Keeping Readers Safe From Toland Polk


	*Been wishing you had a handy list of every dirty word and naughty drawing in Stuck Rubber Baby?* Are you frustrated that there aren’t enough minutes in the day to compile such a list yourself? Well, I’m happy to report that the heavy lifting has already been done by the industrious worker bees of the Library Patrons of Texas Inc., a non-profit agency dedicated to keeping their fellow citizens apprised of what’s on the library shelves of Montgomery County, Texas. The results of the LPT’s research on my book can be found online here.

My pal John Gillick clued me in yesterday to the aforementioned list of dubious passages to be found in my graphic novel. Not that the LPT is itself condemning anything I’ve done. In the fair and balanced spirit made famous by the Fox News Network, the FPT’s attitude is: We Report. You Decide.
	Naturally I love knowing that folks in Texas are giving my work such a close read, but I do have one complaint about the LPT’s mode of presentation. Those little black boxes they use on their web site to obscure examples of my novel’s dirtiness aren’t attractive in the least. Give me interesting polygons, please. Or maybe decorative pasties with tassels. Alright, that might be going overboard. I myself opted for an understated fig leaf in my own rendition of the very same panel, seen below as it appears in a special revised edition of SRB that I’ve whipped up expressly for residents of Montgomery County.
		Why a special edition of a book that’s been published in five countries and won literary awards in four of them? Because I love my readers and never want any of them to feel uncomfortable. Hence the many days and nights I’ve spent chipping away at any parts of my brainchild that might cause distress to the LPT’s constituency.
	That’s not a plea for gratitude. I’m delighted to go the extra mile in an effort to avoid running roughshod over the delicate sensibilies that Texans are famous for. Below: *A second excerpt from Stuck Rubber Baby: The Montgomery County Edition, available soon at Christian bookstores everywhere.*

	And don’t lump the LPT in with the narrow-minded book-burners of the world. According to its mission statement, the LPT emphasizes with dramatic capitalization that it DOES NOT advocate censorship "as traditionally defined." What the LPT does advocate is "local control of taxpayer-funded libraries and responsible age-appropriate selection, classification and access policies sensitive to local community standards and values." Who could argue with that? I’m sure that local gay people, sexually comfortable heterosexuals, and fans of literature that questions the received wisdom of majority culture were among those polled by the LPT to determine exactly what the community standards and values being applied might be. And the powerful Fig-Leaf Lobby must surely have been consulted as well.