No reading!

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

Needless to say, I'm always amused when religious fanatics get their dander up over some supposed slight, and The Golden Compass controversy is no exception.

It seems that Roman Catholic officials are

urging parents not to let children see [The Golden Compass, arguing that] it will encourage children to read the “His Dark Materials” trilogy of books by Philip Pullman.

The problem, as the authoritarians see it, isn't with the movie itself—after all, the movie has been expurgated to the point where its theme has nothing to do with the book. No, the problem is that inquisitive minds might want to know exactly what, for example, The Magisterium represents, and that can be found only if they read Pullman's opus.

Lest we forget, within the last two centuries it was against the law for slaves in the US to learn to read. The rationale was that they might become—horrors!—independent thinkers and realize that there was more to life than the commands being spouted by their masters. Some groups don't seem to have come very far from that benighted position.