as a reminder of how recent this censorship was – in the 60s and 70s – and how censorship continues to impact them today. Religion still continues to influence governmental policy, as any media advocating abortion is immediately banned.
Fahrenheit 451 came out as a movie this year. Coincidence? I think not.
-Raisa Alexis Santos
A Curious Fascination with Scammers
This summer many of us devoured the Cut profile on Anna Delvey, the fraudulent New York City socialite and rumored “German heiress” who swindled friends, hotels, and investors of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The tale of her glamorous lifestyle (comprised of Le Coucou dinners and Moroccan vacations) and subsequent arrest is in one word—thrilling. If you haven’t seen the article, do yourself a favor and read it here.
Reading about Anna Delvey was a beautiful thing, so much so that now I regularly seek out scammer stories just to feel that same fascination. I included some recent ones below:
1. The Hollywood Reporter published an excerpt from Billion Dollar Whale—new book detailing how one man used billions in government funds for Malaysian infrastructure projects to bankroll his way into Leonardo DiCaprio’s inner circle.
2. A retired NYC detective used his familiarity with criminal activities and police investigation to run a multibillion-dollar prostitution ring that went undiscovered for ten years.
3. The FBI and NYPD are investigating a con artist who impersonates female entertainment industry executives, offering industry workers fictitious jobs and deceiving them into paying travel costs that amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen money.
Here’s to all scammer stories turned future Netflix series.
-MC
The Junction Journal 