Irony Alert: Censor a Book About Censorship?

From the "you can't make this up" file, here's a story about some parents that want to ban a book about...censorship. Irony is lost on some people.

A Caney Creek High School dad is fired up because the Conroe Independent School District uses the book "Fahrenheit 451" as classroom reading material.Alton Verm, of Conroe, objects to the language and content in the book.

His 15-year-old daughter Diana, a CCHS sophomore, came to him Sept. 21 with her reservations about reading the book because of its language."The book had a bunch of very bad language in it," Diana Verm said. "It shouldn't be in there because it's offending people. ... If they can't find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn't have a book at all."

Alton Verm filed a "Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials" Thursday with the district regarding "Fahrenheit 451," written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1953. He wants the district to remove the book from the curriculum."

It's just all kinds of filth," said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read "Fahrenheit 451." "The words don't need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class."He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, "dirty talk," references to the Bible and using God's name in vain. He said the book's material goes against their religions beliefs.

The Verms go to Grand Parkway Church in Porter."We went them to go after God," said Glen Jalowy Jr., Grand Parkway Church youth minister. "We encourage them that what you put in your mind and heart is what comes out."Alton Verm said he doesn't understand how the district can punish students for using bad language, yet require them to read a book with bad language as part of a class.

I don't want to pile on, but whose idea was it to have the smiling student and the parent pose for a picture with the book they want to ban? That just seems weird.

Oh, and I appreciate the writer of the article pointing out (later on) that the request to ban this particular book came during Banned Books Week. The journalist was clearly aware of the irony!