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Posts Tagged ‘reading’

Banning Books and Things

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I invited the Love Bug to our local artsy cinema this past weekend to see the documentary, “The Librarians.” Book bans are nothing new, Ray Bradbury wrote about burning books in Fahrenheit 451 during the McCarthy era. But in this movie, in 2025, we learn how an ‘anti-woke’ cabal of parents is trying to criminalize school librarians!

 The film “…focuses on actions in Florida, New Jersey, Louisiana and Texas, where a list of 850 titles compiled in 2021 by State Representative Matt Krause, Republican of Texas, was used to cull the stacks. Nationwide, the group Moms for Liberty packs school boards with candidates who wield Scripture in the name of child safety. In one dumbfounding instance, the Bible is cited as the ultimate standard for nonfiction writing.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/movies/the-librarians-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7E8.a3Nf.WoFe1YRfvEHw&smid=url-share

When I first started covering school board meetings for our local newspaper in NJ, I was disillusioned. The meetings were public, yet our community didn’t show up. The school board members had been there for a very long time, in fact not one had a child in the school system. Granted the meetings ran late and parents in this NYC suburb didn’t have time to sit through lengthy discussions on curriculum. But this indifference prompted me to run in the next election for the board, and surprise surprise I won.

Some states appoint their members, while others leave it up to the people. Several states, including Tennessee, use a mix of appointed and elected members. The Bug asked me who appoints these people, which got me thinking. Obviously, if your Governor and or legislators are appointing school board members, the process is inherently political. I had never thought about this before; after all, why dig deeply into our bedrock educational system?

In NJ, school board members are not compensated for their time – in TN they are. I considered my time on the board as public service.

The Constitution doesn’t exactly guarantee a free K-12 education but the 14th Amendment requires “equal protection of the laws” with a due process clause. It’s why Title IX was passed giving girls’ sports programs parity with the boys! This piecemeal approach however, requiring equal protection and due process laws to every citizen, gets chopped up depending on a number of variables: your state and specific school district; and your rural (white) vs urban (brown) tax revenue. Does this sound like an equal or efficient system?

“An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” If Tom Jefferson didn’t say this exactly, he should have!

The Bride asked her daughter what she thought of The Librarians. Her answer – they banned the graphic novel of Anne Frank because of a picture of her in a garden with statues! And Maus, because the mice were naked! Even the Pumpkin was appalled. We talked about my time working with the school librarian at her Mother’s high school after 9/11, and how much I enjoyed it. But that was before Moms for Liberty stormed sleepy school board meetings demanding certain books be pulled from shelves.

What is most troubling, many school districts are pulling books in anticipation of an edict. This is the very essence of Totalitarianism. Create fear, harbor doubt. “Since July 2021, our Index records 22,810 cases of book bans across 45 states and 451 public school districts.” https://pen.org/report/the-normalization-of-book-banning/

This school year alone has seen 6,870 instances of school book bans. If you don’t want your child to have access to age-appropriate books dealing with LGBTQ subjects, like two male penguins who adopted a chick, then let your kids’ teachers know. You can opt them out of sex education right? Keep them in the dark about our country’s history of racism and sexism. Or send them to private Christian schools, or homeschool.

But don’t bring your White Christian Nationalism into the public arena, your MAGA ideology into our school system and act like Joan of Arc. This is me at my drag queen hairstylist’s salon.

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Speaking of Death in Bed

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Last night Bob and I were just sharing some pillow talk before drifting off to sleep, when the subject somehow turned to last wishes. Bob has seen his fair share of dead and nearly-dead bodies over many decades working in an Emergency Room. I have not. Still, I’m used to his pragmatic approach to end of life discussions; I don’t however, appreciate discussing the inevitable in the cozy comfort of our bed right after turning out the light!

I may have been telling him about the memoir I’d just finished reading,

It’s a novel by one of my favorite writers Geraldine Brooks. She wrote “Horse” which I passed around to all my friends in Nashville. But “Memorial Days” is her latest work and dives into the sudden loss of her husband, Tony Horwitz, at the young age of 60. She was right in the middle of writing “Horse” in fact when he collapsed on a street alone in a Washington, DC suburb while she was at home, alone, on Martha’s Vineyard.

She writes about the resident who calls her at the end of his shift with the news – his perfunctory answers, the background noise, his rush to get off the phone. She writes about having to delay her grief in order to deal with her sons and planning two memorials – one for their friends on the Vineyard and one in DC for his family and colleagues. Tony was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, on a book tour in his hometown. She writes honestly, with words that cut deep into my soul.

Last night, I asked Bob about our insurance coverage, leading us down the yellow brick road to who might “go” first. It seems that Brooks’ medical insurance abruptly terminated the day after her husband died… without informing her. For a month she and her children were not covered, which naturally infuriated her. Like most Aussies, Brooks cannot understand how a medical catastrophe could bankrupt a family. And I thought about meeting a new Republican family member years ago who said to our dismay, “But we have the best health-care in the world.”

I came across this article while drinking my coffee, “So Much for the Best Health Care System in the World,” in the Atlantic. The GOP has not stopped opposing universal healthcare, but they are using a different tactic.

“Republicans haven’t given up their opposition to universal coverage—far from it—but they have mostly stopped singing the praises of American health-care innovation. Indeed, they are taking a meat axe to it, slashing medical-research funding while elevating quacks and charlatans to positions of real power. The resulting synthesis is the worst of all worlds: a system that will lose its ability to develop new cures, while withholding its benefits from even more of the poor and sick.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/08/trump-republicans-health-innovation/683795/?gift=MZkyOCULmn5OA_9_ikIP-9_sqlI0wYN6ADUWpCxNFxU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

My sweet husband sensed that our conversation was veering into dangerous territory last night, and so he quickly pivoted to the twins. From darkness to light. Those baby girls are teething, smiling and eating gourmet pureed foods. They are so eager to crawl. I wonder if they will run before they can walk. They bring me so much joy. They sustained me through my post-fall healing journey. I’m booking a flight right now.

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Out of Sync

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 22, 2025| 2 Comments »

Just in case you’re not caught up on my exploits, here’s a tiny synopsis:

Since the last election, when I broke my neck, I’ve been out of sync with my life. My hands were useless, and my head had to be constrained 24/7 in an Aspen Collar. When my neck was set free, three months later, my twin granddaughters were born prematurely. Bob and I have been living in California ever since. Now it’s time to return to Nashville, to return to normal, whatever that means.

A friend once told me I seem to have a lot of adventures! Well, I’m determined to lead a very boring life from now on; I will retreat to my snug and write, I will start swimming again, maybe I’ll venture into the kitchen and whip up a batch of muffins with the Love Bug. And my only big adventure will be to finish reading my very first fantasy novel – “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,” by Susanna Clarke.

I’m not a Lord of the Rings type. Even Harry Potter eluded my sensibilities. I’m an occasional fan of dystopian science fiction, but more enamored of historical fiction. Still I figured, why not give this twenty year old fantasy a go?

It all started when I came upon an Insta story from Parnassus Books. Ann Patchett was raving about this book as an escape for our times, but she warned it’s rather long and it will take 200 pages of boring description before taking off. I figured I needed the distraction, so instantly I downloaded the novel to my Kindle and I was hooked immediately.

It’s about the return of English magic – practical magic as opposed to theoretical magic! It takes place during the Napoleonic wars, with ancient fairy kingdoms and talking gargoyles. It’s about love and jealousy. And then I found out that Aunt Kiki loves fantasy novels. My beautiful, kind daughter-in-love, my Irish dancer, knows all about elves and magic!

If you’d like to venture into some modern fantasy, the Atlantic reviewed a new book this month titled “The Last Unicorn.”

“And perhaps all of this is why The Last Unicorn is a fantasy for these times. The novel doesn’t take place in a believable alternate world with clear rules and boundaries, but in a messy one more akin to ours. It’s not epic fantasy, but applied fantasy—which is to say, readers aren’t supposed to get lost in its invented world. We are supposed to import its lessons to our own world. In this uncertain age, when truth and falsehood are just rapidly converging talking points on the same blurry continuum, and wishful thinking is hopelessly mixed up with reality, The Last Unicorn urges audiences to do the things that need doing anyway, muddling through as best we can.” From the Atlantic – “One of the Best Fantasy Novels Ever…” https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/11/last-unicorn-peter-beagle-50th-anniversary-reality-magic/575641/

When Lord Wellington asked Mr Norrell to conjure up some unicorns to ride into battle against the French, he replied there were none left. They’d become extinct. It’s good to know there’s one left!

Oh how I wish I didn’t have to return to reality. My cuddling babies and dog walking duties are done, my tiny twin granddaughters are well on the road to post-preemiehood and getting stronger every day. They’ve just about doubled their birth weight, and they immediately focus and listen when their Daddy plays the guitar. Do you remember those days of young motherhood?

I do. I remember them like they were yesterday.

Hello Spring. The roses and lilacs have bloomed outside my snug’s window.

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Dudes in Drag

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on March 7, 2023| 2 Comments »

When I was at Camp St Joseph for Girls, I sang “If Ever I Would Leave You” in drag. I was maybe 13 or 14 and the nuns thought nothing of it. Since I was the tallest camper who could carry a tune, I was dressed as Sir Lancelot in Camelot. Is it called drag when girls dress like boys and perform musical comedy hits, like Victor Victoria? What about Shakespeare, where men always played women?

Back in the day, I’ve witnessed many a guy on stage dressed like a Hawaiian Hula dancer. The trope is funny, with coconuts on their hairy chest. Mostly it was the big, brawny football types who felt secure enough in their own masculinity to don womens’ clothes. I’d never even heard of drag until I was in my 30s and we went to a bar in Key West. Our Big Chill group took up a sizable part of the audience and we had tons of fun.

And now here I am in Nashville with a Drag Star Hair Stylist!

Tennessee is the first state in the union to ban public displays of drag to “PROTECT” our children. What exactly are we protecting them from… ? TN Republican legislators say drag is “harmful to minors;”  They called it an “adult cabaret” that would “appeal to a prurient nature.” My hair stylist in his alter ego, aka The Britney Banks, attended one of the protests. He/she held a sign that said

“Trust Politicians PARENTS”

I absolutely cannot trust politicians to keep our children safe. Safe from what, from learning their own history in school?

Safe from what? reading books that may make them uncomfortable?

Have politicians kept our children safe in their schools? Yesterday, I bought three purple Columbine plants for my garden, and every time I say that word, Columbine, I feel that tragedy deep in my bones; when two teenage boys killed 13 students and teachers and wounded more than 20 in 1999.

Politicians however, have voted against enhanced background checks after Sandy Hook, where six adults and 20 CHILDREN were murdered. They did nothing again after Uvalde, where 19 children and 2 teachers were gunned down. Children are simply pawns to be sacrificed on the altar of Republican Greed. If you haven’t heard Jon Stewart parry with Oklahoma Republican State Legislator Nathan Dahm you’re in for a treat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuIxIJBfCY

It’s a bit long – they must go through a series of free speech and 2nd Amendment chaos – but wait till the end. Stewart asks Dahm if it’s true that he doesn’t like drag queens reading to children. Oh my, well of course that’s true. Then Stewart, with righteous indignation in his eyes, asks him why it’s OK to infringe on free speech but not OK to regulate firearms? And Stewart’s trick question is, “DO you know what the leading cause of death is for children?”

It’s not drag queen readings. It’s GUNS!! Yes, now guns surpass motor vehicle collisions, and unlike adults, where the majority of gun deaths are suicides, “…for children, 65% of firearm deaths are homicides and 35% are categorized as suicide.” I guess there is the occasional accidental suicide when a toddler finds mommy’s gun in her purse and shoots himself, but honestly 65% of firearm deaths are murders! And our leaders cannot even reinstate the Assault Weapon Ban?

Why can’t we treat a gun like a car? I used to ride in the front seat with my Daddy Jim. Every time he braked, his arm swung over and pushed me back in my seat. I even did it for awhile with my kids, who used to sprawl all over the back seat to and from the beach with towels and dogs running rampant. Kids are not dying in cars as much anymore because politicians have passed regulations that require parents to take certain measures and buy car seats and not even let them sit in front until they reach a certain height…

Bless Gov Lee’s heart, his priority is not exposing children to Drag Queens, but hey, the more guns the merrier! I wonder when his Christian cohorts will want to end bachelorette parties in Nashville? Or Purim costumes for that matter at a synagogue, where a man recently dressed as Queen Esther. Are we going to infringe on religion? You get my drift. These two know and love my aforementioned hairstylist, and I’m more than OK with that!

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“The Axe for the Frozen Sea”

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on January 17, 2017| 1 Comment »

You are either a reader of books, or you’re not. You might pick up a magazine now and then, or skim some article while waiting for the barber. You may be that young lifeguard years ago who told me, “No thanks, it’s the summer. I don’t read in the summer.” Meaning, if it’s not on his Fall reading list for school, it’s not happening. Reading became a chore somewhere along the way, and reading for pleasure an oxymoron.

As you already know, I’m a Reader. I like to read everywhere, especially on a beach. I can read on a train, a plane or even a boat. This type of reading makes Bob sick; if his body is in motion, he cannot read. I’ve been known to read while sitting on the floor next to a baby in a bathtub, though I couldn’t read while nursing. I’ve made some of the best friends through book clubs. So yesterday, I eagerly picked up the NYTimes article at the gym, “Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books,” by the book critic Michiko Kakutani.

I really love reading on the bike, while everyone else is plugged into some TV or work-out music playlist. And I love Kafka’s quote on reading: “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”

And what I took away from Obama’s love of books, is that books were a refuge for his childhood. He grew up a Black child in a White world, and even when his mother moved him back to Hawaii, he felt different because he had come from Indonesia. He always felt different. And I could relate to that, because I was the child with a different last name from my foster parents, I was the girl with flaming red hair who stood out in a crowd when I so wanted to blend in.

President Obama could time travel through books and find that all cultures touch on some of the same human conditions. And he learned to fit into whatever world he found himself in by reading about other people, that included Shakespeare, and forging his own unique identity. Because knowledge was portable in the form of a book…”from his peripatetic and sometimes lonely boyhood, when “these worlds that were portable” provided companionship, to his youth when they helped him to figure out who he was, what he thought and what was important.”

To this day, reading has remained an essential part of his daily life. He recently gave his daughter Malia a Kindle filled with books he wanted to share with her (including “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” “The Golden Notebook” and “The Woman Warrior”). And most every night in the White House, he would read for an hour or so late at night — reading that was deep and ecumenical, ranging from contemporary literary fiction (the last novel he read was Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad”) to classic novels to groundbreaking works of nonfiction like Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Sixth Extinction.”                    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/books/obamas-secret-to-surviving-the-white-house-years-books.html?_r=0

I love the idea of a Kindle as a graduation present! We gave Great Grandma Ada one for her birthday once, and it’s the gift that keeps on giving – since every book she downloads, we pay for! She told me I must read “A Man Called Ove,” for fun and diversion, and I’m planning on it.

President Obama recently invited a number of authors to the White House, including Michael Chabon. I just finished his novel, “Moonglow,” which was mailed to me by my favorite place in Nashville, the One and Only Parnassus Bookstore, since Bob has signed me up to their First Editions Club. It’s a book of the month club for Literary Nerds like me. Moonglow is one of those books you never want to end, you savor the last pages, drawing them out over many nights. And it made me think about a new approach to the Flapper, because he was dealing with his grandfather’s hidden history. http://www.npr.org/2016/11/19/502581929/moonglow-shines-a-light-on-hidden-family-history

You see my Mother was a gun moll, who went to prison in the 1930s, and my book is very much about her. My writing is like taking an axe to my family history.

If I am arrested on Saturday, Bob swears he will bail me out, but if you don’t hear from me next week, I may just be reading in jail! Here I am reading Emily Dickinson during lunch:   “I have no life but this to lead it here.”

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Read for the Record

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 3, 2013| 1 Comment »

Yesterday was Kale Day, but today is the official national book reading day for millions of children in libraries, homes and schools all across the country, and the idea is that we’ll all be reading one book. Well, you could read more than one, but doesn’t everybody love a tractor?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4uykLrVnu0

The book for Jumpstart’s 2013 Read for the Record campaign is Otis! Published by Penguin and written by New York Times bestselling author Loren Long, Otis is the timeless story of a friendship between a lovable tractor and a calf that live on a farm. On October 3, 2013 children and adults will come together to read Otis as part of Jumpstart and the Pearson Foundation’s Read for the Record campaign.

I packed a box full of toys and books for the Love Bug’s arrival. And her parents brought her favorite books with them as well. I’m even working on a children’s book inspired by the Bug, so here’s a little clue:County Fair 009

We started reading early to the Bride and Rocker, almost as soon as they could sit semi-steadily on our laps. And I’m happy to see the tradition continues. I found a beautifully illustrated book, I’d Know You Anywhere, My Love by Nancy Tillman. It’s about how we parents would always see through any animal disguise in pretend play, and recognize our beloved child.

And while talking all things literary today, let’s jump ahead to the next book on my list. I cannot wait to dig into Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, The Signature of All Things. I follow this author on Twitter so I was aware of its release date, then I caught her on the Today Show and later heard her interview on NPR.

http://www.npr.org/2013/10/01/225719994/fghfgh

The heroine is a botanist in the early 19th Century, who travels to Tahiti and discovers herself, along with “…varietals of vanilla pods; a sky-high waterspout; abolition…” and so much more, including a bit of Victorian pornography. Gilbert’s book, Committed, helped the Bride and many of her friends in their understanding of modern marriage. So I had to smile when Gilbert said she married a man who believes a wife belongs in the kitchen…”with her feet up and a glass of wine, watching her husband cook dinner.”

We read around here for the love it, to escape and be challenged, to learn and to laugh. For the record, ebooks, podcasts and iPads have their place, but in my life, nothing will replace the feel of a real book in my hands!  photo

 

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