Election Connection – Book Banning/Challenge Update

This is specific to a Texas school district, but challenges are happening across the country.

A federal judge has ruled that the books in question be returned to the library within twenty-four hours and left accessible while the case is ongoing. They are prohibited from removing any books while the case is in litigation.

According to this CNN article, while the Texas school said the books were removed as part of their normal weeding procedures it is clear that there were outside influences at play based on the subjects removed, including topics of race and LGBT+.

Disagreeing with the subject matter is not a reason to remove the books from the library. I also disagree with the comment in the article that pastors should be involved. Absolutely not. The separation of church and state is critically important both to the founding of this country and its ongoing evolution of welcoming all, despite the recent contradictions to that.

Part of the problem is the ignorance of those complaining about the books. They call many LGBT+ books pornographic when they are not sexual in nature and simply talk about feelings and gender as any adolescent character in a book would do. They are also trying to restrict CRT (critical race theory) which none of these books teach despite perhaps being written by a person of color or are about a person of color. As has been explained over and over again, CRT is not something that is taught in the schools, not even at a high school level. It is typically a subject in post-graduate and law schools.

As a writer, I understand that not all books are for everyone, and I agree that parents can determine the appropriateness of books for their children within reason (as I have done for my children without banning books for everyone), but I expect that we should trust in the schooling and expertise of librarians and teachers who have studied this field for a number of years.

I am also concerned about a random group of uneducated people coming in and removing books rather than letting individual parents and children make the determinations for their families on what is age-appropriate.

I hope the country steps back from the abyss; we are well beyond the slippery slope, and we need to offer modern books with timely subject matter while also encouraging the reading of classics while explaining the reasons that some of the material isn’t appropriate, and maybe never was.

Times change. We should change with them.

Election Connection Special Edition:

The Texas Abortion Ban

The Conservative Justices’ Reasoning in the Texas Abortion Case is Legal Mansplaining

This brilliant piece by Slate writer, Dahlia Lithwick is a must read by everyone who calls themselves pro-choice and those who don’t. The idea that the people crying ‘our body, our choice’ over masks are the same ones brutally stomping on the bodies of pregnant people. Stomping is not an exaggeration.

This law is unconstitutional, but somewhat more importantly it is unconscionable. We should be protecting women, transmen, and CHILDREN who find themselves pregnant and unready, for whatever reason, and not forcing them to give birth.

We must remember these draconian laws and constant attempts at controlling our reproduction and our bodies at every election moving forward. GET OUT THE VOTE. Each and every election.

Read the entire article, but this quote from Lithwick really brought it home for me.

The inevitable answer is chilling: This isn’t about guns or speech or money or war. It’s about women, their lives and their bodies and their autonomy. That’s what allows you to do shoddy work, with careless disregard, because who’s going to stop you? You only do the thing in the dead of night, without care or effort, because you believe women are so used to being gaslit that you expect them to just tolerate it. You only do the thing in the dead of night without care or effort because you genuinely believe that they’re only women, and they deserve what they get.
Dahlia Lithwick, Slate

Juneteenth

Juneteenth is a celebration of African-American Emancipation. It commemorates the day in 1865 in Texas that General Gordon Granger read the proclamation declaring that ALL SLAVES ARE FREE. While Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in his Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 with an effective date of January 1, 1863 that did not include border states not in rebellion or Texas where slaveowners moved to escape the fighting (unless these slaves escaped to non-slave states).

Now, they were all free with all the rights and privileges of all Americans (except of course for the reality of being Black in America in 1865).

One year later, in 1866, Freedmen celebrated the first anniversary of Juneteenth in Texas.

Contending with whites only spaces that continued for too many years, many pooled their money to buy land of their own in order to congregate and celebrate. Emancipation Park in Houston, Booker T. Washington Park in Mexia, and Emancipation Park in Austin are three of these places.

While celebrated in several states as a recognized holiday or observance, the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation is seeking an official designation of Juneteenth as an observation in all 50 states through Congress.

What is Juneteenth by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Juneteenth Holiday (from Vox)

Slate (from 2015): The Black American Holiday Everyone Should Celebrate But Doesn’t

Juneteenth Honors March to Freedom (from 2008)

From the television series, Black-ish:

Update and Call to Action

I wanted to write an update before my next post.

My intention last week was to return with more information about the border crisis, and that is what it is – a crisis, and then continue writing and sharing.

I was a bit overwhelmed with the horrifying news that children were being taken from their parents and detained. I was horrified that asylum seekers were being lied to, and sent, instead of to legal entry points, to illegal entry points, where they are then arrested, separated from their children, and detained.

Some of these children have been taken to New York and Michigan, not to detainment centers, but to foster care, and in the case of MI, a Betsy DeVos affiliated Christian adoption agency. Many of these children are pre-verbal.

This is beyond horrifying. I can’t find the adequate words for how bad and inhumane, and diabolical this is. This is a catastrophe.

With the executive order signed by President Trump, nothing has changed. Families will not be separated for twenty days, but then are subject to separation and detainment. Parents are being blackmailed into immediate deportation by being promised reunification with their children.

These people are not entitled to lawyers, and many of them do not speak English.

There is so much more to say and to more, and I sadly admit that I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t wade into the research of what’s happening there to explain it to you. I’m still trying to explain it to myself.

There is one group helping who I can reliably recommend: RAICES. Please contact your Congress-people and your Senators, no matter what state you are in, to voice your outrage at this racist and inhumane policy.

You can also go to ireallydocare.com for a list of other organizations helping the kids at the border.

My family decided to take a spontaneous road trip to Destiny USA, and that also contributed to my absence. I’ll tell you more about that in a subsequent post. It gave me a tiny respite of no television, no news, I kept thinking I’d write, but we just went, and it was fun; taking a couple of days away.

But those parents at the border…they don’t get a day off; they don’t get respite.

Border Update. 10:05pm EST, source: MSNBC

I don’t know what just happened in Texas about babies and toddlers at the border and shelters but Rachel Maddow just lost it on the air and couldn’t finish her show.

Did Lawrence O’Donnell just say babies are being arrested?

We still don’t know where the girls are.

We just pulled out of the UN Human Rights Commission.

I need to look into this.

Fandom Friday – Family Business Beer Co.

Part of the extended Supernatural family, their motto is Serving People…Fermented Things.

They are family owned and run. Check out their website and then follow them on social media to get news and events updates.

Congratulations, Family Business! Can’t wait!

The Family Business (in their own words)

We are a family-owned brewery on 15 acres just outside Austin in Dripping Springs [Texas]. Come relax in the hill country and enjoy a wide variety of hand-crafted beers and one of Austin’s finest food trucks.

Bring your family and come meet ours! We are kid friendly, and even have a special place they can call their own. Check our events page for updates on special gatherings and live music schedules.

Located at

19510 Hamilton Pool Rd., Dripping Springs, TX 78620
Grand Opening

Fall of 2017

Donate to Stronger than Storms

Travel – Where are my Gishwhes Teammates From?

I mentioned yesterday that one of the great things about gishwhes is meeting new people and making new friends. Of my teammates is a friend from high school that I’ve remained close with, but everyone else is relatively new to me. Six of the fourteen others were on my team last year so we’ve gotten to know each other quite well in some cases.

This year’s team encompasses men and women from three countries: Spain, Denmark, and the United States. In the US, we represent seven states: New York, Colorado, California, Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Illinois.
Below you will find links to those states/countries bureaus of tourism. I tried to locate the official ones. It will be easy enough to find for-profit ones through Google.