The red Queen

Either there is a designated reader at Indigo Books and Music who browses the magazines to determine if they are running something not approved of (which seems ridiculously unlikely) or the chain reacts like city inspectors, on complaint from customers. Neither of which seems to be the mechanism Indigo used to decide to pull another magazine from the shelves. A smallish U.S. humanist magazine, Free Inquiry, has its current issue pulled from the shelf -- not the April issue (shown above) which did contain some of those dreaded Danish cartoons. Despite a sharply worded request for an explanation, Free Inquiry has received none so far.

There could be some sympathy for Indigo proprietor Heather Reisman. Clearly, she is afraid, of something. It's puzzling trying to understand how occasionally and somewhat arbitrarily yanking one out of 300 - 400 titles will make the fear go away. She can't possibly proclaim a firm 'policy' on what stays and what goes. This is a business that deals in products that inevitably contain controversial material, at least controversial to somebody. And magazine publishers have little or no choice but to continue trying to reach their readers through her dominant chain. But the way the whole thing is being handled simply makes Reisman and her chain look foolish.