Picking this week’s Stupid Thing of the Week was a toughie, what with the anti-ACORN undercover pimp guy being arrested for messing with a U.S. Senator’s phone system being in the running. Finally, though, we went with the school district in Menifee, Calif., which may go down as the most idiotic, not to mention counterproductive, book banners ever. The district decided to ban … ready? … the Merriam-Webster dictionary. That’s right; they decided they didn’t want a book in their school libraries that, no matter how educational, also contained the words “oral sex.” And if that isn’t enough stupidity, the district has now formed a committee “to review whether dictionaries containing the definitions for sexual terms should be permanently banned.” And I guess you don’t wanna get them started looking up words like titular, asinine, cocky, and so forth, either. God help us all.
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 1, 2010.
