Each year some Nazi-like parents in the middle of the country feel that some fantastic book is offensive and should be banned from libraries. Pretty much it depends on the community to decide whether to follow through on this parents request and ban the book or to allow freedom of speech to prevail and make all books available to the masses.
Unfortunately there are a number of books that have been banned from public schools and libraries across the country. Last year the book at the top of the list for banning was “And Tango Makes Three” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell about a pair of male penguins that raise a baby penguin.
Why do I bring this up now you ask (and I’m glad you did)? Well, this upcoming week, starting tomorrow (sept. 29th) and going through October 6th, is Banned Book Week, sponsored by the American Library Association. The motto for the week is “Free People Read Freely.” Accoridng to the website:
Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. This year, 2007, marks BBW’s 26th anniversary (September 29 through October 6).
BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.
To take part in banned book week all you need to do is pick up a banned or challenged book and read away. Do it in public, don’t be afraid to let people see you reading it, after all, that is the point, isn’t it?
Oh, also related, USA Today reports that the Federal government, after receiving enough pressure has decided to put banned religious books back into prison libraries.
For a list of banned books you can check out the ALA website, the site Banned Books, or just do a quick Google search for them. Or if you are too lazy for any of that you can just pick up Fahrenheit 451 or To Kill a Mocking Bird.or all the Harry Potter books, so, you’ve got some options.
In choosing a picture for this post there were so many good different images to choose from I decided to put a link to the Google Image Search here.
As I type this I know my computer is headed for a crash, so I am going to make this brief, to the point and save it before I reach the point of impending doom where I actually loose data.
Anyway, I came across this article the other day about… well, the title kind of explains it: “Peruvians get sick from apparent meteorite crater,” of course, you guessed it, this is another one from Reuter’s “Oddly Enough” section of the paper meaning they don’t really see it as news, but more of a fluff piece that people will enjoy reading and maybe even have a nice little chuckle over.
Well, I read the article, the gist of it being that over 100 Peruvians who have visited the site of an apparent meteorite crater (that crashed down over the weekend of the 15th) have been vomiting and experiencing massive headaches. After some researchers had a chance to check it out they said, yes, it probably was a meteorite and that folks were probably getting sick from the gases it had released.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t exactly find that to be very comforting, nor would I think the sick Peruvians would either. I’d want a much more detailed explanation of what these so-called gases were and an explanation of how long these symptoms were going to last (as of the writing of the article folks were sick for as many as 3 days already). A mysterious meteorite falls to Earth and folks near it start getting massively sick- this sounds like the start of a comibook or Sci-Fi monster movie, not something to be written off and tossed into the “Oddly Enough” bin.
Also, I guess there is a moral to this story- Don’t go visiting random craters that mysteriously appear over the weekend, you never know what they might contain or what might happen to you.
When Monsterous Peruvians infect with some space virus come attacking your town, don’t say I didn’t warn you…
Okay, time to restart.
Next weekend we have one of my favorite city wide events happening:
Open House New York is a day when a number New York buildings and sites throw their doors open and invite the public to come and see what they’ve got going on. This is the 5th year te program has been running and each year it just seems it get bigger and bigger.
In the past I have gotten a chance to visit: the “Hidden Harbors” around the city, the Marble Cemetery on 2nd Avenue (one of the oldest in the city), the Free Mason’s Lodge on 23rd Street and the High Line.
Almost all of the locations are free to visit, though some do require a reservation in advance and some of them fill up pretty quickly, though you have a slight advantage, the listings just went up today. It’s really worth checking out and there are some awesome places to see, so check their website for participating locations (and more will probably be added in the next week) and take a peak at some of the hidden treasures of the city.
I am hoping they again offer a chance to see the City Hall Subway Station alog gthe 6 line… Otherwise I might just have to illegally ride the train around the turn… Nah, I’m just kidding, I would never do anything like that
Yes, it sounds like gibberish, but apparently it is an all-in-one search engine/desktop utility- It has a clock, calendar, notepad, calculator, Google-powered search engine, plus a number of other links, features and functions.
What I really like about Poodwaddle isn’t any of that- it is the special clocks page.
So you click on the clocks link and it takes you to a page with a number of different style clocks, big deal. But if you look closely at the top there is a set of scrolling clocks that track various statistics based on previously recorded data, watch as 18 people a day contract leprosy, or keep an eye out for the 100,000,000 person is born this year (should be happening in about 2 or 3 days), or as other species become extinct (approx. 52 so far today or almost 20,000 this year). It is interesting to watch the various statistics. There are other clocks to checkout, but this one is by far my favorite. Neat little site to just check out though.
I am a sucker for nostalgia television.
Unfortunately I have found that a lot of the shows I loved as a kid just don’t live up to their hype. What never fails though are the opening credits of the shows. You remember those theme songs as if the shows just got canceled yesterday (or as if you watched them every single day during your formative years). Those opening notes put a smile on your face and have you fondly remembering your favorite show without having to see all the poor, poor acting or super cheap (or super-old) special effects.
Now you can watch the opening credits with all the theme song glory on YouTube. Rather then having to sort through all the shlock on YouTube to hunt down these gems, you can simply check them out on LuiscmkTv’s Video Page, where 100 different opening credits are posted. It’s an excellent way to waste a few hours and relive the television of your childhood.
The staff of American Madness would like to thank the 