We here at MNP like to encourage reading [as you may have noticed, we’ve even got you reading right now]. Especially important though are the younger ninjas, what with TV and videogames sucking up all their attention. So, while maybe not really the illest of books [I’m a Tolkien fan myself], the Harry Potter series seems like a good thing. Kids put down the remote control and pick up a book, stretch the imagination a little…no harm done. That is, unless you’re from Georgia [aparently], where a mother from the suburbs of Atlanta is trying to get the books banned from the library/schools, as they encourage Wicca and evil, blah blah blah.

Luckily, the schoolboard feels this is extreme, and would force them to ban other books containing witches and magic, so its a no go.

But theres more. Earlier this year residents of the same town convinced the library board to do away with the $3,000 set aside for Spanish language books. Why, you ask? Well they felt that reading material shouldn’t be provided to people who might be illegal immigrants [because, if you didn’t know, all Spanish speakers are fence jumpers].

While this decision was reversed, I think it stands as proof that yokels shouldn’t be involved in politics, democracy or not.

Article from Sci-Fi Weekly [odd, I know]