"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring news about banned and challenged books. Arizona Hyperbolic but worth the read: an essay titled What Do Apartheid South Africa and Tucson, Arizona Have in Common? Elsewhere Are Republicans more likely than Democrats to be in favor of banning books that teach “dangerous ideas”? It would seem […]
We’re taking our grandson Quentin bicycling tomorrow morning. Our friend Mary Anne is bringing along her granddaughter Jade. To keep the kids entertained, I thought we’d mix bicycling with geocaching. Turns out there are several caches near the park we’re meeting at tomorrow. Not wanting to embarrass myself in front of the children (or the adults), […]
We’re hosting the neighborhood 4th of July brunch this year, so yesterday’s pool party was sort of a dry run. A somewhat moist dry run, that is. The idea was to introduce our grandson Quentin to the neighborhood kids. We were hoping he’d find a new friend or two to play with during his visit, […]
Home again, and perhaps now I can get back to blogging. I’ve been such a faithless blogger! Right on the heels of our California car trip we loaded it up again and drove to Las Vegas for our granddaughter Taylor’s high school graduation. Got home yesterday. Our grandson Quentin is with us; his parents plan […]
“The Drowned Cities hadn’t always been broken. People broke it. First they called people traitors and said they didn’t belong. Said these people were good and those people were evil, and it kept going, because people always responded, and pretty soon the place was a roaring hell because no one took responsibility for what they […]
Over time I’ve culled most of the outright racists from my pool of Facebook friends. Sometimes, though, people post shit like this, intending only to share something they thought funny, failing to see the thuggishness and racism behind the “humor.” If the message on the sign had been anti-Semitic, my friend never would have posted […]
Arizona: Tucson Unified School District is still in damage control mode, denying that it banned any books. But the story’s out of the box … unlike the books TUSD rounded up and put in boxes labeled “banned books.” Banned books, cancelled classes, fired teachers — when anti-intellectuals who hold learning and scholarship in contempt take […]
Home again, winding down from the elevated level of tension that comes with staying alert while driving long distances and dealing with traffic. How much distance? About 2,500 miles. How much traffic? Be glad you don’t live or work in Los Angeles. Yes, we were there, and yes, it’s that bad. It’s that bad in […]