Amused

*sigh* And yet they don't know why we laugh.

The (imaginary) War On Christmas

Nothing to write myself other than it's a bunch of crap and if there is a War, I hope we win. Sam Ogden over at SkepChick, on the other hand, has this awesomeness to offer. Read it, love it.

Christmas presents. I give them, I get them, even from my Atheist brothers and family. Nothing wrong with any of that. I'm linking to a post by the illustrius Hemant Mehta over at friendlyatheist.com with his list of books to buy for the holiday season. 10 Books about Atheism You'll Want for Christmas. If the link ever goes bad, let me know and I'll repost the article from a backup.

Coming back and a note on Prop 8

Haven't been on in a while, but can anyone really blame me with the election going on? I'm trying to keep this a non-political site unless it really has to do with Atheism or libraries. Now, to almost break that rule...

California Prop 8.

I'm not going to sit here and say that all Atheists voted no on this issue (though I'd put the numbers really high for it). What I am going to say is that it's obvious that most of the people who did vote yes were religiously motivated. There has not been one reason for this ban that can't have the word "gay" replaced with "interracial" that doesn't have a religious reason. (Ahhh, I wish I could find the "yes on prop 8" video where they actually did this)

Good luck prop 8 supporters, this is all just going to get overturned in the state and circuit courts as Unconstitutional (with a big U for federal) and states are not allowed to have stuff that would be considered unconstitutional in the US constitution. Good try, but all you've done is pushed up the time for there to be a legal decision handed down by the supreme court that says gay marriage is legal. With Obama and the Dems in control, we're sure to get a liberal judge on the Supreme court. So, really, with your poor foresight, all the gays in the country should be thanking you.

Thanks Homo-phobes!!!

The Guardian, a British newspaper, published an online quiz in support of Banned Books Week here in America. I'm a little embarrased to admit that I only scored a 4 out of 12, though I think I did better. It didn't show what the correct answers were, just your score. Take the quiz yourself, no cheating now, though you should be able to get the first question just based on what I've written here.

#1 Challenged and Banned Book of the year

And Tango Makes Three has been the #1 Most Challenged and Banned Book for the last three years. This is the book sitting on my desk at work...

The sign sticking out of the top says "#1 Challenged and Banned Book in the country since it was published 3 years ago. Ask to read it today!"

If you are unaware of what the book is about, it is a true story about two homosexual male penguins at the New York Zoo who fall in love, build a nest together, adopt an egg that wasn't able to be cared for by its real parents and subsequently raise the chick, named Tango, for years.

But, but, homosexuality ain't natural.... Really! Tell that to the penguins!

BBW events around the country

Alright, enough with the individual books. Those are the only two I've ever felt strongly about anyway. Yes, the second 451 incident happened in my own high school, and seriously, I freakin' love Harry Potter.

So, bannedbooksweek.org has, once again, put together a list of events going on around the country. See if your library is there, and if not and you know your library is going to have something, submit it. If your library isn't going to have something... ask them why not.

Harry Potter

This article is kind of old, but it shows the basics of what people from the neo-conservative, fundamentalist frame of mind are thinking when it comes to Harry Potter. Basically, this crazy fundie from Loganville, Georgia thought back in 2006 that "books that promote evil - as she claims the Potter ones do - help foster the kind of culture where school shootings happen" and that "that would not happen if students instead read the Bible."

And I couldn't agree more... there weren't any guns thousands of years ago... the bible says to stone people, duh.

She also said that "teachers do not assign other religious books like the Bible as student reading."

1. How the hell is Harry Potter a religious text and
2. Yes, they do. I remember being in high school and doing two weeks on the Psalms as literature in my English class.

What a load of crap.

Seriously, read the article or just Google Harry Potter and banned to see what comes up.

Celebrate Bleeped books week

This is the first day of national Banned Books week.  See previous post if you missed what this is all about.  

Found this video on "The Shifted Librarian."  Just thought it was great. 

Nothing of any great importance to post today.  BBW is just getting started.  I'll have more up all week.  

Banned Books Week

Well, Banned Books Week is just around the corner.  That simple time of year when Librarians' thoughts turn to love... of profanity and sex and religion and political dissent and witchcraft and drug use and violence and LGBT issues.  For those of you who don't know, Banned Books Week is celebrated once a year by librarians, English teachers, and other like minded people who believe that no book should be dis-allowed by anyone anytime.  Every year the theme is thought up by the American Library Association (ALA).  This years theme is "Closing Books Shuts Out Ideas."  There's lots of stuff to buy from ALA, but many libraries just make up their own ways to celebrate, like this.  Simple stuff, but it's enough to get people to think.

I'm going to try to post something about banned books every day in the coming week, beginning Sunday, about book banning and the like.  

Introduction

The title of the blog itself shows the combination of the two things in my life that really show what I am. I work at a university library at the main circulation desk. I will be putting up interesting news, photos, video, personal accounts, etc. etc. about both atheism and librarianship. How often will these two things come together? Who knows. But we'll see...