Heather picks on ‘Harper’s’ but stocks ‘Shock’

The current issue of Harper’s isn’t available at the World’s Biggest Bookstore – or any of the 260 outlets run by Heather Reisman – which prompted Toronto Star columnist Joe Fiorito to look elsewhere for a copy of Art Spiegelman’s critique of the Danish cartoons, only to draw the unnamed newsstand owner’s attention to something he scrambled to take off the racks, too. “If he were to screen his shelves, he would find no end of books and magazines offensive to women, harmful to children, and insulting to any race, creed, religion or political belief you can name,” writes Fiorito. “And if you can’t take the heat, or the heated words, then get the hell out of the bookstore. And if you can’t live with the freedoms guaranteed in a democracy, then you might want to consider living somewhere else.” The form letter drafted by Reisman in response to inquiries about her decision to lump this contextual reprint of the cartoons together with the Western Standard’s gratuitous gesture earlier this year has been reposted on a few sites: “We did not want to take what we felt was a serious risk on a company-wide basis,” wrote Reisman. “During working hours we are responsible for the safety of 7,500 people who work with us.” And while admitting “a great deal of the fervour has died down” the intent was to avoid further “incendiary incidents”. From the blog Covenant Zone: “If the Islamic imperialists demanded, for example, that we shut down the hog industry, or the academic study and criticism of Islam, do we do so to protect all the employees in those industries?” Boswarlos Daily blogger Barry Stagg remarks, “Offending the purveyors of scented candles and Britney Spears albums is apparently bad business for Harper’s” – then digs up something they published back in 1920, the apocalyptic poem “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost. And while the stateside Borders chain is carrying the issue of Harper’s, after keeping secular humanist mag Free Inquiry off their racks back in March for running an illustrated piece called Mutt, Jeff and Muhammad, yet another round of protest was fomenting around the debut issue of dude-skewed tabloid Shock, whose cover features an American soldier carrying a wounded Iraqi child – much to the chagrin of pro-military photographer Michael Yon, who claimed it was stolen from his website. That specific dispute has been settled, but at least Shock publishers Hachette Filipacchi know the quickest path to attention in the Canadian market is to publish something the CEO of Indigo thinks might cause her employees physical harm. Besides, the terrorists don’t stand a chance of winning when a bookstore chain is working overtime to pander to illiterates.