The purpose of libraries

"Library collections don't imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life."

Read the rest: http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2008/07/uncle-bobbys-wedding.html

Pink Hair for Hope

While I am all in favor of finding a cure for breast cancer, I am not always so much a fan of the pink everything everywhere.

I saw a banner for this promotion on the sign of a local salon, and thought, "Now that is an awareness promotion that makes sense!!"

Cookies and pens and instant drink mix might not have much of a connection to the disease, but hair certainly does.

Having been a chemotherapy patient (about thirty years ago at this point and not for breast cancer), I was proud of my baldness.  (Of course, I was four, so having my hair fall out wasn't particularly traumatic.)  My mother even had t-shirts saying "Bald is Beautiful" made for family and friends.

I wasn't much for wigs or hats (again, I was four), and no one shaved their head in solidarity, but pink hair, or a pink hair substitute might have been fun.

So add a little flair to your hair!!

(I think I just might.  I need a haircut anyway.)

Banned Books Week

Apparently Banned Books Week is no longer necessary:http://tinyurl.com/ybzz277

Or is it?  http://tinyurl.com/ydohgyo

Sex and violence (so prevalent in movies, music and, well, the daily news) top the list of reasons why a book is unsuitable: http://tinyurl.com/ybbfky5

Read a banned or challenged book this week.  Find out what the fuss is all about.  You might learn more than you bargained for.

A president armed for a battle of wits

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_09/020025.php

What is wrong with people???

http://dreamhaven.livejournal.com/97123.html

Times are tough pretty much all the way around these days, but wouldn't it make more sense for people to help one another out in any little way they can (sometimes it is the smallest gestures which are the most meaningful) rather than hurt one another?

Maybe it is supposed to be survival of the fittest (or the most devious?  or the most desperate?), but mutual relationships benefit everyone.

Such is my naive hope for the day.

I want to go! I want to go!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/arts/design/20kenn.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=nytimesbooks

Food for the masses

Since I have moved into a real house with a real kitchen (though neither is terribly glamorous or state-of-the-art), I have been trying to eat less pre-prepared, processed food (though I still have a weakness for frozen pizza and potato chips) and do more of my own cooking.  The effect that sitting in a cubicle staring at a computer screen for a living has had on my body in the last two and a half years also has me trying to eat less junk.

Having a madly tomato-ing (to the point that I have no idea what I would do if there were more than one), gargantuan tomato plant outside providing me with an abundance of wonderful, fresh tomatoes every day makes me want to grow more of my own food and patronize more local farmers.

In the various and sundry food reading I have done in the last year or so, I have been waiting for someone to summarize what I think really needs to be done to get people to really eat (and not just consume) food.  I always knew that the trick was implementation.  How to get good food, real food to everyone and not just those who can afford it.  After all, I have what I consider to be a decent paying job, even living as I do in a part of the country with a dauntingly high cost of living, and I frequently feel as if *I* can't afford it.

Today, I read the following paragraph from Julie Powell's Julie/Julia Project blog, and she summed it up for me clearly and concisely with some lovely real world examples, so I thought I would share.

"It seems to me – and I've been thinking about this quite a bit – that any revolution in food and agricultural has to be two pronged.  Yes, by all means, extol the virtues of the artisanal this and organic that, patronize the small farmers and the renegade cheese-makers, if you can afford it.  But the goal is to make good food available toeveryone, isn't it?  And that means doing more than opening a hoity-toity restaurant.  That means lobbying and teaching and bringing the food to Mohammed, and otherwise getting your hands dirty.  Get the peach to the inner city kids killing themselves with Krispy Kremes.  Get the peach to the 22-year-old mother of three living off welfare checks, dependent on the Bargain Market in the strip mall.  Do that – and I don't know how you do – and you've really got something. "

  --Julie Powell in her blog about the Julie/Julia Project on March 18th, 2003.  The complete entry is here if you care to read it.

I post this link exclusively for Yoda.

http://www.thetoyzone.com/2009/blog/20-outstanding-examples-of-sci-fi-and-fantasy-origami/

In case there are any writers out there reading

I have become rather enamored of the no-nonsense brilliance of Lilith Saintcrow.

http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/2009/08/friday-five/

While I suppose that I should be embarrassed to admit that I have not in fact read any books by this woman (although there is at least one in my library waiting to be read), I feel the need to tell whoever might venture into my microscopic space in the blogosphere that I enjoy reading her blog immensely, for her style and for the information contained therein.

She talks quite a bit about the writing life and work, as writers tend to do, I suppose, and while she may not always be saying something new and previously unheard of, her perspective makes a lot of sense to me.

I'm not sure that it is a revolution, but I think that it's good news.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson

The article addresses volume and variety rather than quality and technique, but the point about audience and tone is key.

"What today's young people know is that knowing who you're writing for and why you're writing might be the most crucial factor of all."