Book Ban

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: <EEkid () aol com>
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 16:05:14 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Book Ban

Mississippi libraries ban 'Daily Show' book
Objection to nude depictions of Supreme Court justices

Monday, January 10, 2005 Posted: 8:20 AM EST (1320 GMT)
 
The book written by "The Daily Show" team has spent 15 weeks on The New York
Times bestseller list.
   
GULFPORT, Mississippi (AP) -- 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
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."

The book by Stewart and the writers of "The Daily Show," the Comedy Central
fake-news program he hosts, was released in September. It has spent 15 weeks
on The New York Times best seller list for hardcover nonfiction, and was
named Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the industry trade magazine.

Former English teacher Tara Skelton of Ocean Springs said the libraries
shouldn't decide what is in poor taste.

"It just really seemed kind of silly to me," she said. "I don't think the
Supreme Court justices have filed any defamation of character or libel
suits. It's humor."




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