Off the shelf

Only the government can censor. It is not censorship to stop selling a certain item in your store, if it’s your store. When I hunt in vain for a copy of National Review on my local bookshop’s magazine racks, should I cry “censorship”? Does David Shaw believe all bookshops have a legal, or even ethical, obligation to stock magazines of every perceptible shade of political opinion? Magazines that share his opinions, maybe.

Wal-Mart has decided to bow to customer demand. If you really want a “lad” magazine, there are only about 14,700 other stores you can buy them at, not to mention subscriptions or the Internet. This is something to worry about?

Note to Shaw: You didn’t have to tell us that you never shop at Wal-Mart. We knew that anyway.

Alistair Latour

Santa Monica

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I am a visitor here from England and have long been concerned that the U.S. finds it just fine to depict war and violence but not love. There is obviously little market value in love.

Robert Benett Sanderson

Valencia