Ban this column

I hope y’all enjoyed Banned Books Week. I know I did. I read some banned books! The Kremlin in Moscow. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, File) Texas and Florida, as usual, slur the nation, having issued more than 11,000 book bans so far between them. What a bunch of cowards . You’d think them rough, tough, gun totin’ cowboys in Texas could stand a little Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood or John Irving on library shelves. But you’d be wrong, partner. I lived in Texas for years and actually edited a newspaper there, so I know something about the place. Now, many Texans may not know this, but no one can make you, or anyone else, read a book . If y’all don’t want to read a book, all you gotta do is not read it . And if your precious child should happen to pick up a dangerous book (whatever that is) it won’t explode in her hand, or accidently shoot someone. You’re thinking of a gun, there, partner. And you wouldn’t want to keep a child from toting a gun, would you? Hell, no. OK, enough making fun of Texas. Florida actually banned more books than Texas in years past . So why ain’t I making fun of Florida? Well, I would, but them old folks might not could stand it. Now I’ma tell you about a banned book I read this week: “This is Moscow Speaking,” by Yuri Daniel, who wrote it in 1963. He couldn’t get it published in the Soviet Union, so he got it published in Europe, and that got him five years of hard labor. In the title story, the Kremlin announces that Sunday, Aug. 20, will be Public Murder Day, during which anyone can kill someone, so long as they don’t kill a cop or a bus driver or a child. (Because, the way I figger it, a child might not of been able to buy his own gun yet.) In the rest of this killer 50-page story, our Russian heroes try to figure out what they will do that day. And what the hell the Kremlin wants them to do. And that they better not make a mistake. So maybe better to do nothing. Some of course say that the Jews were involved: Either the Jews made the Kremlin do it, or the Kremlin wants us to kill the Jews. And when longtime friends get together to try to figure it out, and someone asks, “Who are ‘they,’ anyway?” everyone shuts up. Because Public Murder Day is coming, and no one knows who they are, and whether their husband or wife might be one of them. Here’s where Yuri Daniel had some fun with the story, before they sent him to the Gulag. He wrote: “the State has the right to carry out a wide-scale experiment, it has the right to hand over some of its functions to the people!” That’s right! Let the people kill the State’s enemies. And their own. Save the State the trouble. Of course, you can’t stage a National Celebration without publicity, so the State plasters posters all over the place and on airwaves, announcing Public Murder Day — just a Public Service Announcement — so no one will be left out ! As Public Murder Day approached, tubas and trombones marched down Main Street, reminding us that on this, of all days, we must not remain “disgustingly neutral.” Many people took the Public Murder Decree, which merely granted Permission, as a Directive: You have to find someone to kill. So on Public Murder Day, most everyone stayed home. The streets were empty. Things returned to normal on Monday, And on the other 364 days of the year, we’re not allowed to kill. Only ICE can do that. Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.