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The Land of the Free ... well, sort of

Now this may come a surprise to some, but today this column is going to be a bit biased.

I'll lay my cards on the table and state from the outset that I think JK Rowling's series of Harry Potter books is the best thing to happen to fiction in a very long time.

Okay, the writing isn't perfect - but it has got bazillions of youngsters spurning DVDs and computers and instead picking up the tales of young Harry Potter and his student wizard mates.

They are a tad spooky and raise the spectre of withcraft and black magic, but good triumphs in them and they are a bit of fun for those able to read.

And this, dear reader, is where the problem lies.

In Arkansas - that American state where accents cut like buzz-saws - a school district banned Harry Potter from their library shelves claiming he would turn kids to the dark side. Coming from a nation where school massacres occur more regularly than celebrity shoplifting it is a bit of a joke.

Only it is not ... as it is the right of every person in a democracy to read or hear whatever they want to - as long as that does not harm anyone else.

Fortunately a federal judge agreed entirely with the reasonings of your beloved columnist and, after a couple took up the legal cudgels on behalf of their daughter, threw the ban out of the window.

The parents said they didn't want their daughter - who wanted to read Harry Potter - to be branded something nasty just because she read the "evil" HP books banned by the overly self-righteous.

Our precious freedoms need to be defended - whether from nasty dictators or jumped-up holier-than-thous - and it is the duty of all to ensure that the fragile bloom of free thought is not hijacked by anyone.

Grumpy Old Coot has a warped view of life, check him out

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com