Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 06, 2020

That sign dovetails nicely with what I feel about why books are banned-namely that they’re filled with new ideas and new ideas scare people.;D

Well THAT will scare away a lot of people. But they probably aren’t potential customers.

I would think a book store owner could come up with a more “literary” warning sign.

In the days when the sign would have just said “Welcome”, the content of the current sign would have been understood without saying. But that would have required thought… Sigh!

‘think before you speak. read before you think.’

fran lebowitz

A mind-numbing warning… or our times.

Just read Dave Rubin’s “Don’t Burn This Book” I recommend it for all followers of Non Sequitur.

Free thinking, thinking for one’s self. These are frightening concepts never mind skills.. Rare to find, too.

You think it’s bad there, you should see the radical free-for-all they’ve got going over at the public library.

Am reading “Get Well Soon” by Jennifer Wright. Very appropriate right now. . .interesting, scary, revolting. . .and humorous. Stay safe and well, everybody!

Waitaminnit! Is that an open bookstore?! OUTTA MY WAY!!! I’M COMING IN!!!

Too bad the ToxicTangerine can’t read. Or, is it that he willfully chooses not to read?

As a barely functioning dyslexic paranoiac, Buttercup can’t abide the written word, because, while he has his eyes on text, he can’t be watching the people around him.

As input requirements get larger and faster the filtering either diminishes or gets removed altogether. “Garbage In, Garbage out.” is still a thing. It’s just a big thing now.

A book store! How quaint. I remember seeing one when I was a child.

When sales tax was first introduced in Ontario, books were specifically exempted — the government of the day wanted people to read, learn, and think. That didn’t last long.

I always felt that an oppressive government (does anyone remember the other kind?) should subsidize television and tax books and newspapers into oblivion.

The Maga’s don’t complain that bookstores aren’t open.

“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“_Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear._"

[Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950]”― Harry S. Truman

I just wish I didn’t have to walk past the first table at the local (chain) store— the ‘best sellers’. Almost always it is full of right-wing biographies, autobiographies, right-wing books on politics and religion (Michelle’s book didn’t make it there). I find it hard to believe that those are all ‘best sellers’. Or, maybe the chain does the same thing that some radio shows used to do—play the ones they are paid to play.

MATA. Make America Think Again

I miss the day when there was a bookstore in my city. B&N closed at the end of last year because of leasing problems.

Browsing just isn’t the same online. Give me a big, big old store full of used books. I miss the surprise of the mis-shelved book, the experience of being sent deep into the wrong part of the store where there are unexpected, unrelated treasures. I miss the quiet young women in berets loitering mysteriously in the poetry section – deep in love with hundred-year-old poets. I miss the bookstore cat rubbing against you approvingly as you take books off the shelves. I miss touching the bindings of the classics, copies of which I already have at home. I miss the sneezing discovery when I open a book by a classical humorist and discover it is a first edition. Is the bookstore really gone along with buggy-whip and the hotel lobby ashtray?

This place wouldn’t last 5 minutes in Hong Kong, at the moment; they’re even taking books that are “Pro-democracy” (whatever that means) from public libraries, there.

Dumb people don’t read so the sign is not needed. Smart people like to learn more.

Liability issues. (Pun intended)

That certainly isn’t true today.Any book or speaker or blog that provokes thoughts is deemed “triggering” and “problematic” and then banned while the author and publisher are cancelled.But there was the time…