Banning Bapsi, Prosecuting Pamuk

Vikki Reed, mother of a student at DeLand High School, came across Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India (a.k.a. Ice Candy Man) on the school's reading list -- and wants to ban it.

According to The Orlando Sentinel: "At issue is a two-page scene that describes Lenny's rebuffing of an older cousin's sexual proposition. The passage references oral sex." Reed says: "I think that anything this sexually explicit should not be mandatory and should not be handed out to our kids."

The report continues: "Author Sidhwa...said the controversial passage is 'just high jinks'...The encounter in her book is intended to be 'very innocent' and not 'obscene or pornographic at all.' "

Significantly, another report states: "Reed, who has not yet read the entire book, said she has been researching reviews of it on the Internet to prepare for today's meeting [with the school committee]." (emphasis mine.)

(Link via Maud Newton.)

Meanwhile, Turkey continues to provoke the EU with its ongoing prosecution of author Orhan Pamuk "on grounds of insulting the Turkish state."

Memo to illiterates and rabid nationalists: Why don't you take your paws off books and go play with yourselves instead?