181 Comments

Hey Dok Zoom, have you read the Monk And Robot books by Becky Chambers yet?

You are going to fall in love with them if you do.

Expand full comment

"This is a nation founded by nerds who read everything they could get their hands on..."

I've never had a tattoo before, but I'd consider this.

Expand full comment

Dok, I love that you're a nerd who cares about literacy and books and changes the labels on the donation buttons in your post! I do try to use the "Hyperliterate Amazon Portal" button when I can.

(Bought the latest Murderbot book for my partner who is my fellow warrior in the War on Christmas. Can't wait to read it!)

Expand full comment

YAY! Go Ms. Pressley, PREACH IT !!

Books do indeed save lives all the time -- they give us essential information about not just our own challenges but those of others, and teach us that there is more than one way to *be* in the world. And they let us have healthy doses of escape from our sometimes-overwhelming lives (lol "sometimes"...) which is mighty good & necessary therapy. Pass. The. Bill !! xox Virgie, nerding out

Expand full comment

You know already what the goobernaters of America's infected lower extremities (FL & TX) will do next, it is what was done all over the South in response to the Civil Rights Act; just close the libraries and encourage grifters/entrepreneurs to open private substitutes that will cater to the prejudices of the pig people for a subscription. Don't have the money for a subscription? Don't care for the carefully curated bilge that is left after all the diversity, all the controversy, all the genius and creativity are picked out and discarded? Sucks to be you.

Expand full comment

side note - murderbot is well worth reading, as is Anne Leckie's Ancillary series - as an exploration of what is human and what purity unchecked does

Expand full comment

Aaaaand Murderbot is going on my to-read list, just because of the comparison to Ann Leckie's Ancillary series.

I can recommend Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series for exploring what is human.

Actually, all of Becky Chambers' book cover this subject, the Wayfarer series is very different and goes much deeper into what is human.

Speaking of humanity, or maybe sapience in general, check out the Children Of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Expand full comment

thank you!

Expand full comment

May I just admire her incredible lewk as well as her incredible stance on books? Because I would kill for that necklace and wish she would list her designers like an Instagram influencer.

Expand full comment

I'm not sure that this is going to have the effect that we on the left might hope for. Threaten to pull funding from a public library in Redneckistan because the shitheels don't want local kids reading about "the others"? Great, they'll close down the whole library in a heart beat.

It's already happening in scattered places ... this, while well-intentioned, may make the situation worse in the short term.

Expand full comment

"Massive Resistance" as they called it in 1963. You want us to let black children into our schools? We'll just shut them all down in favor of "seg. acadamies" that don't touch government money. So what if they're crappy schools, and millions of kids won't have any schools at all, TAKE THAT! you Yankee sons of bitches, you're not the boss of us!

Expand full comment

Ta, Dok. Book nerds are the best nerds, and books really do save lives.

Expand full comment

Wimps are afraid of books, seriously!

Expand full comment

ST:TOS 19 - The Return of the Archons. Sulu and another crewman are planetside, and being pursued by robed figures with staves. They call for emergency beam-out and one runs; he gets away but Sulu gets zapped. He beams up, blissed-out; talking about Landru. A larger party beams down, just in time for the Festival; the slow-moving, quiet townies become hedonistic rioters. The LP finds shelter in rooms, until the next day arrives and quiet returns. They reconnoiter but are pursued, they reach other shelter. Enterprise is attacked by heat and tractor beams. They are located and taken to be absorbed into the body, the peace of Landru.

Expand full comment

We have a local 'festival'' in my town started by carpetbaggers. SO I think of that ST epsiode and liken them to that every year. Crazy people running arounf the town giving nothing to the town.

Expand full comment

"Are you of the body?"

Expand full comment

"Peace unto you, friend."

Expand full comment

Sulu of the body is the same as High as a kite Sulu. Hilarious.

Damn basis of the movie series The Purge aka Festival.

Expand full comment

The problem is that Republicans don't care about saving the lives of people like Pressley. In fact, the only way they'd vote for her bill is if she made the case that such books actually hastened the demise of more of their despised categories of people.

Expand full comment

We won't need Republican votes if we have a big enough majority.

I continue to be not sure why people would rather scramble around after Republican votes that AREN'T COMING ANYWAY than do what is necessary to secure the Democratic majority that is necessary in order to preserve literacy and other good things.

I feel like I say a version of this about a thousand times a week.

But I'll keep saying it till it sinks in.

Expand full comment

It's the same reason why people suddenly believe everything some villain tells them the moment the villain threatens a loved one. They have zero reason to believe the villain but they're desperate so they'll pray to anything, even a villainous liar.

It is not a healthy relationship.

Expand full comment

Back at that time when the media was trying on "the squad" labels, I said I thought Pressley might be presidential material. Perhaps that's jumping the gun, or overshooting or some other gun idiom. But she's eloquent and focused and motivated. She and AOC are powerful forces that I hope continue their upward climbs.

Expand full comment

At the very least I see a Senatorial run in at least one of their futures.

Expand full comment

Illinois is the first state to pass a law guarding against this type of censorship. It goes into effect this coming January. Quote from CNN:

" The measure, which takes effect January 1, says public libraries must adopt the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights or their own statement prohibiting book banning to be eligible for state money. "

Expand full comment

Kamala put it best: "They want to ban books in schools. We want to ban guns in schools."

Expand full comment

I love our MVP!

Expand full comment

But if kids never read books about gay characters, they'll never turn gay. Which is why there were no gay people at all until after the printing press was invented.

Expand full comment

Damn that Gutenberg! (shakes fist in the general direction of Mainz) Nobody ever wrote anything about the queers in the good old days of parchment scrolls and goosequills (cue Dead Milkmen; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71PNZH1OaW0)

Expand full comment