Draw me a war

The item that ticked me off has been floating around the blogosphere for a quite a while already (I picked it up @ Daring Fireball), but it is still bothering me. Badly.

The question I would like to address is : "Have they gone completely bonkers!?!?". They referring to the citizens of that greatest nation on earth .

Of course, Texas may be an isolated hotbed of silliness, but I doubt it. You see, they have tried to forbid Fahrenheit 451 as appropriate reading material for high school students. All because of a complaint by someone that hasn't even (he admits) read the book. The irony is goddamn' beautiful.

Now, that very irony has been discussed in several places and the idiocy been exposed in most eloquent ways. What bothered me even more was the snippet halfway through (sorry, the original content is no longer available for free, but the google cache is still available) when other banned books were discussed. One of them being:

"NCISD banned "Draw Me a Star" by Eric Carle and "Absolute Power" by David Baldacci, but it has not received a book challenge in three years, Cindee Reynolds, NCISD superintendent/community relations executive assistant, stated in an e-mail to The Courier."

Let me show you this evil book:



I must be a horrible parent, I have read that very book to my children several times. And I cannot think of a single reason why it should be forbidden. Nor can understand that this was not front page news - I guess you get used to stuff like this when you live in the States. Go get it at a local library (a become a patron while you're at it!) - it has been translated into a number of languages. Then, join me in my passionate plea to the NCIS:

STOP IT, YOU SILLY BUGGERS !