BTW News Briefs

ABFFE Chooses You Have No Rights as Book of the Month

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression recently named its Book of the Month for December: You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression by Matthew Rothschild (New Press).

In announcing the selection, ABFFE noted: "In the few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine, was giving a talk when he was asked what he knew about the case of Todd Persche, a freelance cartoonist who had just lost his job with a weekly newspaper for drawing cartoons critical of the Bush administration. He didn't know anything about it, but he soon found out and added a new feature to the magazine website to track the growing number of violations of civil liberties.... You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression contains a selection of the dozens of stories that he has documented in his column, 'McCarthyism Watch.' You Have No Rights reveals a distressing number of cases in which the right to protest has been violated since 2001."

Finan Blog Discusses High School Book Ban

Last week, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) condemned Westhampton Beach (New York) High School's decision to remove The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult and Cradle and All by James Patterson from the ninth grade optional reading list. The books were banned because some parents had objected to the inclusion of the books because of their sexual content.

This week, ABFFE President Chris Finan, author of From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America (Beacon Press), further discussed the book banning in his December 10 blog posting, "Only the Battle, Not the War." He wrote: "This fight was not about parental rights. It trampled the rights of the parents who wanted their kids to be able to use these books. No, this was your average power play by a group of conservative parents who want the school board to rein in the educators who put the books on the list."

NRF: Number of Holiday Returns Decreasing Due to Gift Card Popularity

The increasing popularity of gift cards is resulting in a decrease in the number of holiday gift returns, according to the National Retail Federation. NRF's Holiday Returns Survey found that 64.3 percent of consumers did not return anything last holiday season, up slightly from 62.4 percent in 2005.

In addition, the survey found that gift givers are continuing to increase their use of gift receipts, with 57.5 percent of shoppers reporting they plan to present holiday gifts with a gift receipt either most of the time or some of the time this year, compared to 56.9 percent from last year. And about returns policies, 87.3 percent of consumers polled said they believed retailers' policies are fair.