Mississippi Leads the Nation Again -- Into The Dark Ages

Jon Stewart must be laughing all the way to the bank. When Trent Lott once promised that "Mississippi may not become first, but we will never be last again" as one of his campaign promises years ago, he must've meant that Mississippians wouldn't mind being the first to be called backwards-assed (when they really aren't, you know) and doesn't mind letting its librarians be the first to decide what books are appropriate for their patrons and which are not. According to this story from Yahoo! news, library officials in two Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart's best-selling book America (The Book) over a satire of the U.S. Supreme Court's justices wherein the justices are depicted butt-assed naked. The page facing it has cutouts of the justices' robes with a caption that asks us to "restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe."

In a move that is as shocking as it is unshocking, Robert Willits, director of the Jackson-George Regional Library System seems to find satire inappropriate material for the library system's readers in his eight libraries. "We're not an adult bookstore. Our entire collection is open to the public."

Okay, you got me there. You're right, your library system is not an adult bookstore. It's probably not even an adult library, and surely it wouldn't be for the children, would it? If it's not for adults or children, then it must be a success! Every attempt at keeping Mississipians reading on a level that keeps them ranked the fourth lowest educational system in the country must be pursued. We must stamp out education right where it starts -- in our public schools and libraries! Don't let them high yaller Yankees smarten up us stupid hickabees down here in the good 'ol south, no sir. Next thing you know, they'll have negroes eating in the same restaurants as us, sharing our toilets and public drinking fountains, chasing our white women and turning our good Christian men into homersexurals. We can't have none of that, now can we?

Before you church ladies get your quims all knotted into a virgin's noose, worried that someone in your house might purchase this vile inhuman left-wing God-hating propaganda machine, you can breathe easy knowing the book can't be purchased at your favorite Saturday night parking lot hangout either.

You know what I'm talking about. Don't front like you don't kick it at Wal-Mart on a Saturday night every now and again, Mavis.

Following in the footsteps of style mavens and trend-settters Wal-Mart, who banned the book from sale in its stores, Mississipians will now have to move somewhere that has libraries with an "adult reading" section, or they can just purchase the book from somewhere other than Wal-Mart if they want to read it. Just be careful when you're driving through counties that have signs that read "Local Jurisdiction" -- that means the sheriff is also the judge and the prosecutor. I wonder what kind of a sentence Possession of a Satire with Intent to Read gets you.

Don't be oppressed by the man. Click here to buy America (The Book)