No one fingers hypocrisy better (and UPDATE on Palin & books ban)

***UPDATE: I had heard rumors that the Palin banning books story may have been exaggerated, yet I still wrote the previous entry because I thought it was funny--and because, whether or not Palin banned specific books, her radical right-wing anti-intellectual blather deserves to be satirized.

I thank Christine for pointing me to this site that states the truth about the Palin book-banning thing. And that "truth" is rather freaky:

According to Anchorage Daily News, Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin asked librarian Mary Ellen Baker if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so. Baker's reply was that she would definitely not be all right with it. When questioned about this Palin called her inquiries rhetorical and simply part of a policy discussion with a department head "about understanding and following administration agendas." Baker resigned shortly before Palin began her second term.

Maybe, though, this is all beside the point and this kind of thing and this kind of thing are more important to pay attention to. Oh, and this.

Leaving the Baby

Tonight I'm going to dinner with Ishmael Beah.

Okay, there will be about 15 other people there, too--but I might actually get to watch him eat from across the table.

Afterward, he's speaking on campus. (For more information, click here.)

I'll update my blog tomorrow to let you know what the event was like. And meeting him.

*

Just found out that my story, "Leaving the Baby," will appear in Queer Collection: Poetry and Prose 2008.

Here's the first paragraph of the story, a teaser (I hope):

The first time Michelle left the baby alone was unintentional. And brief. She’d forgotten about him for just a few minutes when she went outside to get the mail. Actually, not quite forgotten—but she experienced a moment when her body was her own. Her brain felt as squishy as Sammy’s soft spot, and the cold sun was blinding.