I'm with you, Justine. To anyone who "gets" Mark Twain, his point is pretty clear: that his (and our) countrymen will readily give up their freedom of speech and conscience rather than risk making themselves unpopular. After seeing your note, I somewhat masochistically hunted up this piece of drivel. The article, "The Library Bill of Rights -- A Critique," was written by a Wisconsin law professor, supposedly at the "request" of someone at the university's library school, and published in the Summer, 1996 issue of Library Trends. You can find it online at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1387/is_n1_v45/ai_18616657/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1, if you have the stomach for such things. Apparently the professor finds the thing pretty distasteful. It selfishly "embodies the interests of librarians in resisting outside interference with their work," he says; also, it "would generate criticism because no one unqualifiedly supports the First Amendment as the Supreme Court interprets it" -- a notion that I think might startle quite a few members of this forum. Finally, after 15 footnote-packed pages, this humorless imbecile misquotes Mark Twain (it's "those three unspeakably precious things," not "unspeakable") to support his general conclusion, which apparently is that "self-restraint . . . forbearance, self discipline, and good manners" trump free speech every time. It's a shame we can't hear what Twain would have to say about that, but it would have been pretty withering, don't you think? Pete Salwen