But first I want to talk about a very important issue and that issue is banning books. For those who aren't aware of the political landscape we're in (I completely understand the urge to hide your head in the sand and wait for the storm to blow over...things have just been so grim as of late), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been getting some press lately for his policy which bans books he or some Orwellian council deems of being dangerous. Speaking of that word Orwellian and from whom it's derived: two of the most oppressive regimes in the world are that of Russia and China. Yet, their governments have not yet banned the novel 1984 by George Orwell. Here in the United States, several states, including Florida, have banned the book from their school libraries. I don't know about you all but I was taught that novel in high school English. It's a fantastic and profound novel--a horrific tale that is inching closer to be something beyond the realms of science fiction, sadly.
Banning books in school libraries is a violation of many rights supposedly guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution. The most obvious of these is that banning books promotes censorship, which flies directly in the face of the First Amendment. But it also takes freedom away from children who should, as U. S. citizens, be allowed to consume whatever media they see fit. This whole fiasco reminds me of the Comic Code Authority mess back in the 1950s, specifically the testimony of William Gaines. I love the show Tales from the Crypt. I have all seven seasons on DVD and I even own the spinoff movies and the cartoon show. One of my favorite things to watch, though, is on a bonus disc collected within the show's first season box set. The DVD contains a documentary that tells the story of how the little engine that could, E. C. Comics came to be and their struggles with censorship. In the documentary there is archived footage of Bill Gaines passionately testifying against the Comics Code Authority before Congress and their absurd rules which were designed unapologetically to put E. C. Comics out of business. In the documentary, Gaines says, "Do we forget that our children are citizens too?"
Yes, we, as a society, do sometimes forget that...or willfully ignore it as fact. That's what the whole videogame ban proposal is about. And while I'm not the biggest advocate for videogames (I'd prefer kids read books!) I certainly don't want to ban them because I'm not a dick-bag asshole who thinks I can impose my will onto others. What are you doing when you ban something like a videogame or a book? You're taking away someone's rights. That's the down and dirty truth on the matter which is, by its very concept, anti-American. Now, DeSantis and his sycophants will usually defend the policy by saying "these books are contributing to juvenile delinquency or mass shootings" or something to that effect. It's a song and dance as old as time. When Fredric Wertham's bullshit book (which I don't want to ban, by the way) Seduction of the Innocent was published, it argued many of the same points we're hearing today. History doesn't shine a positive light on Wertham these days. As John Carpenter said in the Tales documentary, "Comic books turned me into a movie director. I didn't become a juvenile delinquent. Fredric Wertham was dead wrong".
The point I'm making is that while there are a few rogue examples of media influencing kids to do deplorable and maybe even obscene acts, there are also plenty of others on which it had no such effect. I read It by Stephen King when I was eleven or twelve years old. It has got some nasty scenes in it and one very questionable scene and you know how I turned out? All right! I didn't become a juvenile delinquent. I didn't shoot up a bunch of schools. You know what I did? I became a writer. Me and so many others. Tell me, what's the harm in that?
Really, what they're afraid of is that if you read more and you flex those critical thinking muscles in your brain that the internet, TV, and various social media apps want you to forget about, you might find out that they, our politicians and the corporations that own them, are the real problem here. Not books. Not movies. Not videogames. Not even Tik Tok. It's them, the ones who think that just because they have a little bit of power, they can control your life and everything you do. The beauty in this very grim reality is that with most of them, you can easily vote their asses out of office and I employ all the registered voters in Florida as well as any of the other red states banning books to please do so. As a writer, there's nothing I hate more than this crackdown on the arts.
When I finish Whisperwood and this other book, my intention is to focus on short stories until the fall. Then, I'll start my next novel project which will likely be the second Trevor Graves book. Other than all of that, I'm still plugging away as a writer for DDF covering races nearly every weekend. I hope some of you have read that content and enjoy it!
That does it for this rather lengthy edition of From the Desk. I would promise that it won't be as long between this post and my next, but I've made (and broken) that promise before. So, I'll just leave you with this: farewell and read some books they are afraid might corrupt you. I'll drop a line here again soon(ish).