“Unwanted books go up in flames“
Can we have a little chat about protests, here?
Protests are supposed to draw attention to an issue of relative importance–animal abuse, ignorance, illiteracy, etc.–without exacerbating that problem. Additionally, a protest should draw attention to the issue, not only the protest.
The Corgi-eating incident isn’t making the mistreatment of foxes in fox hunts in the UK worse, but, based on this article, I don’t exactly see the connection between, um, eating a dog and getting Prince Philip in trouble for the fox hunt. I don’t especially care about this issue, but this protest fails because the protest itself is contentious and doesn’t do anything to help the real problem: that this fox, according to Mark McGowan, shouldn’t have been killed.
But this book-burning incident, this one gets my goat. I have a billion books around my place–that’s after packing five boxes’ worth in preparation for moving this weekend–and I acquired most of them by way of used book sales put on by the library or local book stores. Having taught Language Arts (writing, literature, reading, more writing) in public schools, at a college, and at Education Corporation, Inc., I’m also quite aware of the overarching disinterest in books young people (and not-so-young people) seem to have right now. Despite seeing and experiencing this (admittedly disheartening) trend away from reading printed text, I am not burning my books in my parking lot and ranting about how the young people aren’t reading anymore.
This may be difficult to understand, but let’s trudge through it anyway: burning books keeps those books from being read ever again.
Tom Wayne’s attempt to save the literate world fails both criteria for a proper protest: his book-burning binge is not only a bigger attention-draw than the problem is, but he’s also making the problem worse. He is an idiot.
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LONDON – A British artist has eaten chunks of a Corgi dog, the breed favored by Queen Elizabeth II, live on radio to protest against the royal family’s treatment of animals.
Mark McGowan, 37, said he ate “about three bites” of the dog meat, cooked with apples, onions and seasoning, to highlight what he called Prince Philip’s mistreatment of a fox during a hunt by the Queen’s husband in January.
“It was pretty disgusting,” McGowan said of the meal, which he ate while appearing on a London radio station on Tuesday. Yoko Ono, another guest on the show, also tried the meat.
“I’ve never tasted anything like it — it was grey and had a very funny smell. It was horrible,” McGowan told Reuters.
Queen favors Corgis
McGowan said he was angry that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of which the royal family is a patron, had not prosecuted Prince Philip for hunting and killing the fox. The RSPCA said the fox did not suffer.Corgis are the favored dogs of the queen, who has owned more than 30 of them during her reign.
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“Unwanted books go up in flames“
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) — Tom Wayne amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero’s Books.
His collection ranges from best sellers like Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October” and Tom Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities,” to obscure titles like a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910. But wanting to thin out his collection, he found he couldn’t even give away books to libraries or thrift shops, which said they were full.
So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books protest what he sees as society’s diminishing support for the printed word.
“This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today,” Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books.
The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn’t have a permit to burn them.
Wayne said next time he will get a permit. He said he envisions monthly bonfires until his supply — estimated at 20,000 books — is exhausted.
“After slogging through the tens of thousands of books we’ve slogged through and to accumulate that many and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it’s just kind of a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “And it’s a good excuse for fun.”
Wayne said he has seen fewer customers in recent years as people more often get their information from television or the Internet. He pointed to a 2002 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, that found that less than half of adult respondents reported reading for pleasure, down from almost 57 percent in 1982.
Kansas City has seen the number of used bookstores decline in recent years and there are few independent bookstores left in town, said Will Leathem, a co-owner of Prospero’s Books.
“There are segments of this city where you go to an estate sale and find five TVs and three books,” Leathem said.
Dozens of customers took advantage of the Sunday’s book-burning, searching through those waiting to go into the fire for last-minute bargains.
Mike Bechtel paid $10 for a stack of books, including an antique collection of children’s literature, which he said he’d save for his 4-year-old son.
“I think given the fact it is a protest of people not reading books, it’s the best way to do it,” Bechtel said. “(Wayne has) made the point that not reading a book is as good as burning it.”
