February 17

 The weather continues to be strange. A lot of the snow we had a week ago is gone--melted in the 51F of yesterday and washed away with the rain. It is snowing now. We won't complain because the worst of the storm (sleet and freezing rain topped off with inches of snow) passed us by. We still might get as much as 6 inches before tomorrow morning. I checked as many of the garden as I could reach. Several areas are still blocked by snow. The rosemary and Chamomile look very likely to comeback. The mums might also since the main stalks are supple and not brittle like dead ones would be. Beyond that--who knows?

Tom Engelhardt has a personal reminiscence on his Tomdispatch site today that rings several bells with me. At the same age he was when he sneaked into the adult section of his local library hoping the librarians wouldn't chase him away, I was doing much the same. I had already read through the children's section of my branch of our city library but my mother sent me in with a note allowing me to check our any book I the library--from any section. The city built a new, and larger branch closer to my house and I quickly read through it as well. The librarians already knew me and didn't bother me. I read through everything--fiction, science fiction/fantasy, history, biography, and science, whatever I got my hands on. By the time I was in high school I had also gone through the better part of the main city library (all three floors) and was taking a couple of train rides to Chicago where the last stop was just below the Chicago main library. Since my grandmother lived in the city we got me a borrowers card with her address and believe me I made sure every book got back on time and in good condition. Grandma would have blistered my ass if I hadn't done so and Mom would have done the same at home. 

I didn't read Maus when it came out but I did much later working on a never-finished dissertation on comic books or, to use the later phrase, graphic novels. The libraries I frequented in my much younger days wouldn't have had any of "those" on their shelves just as they didn't have series books (Nancy Drew, The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Hardy Boys, etc.) Those books I bought out of my allowance or Mom got them for me. The librarians frowned on those just as the "experts" of the previous century disapproved of the "dime" novels. Those books weren't "real" literature.

 The book banning craze is simply more evidence of the psychotic breakdown of our society or at least a significant minority (I hope) of it. Along with the attempts of legislatures to ban certain subjects from classroom discussion because it might make the poor little students uncomfortable. Of course they aren't worried about the psyches of all students--just white students.