Thanks, David.

1) I have a very big problem with yanking the book before the local review;
2) Even if the book somehow has some true medical mistakes, it is hard to imagine (given the credentials of the authors) that they would warrant banning it from the Library; which other books with errors in them should be banned?
3) You might be confusing having the power to remove a book under Supreme Court cases with whether removing them makes good policy or good sense. There are many rights or values that deserve to be honored even if there might be a legal basis for violating or infringing on them.
4) While I’m not one who believes “elite” is a four-letter word, I have often complained about those on both the left and the right trying to imposed their perspectives on the entire society.

This community is seeking input from members of its own community. But the community is ridiculed for doing so. Who needs Dr. Pribis when you can consult people from outside your community.

What’s most sad about this is the double standard that is so effective that it is not even noticed. For example, the deputy director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom wrote that libraries should not use movie ratings as guides since those ratings were made by people outside the community. Yet here, Galway is criticized for seeking input from the community and not blindly accepting the two outside doctors. What a double standard.

And Banned Books Week itself is “shameless propaganda,” according to some. http://tinyurl.com/sowell

Regarding the ALA’s policies on children being cited as if they those policies the law, the author fails to disclose the US Supreme Court said in US v. ALA, a case the ALA lost and lost big, “The interest in protecting young library users from material inappropriate for minors is legitimate, and even compelling, as all Members of the Court appear to agree.” Apparently, neither the ALA nor this blog author agrees.

So you got someone cleverly using a double standard, promoting propaganda, and espousing the application of ALA policy that is in apparent defiance of the law. All this from someone at blogs.law.harvard.edu. Harvard, no less.

“The … elites have convinced themselves that they are taking a stand against cultural tyranny. …. [T]he reality is that it is those who cry ‘Censorship!’ the loudest who are the ones trying to stifle speech and force their moral world-view on others.” By Dan Gerstein, an independent consultant, former communications director for Joe Lieberman and a senior strategist for his presidential campaign.