Index Texpurgatorius

Although the Christian state of Texas has been zealous in the crusade to keep young readers pure for Jesus, in the seventeen months before last December the realm of Ronald of the Saints banned more than three times as many books. Citzens of Montgomery County have descended to the challenge in a fashion well worthy of the Trumpster and his head-tribble, by classifying unwelcome facts as fiction. Penguin Random House has issued a series of books for young people, which treats of America's gruesome dealings with the lesser breeds under the provoking rubric Race to the Truth. A "citizens' review panel," which hardly sounds Stalinist at all, decided to bypass the judgement of pesky librarians, and to broaden the local censorshup régime from the sexually explicit to the historically subversive by designating one of the volumes as fiction rather than non-fiction. A petition to reverse the classification has collected thirty-four thousand signatures, the names of those soon to be unpersons doubtless predominating.