Welcome to Banned Books Week, if you haven't dropped by for awhile. I recommend the blog over at Book View Cafe -- we're talking about it a lot, because it's a big deal. Burning books starts things, but it never settles anything.

I put on my journalist cap a few weeks ago and researched an event in US history that startled me. Someone burned The Lord of the Rings.

Yes, the heroic, Christ-like Frodo and his companions have been not only banned -- for magic, for being irreligious, for...smoking? Yes, indeed. And even burned.

No one ever asked the people who burned The Lord of the Rings why they burned it. The answer is not what you think.