Gather round shipmates; your humble narrator needs to unburden his soul. You see, I’ve barely been hard at my duties for a whole month and already I face an ethical dilemma. No, it’s not whether I should push that really annoying guest over the railing*; rather, I have been censuring books. That’s right, the Dread Pirate Dewey, bleeding-heart liberal champion of free speech and equity, has been imposing his set of beliefs—albeit, superior beliefs based on reasoning clearly beyond most conservative “thinkers”—on the patrons of the Pequod’s fair library! Oh the shame! But before you judge too harshly, hear my tale of all-too-human failing and weep with me for the sake of my proud integrity!
It began, oh so innocently, with a copy of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue. Now, we all know that Palin is little more than a small-minded bigot grasping at opportunity like the patrons of my library digging through the free book bin**. She has little of value to add to any conversation and without Faux news, she would have no chance to prove this. As I said, every adult citizen of any intelligence whatsoever is aware of these basic facts, and yet…we have a copy of not only Going Rogue, but some other drivel to which she put her name. Simply bizarre. So it goes without saying that I suffered almost physical pain every time I put her books out on the shelf; this meant that not only had someone actually deigned to check this rubbish out, but now another person could follow suit! Oh the pain! Thus, when I picked this steaming pile of garbage out of the return bin one day and found it to be slightly damaged, my heart went all aflutter! Aboard the Pequod, when books are not in perfect shape, we remove them from the system—our mariners expect the five-star experience after all. But was Going Rogue damaged enough? Well, an oh-so-gentle nudge along the disintegrating spine closed that issue. And thus began my slide into censorship.
Since then, a guest left a nearly-new copy of one of Glenn Beck’s books in the free bin. I generally take new, hard-cover, books in mint condition—such as the Beck in question—and enter them into the system. However, I took this particular book straight to the hellish fires of the incinerator! This has all been passive censorship thus far; I haven’t actually removed a perfectly sound book from our system. Yes, I helped some along, and refused entry to others, but I think this is different from active censorship. And this leads me to describe my currant dilemma. You see, I have a book by Dick Cheney that was returned several days ago, and I simply cannot bring myself to reshelf it; in fact, many have the nights been when my mind is tormented by thoughts of sending Cheney’s undoubtedly evil text to meet it fiery fate in the bowels of the ship! That’s right mates—I stand before you tempted to commit the crime of bibliocide!
If this were simply a single “slip of the Dick” and a means of sending self-serving tripe back to it’s Tartarean origins, I would be less perturbed. But where, I ask of you, does it end? Do Newt Gingrich’s novels follow?*** And then? Tom Clancy? His work is almost equally insipid. And from there, what? An aesthetic cleansing? Oh superior intellect, education, and literary taste! Why do you taunt me so when my duties require that I serve the great unwashed masses and their penchant for textual pablum!
*Obviously I should push her over. She’s probably the next Hitler.
**Imagine a group of elderly pigs rooting around in the garbage can that holds the night’s remnants from the “nacho bar”—about 30 pounds of chili, salsa, and “cheese.”
***Although we seem to have about 300 of them, so it might clog the incinerator.
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