ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Just one more reason for me to hate children. Congress has just recently sped through an ill-thought out, ill-written bill that will ban "social networking websites" (targeting MySpace, but includes everything from CNN.COM to Amazon) from school and library terminals receiving a certain type of government funding (read all schools and two-thirds of all libraries). The terms of the bill are so broad that almost virtually every website can be blocked by this bill and do you know what kills me? In your public libraries, that your tax dollars pay for, the FCC will have ultimate say over what you can and cannot see on the computer. Do you know how many people in Lorain don't have use of a PC at their homes? They pay bills here (and yes, according to the vague, ambiguous wording of the damn bill, those sites would most definitely be blocked). But apparently its all okay, because the bill states that adults may ask to be unblocked. So what we really have here is a public, free space integral to the freedom and wellfare of many adults in the community, funded by the adults of the community, reduced to the level of a playground because parents are too bull-headed and lazy to watch their children on the internet. Or better yet, if you are that worried, ban them from it completely, but don't degrade the rest of us just because you don't feel like watching your kids. I understand that the need for safety, but not at the expense of adult freedom.

Last Book Club Post For Handmaid's Tale

Okay kiddles, here it is, the mythic, oft promised but never posted, book club post. I must admit to all of you that it has been awhile since I read "The Handmaid's Tale", so my head is still swimming, but from talking to several members of the group, one comment always came up, that the book was really, really scary, terrifying, as one of you put it. So, to conclude this book, I would like us to discuss why so many of us find this book frightening and how the themes and motifs of this novel are relevant to today's political climate and trends as well as why men may find the book scary for different reasons than women. Whelp, that's all, chat amongst yourselves. We start "The Left Hand of Darkness" August 21 (I know school starts, but, like this book, we will take more than a month for it).