Throwing the book at 'em

National | As local prosecutors refuse to tackle "mainstream" kiddie porn, citizens across the country protest the retail peddlers | Jay Grelen

They circled at the front of the Barnes & Noble Booksellers, six or so of them standing before the cashiers and a manager, and as quietly and orderly as you can do such a thing, they tore the pages out of a brand-new photography book that none of them had paid for.

"People call it different things," says Todd Abell, one of the book rippers at the St. Louis protest. "I've said we ripped up a book. I prefer to say we removed pages from a book. We were measured and deliberate. We didn't want to look like a bunch of wild-eyed book burners."

Whatever it's called-"book ripping" certainly lacks the alliterative, ominous ring of "book burning"-the on-site destruction of books full of pornographic photos of children by Jock Sturges and others is spreading like a match flame put to the page of the book.