[The American Library Association's Banned Books week will be celebrated from September 27 to October 4. This year, I think we should break out the sparkling apple cider early.]
You know times are tough when, at your daughter’s fourth birthday party, you and three other parents find yourselves in the middle of the lawn, ignoring the flying Nerf balls and the children’s gay laughter, talking about your incipient ulcers and how you are all trying not to consult the latest polling numbers on the presidential campaign more than twice or three times a day. My Know-It-All-Brother-In-Law had comforted one of them, earlier, with his combo-dealie argument about Michigan and Pennsylvania and Obama’s kick-@ss “ground game,” whose benefits won’t be visible until the latter hours of November 4. Yow! Like my stomach can last that long!
But as a sister-in-law (soon to be out-law again? another ulcer-stoker! more on Proposition 8 later in the week!), I take his prognostications with a grain of salt. Even though they are based on decades of involvement in and observation of electoral politics, and even though he could get pretty far on a Jeopardy show dedicated to the finer shadings of electoral vs. popular vote calculations, and trends, and so on. I mean, his spouse has been a fundraiser for Democratic women candidates since before she was his spouse. So he does kind of have an inside track on this.
Still! We have all watched war-mongering dingbats become elected to high office in this country before. And apparently, when the spit hits the fan, I find I’m a pessimist in optimist’s clothing. So I am stocking up on Zantac and trying hard to reduce the frequency with which I check & re-check the latest polling numbers.
Meanwhile, I want to pass on some ”mainstream” online news bits (with hat tips to Pam’s House Blend and Box Turtle Bulletin). Each adds some more specificity to the accusations that then-Mayor Palin attempted to censor books from her town’s library. Specifically, two books sympathetic to gay people (Daddy’s Roommate and Pastor, I am Gay ). Per usual, the LD caveat pertains here: I don’t expect this to be news to you, gentle reader. But if you know any independent, undecided librarian types, do pass this on to them.
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This is my dad. Â 
Eight weeks out
My other day job (besides running around after the kiddles) will be heating up over the coming month or so, and as a result, posting here is likely to be lighter than I’d prefer. Truth is, until I rig things somehow so that this blog stuff pays me more than it costs me – that is, fiscally; it’s already priceless to me, emotionally and intellectually – from time to time, I have to pay more attention to my paying gigs.
Of course, the last time I went on a work-induced, month-long prose diet I had a very hard time keeping to it. I posted pictures daily, but some of the captions to the pictures kind of streeeeeeeetched the distinction between “caption” and “post.” Really, the whole exercise just proved to me yet again that loquaciousness is congenital: it can’t be cured; one can only just learn to live with it.
(It also proved to me that I can never Twitter. I did squat my name over there, and I do from time to time squander precious minutes pondering how I might be able to mend my ways, finally, and actually become brief. Okay, briefer. Ha! But I digress! Ha! See? I’m doomed! This right here? Nearly double the 140-character Tweet allotment!)
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