current events

In the aftermath of Will Smith’s infamous slap, I’ve heard and read remarks that basically boil down to, “I just didn’t think Will Smith of all people would do that. He’s such a nice guy.” I’ve blogged about this before (five years ago, when Joss Whedon turned out to be far from a shining example of awesome), but it bears repeating: unless you’ve spent significant time around someone, you don’t know them. (And honestly, even if you *have* spent significant time around someone, you still don’t necessarily know them.) In the case of celebrities, all you really know is the

I’m more than a little puzzled by the significant lack of any sort of real response on social media today. I woke up to the headlines of Russia rolling into Ukraine, and I’ve been reading the updates as the day has unfolded: attacks on sites across Ukraine, military coming in on three sides of the country, planes and helicopters being shot down, missile strikes being videoed. A couple of my friends have posted something about these events on Facebook, but by and large my feed is filled with the same memes and chatter that they’re filled with every day. On

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

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