A burnin' hunk of love for libraries

Last week, it was brought to my attention that a few lost souls over in West Bend, Wisconsin had been insisting they be allowed to burn a few books in their library's collection. Area residents Ginny and Jim Maziarka, you see, had deemed certain of the works in the young adult section as being "sexually explicit."

Thankfully, the library's trustees voted unanimously to maintain the collection and effectively tell the Maziarkas to piss off, but I still couldn't help but think: Book burning? Really? We're still doing that?

That the idea of burning tomes you happen to find personally disagreeable doesn't immediately conjure up images of history's most oppressive and violent regimes is incredibly baffling to me (and apparently I'm not alone).

The story gets all the more strange, however, when you delve a bit deeper:

Milwaukee-area citizen Robert C. Braun of the Christian Civil Liberties Union (CCLU) distributed at the meeting copies of a claim for damages he and three other plaintiffs filed April 28 with the city; the complainants seek the right to publicly burn or destroy by another means the library’s copy of Baby Be-Bop. The claim also demands $120,000 in compensatory damages ($30,000 per plaintiff) for being exposed to the book in a library display, and the resignation of West Bend Mayor Kristine Deiss for “allow[ing] this book to be viewed by the public.”

The first thing that jumped out at me was that these people were seeking damages for merely seeing the book displayed. I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that they apparently haven't actually read the work in question.

But then, I have a sneaking suspicion that what they did read was a series of talking points, handed out by one extreme right-wing group or another (perhaps Braun's CCLU? Or maybe they just took a cue from some of the other attempts to ban the book), describing the contents and themes of Baby Be-Bop. The highly acclaimed YA novel by Frencesca Lia Block, you see, is about a young man coming to terms with being gay, seeking acceptance, and finding a way to be true to himself.

If you have them, now's the time to clutch your pearls.

Again, I shouldn't be shocked. This whole controversy, couched in claims of protecting children from "sexually explicit" content, is really about homophobia. Sadly, many people still find the very idea to be repellent and an unsuitable topic of discussion at any age. And many people also feel that simply mentioning homosexuality is "sexually explicit," even when nothing naughty ever happens.

Full disclosure: I have not had occasion to read Baby Be-Bop (though I'm deeply tempted now), though all of the reviews I've seen recommend a 12-and-up age limit for it. If there is a bit of bad language in the book, then that seems about right to me. But this idea that adolescents and teenagers should be coddled and kept away from material that deals with such subjects as sexuality in a frank and honest manner is both dangerous and patronizing.

And the idea, ridiculously still pervasive, that equates "gay" with "sex" is something we as a society have a lot to learn about. Even if that were the case, we can't go on trying to keep all sexual information away from our children. At least, not if we want them to live relatively happy, healthy lives.

In the meantime, how about we stop trying to destroy their books? And how about the likes of Braun and the Maziarkas get a new hobby, preferably one that doesn't involve infringing on the most basic rights of their fellow citizens.


(photo by mrtwism on Flickr)

What's black and white and red all over?

I don't normally address the vapid, pointless things MJS columnist Patrick McIlheran spews onto his blog, but today's little screed bears some tweaking.

Taking umbrage with a piece written by Leonard Pitts Jr. that deals with the problem of black scapegoating in this country, McIlheran goes into full-on sarcasm mode and answers with this gem:

...why did you – yes, you again – deny Pitts a job and then call him a thief? Read to the bottom of his column. That’s what he says you did. And you blew up his school and then called him ignorant. Why did you do that, huh? Why did you kill his father and then complain he was filled with rage?

What, you say you didn’t? You were born after Jim Crow died, after MLK was already regarded a martyr? You grew up thinking black people were just as good as anyone else because “Sesame Street” and every adult you’ve ever known has told you precisely that?

Not only did he miss the entire point of the original article, but apparently the only reason anyone, including himself, might think "black people were just as good as anyone" is because "Sesame Street and every adult you've ever known has told you" to think that. Nice.

I guess McIlheran hasn't made the acquaintance of many African Americans in his day. How else would you explain such a dreadfully ignorant statement?

But it's not entirely uncommon for people to get up in arms when the issue of racism comes up. It's an incredibly complex and highly personal subject. But I don't think Pitts was blaming all racist attacks, past and present, on every white person now living. There's a little something called artistic license going on in his column, wherein stronger language choices are made to get a point across. And the fact remains that we all--black, white, and red-faced McIlheran--still have our own demons to face. Whether that's blatant racism, or the insidious sort that leads us to lock our doors when we see a person of a certain ethnicity walking nearby, the spectre still looms.

Ultimately, this just seems to be a case of McIlheran making knee jerk assumptions based on his own discomfort with the subject. We elected a black man president! This is a post-racial society! We have no more difficult discussions to have or self-examination to do!

Only, clearly, we do.

Madison's own potential pay-to-play scheme

The whole idea of being a street musician is that, if a passerby enjoys the music being offered by the busker, the passerby drops some coin (or bill, if they're feeling particularly generous) into the busker's basket.

Instead, Madison Alder Mike Verveer has expressed his support--and the Common Council seems inclined to agree--for an ordinance that would charge street musicians for their time.

The city does not currently regulate street musicians beyond the reasonable restrictions (that apply to everyone) regarding not obstructing public sidewalks or creating "unreasonable noise." There are also rules governing musicians wishing to use public electricity--ie: be amplified on the street--and those who want to sell anything. These all seem like perfectly legitimate rules to me.

Recently, however, Warren Hansen, coordinator of Madison's street vending, proposed putting legal and financial limits on performer's ability to do their thing. He "suggested charging performers $50 for an annual permit, or $10 a day and setting standards for things like how close they could operate to a business and one another."

Advocates of this system point to the fact that Madison is apparently one of very few cities of its size not to charge a fee for buskers. But since when has our city been all that keen on keeping up with the Jones'? And why now?

...during this year’s Dane County Farmers’ Markets on the Capitol Square, a glut of street performers — including balloon hat artists and a masseuse — has made even Ald. Mike Verveer, 4th District, change his position on the issue.

“I really thought it was a solution in search of a problem,” Verveer said. “Now staff is bringing this to our attention again, and in a more adamant way.”

I've been a busker and I've been a pedestrian, and I can say that 90% of the people out there performing are courteous and polite. Like all weird, seemingly unnecessary laws, this one may come about as the result of the actions of a few thoughtless and/or bad apples. But it doesn't have to be quite so severe.

Instead of charging the proposed $50/year and $10/day rate--the latter of which is more than some buskers make in a day, by the way--why not simply require a free permit that places mild restrictions on duration and location? That way, we avoid the problem of too many buskers in one spot, and for too long (I'm sure the food cart vendors would appreciate that in regards to the Piccolo Man).

And if the idea of not charging for these permits gets the city's panties into too hard a twist, then make the fee nominal--say, $1 for a day, $5 for the year? Yeah, it's a pesky token thing, but if it deters the nuisance-inclined and rewards the nice 90%, then why not?

Honestly, I'm not entirely comfortable with any permitting requirements for acoustic acts, but the above represents what I believe to be a reasonable compromise. The street musicians and performers are a major part of keeping State Street at all unique and interesting. We need to stop moving toward the sterilization efforts that seem to have been at the forefront of "improvements" to the area for a number of years now, and realize that these funky, earthy, impromptu elements are what makes the street so appealing.

UPDATE TO ADD: Silly of me not to think of and do this in the first place, but I encourage anyone interested in this issue to contact Ald. Verveer and the Common Council to express, politely, their views. Verveer can be contacted directly here, and the CC here. They won't know what we think unless we speak up!

No vacation from responsibility

I tried to only brief myself on the days' events while I was on vacation last week--both because I like to stay informed, and because it makes the transition back to regular life a little less jarring--but the news that hit me upon return to my home was still hard to take.

You've all undoubtedly heard about it by now. Dr. George Tiller, for a long time one of the few providers of safe, legal, late-term abortions in this country, was gunned down while attending church services in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas. His alleged killer, 51-year-old Scott Roeder of Merriam, Kansas, has a storied history of far-right, rabidly anti-abortion and anti-government activity. It's not a stretch at all to assume he carried out the assassination based on his beliefs.

The tragic events have, predictably and rightfully, brought the issue blazing back to the forefront of our national discussion. Many pro-choice advocates are pointing out the utter hypocrisy inherent in an act of murder by a supposedly "pro-life" individual. And many anti-abortion activists are doing their best to distance themselves from the act while still demonizing Tiller's profession.

Some just can't quite give up the ghost. In comments posted over at Folkbum's site, for instance, several went from denouncing the act to saying that Tiller "deserved what he got." That does a lot to illustrate the kind of cowardly inciting to violence that some of our nation's loudest right-wing talkers like to do. Bill O'Reilly has made Tiller into a favorite bogeyman, referencing the doctor in 28 separate episodes of his show since 2005. O'Reilly frequently referred to Tiller as a "baby killer" with "blood on his hands" and who is guilty of "Nazi stuff." He also made frequent claims that Tiller had performed upwards of 60,000 abortions in his career--which, given the limits of space and time, seems highly implausible to me. But plausibility, and facts for that matter, don't seem to stop O'Reilly and his ilk.

Roeder and his extreme actions certainly don't represent all anti-abortion advocates, not by any means. But he's not alone in viewing the murder of abortion providers as being "justifiable homicide." Several groups across the country operate on that assumption--unapologetically flouting the law and, in my opinion, their own allegedly pro-life stance.

I don't pretend that everyone is ever going to agree on the issue of abortion. But I expect a modicum of civility in the debate that has been lacking, in certain sections of both sides of the issue, since as long as I can remember. And I definitely expect everyone involved to remain safe from harm. There is no excuse, no justifiability, nothing to brush aside the abuse, violence, and even death that many abortion workers and patients have to face down every damn day.

Those who spend their time demonizing and rationalizing the harassment and abuse of abortion providers and patients may not enjoy the same level of culpability as those who carry out the types of disgusting acts being discussed here, but they're not guiltless, either. I'm just a lowly blogger, and yet I'm reminded time and time again through angry comments that, through the operation of a public forum, I have a responsibility for what I espouse and support here.

So then one should suppose that that responsibility should only be dramatically increased when one has a bigger audience, a larger platform from which to spout their thoughts. I'm about as big a proponent of free speech as you're likely to come by, but even I recognize that no one has the right to shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre. Perhaps, then, we should be more closely examining the effects of shouting "baby killer!" on a public, nationally syndicated talk show.

And in the meantime, we would all do well to take a step back and cut the more inflammatory rhetoric and tactics. That way it might be easier to pick out the potential Roeders from the more sane citizens in the crowd--I wouldn't be tempted to drive by the protesters outside the Madison clinic soon to provide late-term abortions and wonder which one is carrying the gun, for instance. And that way, there might be less senseless murder and terrorism (because that's what this is) in the future.

UPDATE TO ADD: A very interesting look at the issue over at Jezebel, featuring the testimony of many women who went to Tiller's clinic for its services.

Greetings from Moab!

It's indescribably gorgeous here.

Vacation all I ever wanted

[Relax by paulmcdee, on Flickr]
And not a moment too soon. I'll be driving into the wild blue yonder of the American Southwest for some serious vacation and recreation tomorrow, and not returning until the 31st. So the blog will likely be mostly idle until then. But! You can, if you'd like, look forward to a full trip report, complete with pictures, videos, and possibly humorous anecdotes about me making a fool of myself on my bike. Hopefully no major injuries will be involved.

(Or keep up with me via Twitter, if that's your bag)

In the meantime, I wish you all a good week, as well as a relaxing and thoughtful Memorial Day.

Let's call it what it is, then do something about it

Domestic violence. It's not called that in the initial article describing the recent murder of Fitchburg resident Francesca M. Weber by her estranged husband, Steve J. Weber - but that's exactly what it is/was.

A second article detailing the events that lead up to the tragic shooting death does a better job of describing exactly what was going on in that relationship (and kudos to G. Hesselberg and E. Treleven for putting it together), but I can't help but think that more could be done to add information about local domestic abuse prevention and assistance programs. Because that's what's being dealt with here, and there are certainly--and sadly--more such cases that exist in the shadows.

It's becoming more and more clear that this incident was not at all isolated. Weber appears to have had a long history of violent behavior and abuse toward his family. And Francie, for her own reasons, appears to have gone back and forth between getting a restraining order against her husband, to attempting reconciliation (predictably, it never ended well).

The pattern is all-too familiar. Though we've made great strides in educating and changing societal attitudes about domestic abuse, the frustrating fact remains that we're not as far along as we ought to be. That anyone would still think physical or mental abuse was a viable solution to their problems is unconscionable. And that anyone would still find it difficult to remove themselves from such a situation is tragic.

The numbers are staggering. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), in Wisconsin, "one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime." In addition, "one in 33 men have experienced an attempted or completed rape."

There are an estimated 1.3 million women who are victims of physical assault "by an intimate partner" every year. And this terrible trend has a cyclical effect on the children raised in such environments, as "boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults."

I strongly suspect that most people would find these statistics and realities to be horrifying, but the infuriating fact remains that, as a society, we aren't doing nearly enough to change things for the better. We should all take a long, hard look at how we handle these kinds of circumstances--from our own home lives, to those occasions when we see it happening to someone we know (or don't!), to what our culture feeds us through news, television, and movies.

I'm not talking about censorship, but rather expecting--and demanding--better.

A small step in that direction would be expecting our news media to appropriately label awful situations like the Weber case as being domestic violence, and then doing even a little bit to provide information on related services like Dane County's own Domestic Abuse Intervention Services.

We should also be putting appropriate pressure on law enforcement and the courts to better recognize dangerous people like Steve Weber--who police had been aware of since at least 2006, and then arrested in 2008 after he attacked both his wife and daughter:

A daughter told police she saw her cement construction worker father straddle her mother, hands around her neck, choking her. When he found out police had been called, he choked his wife again, the daughter said, and then he hit Francie Weber with a closed fist, eight times, and said “I’m going to kill you.”

In the court complaint, the daughter said when she tried to intervene by grabbing a fireplace poker Weber grabbed the poker from her and hit her with it, then slugged her and, when she fell to the ground, kicked her in the stomach, causing her to vomit.

His court appearance for this incident was scheduled for this week, for which he was apparently out on a measly $500 cash bail, on the condition that he not have contact with either his daughter or Francie (who had filed for divorce). He was also banned from being in the area of their home.

But that wasn't enough, not by a long shot. How is it that the acts of sheer brutality described above were met with such an obscenely low bail amount? Why was a man like that allowed to walk free? These are important--and urgent--questions that need swift and firm solutions.

Because Francie's murder should have never happened in the first place, and should never be repeated for anyone else.

From Shannon Barry, Executive Director at DAIS:

"This unfortunate incident highlights what so many of us in the domestic violence movement already know -- that victims can be more at risk when attempting to separate from their abusers than at any other time. In fact, they are six times more likely to be killed when attempting to leave the relationship.

"As a community we need to stop asking 'Why doesn't she leave?' and start asking 'Why does he do that?' and truly hold abusers accountable for their actions.

"We also want to make sure that current domestic victims know that there is help available. So often we hear from clients how their abusers use media coverage of cases like this to intimidate them further. It is critical that when media are reporting on these crimes that they are including the crisis line number for their local domestic violence agency. The Domestic Abuse Intervention Services (DAIS) Crisis Line for victims in Dane County is 251-4445."