The dictionary: the vilest and filthiest book of all! (Hey, it does contain “oral sex” … and “fisting” …)

I’ve been looking for this image for a while, actually. Fits so perfectly, it’s like it was intelligently designed!

It’s another example of schools’ “protect the children!” mentality taken to absurd heights. We’ve all heard about how they ban Harry Potter and everything but the most watered-down sexual education books; now, following a complaint from a particularly idiotic parent, they’ve decided to apply the dictionary’s definition of “censorship” to their schools by … censoring dictionaries.

You just can’t make this stuff up. The irony would crush Mount Everest.

After a parent complained about an elementary school student stumbling across "oral sex" in a classroom dictionary, Menifee Union School District officials decided to pull Merriam Webster's 10th edition from all school shelves earlier this week.

School officials will review the dictionary to decide if it should be permanently banned because of the "sexually graphic" entry, said district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus. The dictionaries were initially purchased a few years ago for fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms districtwide, according to a memo to the superintendent.

"It's just not age appropriate," said Cadmus, adding that this is the first time a book has been removed from classrooms throughout the district.

Guess what they’re doing now? They’re reading the dictionary. Not to learn anything; just to find any and all entries that aren’t “age appropriate”. There’s even talk about looking through every book in the district to make sure they’re … “age appropriate”.

Really, this is the sort of stuff you’d expect to read from the pages of The Onion. Not from people who are supposed to be sane and rational. This is beyond ridiculous; it’s just insane.

But, hey – after all, it’s probably best for kids to learn about those things in the playground, right?

Though, if anything, at least this now gives kids an excuse not to use the dictionary. (I know I would’ve loved one. Though, perhaps not this one.)

(via The Agitator)