What most people can't seem to figure out from my journal is that I do most of my lj posting as comments in journals and communities other than my own. I AM around; I like to listen and observe if I can't think of something coherent to say, which is often because of the whole constantly half-asleep disease thing. Fear not! Posts of a non-personal nature starting in April will be public.

There was a disturbing article in Teleread a couple of days ago that said schools are increasingly likely to eliminate library budgets or treat them as luxuries. We all know what happens to luxuries during economic recessions.

Even in our low-budget elementary and primary schools, our teachers made sure to emphasize the use of libraries, and I usually read several books a week. In high school, our library was a godsend. The librarians knew I was eating lunch in there when I wasn’t supposed to, but I didn’t leave a mess, so then turned a blind eye while i munched away in the nonfiction sections. That was when I was a sophomore and couldn’t drive home for lunch. The librarian taught me how to use WorldCat to find articles from Time Magazine covers I had seen as a kid and wanted to read years later.

We often had free periods in the middle of the day when I wanted to study All of our classrooms were usually offices for the teachers as well, so I couldn’t work in those, and 47 minutes is not enough time to make driving home for work worth it, even if I could. I used the desks in the library to prepare for memorization exams for Latin, Theater, English, Chemistry, and who knows what else. I owe several As and A+s to that school library.

The town library was small, underfunded, and swamped. This surprised me, as we were one of the two wealthiest towns in the greater school district comparatively speaking. The town next door over where I was born and grew up was more blue-collar and middle class, but it owned a larger building that it shared with the police and fire departments at one time and thus had leftover space when those moved out for expansion. Sometimes I suspect that the “town” town residents - those who lived in the oldest buildings directly in the heart of our new town — were either wealthy enough to afford to buy books they couldn’t find in the library or wanted to keep the library in its current space because they liked things “the way they were.” In any case, our branch was rarely useful for anything but checking out CDs and audiobooks or the occasional hardcover from the 1970s. When I went on my Arthurian binges, they usually involved going downtown to the largest branch or to the local university or hopping from one regional branch to another for a book here, a book there.

I can only imagine what it would have been like in high school if we had no alternative to working in the cafeteria, the hub of all social activity in high school, where halls run undivided down both sides and you have to cross it to go to shop class, gym, the auditorium, or the parking lots. Don’t get me wrong, once I went to college, the dining hall was my favorite place to be, but  studied there because I have a sleeping disorder and the noise and constant activity would keep me awake. Also, I was still a perfectionist in high school and had trouble blocking out the constant stream of people walking by the tables. A socially conscious girl who wanted to please her friends, not look too antisocial, and pay attention to her crush who just walked over to the soda machine would have had issues with willpower and focus.

I didn’t think that much about the library in school because I expected it to always be there. From childhood, I knew that schools had libraries and books for me to read or reference. It was an extension of my computer room and study desk at home, an empty classroom with infinite knowledge available, an alternative to slackerdom and smoking several things on the hill just beyond school property, a refuge from social isolation when I has just moved to town and had no friends. The library was an extension of me. I used it almost every day.

Lest someone say that everyone has internet and a computer at home, this NPR story talks about a girl in high school who has to type all of her written work ON A CELL PHONE:

[Rosemarie Bernier, president of the California School Library Association and librarian at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles,] spoke of a student with a first period English class who came to her in tears because she didn’t have enough time to transfer and reformat the essay she had written on her cell phone. Since she doesn’t have a computer at home, the student’s cell phone is her only hope of completing assignments that need to be typed.

I can sympathize. I convinced my parents to buy me a laptop when I went back to university to finish college after a several year lapse. That was in 2009. I soon discovered that virtually NO ONE used desktops in college anymore except in the libraries. One of the classes I took had in-class online exams. The professors just ASSUMED we all had laptops. They assumed. Had I been less successful in convincing them, had the previous Christmas season not been in the midst of the financial crisis when electronics companies halved their prices, I would have flunked that course.

I am sure that there were a few students who had to live in the 24-hour library because they had no laptops. They couldn’t take most technology courses.

This is the problem with assuming everyone has what you have: often, you are the privileged one. Others are not always as fortunate, and those are the people you forget about when you cut funding, shutter programs, and just assume that bureaucracy will magically redistribute and reallocate resources and give everyone a happy ending.

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Originally published at Folklore Fanatic. You can comment here or there.

Usually, this blog is about unpleasant realities that can seem insurmountable. I think the following news proves that just talking about race is enough to affect an entire industry. Corporations can and will do the right thing if enough people put up a fuss and speak out.

Bloomsbury USA is going to change the cover of its leading Young Adult fiction title this fall, Justine Larbalestier’s Liar. It was another case of whitewashing, where the white girl on the cover was supposed to represent the biracial black protagonist in the story. Many bloggers and readers expressed dismay at the misrepresentation of the main character and how the cover fed into the racist trend of sidelining both stories about people of color and authors of color (Larbalestier is white, but the conversation outgrew this one single instance), and how children of color so rarely find protagonists who look like they do on the covers of the books they are encouraged to buy. Justine took a professional risk and publicly criticized the decision to put a stock photo of a white girl on the book over her protests.

For those of you not aware, authors rarely have any say whatsoever in what the cover art for their work looks like when they are published at an old-school, non-print-on-demand publisher, the only kind of  publisher from which most books stores are willing to buy. If you want your print books to reach a large audience, you have to be willing to give up most of your creative control over everything: the audience to which the book is marketed, the language and vocabulary used in the story, the cover art, the marketing pitch, the blurb, etc. Having a contract not only with an agent but with a publisher with the clout of Bloomsbury is a big deal. Justine was brave enough to talk honestly on the Internet about a subject that could have cost her professional relationships vital to her career. She believed the risk was worth the potential cost to herself, to young readers, especially children of color if she did not. I agree with her.

It took less than two weeks of the story circulating between the blogs and publishing news media outlets for Bloomsbury to change its mind and order all of the old covers to be scrapped, conduct a photo shoot, and order new covers for the book. For a large print run like 100,000 copies, that must have cost them a significant amount of money, but the publishers decided to do it any way. The motivations behind doing this may not be as idealistic as Justine’s, and the new cover girl doesn’t actually have ‘nappy’ hair, but it is a vast, VAST improvement over the original cover.

Normally, I don’t approve of giving people ‘cookies’ for doing the right thing. But the reviews of Justine’s book make it sound fantastic, and I want this book to succeed beyond Bloomsbury’s expectations. Furthermore, Justine has recommended two authors of color who deserve as many accolades for their talents: Coe Booth, who has written Kendra, a coming-of-age story about a young mother and her teenage daughter afraid of repeating the past, and M. Sindy Felin’s Touching Snow.

Provided that this new face graces Liar when it hits the bookshelves in October, I will be one of the first to buy several copies.

Originally published at The Multiracial Muse. You can comment here or there.

The Inauguration of President Brack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States of America.

Go. Save now. You know you want to.

Originally published at Folklore Fanatic. You can comment here or there.

Mark Scoble, previously banned from Second Life for letting his twelve-year old son use his adult account, found out recently that a script he was using to scrape his social networking data from Facebook caught the attention of its bots. Scoble was temporarily banned from Facebook, and all of his user information seems to have followed him into the nethersphere.

Keep this in mind, people. In their power-grab for data, Facebook’s managers seem to care more about retaining the information of their users as a group more than they care about keeping your identity on Facebook as an individual. Previous attempts to wipe individual profiles from the social networking site have been time-consuming, tedious, and fraught with inconsistencies.

Recent methods of deleting one’s profile have become easier of late, but remember that ‘deactivated’ is not the same as ‘deleted.’ There are ways to aggregate data without pissing Facebook off (see comment #8 here), but they aren’t well-known enough to make it easy or risk-free. There are several inferences one can draw from the escapades of those who attempt to control access to the data from which corporations make their money. None of them are pretty. In the not-too-distant future, Google and Facebook will have more showdowns, and the losers in the battle of privacy and access will be us — the consumers.

I think it bears repeating: whosoever controls the personal information rules the world.

Originally published at Folklore Fanatic. You can comment here or there.

There are a lot of matter to contemplate after the historic victory of Barack Obama’s presidential win on Tuesday night. I wrote this comment below in an article on Racialicious entitled, “Good, and Now Back to Work”:

As someone who occupies both sides of this argument, I agree with the basic concept of what Wise says but strongly disapprove of the attitude he uses in saying it. There is no place in the progressive community for condescending and arrogant put-downs, ESPECIALLY from a white cisgendered able-bodied man.

Tim Wise has educated a lot of people, and I admire him and quote him often because of his efforts, but I’m betting he wasn’t in San Francisco or Omaha on Tuesday night, where the consequences of pushing centrism have eliminated decades of progressive efforts and enshrined racism, bigotry and homophobia into the state constitutions.

As a leftist progressive and the daughter or a first-generation dual American-Kittitian citizen, I am beyond elated at what happened on Tuesday. It was the culmination of decades of ambition, careful planning, and grassroots organization intermeshed with a cultural convergence and a shift in awareness among a new generation sick of the crap our progenitors handd down to us and allowed us to inherit. I was crying. I was weeping in joy and disbelief. It meant so much to me to know that I might soon have national health care and not worry about moving from state to state, that people lived up to their promise to vote the way they said they would, that negative campaigning is no longer a successful strategy when we expose it, that I can tell my future children that they can be anyone or anything they want to be, that I can tell my future grandchildren that I was there when the world changed.

However, I woke up the next day much more sober and aware of the immense challenges and expectations Obama faces. He had to be perfect and he had to be a centrist in order to win. He had to be better than not only every black American running before him but better than every other white American running against him. I wish it didn’t have to be that way. I suspect that one of the consequences of a globally connected society is that the trend of watching every step you take will only grow more difficult. Guns and bitterness, anyone?

You can celebrate an historic moment and lose yourself in it for one night, even one week or one month, and still not lose sight of the ethical compromises you have made to ensure any victory rather than no victory at all.

 I barely had time to decide what was more important: my health care (and with it, my career opportunities, my parent’s financial stability, and my education) or my desire for integrity in a campaign. When I worked on his campaign for three months and gave up my sanity and most aspects of a non-political life to ensure that Allegheny County and Pittsburgh, Pensylvania kept our state blue, I went through a lot of ugly crap and saw others endure much, much worse in order to see Obama win. My initial motivations for helping him were anti-conservative sentiment, intense disgust with the racist idiocy surrounding me, and the knowledge that he held the promise of securing our Supreme Court from decades of evil legislation and providing America with health care and a (more) progressive environmental stance, to say nothing of a way out of Iraq and an end to deregulation and corporate greed. As I spent more time listening to what he was saying, it became clearer that while we desperately need a dramatic reversal from the last eight years, we are more likely to see a fundamental and permanent shift to the left if we have someone to talk the conservatives down and reign in their ire and indignation.

I don’t want to have to fight the fight of my lifetime every four years just to protect a reversal of Republican policies. I don’t think we can keep any of the changes we make for the better unless we educate the middle Americans and stop calling them stupid in public, even when they are stupid and bigoted and flat-out wrong. Me clinging to my moral ideals won’t help the poor and the disenfranchised nationally. Some leftists seem to forget that local action only goes so far and can be overturned easily. The American people are too afraid to revolt; if they were going to overthrow the political system, they would have done so already. I choose to change our laws and opinions from the inside out, because frankly, I can’t wait thirty years for a dramatic shift. I need change now.

Obama was not my first choice. He wasn’t even my second choice. He is my final choice. I don’t feel like I voted against Bush this time. I voted for Obama.

Originally published at The Multiracial Muse. You can comment here or there.

I am now working on the Obama campaign every single day. I've been making phone calls and knocking on people's doors trying to convince them to vote for Obama since the week of the Democratic National Convention at the end of August. Lots of our volunteers here in PA have become complacent, thinking that victory is a sure thing, which is absolutely not true, and the few of us hardcore workers have been trying to pick up the slack.

I have a commission-based job to plan out after the election, a NaNoWriMo novel to outline, a request from an editor for a short story partial, and re-enrollment at Harvard (my last chance) for next spring to worry about. I finished my voice acting projects earlier in the month, but more work is coming. It is so hard to keep up with the several blogs on which I'm supposed to be working, much less my RSS feeds to which I am normally addicted. There is never enough time as it is without the 2008 Election, and now that we're down to the wire, everything is surreal, and I'm just trying to capture and catalogue it privately for future reflection as best I can.

I think the racists have intimidated a lot of our earlier canvassers who were people of color - everyone is so brave to put up with some of the crap people hurl at you. Just the other day, my boss's white mom took a black woman out canvassing with her for the woman's first canvas. The first house they approached, a woman looked out the window, saw the two of them, and screamed that if they didn't get off her property in ten seconds, she was going to call the police and Thre Would Be Trouble. No Obama pins, no posters, no visible campaign materials. It was seeing a black woman on her doorstep that made her freak out.

The crap that ignorant (usually white) people will say to you when they think you're white is really, really scary.

Als, the word socialist is bandied about a lot here. I don't think it means what conservatives think it means. Libraries are socialist. The Post office is socialist. The Veteran's Administration, Social Security, Medicare and the Wall Street bailout are socialist programs. Obama? Not so much.

Interesting links for the week:

· http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008 (where the candidates fall on a political spectrum - you'll probably be surpised)
· http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/on-road-western-pennsylvania.html (I can say without a doubt that the shocking examples of PA political behavior do not surpise me. At all.)

WTF is WRONG with this country?

So, to recap:

--Least popular president. Ever.
--Gratuitous throwbacks to Great Depression, Vietnam War, Nixon, and Woodrow Wilson's religious zealotry every day on the news.
--Too many scandals to count. At least the equivalent of Watergate, five times over.
--Failing economy, foreclosures, most expensive healthcare in the world.
--Environment is disintegrating before our eyes, frogs and honeybees (who make just about every fruit we eat possible, by the way) are dropping like flies (ha!), and the polar bears...well, let's just say that those overcrowded zoo cages with daily fresh food are going to look awfully comfortable very soon.
--At least three Supreme Court justices (all liberals) past the average age of life expectancy. Stevens is 87. Eighty-seven. Roberts and Alito will be there for another 30+ years, and they've already managed to set women's rights and the environment and civil rights back by a quarter of a century.

We have a war hero (Remember Kerry? No one else seems to.) who doesn't know how to use a COMPUTER much less the internet beyond "doing a Google," a man who owns between SEVEN and NINE houses -- his staff can't seem to agree, and he just can't remember -- and who thinks that the upper class starts at five million dollars a year income.

As his running mate, he's picked a book-banning, earmark-flip-flopping corrupt self-described hockey mom who doesn't believe in a woman's right to choose, even if it's a case of rape, incest, or probable death from childbirth.

Incidentally, the RNC publically endorsed Palin's views on abortion as part of its charter, saying that it opposes abortion even when the birth will threaten the mother's life, not to mention the rape/incest cases.

The conservatives haven't got anything, and they know they haven't got anything, so they let their bloggers launch racist attacks, decry anyone who questions the VP nominee's experience or judgement as 'sexist' when it's a legitimate question, and generally lie about how Obama is a Big Liberal, when in fact he's nearly as centrist as Clinton, if not more so.

So what happens?

AMERICA LOVES MCCAIN.


...Did I miss the lack of Earth Logic here?

There’s a discussion going on at Racialicious about Tim Wise’s newest article, “Your Whiteness Is Showing,” a great piece that basically destroys any reasonable argument about why white feminists refuse to vote for Obama.

See, I was so furious at the behavior of many, MANY, so-called ‘progressives’ in the blogosphere. Not just at Hillary supporters around the time of her concession speech, but at Barack supporters during the same time period as well. Most of what galled me does not bear repeating here.

I thought through two drafts of this post. One was a livid diatribe, wherein I told off everybody and pointed out how stupid everyone was being and exactly why they were being so incredibly stupid. Another was a conciliatory gesture of entreaty and unity, in wich I pleaded for the common cause of social justice to remain in people’s minds before their emotions overrode rational thought. The final one basically just said, Screw you guys. I’m going home.”

That’s why I couldn’t post any of it. Luckily enough, my narcolepsy is kicking in, and I’m too tired and halucinatory to really care what anyone thinks right now. Woo-hoo!

That’s the upshot of sleeping disorders: even if you f*** up, there’s plausible deniability.

 

 

 

Anyway, on to the post. It’s a response of mine to the convo over at Racialicious:

I cannot believe that any true progressive would look at the current situation and do anything BUT vote for the Democratic or Green candidate, DESPITE whoever he/she picks or doesn’t pick as a running mate.

There are two parties of anry people out here in the blogosphere: those who support Hillary are willing to vote McCain or not vote to spite Obama, and those who support Barack but will vote McCain or stay home if he puts Hillary on the ticket.

I think the fact that so many people are willing to jeopardize our economy and more lives in Iraq, a failing healthcare system and a government in serious need of a fox-purging of its henhouses shows how incredibly privileged they are. It’s not like the people who will directly benefit ( or SUFFER) depending on thr outcome of this election are more important than their f***ing principles. God we swallow our pride and vote to do the most good now, when we have a decent chance, while we still have a chance. It’s not like the past two years have had a series of devastating Supreme COurt decisions on everything from Freedom of Speech to equal pay after Bush replaced two justices. It’s not as if Stevens is 88 (30 years older than Tim Russert when he died this Friday) and the other progressive three are only a few years younger. We shouldn’t care one whit, because we’re going to “take a stand!” *eyeroll*

For anyone who thinks thee is no way Obama could lose — an argument I hear from people on both extremes — I would point you to the latest gallup polls to show you that Obama’s actually losing among certain voting blocs.

That’s right: after everything, 911, Katrina, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanemo, FEMA, the wiretapping, the CIA leaks, the suppression of environmental warnings, the deregulation of nearly every agency that was doing any good against corporate interests, the callousness and arrogance with which the Bush administration has recklessly pursued the interests of the few rich and powerful…

McCain and Obama are virtually TIED.

Newsflash: Obama and Clinton? Both centrists.

Clinton? Allowed racist codespeak to taint Obama. She’s white, and people are surprised when her privilege and prejudice show?

Obama? Condescended to women during the campaign (although I personally think his posse is more to blame for the internet misogyny than he is). He’s male, and people are surprised that he calls women by demeaning nicknames?

I would vote for either of them over McCain any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Why, you ask? Because my health care bills can’t wait another four or eight years for people to find the perfect candidate to support their principles. Because the conservatives are remarkably good at inciting fear, increasing tensions and driving their sheep to the polls in massive numbers.

Progressives operate on the assumption that everyone should treat others with respect and mind their own business. Conservatives operate on the assumption that people who disagree with them are wrong and should be criminalized, and they never take a day off. It’s remarkably easy to herd a bunch of lemmings into a line and march them off to battle (or off a cliff). Meanwhile, progressives think that they have infinite amounts of time to argue and bicker and create divisons within their ranks because, hey! They’ve got this one in the bag!

Yeah. I remember hearing that one in 2004, too.

In summary, I’m not buying it. Some of us can’t afford to wait for change until it’s convenient for others to vote for it. We need it now, before it’s too late.

Originally published at The Multiracial Muse. You can comment here or there.