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Mississippi libraries ban 'Daily Show' book

Objection to nude depictions of Supreme Court justices

GULFPORT, Mississippi (AP) -- Library officials in two southern Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart's best-selling "America (The Book)" over the satirical textbook's nude depictions of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.

"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 of eight libraries in Jackson and George counties.

"We're not an adult bookstore. Our entire collection is open to the entire public," Willits said. "If they had published the book without that one picture, that one page, we'd have the book."

Wal-Mart has declined to stock the book because of the page, which features the faces of the nine Supreme Court justices superimposed over naked bodies.

The facing page has cutouts of the justices' robes, complete with a caption asking readers to "restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe."

The book by Stewart and the writers of "The Daily Show," the Comedy Central fake-news program he hosts, was released in September. It has spent 15 weeks on The New York Times best seller list for hardcover nonfiction, and was named Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the industry trade magazine.

Former English teacher Tara Skelton of Ocean Springs said the libraries shouldn't decide what is in poor taste.

"It just really seemed kind of silly to me," she said. "I don't think the Supreme Court justices have filed any defamation of character or libel suits. It's humor."

Well, we are talking about Mississippi here. I don't think they ratified the 13th amendment until like 1994 or something.

edit: oops, actually I don't think Mississippi ever ratified it. Kentucky finally did in 1976. There ya go.

Y'know, I really get uncomfortable when Canadians sneer at Americans for being stupid. This odd national sense of superiority is based in the most fragile and ill-informed notions, and it suggests the same sort of ignorance that it attempts to demean.

But they do have casinos, by god.

These casinos also teamed up with Republicans and churches in a GOTV effort against the Alabama Lottery Referendum. They would have lost money, and Bama would've had that sin within its borders..a marriage made in heaven. No pun intended.

i didnt call anyone stupid, my statement was that stupidity was at work here. sometimes smart people do stupid things, and i think this qualifies. the justices havent raised any concerns about the pictures, and until they do, no one should have a problem with the pictures.

Nuderty is Nuderty...
I'm sure they wouldn't have admitten Bill O'Reilly's books if he had dropped trou...

well, you can probably chalk up a few hundred thousand more sales of this book now

"good to see AMERICAN STUPIDITY in action"

Not that I give a shit

i also said inaction as a reference to the book, but nobody seemed to pick up on that one. again, im not calling anyone stupid, i dont have any malicious intent here, im just saying that i dont think their concerns are warranted, leading to stupidity defined as people in power lacking intelligence or reason (from websters dictionary definition of stupid). im not trying to piss anyone off.