Too much government, not enough common sense

Good morning bookies. Stand by for news and comment.

I have said repeatedly that this blog is apolitical, with the one exception being when politics intrudes on the book industry. So there will be some political commentary today, since the government has done that very thing. You have been warned.

*** And so it returns, with a vengeance, the lunacy of the government has now spread to the writers of parenting blogs. I don't usually link to blogs, but this one is linked to the AOL news page and so has influence. And I'm glad. At least one blogger in the non-book field has picked up on the incredible stupidity of this law. We have bureaucrats blaming our collectible kid books for lead poisoning and child endangerment and probably the UFO coverup conspiracies, but at least some people see the law for the idiocy that it is. I would assume that, if you're reading this blog, you didn't die from your old kid's books, you didn't get lead poisoning from reading them, but you were spared the political correctness that has diluted and largely destroyed the content of new kids' books. Since those don't tow the PC line, they must go. It's hard not to see that as the government's real intent, because it's stated intent is so asinine.

Have we really degenerated so far as a society that we are now destroying books because of some wretched overreaction to the fact that we buy too many children's toys from the Chinese, who don't care what's it their products as long as someone will buy them? Because that's what prompted this particular piece of bad legislation, the discovery that the Chinese make crappy products and that we buy them. But instead of urging people to actually buy American products, and requiring the Chinese to actually make good ones, we responded by destroying whole industries at a time when our economy is tanking because the bureaucrats don't know how to do anything else. Why not burn the books instead of throwing them into a landfill, where the horrible lead can leech into the groundwater? Because, heck, there's even a precedent for burning books. If it's good enough for the Nazis, shouldn't it be good enough for us?

But instead of punishing the dolts who write these ridiculous laws, we respond by voting more of them into office and giving them more control over our lives. You get the government you deserve, unfortunately. And now they are criminalizing books. It won't be long before they criminalize the content of those books.

At least one blogger sees through the government lunacy

*** I note with sadness the death of Irish writer Christopher Nolan at age 43. In 1988 he won the Whitbread Award for his novel Under the Eye of the Clock. A most notable achievement, to be certain, but even more so because Nolan was born with cerebral palsy due to a lack of oxygen during birth. He wrote by having a pointer attached to his head. The level of difficulty involved in daily living wiht such an affliction is beyond anything I can imagine, to produce novels under such circumstances is incredible, but to produce award-winning novels is surely a sign of genius.