Oh, Texas. Wasn't it there that recently the Merriam-Webster Dictionary was banned from some classrooms because the definition of "oral sex" was too racy?
Now, I'm listening to As It Happens and catch an interview with a reporter from the American Statesman who wrote a great article on which books are banned from Texas jails. No Freakonomics (they use a racial epithet in a piece on infiltrating a KKK group) and no Introduction to Physics (the inmate might turn into a mad scientist and blow the place up, MacGyver-style). And no Grisham depicting crimes of any type, no Auto Repair for Dummies, and no National Geographic "Visual History of the World" (because it contains a picture of a naked girl. The one running away from the napalm attack in Vietnam.) Oh, yeah, and no Lovely Bones either.
But - boggle - The Hitler We Loved and Why, published by White Power Publications, is apparently okay.
What astonished me was the comments that the reporter said had been cropping up on his article, suggesting that when you're not in prison, you can read whatever you want, so obviously the lesson here is: don't go to prison, and you can read Pablo Neruda all you want.
Do I even need to go into the reasons I think this is appalling?
