Since when did anatomy become a topic for debate? When did librarians become censors? I don’t remember a general election held giving a $35,000 a year employee the right to place their morals on the written word. If anything their position is to be neutral and make sure censorship isn’t happening. This country is still a Democracy not a Monarchy.

So a Newberry Award winning book is falling under fire for the word scrotum. Oh no! What will happen to the rest of civilization as we know it if a 9 to 12 year old reads about a snake bite on a dog’s nut sack? Will an adult have to explain the parts of the body to a child? It’s the least of your worries and at least they are reading.

Just be grateful the author is creating a setting that isn’t brandished with today’s urban vernacular. Would you rather them read: “That old dog Roy, tried teabaggin’ a rattler and got bit instead”?

I’m betting most of these kids have seen the movie Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Yeah it was rated PG 13 and it grossed $72,217,000 (USA) and continues to make $34,000,000 in rentals.

How did the parents explain Ace Ventura getting a blowjob in the opening scenes? I don’t remember one news story of a mass exodus from theaters worldwide or a cry to ban the movie from theaters. Nope, everyone munched their popcorn and laughed along.

Take a listen for a moment to the music your kids listen to and download. Once you get passed the screaming lyrics and rap crap, the last thing you should be worried about is a little scrotum.

But let it be the written word, and all of a sudden the Moral Minority rears its ugly head. What are you trying to protect children from? Wizardry in Harry Potter might lead to children worshiping the Devil if you follow these idiots reasoning. If you take offense to this than yes I am talking to you.

Where in the world did this fear come from? How about teaching your children that the world isn’t to be viewed through rose colored glasses, sometimes the glass isn’t half full, it’s just empty, and every living mammal out there in order to survive must reproduce, and someone has to have a scrotum. Why are you making more out of this then it is?

If you don’t believe me, Bible people, go back to Adam & Eve. Look what happened when an “apple” was made the “Forbidden Fruit”. Eve just couldn’t stay away and took a big old bite and that was our downfall. Humanity was banished from Paradise forever more to be ashamed of nudity.

Yes, once again, I kind of doubt that’s how it went down. But the point is, go ahead and ban the book from school shelves, and all you are going to accomplish is spiking the retail sales of the book, The Higher Power of Lucky. I checked out the premise of the book and it appears to me if anything, it should be praised by the Moralist out there, as Lucky eavesdrops on “anonymous” meetings searching for a “Higher Power” to figure out her life.

But since the word SCROTUM appears on page one, it’s another case of a book being judged by it’s almost cover. It truly isn’t meant to be a shocker. Think about how many times you are out in public and out of the mouth of babes, your kid embarrasses you in line at the supermarket. There you are and your little bundle of joy innocently comments on how big someone’s butt is standing in front of you, just loud enough for the other person to hear. You stammer out an apology, and your child gets a reaction, but does that make you a bad parent and Child Protective Services called in? Do you go to church on Sunday and have your child’s demon’s driven out? No, of course not, that would be overreacting to a situation. The only thing the writer is conveying is that kids hear things, ponder about the ones they don’t understand and repeat it.

I personally remember being about six or seven years old and asking my mother, “I heard you can prick your finger but you can’t finger your prick, is that true?” She didn’t rush me to a bar of soap, she simply said yes, and I let it go. Only later did I learn what a prick was a term for, and realized hey wait a minute..she lied. Hmmph. That would have been another word I could have added to Shitty Hour! If anyone knows my sister, ask her about it. Blame my mother for putting her three kids to bed at 7 pm each night. My sister and I shared a bed, and I would jump up and down, singing my theme song..Its Time For Shitty Hour..and then repeat every bad word or joke I knew, much to my sisters chagrin. Oddly I was never caught, or got in trouble. Always the entertainer….

When it comes to literature, especially this book, I foresee a greater debate. Once everyone gets past page one, and realizes that now a book is on the library shelves and its hinting of a 10 year old listening to a 12 Step Program, a number of which ascribe to a “Higher Power” to figure out her life, then you are going to have the Atheist storming the Supreme Court, because where is the separation of church and state in Public Schools?

The Christians are debating the wrong issue, but it’ll pick up if they don’t let this go now.

It happens. I used to live in West Chester, PA in fact I still consider it my home town. For over eighty years, the 10 Commandments were on a plaque posted near a side entrance of the courthouse. Then a member of “THE FREETHOUGHT SOCIETY” got offended- and this kills me… intimidated by its presence. Way I see it, your thinking isn’t to free if you get scared by words on a plaque. In an even odder twist, Sally Flynn who was oh so offended was a prior Sunday school teacher. Christians are funny, funny like a fucking clown.

The truth is they weren’t afraid of the words but the connotation that somehow their civil rights would be abused if they were dictated to by biblical words. People are afraid of change. Yet everyday of their life, those words sat on a plaque and life went on and nothing changed. That is, until they decided they were offended so someone else should be too. So they got the Civil Liberties Union involved, and for a while they got it covered, but in the end it was over turned and the plaque stayed.

So it goes the same with this children’s story. Your world isn’t going to change because the word scrotum appears on page one. It’s not the decline of life as we know it. Use the C word; Compromise. Let the book stay on the shelves, and kids can check it out and read it. Teacher’s shouldn’t read it aloud to the class, god knows some idiot out there will file a complaint that the teacher is sexually harassing children if they read the book to a class. That’s the other C word. Cash. Uh uh uh.. I know what you were thinking I was going to say.

But parents, if you raise a child, and they don’t know the parts of the body by the time they are of reading age, you aren’t doing your job. Don’t shoot the messenger or the message. Ask yourself what you are afraid of, face your fears and give your kids some coping skills. It’ll do them a world of good.

“Balls” said the Queen to the King, and the King laughed for he had two.