Cycho Librarian

Short post tonight: just a thought really. When was the last time you climbed a tree?

Passage of the health care reform bill in the House this past week and the ensuing reaction put me in mind yet again of how absurd our political rivalries have become. That such a watered-down excuse for a "reform" bill would cause this much vitriol back and forth across the aisle is utterly absurd to me. How is it that we've come to a point where something that should be a no-brainer-- figuring out a better way to provide health care to everyone-- leads to protests that our government is either socialist or fascist, or possibly both? The main thing that confuses me is how we ever got anything done before this. Certainly emancipation, the New Deal, civil rights, and even Johnson's Great Society weren't uncontroversial. But they still happened. You could make the claim that extraordinary circumstances or the force of character of their proponents were the only reason they succeeded, but that seems overly simple to me. What has shifted in our society that now ...

I have something obscene sitting on my desk at work. Shocking, I know. But there it is. Or at least according to these fine, upstanding citizens it's obscene. What is this obscenity? Shield your eyes children, for here it is:  Yes, it's a graphic novel. Personally, I'd maybe call this one R-rated. But apparently a couple library employees in Kentucky felt it was their duty to shield the community and an 11-year-old from being exposed to this execrable work, which was given a starred review by Publisher's Weekly and named as one of the 10 best graphic novels of 2007 by Time . Indeed, it was so insidious that it was necessary to pray over the reader to prevent the images from penetrating the purity of her mind. It's utterly laughable to me that a few drawings of boobs and copulation without parts visible would cause this sort of reaction. Don't get me wrong, I don't think an 11-year-old should read this. And having read the book myself, I don'...