current events

Stop Trying to Ban Books

Maybe it’s because I’m a librarian, but I’ve always had this general feel that there’s a consensus that book burning is a bad thing. At least, I’ve never heard anyone speak favorably of it, and whenever it’s come up in a conversation, it’s been used as an example of What Not To Do. This is likely because it’s fairly intrinsically tied to efforts by the Nazis, and most people still believe Nazis were Not Good. However, it appears more and more people seem to believe banning books is not only not that bad, but actually pretty good. I’ve been following

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My Current, Full Thoughts on COVID and Omicron and Maine

I’m not really sure why I’m writing this post. It’s more for me than it is for everyone else, I guess. I know that at this point, it seems most people I interact with are just over COVID. They’re tired of dealing with it, worrying about it, planning how to handle it, and just generally tired over all. I completely sympathize, of course, but I also know that me being tired of it doesn’t have any influence over what’s actually happening. I might wish it were over, but it isn’t. This is particularly important on a local level because Maine

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Downward Spiral of Discourse

For the longest time, I always looked at Facebook as a relatively safe space for people to post. Sure, you’d have arguments break out on walls from time to time, but I felt that overall, people would generally respect each other on Facebook for the simple reason that they weren’t anonymous. Because their actual picture and personality were attached to those comments, I thought it would keep the worst tendencies reined in. (Compared to anonymous comments on newspaper articles, for example.) Lately, it’s felt like that’s fundamentally changed. I’m on some local Facebook groups, and it seems to me that

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The Power of Political Unity

Say one thing for the Republican Party right now: you may think many of them are pandering sycophants to Trump, but they have definitely learned the power of banding together to get things done. It’s something I wish Democrats could figure out half as well. There were many things Trump did over the course of his presidency that I wasn’t keen on (to say the least), but his party rallied around him to get even the things they didn’t really agree with all that much done. Today, you still have many Republicans who are so beholden to Trump that they

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COVID Then and COVID Now

Yay. Another COVID topic. I know that’s just what you all want to read. (Not really. I know from my blog statistics that these COVID posts don’t get many views these days. And yet I persist.) However, I was looking at COVID numbers today and thinking back on where we were a year ago. The contrast was surprising, and (unfortunately) disheartening. Come with me, back to Maine in mid-August of 2020. The university was ramping up for a return to in-person classes. Masks were required everywhere (indoors and outside on campus), we had strict social distancing caps on all indoor

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