Soiling O..J. Simpson's Dirty Book

Do you wonder about a hot news story after it has gone off the news radar? I do. I was curious to know what will happen to O.J Simpson 'Book of What Ifs'. If I Did It, was supposedly a description by O.J. of how things would have gone down in 1994 if he had killed his former wife and her friend Ronald Goldman. Since I am interested in publishing I know that all the hype surrounding his book probably meant that there were thousands of copies of his book already printed and waiting to bound out of warehouses as soon as enough of a frenzy was built up.

Well it turns out HarperCollins had printed some 400,000 copies of the book before Mr. Murdoch decided o kill the project. Now what do you do with all those books. You know they usually intone over your dead body ' Dust to dust. ashes to ashes'.In the end everything comes down to soil. So Harper Collins has by one estimate 200 tons of paper to get rid off.

Publishers normally,I found out go to professional shredding companies to get rid of books that no longer sell.Do you know that the association for these shredding companies actually call themselves the National Association for Information Destruction.

I wonder if George Bush knows about them. He could use them to dispose of any uncomfortable information in the run up to the Iraq war. Apparently, Random House recently purchased its own Bollegraaf system for shredding and baling at its own book-destruction facility in Indiana. After being professionally shredded the former books go to landfills. There it gracefully decomposes over years.

Walt Whitman, the great American poet, muses in "This Compost," :

Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and
123456patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such
123456corruptions …

Now Harper Collins,there's your idea. Out of your corruption to produce such a hideous book you can turn it into a sweet thing --lush, fragrant soil from compost. Here's a great way to save the earth and your tarnished reputation Harper Collins . Sell OJ compost!

There are probably at least 400,000 dedicated compost-makers among our 250 odd million Americans. Day after day, in good or bad weather these trusty folk leave their homes and throw kitchen and garden waste into a compost heap. They wait a few months before they harvest the matured rich, dark crumbly soil. Then they dutifully spread on their flower and vegetable beds.

My suggestion is that Harper Collins put out feelers to the nation's compost-makers and invite them to a national shred out of O.J's If I did It. Give out one copy apiece of If I Did It to individual organic gardeners . Get them to sign a pledge not to read the book or sell it on eBay. Or each person could collect a shredded copy and put it to work improving the nation's soil.