WHEN I DESCRIBE YOU AS AN INVASIVE WEED THAT NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED, I MEAN IT IN THE NICEST POSSIBLE WAY

From yesterday's New York Daily News:

A Brooklyn judge is courting controversy with a new illustrated children's book that some critics are calling a thinly veiled anti-immigration screed.

Criminal Court Judge John Wilson's "Hot House Flowers" warns of "effects of unregulated immigration" in a plot line about beautiful flowers that wither when dandelions sneak into their greenhouse.

"It's intended to describe defense of home and defense of country, and the reasons for that defense," said Wilson, who self-published the book, listed on Amazon.com at $15.99.

The story tells of jealous weeds that hog all the water and soil in the greenhouse. The other flowers suffer, but don't do anything until it's almost too late -- because they don't want to appear intolerant.

In what Wilson admits is a religious flourish, the flowers are saved at the end by a benevolent master who plucks out all the dandelions. The flowers learn never to let dandelion seeds grow in their greenhouse again.

..."They shouldn't call me anti-immigration, because I'm not," he said. "I know we're a nation of immigrants. But illegal immigration is making a mockery of the rule of law." ...

Y'know, I get the rule-of-law part. It's the ethnic-cleansing-of-the-dandelions part that has me a tad squeamish.

Oh, and the hogging-all-the-water-and-soil part? In my world, it's these folks who are doing that, while illegal immigrants clean their toilets.

A press release asserts that this is a book "that can be enjoyed by adults and children alike." (I really don't want to meet any adults who actually enjoy this book.) It adds:

Readers concerned about the effects of unregulated immigration on the daily lives of American citizens and who support the active defense of their country will find the lessons in Hot House Flowers potent and potable for minds young and old.

Er, I don't think "potable" means what these folks think it means.

For whatever it's worth, Judge Wilson did work with an illustrator whose other work isn't exactly wingnut-friendly. And, who knows -- perhaps his next book will be about another, er, flowering plant in which he has taken an interest.

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In a review at Amazon, Jonathan Cohen says that the climax of the book comes when the hothouse flowers "burn a vitamin spike on the dandelions' front lawn." I think he's just funnin' us. Or maybe not.