Thursday Thoughts - When it has to do with my life I wanna be the one in control

1. This is not the move you fucking dumbasses. Bunch of book banning burning fascists. p.s. Show Us Your Books is Tuesday.

2. Glorious beach walk Monday night, so weird to go without the dogs in the off-season. I love the ice on the pipes and pilings.

3. I sent them home in MFD so I could spend a few days working while visiting Kim and family in Vienna, VA. It's so nice to have the flexibility to work from everywhere and spend time with one of your bffs of 30+ years and her family. It really makes for a more rounded life. It was nice to share meals together. Kim and I did a HomeGoods errand, which we used to do in Marshalls in Levittown/Langhorne from the time we could drive ourselves to stores, looped in with a Drug Emporium trip. And Esteban, Kim and I watched the first few episodes of Tommy & Pam. Wild and hilarious. I left before the asscrack on the way down and am leaving at a much more palatable time to go home this morning, getting up early to flex work time instead.

We did games after dinner and Natalia taught me Loteria and we had some Go Fish action as well. She's smart and funny and I love seeing my friends' kids in their own environment.

Some food over the visit: steak salad and fried green tomatoes, mixed mashed sweet potatoes, glorious baked brie

4. I'm ahead on my shore outfitting for the year thanks to the HomeGoods trip. The best thing about going in places other than your usual geographic area is that they have different things. Excellent shore house shower curtain collection at this one. 10/10 recommend

5. We have reached the point in the season where my skin looks categorically awful, just dry and worn. I need to get through February without upending my regimen like I typically do, which throws my face into a tailspin. Already did that a bit with prescription tretinoin, and I'm going to sell that shit

6. I have not seen the Janet Jackson doc yet but I have been listening to a lot of Janet as the title implies. Who has seen it? 

7. Standard yearly reminder that Black History Month is every month, Black history is everyone's history, and that in addition to celebrating Black people we should be examining how much more difficult Black lives are made by systemic racism and every iteration of Jim Crow white people have dreamt up including the current mass incarceration one, question why in the fuck people wouldn't want the actual history of this country as it relates to Black people taught in schools (pretty sure you know the answer even if you don't want to say it out loud), buying Black, paying Black content creators, amplifying Black voices, and making sure there is equity. EVERY month.

8. Add this to one of the conditions in my optimal existence from yesterday

9. Reminder via doodlydays

10. This made me laugh.

Happy almost Friday!

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is of course Control by Janet Jackson - I forgot about this video

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading

via

That's what I think, anyway. Sunday starts Banned Books Week, also known as the annual celebration of the freedom to read.

According to bannedbooksweek.org: Banned Books Week was started in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores, and libraries. According to the American Library Association, more than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982. A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials based upon the objections of a person or group. Not just them expressing their opinion, but actively trying to remove material from curriculum and libraries, restricting the access of others and threatening freedom of speech and choice. A banning is the removal of those materials.

Like many of you, I cannot imagine a world in which I would possibly stoop to tell others what they should not read for moral purposes. However, there are many fearful assholes in the world, and those people would and do want to tell others what they can and can't read.

Thanks to organizations like Freedom to Read, we are fortunate enough to be able to lay hands on the majority of these banned books. I donate to them yearly, this year in memory of Gamma as she was one of the readers who shaped my life. The First Amendment guarantees all Americans the right to express our ideas without governmental interference, and to read and listen to the ideas of others. The Freedom to Read Foundation supports the right of libraries to include in their collections and make available any work which they may legally acquire.

The American Library Association is all up in Banned Books Week, of course. As they should be. Librarians are typically badass warriors for the right to read. Next week, from September 25 to October 1, the ALA will be running pieces by authors on its Intellectual Freedom Blog. Be sure to check those out.

As the ALA states, it's not only the librarians, though: it's the entire book community - librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers - who support the freedom to seek and express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

Personally, I like to read a banned piece every year during Banned Books Week, and next week it'll be Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. I bet a book you loved has been banned or challenged - check out this list of classics, or the top 10 most challenged books of 2015 here.

First, just be aware that there are maniacs who think they should be able to tell you what to read. Go ahead and give them the finger.

Second, consider celebrating next week by reading some banned titles...because you can, thanks to advocates for freedom to read and those like us who insist on that freedom.