Wednesday, January 12, 2005

This is from Peter David's website. Makes my blood boil. Soliders are dying in an unjust war in the Middle East and we've got idiots like this here at home deciding what's right for the rest of us. Mr. Willits, apparently, misses the concept of a public library.


GULFPORT, Miss. - Library officials in two southern Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart's best-selling "America (The Book)" over the satirical textbook's nude depictions of the nine U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) justices.

"I've been a librarian for 40 years and this is the only book I've objected to so strongly that I wouldn't allow it to circulate," said Robert Willits, director of the Jackson-George Regional Library System of eight libraries in Jackson and George counties.

"We're not an adult bookstore. Our entire collection is open to the entire public," Willits said. "If they had published the book without that one picture, that one page, we'd have the book."

Wal-Mart has declined to stock the book because of the page, which features the faces of the nine Supreme Court justices superimposed over naked bodies. The facing page has cutouts of the justices' robes, complete with a caption asking readers to "restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe."

1 comment:

Bismo said...

You'll be happy to hear that yesterday Mississippi reversed this decision, based in large part on criticism both locally and from around the nation once this story became public. So a naked Supreme Court will apparently be found on MS library shelves after all.

I bought this book for the missus for Christmas, and though I haven't had a chance to read it yet myself (though I can't wait to as I'm also a big "Daily Show" fan!), she says it's hysterical.