"AMERICA (THE BOOK)" BAN LIFTED IN LIBRARY

Being from Mississippi, my ears perked up while listening to NPR's news programme "All Things Considered" Monday afternoon when I heard a tease of a story from the Magnolia State.

It seems that the Jackson-George Regional Library System, which serves two southeast Mississippi counties near the Gulf Coast area, banned the best selling book "America (The Book)" by Jon Stewart, the comedian who hosts Comedy Central's "The Daily Show". The library's board of trustees were apparantly offended by one picture of nine naked Supreme Court justices, with robes on the opposite page where readers could place on the judges so that they could "regain their dignity".

The story, which was originally run in The Sun Herald newspaper out of Biloxi-Gulfport, was quickly picked up by the Associated Press and aired on CNN, and yesterday by NPR. The national publicity was apparantly a factor in the library trustees last night reversing their decision by a 5-2 vote.

By the way: George County, which includes Pascagoula, is home to Senator Trent Lott....coincidence?