Weblog

Thursday, 03 January 2008

  • A seventeen-year-old boy is ripped apart by a tiger, and people leave a memorial at the zoo for the animal???

    Sheesh, what has our world come to?

    Oh wait, reports are that the three young men were TAUNTING the tiger. They were growling at him and roaring at him...

    My three-year-olds do that to the tiger at the zoo every time we go there. That's what people do at the zoo-- have a good time and let loose a bit while learning about the animals. So, would a three-year-old somehow DESERVE to be mauled for growling at a tiger? So, why is everyone implying that three young men should be at fault?

    "All I know is that something happened to provoke that tiger to leap out of her exhibit," zoo director Manuel Mollinedo said Wednesday. He declined to elaborate because the police investigation continued.

    Yeah, something happened, Mr. Negligent Zoo Man, your wall was four feet shorter than the minimum it was supposed to be.

    Carlos Sousa, Jr., according to early reports, was a hero. He lured the animal away from one of his friends whom the the tiger was attacking. Instead of running like he could have to save himself, he saved his friend.

    Hey, San Fransisco zoo visitors, where's his memorial?

Thursday, 22 November 2007

  • AS IF! Alert

    Sebastopol librarian Richie Partington was fired from his library consultant's position with the Bellevue Union School District in Santa Rosa California a day after refusing to meet with a principal who had banned Rodman Philbrick'sThe Last Book in the Universefrom his school's library without having read it.   
     
    "I politely but firmly made it clear to the District Superintendent that until the principal actually read the book he had banned, I didn't see how we could have a conversation about the book.  
     
    Partington had twice read the first chapter of the book aloud to sixth grade classes at the District's Kawana School the previous week and "had more than a dozen students begging to read it."  When Partington arrived at the school on the following Monday morning with four copies of the book, he was informed by the school's library clerk (who also has never read the book) that she didn't want the book in the library because it has to do with gangs and that she'd gotten the principal to forbid its addition to the collection.
     
    Noting in an email to the Superintendent that "the bigger issue here is one of arbitrariness due to a lack of a District collection development policy and District reconsideration policy," Partington immediately drafted and emailed a proposal for a reconsideration policy to the Superintendent who responded the same day by mailing out the termination letter. 
     
    The termination is effective immediately.     
     
    Richie Partington, MLIS
    Richie's Picks

    *************************************************

    If you feel this as much of a travesty as we members of AS IF (Authors Supporting Intellectual Freedom,) you can voice your opinion to:

    Superintendent:
    Tony Roehrick, Ed.D.
    3223 Primrose Ave.
    Santa Rosa, CA 95407
    Phone: 542-5197   Fax: 542-6127

     

Friday, 09 November 2007

  • The prime reason porn should have its own domain ending and not be allowed to use 800 numbers...

    Magic Attic series now linked to sex line.

    The Magic Attic series was a popular tween series a few years back that tied into a line of dolls and other marketing material. They're out of print now, and I believe the doll company is even defunct. Recently, a child in Tampa checked out some copies for a library, fell in love with them, and her mom called the number in the book to get the doll catalogue, only to find that the number is now a phone sex line.

    Talk about some unwanted education...

Monday, 29 October 2007

  • Here's a statistic worth memorizing: it costs $70,000 a year to incarcerate a prisoner, and $1,000 a year to take care of a kid at a Boys and Girls Club. Failing to invest in prevention isn't just cruel to the kids, it's cruel to the country. As James Alan Fox, a noted criminologist, says, "You can pay for the programs now or pray for the victims later."

Saturday, 13 October 2007

  • Phillip Pullman is the antichrist.

    There, I said it, just like certain Christian media outlets wants us all to admit.

    Whatever.

    In case you don't know who Phillip Pullman is, he's the British children's author whose book The Golden Compass is about to be released in theatres. He happens to write with a flair and talent that make most writers-- including myself-- froth at the mouth over. His His Dark Materials series just happens to be about a world where god is weak, a fake and impostor, and as the world comes to realize it, it rebels.

    We all know that fiction is fiction and real is real. We all know that Christ was never really a lion named Aslan. We all know that elephants named Horton don't climb trees to sit on eggs and latchkey kids aren't cohorting with hat-clad felines in their spare time, destroying their homes. We know that letters don't fall from trees and knock teeth loose.

    So why can't we just let the god of Pullman's world be a phony?

    Oh, because he brought his own beliefs into the media...

    You know what? Our kids know that those other things are fiction, too, and I would wager on the intelligence of our children to know that Pullman's god, his world... his books... are just fiction, too. Give them credit.

    People want to save our children-- feed them, befriend them, clothe them like Christ told us to do. Leave the assault on their imaginations out of it.