2005-01-12

Southern Mississippi library system bans Jon Stewart's best-selling book

UPDATE: A library board reversed a ban on Stewart's best-selling satirical book. The Jackson-George Regional Library System board of trustees was criticized by local residents and in e-mails from out of state after it banned "America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction" last month. The trustees had said they objected to the image.


Jon Stewart: Snarky 'Journalist', Geek Heartthrob, Soccer Player

GULFPORT, Miss.AP - Library officials in two southern Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart's best-selling "America (The Book)."

Officials say they banned the satirical textbook in eight public libraries last month because they objected to an image of the faces of the U.S. Supreme Court justices superimposed on nine naked bodies.

"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.

"We're not an adult bookstore. Our entire collection is open to the entire public," he said. "We don't keep things behind a desk. We don't have hidden copies of Playboy that only a few customers can get access to. If they had published the book without that one picture, that one page, we'd have the book."

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