Suburban LA County Pulls Manga Text from Libraries ('Obscene Comics')

[PatGund]

Technically, it's San Bernardino County that pulled this book from the shelves....

http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/8510.html

"Bill Postmus, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of suburban San Bernadino County, California, has ordered the county's libraries to remove the scholarly text Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics from circulation. He proudly announced the move, calling the book "obscene comics," on the county's Website, saying, "That book is absolutely inappropriate for a public library and as soon as I was made aware of it yesterday, I ordered it to be removed immediately."

The flap started in Victorville, after a 16-year-old checked the book out of the adult section of the library. The teen's mother "was horrified," according to a story in the local Desert Dispatch, and wrote a letter to the library asking that the book be removed.

County Library Collection Development Coordinator Nannette Bricker-Barrett, in a proud moment for free speech, was quoted by the newspaper as noting that it was the parent's responsibility to determine what a minor checked out of the adult section. "It is the parents' responsibility since the library does not act as a parent. It is the library's responsibility to offer a broad spectrum of materials, not to exclude materials....Library policy affirms the American Library Association's Library Bill of rights, Freedom to Read, and Freedom to View statements." The county-wide system had 13 copies of the book in its collection."

PDF with the press release is here:

http://www.co.san-bernardino.ca.us/postmus/PressRelease...

And is is Supervisor Bill Postmus?? From his offical bio at http://www.co.san-bernardino.ca.us/postmus/bio.htm :

"Supervisor Postmus is Chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Party."

Which should come as no surprise to anyone here.......

[Orsino]

1. "...As soon as I was made aware of it..."

Meaning, "I couldn't be bothered even to look at it before ordering it censored."