The Questioning Librarian

Last week I had the pleasure of going out to the Festival of the Arts in State College with a few friends whom I hadn't seen in some time. The afternoon, while hot, was tolerable and pleasant, both because of the company of friends as well as the fine craftsmanship on display. Humanity is endlessly creative, but not always in a good way. We're very creative in crafting intricate instruments of torture, of finding ways to cheat others out of money or property through byzantine financial schemes, and other such instances where human creativity is used to harm rather than to heal. But at the same time our creativity can make things of great talent and beauty, and it was this impulse to create that was on full display at the Festival. I have been to craft shows before, from the Folk Festival in Kittanning to Crafter's Day at the end of Clarion's Autumn Leaf Festival, but nothing like this. The size and scope alone dwarfed these others, with artists not just from the St...

It occasionally surprises me that interest in dinosaurs is considered something for children. This isn't true of everyone, to be fair, but it is all too common that when I express my absolute fascination with dinosaurs I get looks of puzzlement, even mild sympathy from other adults. It is as though I'm Peter Pan and refuse to grow up. Our culture certainly reflects this; the overwhelming majority of books on dinosaurs are aimed at children; the older one gets, the harder it is for the non-specialist to find a book on them that isn't filled with rhymes and cartoon depictions of these venerable beasts. They may consider me with surprise, but I consider them with sympathy as well as my own bewilderment. To think that dinosaurs are for children only! As though dinosaurs, like Legos and Lincoln Logs, are to be put away as we grow in exchange for more "adult" interests! Certainly many children find themselves fascinated with dinosaurs, as I was, knowing the names o...

I've been wondering lately about what it is that makes us hate. Humans are capable of extraordinary kindness, but we seem to take to hatred with such relish. Some of us thrive on it, venting our hatred upon our fellow humans with such vigor. I'm not sure what prompted this train of thought; perhaps we've grown accustomed to it so much that it hardly seems to merit discussion. What is it about us that makes us hate? Why do we so easily give into it; how can we hate people we don't know and have never met? What makes people, as I saw not too long ago and is all too common, write comments on photographs of people they've not met and never will calling them vile names? How can someone write on a blog post that the writer deserves a beating, or worse, merely for expressing an opinion--what brings this vileness out of us? Part of it must surely be our innate fear of the strange and the unknown. We do, many of us, fear what we do not know, the things we do not underst...

This morning, I was engaged in the self-flagellation of reading some of the articles on the Answers in Genesis website, and one in particular caught my eye. This article, calling for the " rescuing " of children from a good science education, was a take on the recent revelations that a Christian school gave a "science" test in which answers that no credible scientist would accept (see the image of the test here ) were given a perfect score. The question "Dinosaurs lived with people," was marked as "true" by both student and teacher, for instance, when in fact there is no evidence that humans ever lived with dinosaurs at any place or any time. What was particularly striking about this whole story was not Ham's reaction to it, which is fairly predictable given his usual penchant for identifying anyone accepting evolution as an "atheist," when in fact many Christians and members of other faiths accept the veracity of evolution. No, w...

I've been thinking a fair bit lately about writing. Given that I blog, review, and work on projects that have yet to see the light of day, this isn't exactly a surprise. What I mean to say is that I've been thinking lately about writing and my own future. I'm now in my twenties, and what I do now will help set the stage for where I am and what I am doing in my thirties, forties, and beyond, though I truly hate to think about anything beyond thirty-five at this point. I have been writing in some form or other since I was in 5th grade, and I have always dreamed of someday seeing my work published. Ah, publication, the dream of nearly all writers--we imagine great reviews from Booklist and Kirkus , movie deals with prominent appearances by the author on the red carpet and the interview circuit, millions of book sales and book tours packed with fans who adore our work.  For most writers this dream is just that; it is, in fact, an impossible dream for most published wr...

Scott Terry. Cowboys, Armageddon, and the Truth: How a Gay Child was Saved       from Religion .  Lethe Press, 2012. PB. 288 p. $18. 978-1-59021-366-7. Growing up in the Jehovah’s Witness religion was hard enough for Scott Terry as the unwanted child of a first marriage; growing up and realizing who he was as a person was harder still. This memoir is a powerful story not only of dealing with and escaping from abuse but also about coming to terms with being gay in an atmosphere that regarded it as both unnatural and sinful. Terry grew up with almost no memory of his mother, being raised in the home of his father Virgil and his stepmother “Fluffy,” a woman who despised both Terry and his sister and did everything to make their lives hell. That Terry did escape in the end is gratifying, but at times reading through the catalog of horrors that he had to undergo is unnerving in the extreme, from being forbidden to touch Fluffy’s television or take food wi...

For anyone who has watched the contentious debate within the Boy Scouts as to whether or not the organization should refrain from forcing out gay scouts, seeing a bigot backlash is not exactly surprising. After all, there were numerous threats from some that they would  leave the Scouts rather than serve alongside gays. And now, we can see the first stirrings as some move toward the exit. One father has already detailed his plans to withdraw his son from the Scouts . Shamelessly, he blames the Scouts, rather than his own intolerance and prejudice, for his son's subsequent tears. Perhaps even less surprising is the move by Southern Baptists to cut ties entirely to the organization, so outraged are they by the Scouts' belated, half-hearted decision to be tolerant of those who are different from them. The Baptists are having none of this, moving to vote on a resolution to urge member congregations to sever ties, a resolution that members emphasize is non-binding but may wel...