My manifesto

I’m having a moment of disgust and revolution. The traitor-in-chief signed a bill into law today, designed to (excuse me while I try to stop throwing up) “protect the American people by all means possible”. The expansion of eavesdropping powers and shielding of companies who so unlawfully and willfully violated the privacy and integrity of America in no way protects the American people. It is in fact the bright clear line that tells the American people that whenever the bloodless coup actually took place, democracy has fallen and America is no longer the Land of The Free.

Which I guess means that I am taking this opportunity to declare myself an enemy of the state. Which is really only dangerous if the bastards enthroned in DC are as deeply treasonous as I think they are, in which case they have already marked me — feminist, librarian, vegetarian, academic, subscriber to Ms. and Utne Magazines, Zmag, and an ACLU (geez, throw in coop and CSA to boot!) member — as an enemy of theirs. I also support MoveOn, TomPaine, and a variety of environmental protections.

I am so disgusted by Obama, by congress, by the government, and the people who have voted for all members therein.

I therefore declare:

• I stand for an educated populace, and an affordable and excellent public education system
• I stand for Freedom — to think, to believe, to pray, to speak as I choose (or don’t)
• Freedom to travel without violation
• Freedom to not have to declare my identity and my politics to any one unless I so actively choose
• Freedom to assemble, and freedom to talk to whom I choose
• Freedom to pursue intellectual pursuits, wherever they may take me
• Freedom to read anything I want, for any reason
• Freedom to love whomever I choose
• I believe that all people have the right to expect they will not be surveilled –by their own government or anybody else– without explicit and substantiated reasoned cause
• I believe in due process, and the process of law
• I believe no person has the right or authority to own another, in either explicit or metaphorical terms
• I believe it is the primary responsibility of my government to protect the freedoms and rights enumerated above

Wishing for the lazy hazy days…

…but instead I have the crazy days!

With a stack of ILLed work related books in front of me, all bringing various levels of nownownow with them (not to mention articles to read and books to review…), I’m feeling an urge for lazy hazy hammock breezy days to immerse myself in escapist fiction!

The urge to dive into a good novel has not been ameliorated by the fact that my campus book group has begun discussing books to select for discussion next semester, and my inbox is full of intriguing titles, like the back-in-print Egalia’s Daughters and Swastika Night, the never heard of The Hearing Trumpet, and The Euguelionne: A Triptych Novel. Long favored authors like Lois McMaster Bujold, Sheri Tepper, Sarah Zettel,and Elisabeth Vonarburg have books under consideration as well.

To top off all that temptation, I finally picked up my fiction box that Amazon failed to deliver before my vacation trip. and am thus faced with  four books enticing enough to get me to lay down some money for them (I only travel with owned paperbacks, and leave behind finished books in the airport). There’s book 2 of a Jane Lindskold series I just discovered and fell for, and a dark-ish book by a new author (C.S. Friedman’s Feast of Souls) I decided to try out. There’s the long awaited final book of Zettel’s Isvalta novels, and taunting me, harassing me, demanding I bury it in the yard or pick it up and read it? Pratchett & Gaiman’s collabaratory Good Omens

They’re just going to have to wait for dog days of August. Or rather, I’ll have to wait till then.

wish me luck!