What a Turkey!

I'm on Food Network's website trying to figure out how to cook the turkey, since this is the first year that I haven't bought a pre-cooked one, and God forbid I give my family salmonella (shudder). I found a recipe, but what really caught my attention was a comment on the recipe. One person wrote in that the name of the recipe: "Whole Thanksgiving Turkey with Miles Standish Stuffing and Gravy recipe" was incorrect. Here's his comment:

"Since this is for Thanksgiving, a holiday our family enjoys very much, two clarifications: 1.MYLES, for Myles Standish, Pilgrim, Plimouth Plantation , not Miles, 2. I doubt very much that any Pilgrim knew what pepperoni and mozzarella cheese were, let alone dijon mustard and Marsalla wine.
The recipe sounds worthy of a try otherwise."

Incidentally, that's the way I've always seen it spelled as well, but we know the early settlers weren't always sticklers for spelling. But what I had to look twice at was the response to his comment:
"First, a note to Kenneth from Virgina: most likely Miles Standish is the name of Alex's [the chef] father, so she must know how he spelled his name. Second, i can't wait to make this on Thanksgiving - I love all of Alex's recipes, and she makes everything look lovingly easy and delish!"
 
Um. Wow, honey. Bless your heart, but first, Kenneth is from Virginia, not Virgina, and Myles Standish isn't the chef's father. If you had been reading his post, you would have realized that Myles Standish was a Pilgrim. On the Mayflower. You know, that little boat that came over here bringing settlers from England back in 1620. If you had actually been paying attention in History class in elementary school, you would have known that. Maybe it's my New England bias, but don't the kids out here learn about the pilgrims too? I just don't know what made the last person who commented thing that Myles Standish was Alex Guarnaschelli's father -- besides the obvious similarities in their names. ;)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alexandra-guarnaschelli/whole-thanksgiving-turkey-with-miles-standish-stuffing-and-gravy-recipe/reviews/index.html

Sorry, but I couldn't let that one go by without saying something about it!
Happy Thanksgiving!

So I left a little note for those in my building...

 

...and they let me know that they got the message. 

Be rich. Read.

From an article from the Guardian online
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/09/streets-atlanta-haiku-advertising

We've all seen the signs saying "We Buy Homes" or "Make Money in Your Spare Time." I've read them, even though I'd never call. It's like asking to be scammed.

Apparently a guy is going around Atlanta putting up signs that look like those, but that are exhorting people to do beneficial things such as "read to your children" and "dump your bigotry." I want one of the read to your children ones for the library. But I guess that's preaching to the choir. Maybe one should be put up outside the studios of the Jerry Springer show. (Does that still come on?)

Childrearing: All Joy and No Fun?

This article tells the truth , and is more an indictment of the lives we lead, our idealism about parenting, and the lack of support and amount of pressure parents get in modern American society. I really feel like I'm dammed no matter what I do: I'm just a bad momma (and not in a good way).

I'm posting this at the risk of sounding ungrateful for my sweet little girl (22 months old), who when I apologized to her for being generally cranky and hard to get along with this afternoon, looked pensive and then gave me a much needed hug and kiss, like "I forgive you, Mommy". It really is moments like that which make the tantrums (hers and mine - not kidding), guilt, anxiety, and lack of freedom worth it. Actually, my tantrums aren't really worth it so much as a side effect of frustration, but oh, that's for another day.

Plus, my girl is a great teacher in the art of slowing down -- if only I had the time to learn...

All Joy and No Fun
New York Magazine, July 4, 2010
http://nymag.com/news/features/67024/
Accessed August 17, 2010

Pyrex Love!

OMG! I was fiddling around on the internet jumping from blog to blog wasting time as I am wont to do, and found this photo of my mom's Pyrex dish on the Lorenz Studio blog. I have no idea how I got there.
http://lorenzstudio.com/2007_01_01_lorenzstudio_archive.html 

Actually and anyway, it's not really my mom's Pyrex dish, but she had a set of Pyrex bowls that I wish I had rescued when she died. My only hope is that my sister might have them, but I"m sure my father's new wife wouldn't want any reminders of my mom around (It's bad enough my sisters and I exist -- oh! don't I sound like I have "evil stepmother" syndrome? That's so bad. I'm like a walking, talking stereotype).

I found a dish just like this, same color, etc. with lid, at a store that was going out of business and probably paid too much for it ($11, I think), but it reminded me of my mother, so it was worth it. However, now, I'm afraid to use it because I'm afraid I'm going to break it, and I don't know what will actually fit in this tiny little dish -- you'd have to have a very small amount of leftovers to use this. I'll have to wait until I get a real kitchen with a nice display shelf and keep it up there, far from my the hands of my little explorer.

Anyway, I'm shocked to find out that I am not the only Pyrex lover out there. Here's a blog devoted to collecting Pyrex pieces: Pyrex Love
That might explain why on my one flea market expedition, I found my beloved Pyrex bowls, but the vendor was selling the set of three for $60. I only had a $20, because I figured I was going to a FLEA MARKET, so why should I bring a lot of money? I offered her the $20 for one of the bowls (I even offered to take the smallest), but she wouldn't break up the set. I thought that was rather uncharitable of her, since that was all the money I had on my person. I wonder what they were really worth. 

Curvy Girls of the World, Unite!

New Curve Jeans from Levis  
from Jezebel.com, August 9, 2010
accessed August 12, 2010

Finally. Maybe now I'll be able to wear jeans without worrying about "the gap" (not The Gap, but the gap that invariably occurs between my smallish waist and my larger behind). Not everyone has square hips. Still, I'll wait until I try on a pair before I thank Levis. I haven't forgotten the disasters that resulted from my trusting in other jeans manufacturers that promised (promised!) to eliminate "the gap" or to fit a "curvy" girl.

It's Hip to Be Square....Riiiight.

"Because, 10 year olds of the world, you shouldn't believe what your teachers tell you about the beauty and specialness and uniqueness of you. Or, believe it, little snowflake, but know that it won't make a bit of difference until after puberty. It's Newton's lost law; anything that makes you unique later will get your chocolate milk stolen and your eye blackened as a kid." Sloane Crosley, I Was Told There'd Be Cake.

The woman tells the truth, I tell you. She tells the truth.

On some blog or in some review journal, I saw a book out for teens called Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd. It's basically a collection of stories about being a nerd (Full disclosure: I have not read this book yet). I also saw some comment a couple of weeks ago in Entertainment Weekly (I read it at the Laundromat) that it's cool to be a nerd. I remember being nerdy as a teenager (actually, at the time I would have preferred to call myself "weird" and did, on a regular basis -- Never would I have called myself a nerd - weird connotes "I chose to be this way", and is slightly artsy, Nerd is a label that no one picks for themselves, and if they do, it's totally in an ironic way, and usually (well) after high school). Let me tell you, it wasn't cool. I didn't call myself "weird" (nerd) because I was cool. Because part of being cool means never having to say you're cool. You just are.

It's been (gasp) 21 years since I graduated from high school, but I'd hazard a guess that it's still not cool to be a nerd when you're a kid. It may be cool for adults to wear "nerd chic" now in the 2010's, but let me repeat: kids still want to be cool. Glee (as much as I've loved the few episodes I've seen) is a TV show. In real life, everyone still wants to be the beautiful, popular ones. Dare I say that even among adults, it's the confidence that's really cool, that everyone aspires to. The cool nerd costume just doesn't fly without it. Admit to yourself, there aren't long lines waiting to be friends with the super shy recluse, with the uncomfortably awkward. And that's too bad. But it is true. I just can't stand hearing people who probably have always really been a little cool appropriating nerddom. 'Cause when it gets right down to it, are you going to make space in your latte circle for someone who doesn't fit the quirky cool nerd criteria? I doubt it. Okay. Getting off my bitter box now. 

He Said, She Said

She said: I saw this billboard for this movie coming out called "Takers." There's all these beautiful black men in it. I'd love to see it.

He said: What's it about?

She said: (looking surprized) pause. I don't know.

Prop 8 Overturned!

I know I'm late, but I was on vacation when I heard the news, and no, I didn't have a computer with me. I'm happy to hear about Judge Vaughn Walker's decision that Prop 8 was unconstitutional. I was very unhappy that the original decision to make same-sex marriage legal was subjected to the whims of voters. Just imagine if interracial marriage had been allowed to be challenged in the courts after it became legal (Wow. It's so outside my paradigm for interracial marriage to be illegal that it just seems unreal to me). People may still not like interracial marriage, but I don't think anyone would take seriously a challenge to the legality of interracial marriage after all these years, and I don't think that same-sex marriage should have ever been something left up to voters to decide.

Here's part of Judge Vaughn Walker's decision, from an L.A. Times Article from August 4th.
"Conjecture, speculation and fears are not enough. Still less will the moral disapprobation of a group or class of citizens suffice, not matter how large the majority that shares that view. The evidence demonstrated beyond serious reckoning that Proposition 8 finds support only in such disapproval. As such, Proposition 8 is beyond the constitutional reach of the voters or their representatives."

He makes the case that domestic partnership is not just as good as marriage. If that's so, abolish marriage for straight people also and let us all be joined in civil domestic partnerships rather than holy matrimony. There just are things that are covered by the state of marriage that people outside of your union just will not respect or recognize if you are not married. Married. Remember when Obama made it so that same-sex partners could actually go visit their partners in the hospital? If domestic partnership is "separate but equal" (more civil rights references) -- then why was that necessary? Why were people at the whim of hospital administrators as to whether they could be at the bedside of the person they loved while that person was ill?

There are the weak arguments that same-sex marriage will weaken marriage by increasing divorce. Are you saying that heterosexuals respect marriage more than gays and lesbians would? That's not so. Look at all the heterosexuals who cheat on their husbands and wives. Look at all the divorces that happen now. Those are heterosexual marriages that are failing. Yes, some same-sex marriages will end in divorce, and some same-sex couples have pledged their lives to each other - married or not, and stood by that promise. There are similarly weak arguments that same-sex marriages are bad for children. Children need love. If a same-sex couple can give that child unconditional love, what could be wrong about that? Yes, little girls and boys need to have both male and female influences in their lives. And kids of straight parents where the mother or father is no longer around, be it through divorce, desertion or death, need those influences as well. Some of them get it from other loving, safe and secure adults in their lives, just as the children of same-sex parents can. Since having my own child, I am even more strongly convinced that loving communities help loving parents raise their children.

Not one group, regardless of sexual orientation, nationality, race or belief, is better, more morally correct or incorrect, or more deserving of rights than another. That's what this decision says to me, and with all the faults I have with California, because of this decision, for now, and hopefully on into the future, I can hold my head up and be proud that a judge from my adopted state saw through the b.s.

Redesign

I'm all new. At least the look of the blog is. What do you think? Too pink? Does the inclusion of books irk you since you wish I would actually talk about a book once in a while? So many pretty colors to play with. I might change it some more. Then again, maybe I won't.

Never Can Say Goodbye

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

I can't remember which review of this book was the one that made me want to read it, but it was GLOWING. Well, I just read it and I agree, I agree, I agree. I stayed up until 1am to finish it, and annoyed my co-workers by booktalking it to them first thing in the morning when they had their own reviews to finish. I am on a mission. I love this book.

In the summer of 1968, three African American sisters, Delphine, Vonetta and Fern, travel from Brooklyn, where they live with their father and grandmother (Big Ma) to spend a month with Cecile, their estranged mother in California. They haven't seen her since she took off seven years ago, when Fern was a baby.

The girls go with visions of their mother greeting them with open arms, of meeting movie stars, of Disneyland, surfing, and all the things California represents to non-Californians. Well, the girls' don't get the Southern California Gidget version of California, they end up in poor Oakland, in good old (cold) Northern California.

To say that the mother is not happy with the girls visit is putting it mildly. I audibly gasped when she says to her girls "I didn't send for you anyway...should have gone to Mexico to get rid of you when I had the chance." She basically makes them fend for themselves while she focuses on her poetry, and sends the girls to a Black Panther day camp for breakfast and to keep them occupied and out of the house. For three girls sheltered back at home, all of this is a very big deal, and Delphine is counting the days until they can get away from crazy Cecile.

But the girls stay, and learn, and show their strength, and stand up for themselves with Cecile and others until they and their mother start to come to an understanding and acceptance of each other.

This is a book for everyone, but Black kids (or maybe just Blacks of my generation and older, though I doubt it), will identify things like Big Ma's admonition not to act up around White people and with the game of counting how many Black people you see on TV and how much screen time they had. And lets not even get started on how my family felt about Black people who acted up on television so that all the White people could see our "dirty laundry", so to speak. But I digress.

Williams-Garcia never makes the progression of the characters unrealistic or shmaltsy; Cecile will never be a nurturing earth mama. But she makes the smallest steps towards cracking Cecile's hard shell, and we are just as pleased as the girls are when those small steps are made. She's also not completely evil, either. There is complexity in her character when it would have been so easy to make her one-sided. I fell in love with all the characters, but it's Delphine and her sisters that are so real that from the beginning that you just want to hug them and reassure them that it's going to be alright.

As heartbreaking as their mother's departure and their reunion is, this is also not a tragic tale -- Delphine says she imagined her mother was somewhat destitute like in those reports on television on Negro poverty, but she wasn't, and this book isn't the stereotypical Black problem novel. These girls aren't victims. They're strong and smart and well loved by their father and grandmother, and by the end of the book, we (and the girls) realize that in her small way, in her own way, their mother loves them too. I'm sure they'd never make a movie of it, but it sure would make a great afterschool special (remember those?) It would make an even better Newbury Award winner.

Other people are much better reviewers than I. So I'll let them speak. Here's more on One Crazy Summerfrom A Fuse #8 Production

Soooooooooooo Super Cool!

I so want to buy this book. No, no, no. I need this book. I want it in my own collection!

Take a look and then read Elizabeth Bird's review (from the blog A Fuse #8 Production).

P.S. Elizabeth Bird is just one of the many people I want to be when I grow up.

Books I really, really, really need to read: Kid Version

I'm keeping a running list of the books I want to read, either for myself or the rapidly approaching Summer Reading School visits {update: 6/26 - um, this is an old, unpublished post, so those visits are long over}, where we talk up the program to kids and their teachers (and sometimes their parents, too). By writing it here, I'm putting myself out there so I actually have to do it. And you know what? You are not allowed to say, "what, you haven't read that yet?" You can only be supportive of your kindly, procrastinating, super-busy, pop culture addled Children's Librarian. My blog, my rules.

Our theme this summer is "Make a Splash: Read!" I'm glad it doesn't continue the "@ your library" theme, which seemed to go on forever (Be Creative...@ your library, Get a Clue @ Your Library, Creature Feature @ your library), though I see that they are still using it for the Teen Summer Reading theme this year - Make Waves @ Your Library. I don't know that the teen-phobic librarians among us (not me!) would appreciate that slogan. (chuckle, chuckle, ha ha) I guess if the people who create these slogans have a short enough phrase, they'll just stick @ your library at the end. One good thing, though it's been done to death, the phrase does, in a small way, what libraries aren't always so good at doing: making ourselves known, remembered and recognized. "Remember, this isn't a Parks and Rec program, it's a library program! Yes, we can be cool and fun, too!" Poor libraries. We suffer from such low self-esteem and such a need to prove ourselves.

Enough! On to the books!
Summer Reading possibilities:
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia {Read it. Loved, loved, loved it. See 6/25 post}
Operation Red Jericho by Joshua Mowll (and books two and three in the Guild of Specialists series) {6/26 - changed my mind. No. Something makes me want to read them and then something always tears me away.}
True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi - yes, I've read this before, but I love it, and couldn't pass up an opportunity to booktalk it -- I mean come on, it takes place on a ship, and our theme is water this year. Plus it's got murder, mutiny, betrayal, adventure, and "dead" people reappearing. What's not to like?
Bloody Jack: Being An Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship's Boy by L.A. Meyer -- though I should disqualify it just because it's got that horrendously long title. I admit, I'd never read it because I felt that Charlotte Doyle was perfection, and anything else, just a copycat title. But I never gave it a chance, so I'll try. {Acck. Maybe not. Nothing is really enticing me to read this. I need to listen to my heart on this one and move on. -6/26}
The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis by Barbara O'Connor {6/26 - Finally read it and though my booktalk for Summer Reading Visits was so good, it was sadly probably a little too good for the book. It's quirky and quiet, but won't deliver the mystery of the secret messages that I played up -- and the kids were really into the whole idea of Popeye and Elvis, though I told them it wasn't Popeye the Sailor Man nor Elvis Presley. I think the curiosity factor might sell this book. I already had a kid come pick it up. I hope she likes it. I hate to lose their trust so early. I take it as a point of pride when I match the right book to the right kid.

Books I just want to read:
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
(because I started it, and loved it, and never got around to finishing it.) :( sadness.
Prime Baby by Gene Luen Yang
(because I love, love, love me some GLY!)
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
(This had to be the most talked about book of the year last year, and I must be the only librarian in the United States who still hasn't even cracked it's cover.) {6/26 - And still haven't.}

More later. I'm tired.

Viva la Diva: Selena

Today, I was going into an office building and I overheard a group of teenagers talking about Selena and singing "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom." Some of those kids weren't even alive when Selena died.

I first heard her song "I Could Fall in Love with You" not long before she was shot and killed by the president of her fan club, an unstable woman who had stolen money from Selena's clothing boutiques. It's impossible not to wonder how far her star would have risen with her crossover album -- but I am glad that the album I have includes her Spanish language music, as her voice was, in my opinion, so much stronger on those songs, even though Spanish was not her first language.

It's amazing that those kids even know about her, considering how fast things get "old" and forgotten in our culture. All truth on the table, though, these were Latino kids. But they were still teenage Latino kids talking about Selena, not the newest, coolest young performer. 15 years after her death, Selena Quintanilla-Perez will live forever. I doubt however, that she would have wanted to become known in the wider community in the way that she did. It's always better to be a living legend. May she continue to rest in peace.

Oakland v. Arizona

Last week, Oakland passed a resolution boycotting Arizona and Arizona based businesses (May 5, 2010) due to the passage of the anti-immigration (read: Anti-Mexican) law, making me proud, proud, proud to live in Oakland.

Those who say that the law will not encourage racial profiling forget two things -- there is no one talking about securing any borders besides the one we share with Mexico, and that unless you indiscriminately ask everyone for "their papers," you most definitely will be racially profiling people, because how will you decide that you need to check their citizenship status? I'm sure that the police won't be thinking, "Oh, that DUI looks like an illegal Englishman, I'd better check him out." And second, that there is not just black and white to this issue, but a whole lot of "shades of brown." These are people: people who may have had children in this country, children who are not citizens of Mexico, people whose lives and families risk getting torn apart.

I listened to a feature on the radio show "Latino USA" a couple of weekends ago where they interviewed a girl who was brought here by her parents when she was 3 months old. She doesn't know anything but the US. She was raised here -- for all intents and purposes, she is an American. But she can be deported to a country that she truly doesn't know, where she has no community, no friends, possibly no family, because she doesn't have papers that say what is evident -- that she belongs here.

And why do I keep hearing the fear that people coming to this country from Mexico want to sell drugs, kill people and commit all sorts of crimes? I would think that the majority of people who come here just want a chance to work and send money home to their families -- why would you jeopardize that by committing crimes? Seems to me like you would want to stay under the radar. I'm sure that there are people who have come here from many different countries who have committed crimes -- that's not the bulk of the people who come here from any country, and it's not the bulk of Mexicans either.

Viva la Diva: The Grand Dame of Elegance

By now you have heard that Lena Horne passed away on Sunday. I thought she was just the epitome of elegance. I also thought that she had a striking resemblance in certain pictures (like this one) to my own grandmother -- don't think I'm patting myself on the back -- I don't look at all like my grandmother. But I always loved looking at pictures of my grandmother and family back in the 30's and 40's, when they looked so well-put together and beautiful -- and they made it look so effortless. My family wasn't rich, but they always looked sharp. As much as I would love to uphold that tradition, I fall far, far short on a regular basis. I also admire their focus on the importance of family, which is too easy for me to put to the side for work.

Lena was elegant and striking and talented and seemed gracious and strong and intelligent. Though Black women who played maids opened doors for Black actresses, Lena stood her ground, never played a maid, and blazed trails for Black actresses as well. We still have a long way to go in how the wider society sees Black women -- when Oprah and Michelle Obama are seen as exceptions and not the norm in terms of who Black women are and how they comport themselves. I am glad that I grew up in a world that had Lena Horne as an example of all those traits I mentioned before, but I am more glad and proud that I was able to personally know women who embodied those qualities. They handed down a legacy of dignity that I will try my best to pass on to my daughter.

Most people, when they think of Lena Horne, think of "Stormy Weather," but I've always had a soft spot for her ever since I was 7 years old and saw her as The Good Witch of the South in the movie version of The Wiz, one of my favorite movies to this day -- no matter what other people say about it.

This song gave me chills as a child. I knew I was hearing greatness. It still can bring me to tears.
(Check out the sweet, beautiful little Black babies as stars in the night sky)



"If you believe, then in your heart you'll know,
That no one can change the path that you must go.
Believe in what you feel and know you're right because
The time will come around when you'll say it's yours...
Believe in yourself, right from the start
You've got to believe, believe in the magic right there in your heart.
Go 'head believe all these things, not because I told you to
Go 'head believe, believe in yourself,
Believe, believe in yourself,
Believe in yourself as I believe in you."

Trivial Pursuits

What is up with Kate Gosselin on Dancing With the Stars? I've been rooting for her to get better because I really want her to have a success with all the bad luck she's had recently, but wow. I'm not even talking about her dancing, which just seems to be beyond hopeless, though last week I was so proud of how she seemed to be coming along. No, I'm not talking about her dancing --I'm talking about her outfits. Who is putting them together for her? Is it someone who doesn't like her? Last night she danced to "Don't You Forget About Me" from The Breakfast Club and she was dressed like a fairy princess. And no, it wasn't a pretty fairy princess costume. It was like a 5 year old's idea of how a fairy princess should dress. Maybe her kids are giving her costume tips. Except, they always look very cute, so I have to go back to my earlier theory that some makeup and clothing person on that show just does not like her.

Related Digression:
Plus, she didn't know about the dance scene from The Breakfast Club? She's really never seen it? Okay, so she's like 4 years younger than me, but only 4 years, and that movie was huge. I know about famous scenes from movies that came out when I was a baby, so what was she doing? I guess everyone can't be a Soda Pop Diva.

And (see below) that's why I don't post very often. Because I get all heated about a subject and write about it for an hour and a half instead of doing laundry and being out in the sun. Just sayin'.

Goldman Sachs Gets Their Comeuppance? And Rants about Real Estate and the Recession

So the SEC has charged Goldman Sachs with fraud for playing one hand against the other. SEC Accuses Goldman Sachs of Fraud - San Francisco Chronicle, April 16, 2010

Good for the SEC! GS is saying that they are going to fight it. I guess they are just arrogant enough to think that they can fight it and win - since all these banks have politicians in their pockets. I hope GS goes down, and hard. Any bank or financial institution that contributes or contributed to ordinary people having lost their money, job, and/or their homes, should go right down with them. It would be a symbol to me that there is justice in the world. I don't hear about the people responsible for the financial meltdown losing their jobs, homes and investments. These people made out like bandits, while we bailed them out.

And don't get it twisted -- this bailout stuff didn't start with Obama, it started with Bush. Some of the same people b!#@hing about the bailout now (and other things they liken to the bailout) look a lot like the ones who were spreading terror that the economy would collapse if we didn't bailout their friends (oops, sorry, I mean banks). On Bank Reform...Christian Science Monitor

Sen. John Boehner (R), Ohio, who I saw in Michael Moore's Capitalism movie, was standing behind the Goldman Sachs CEO when he (the CEO) was thanking congress for bailing them out. That seems like a sign of solidarity. (I was wrong -- it was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and the former Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson. -5/11/10) Now Boehner is quoted in the article above as saying:"[The bill] “gives Goldman Sachs and other big Wall Street banks a perpetual, taxpayer- funded safety net by designating them ‘too big to fail.’”" (Christian Science Monitor. "Obama: On bank reform, Sen. McConnell is 'cynical and deceptive'" csmonitor.com, accessed 4/17/10

I'm an apartment dweller and have wanted a home for years and years. Living in California makes it next to impossible. We make too much money for help to get into a home, but not enough to buy one (houses in our area have never come down in price significantly enough to even think about it. When we moved here, in 2005, I had a couple of realtors say to me that they could maybe get us into a house with a little "creative financing" and I knew that meant that these realtors and their attendant mortgage brokers were just the people I needed to steer clear of. Let's not even talk about how they were saying this to me before they even saw how much money I made -- the assumption was made, right off the bat, that a young Black woman looking for a house must not have any money (and that I was just eager (or ripe) for someone to take advantage of me.) Granted, I didn't have enough, but before you look at my finances, that's not an assumption you make. This wasn't just white realtors, et al., it was realtors of color as well. But that's okay, 'cause I remember names, and someday I will be able to afford a home -- by doing it the right way and on my own terms, not just to make a quick buck for you. Seems to me like there's a special level of hell for crooked bankers and people who will mess with your money to make themselves more.

I'm not saying I'm smarter than people who got caught up in the mortgage mess -- I'm saying that I actually understand their predicament. What if I wanted it so badly that I convinced myself to believe them, regardless of my nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right here, what with their interest only mortgages and too-good-to-be-true promises. In spite of my favorite quote: "He who hesitates is lost" I hesitate a lot, and my caution probably has saved me more than once.

I heard on some news show the other night some pronouncement about the recession being over -- really? Why do you think that? Because Bank of America and Chase posted profits recently? Ask the people who just lost their jobs at NUMMI NUMMI Employees Say Farewell - ABC 7, San Francisco, CA if they think the recession is over. Ask someone who has never had other options other than working in a dangerous coal mine, ask a teenager trying to earn pocket change, or someone just out of high school trying to make money to go to college, or any of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been out of work longer than 6 months, or a year, or the people who went on disability after having worked hard all their lives, and due to lack of job, lack of insurance, are now facing homelessness. Ask all the people whose homes are still getting foreclosed on. Ask them if the recession is over. If you cared, if you asked, you would probably see that for much of the working poor (read that again: WORKING poor -- working in a job that doesn't pay enough to make ends meet, but working themselves to death anyway) the recession started a lot further back than September of 2008. To add trauma to tragedy, so, so many of the programs that could have helped people dealing with unemployment, underemployment, homelessness, foreclosure, insurance issues, job training, medical issues, education, etc., are being threatened with cuts and closure, at least on the state level, if not federal.

I'm not an economist. I don't pay enough attention to politics and what's going on with laws and bills and such. I just know that from what I hear, our lack of concern for each other, our greed, and our ability to screw each other over and pretend like we are doing it for the other person's benefit, breaks my heart. I guess that's why I'll never be rich.

Best April Fools Joke Ever

In what has to be the biggest and best April fools joke ever, internet users trying to use Google this morning were greeted with a sudden name change: Topeka. Google "changed" its name as a nod to the fact that Topeka, Kansas changed it's name for the month of March to..."Google."


We're Not in Google, Kansas Anymore

Happy Birthday Norman Rockwell

Don't sleep. Rockwell did some stuff that was incredible and, knowing his other work, unexpected. He was technically extremely talented and had a conscience as well. I even like the paintings that represented a super sanitized Middle America. I wouldn't hang them in my house, but they appeal to my desire for a real feeling of home, community and family. If he were alive he would have been 116 years old today. Whew! It could happen!

Whitewashing: Cover Story

I don't review YA books, but this controversy is so big that even I heard about it. The Bloomsbury USA publishing house put a white model on the cover of Justine Larbalester's book Liar, though the protagonist is out and out described as a black girl. Then, it happened again. Bloomsbury (you would think they would learn) put a white model on the cover of Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore. Maybe they thought they could sneak this one by since the protagonist is simply described as dark-skinned.

Other bloggers know more and can speak more eloquently on this subject than I, though I would like to mention that this is the latest in a series of coincidental events that I have experienced or heard about that touches on the images of black people that are most prominent and most accepted in our society.

I have a pet peeve about the fact that most Children's books with black protagonists are "problem books." Once you get past picture books and into "chapter books," most books have their black characters experiencing some pretty heavy stuff -- and just try to find a Young Adult book with an African American character that doesn't also have either abuse, abandonment, drugs, crime, violence, addiction, slavery, or racism as one of it's subjects. The Kimani Tru series may be one exception -- as well as a book about a bookish African American teen who hooks up with a football player from her school -- can't remember the name -- and I never read any of these, so I have no clue as to the quality of the writing in these books.

There are many fine authors and many fine books out there that address heavy issues, and I do believe that it is important that problems that some African Americans have faced and are facing are addressed in novels, but it would be nice to be able to offer an African American teen a good book to read that didn't include "drama" of the type that we always see connected with black people in the news and entertainment. I had a conversation about this with a library patron, and while we were on the same page to a point, he basically said publishers and tv and movie executives (not to mention the music business) push us into being how they see us. It kinda made me cringe, as I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories, but now I see his point. NPR had an interview with Lydia Diamond, who wrote the play Stick Fly about an upper middle class African American family who vacations on Martha's Vineyard. She said "America has a real comfort zone with seeing African-Americans in certain ways" — in short, seeing them as oppressed." I can hear the same people who said that The Cosby Show was unrealistic objecting to the plausibility of the existence of this family, but honestly, I know families like this exist, because I saw them when my wannabe bourgie behind was vacationing on MV with family and wishing that we had had a house on Oak Bluffs for generations like some of the kids I met. (I also wanted a summer romance with a cute bourgie black guy and to fit in, too, but that never happened!)

I also remember the books that I loved as a young person, and unfortunately, I don't remember a whole lot of them being about black kids -- maybe because my small town middle class black girl self - who was mostly concerned about wanting to be popular and wishing that the cute guy in class would notice me - didn't see herself reflected or inspired by stories about slavery, civil rights, or some variation on "oh, my daddy left, my momma's got two jobs, we're about to get thrown out on the street, my brother is a drug dealer and my best-friend/sister is pregnant." That is reality for some kids (though hopefully not all those issues at once!), and slavery and civil rights are my history, but that shouldn't be all we have available to read about. In the case of the blogger from Reading in Color, her middle school age sister says "she would rather read a book about a white teen than a person of color because 'we aren't as pretty or interesting'." There's my point. It's not true that we aren't as pretty or interesting -- what is true is that the imaginations of those who market books, television and movies aren't big enough to see that we actually are, even when writers and readers can see it.

To make a long story just a little longer, this relates to the "cover story" because I think the reason that Bloomsbury felt they could switch out the character and make an obvious person of color within the book a white person on the outside of the book was because that character was dealing with issues not traditionally assigned to black people (as in "this is your issue; this is what you and yours consist of.") Think about when the book Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff came out -- people assumed that LaVaughn was African American even though Wolff made no attempt to describe her physically. Why was that? Because she's the child of a single mother, growing up in public housing, determined not to have a life like the teen single mother she babysits for. Wow. That, in turn, denies the existence of poor white (or Asian, or Native American, or Latino) girls for whom that story just may be a reality. I respect and admire Wolff's admission that LaVaughn was never intended to be black as well as Larbalester's insistence that Micah (from the book Liar) is supposed to be black.

So, should we avoid race on covers altogether? That's not the answer. What about Reading in Color's little sister? What about girls growing up like me, not seeing themselves reflected on the covers or in the pages of books about ordinary kids as well as those about kids who have had to overcome incredible obstacles.

If you, Mr./Ms. Publisher, think that putting an African American on the cover of a book dooms a book to low sales, or a reader to assuming that the book will be about slavery or a child's struggles on welfare, then you should publish more books where that isn't always the protagonist's story, where a black girl or boy can be a black girl or boy and not be a stereotype or stigmatized for being who they are.

My rant is done.

Prayers for Haiti

Continuing to pray for the survivors of Haiti's earthquake. Also, hoping that France will help by not only sending over humanitarian aid, but by forgiving Haiti's debt. As I understand it, Haiti owes France money as a sort of restitution for having the audacity to declare and win its independence from France back in 1804. Did the United States owe England money after we won our independence? I doubt it. Regardless, we do not owe England now, yet, Haiti still owes France. Haiti already had it hard enough, even before the earthquake. It's 206 years after Haiti rightfully won its independence - the least that can be done is erase the remaining debt, debt that should never have been owed in the first place.

Here are ways to donate to the relief efforts, courtesy of Google (some of the organizations you can contribute to include - Doctors Without Borders, Care, Unicef, The William J. Clinton Foundation, YeleHaiti, and the Red Cross: http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/


Here's Keith Olbermann, my favorite former ESPN commentator turned MSNBC commentator, telling Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh where to get off. Don't mess with Keith. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtf9tjFVf_E

Farewell to a Hero

Miep Gies died on Monday, January 11 at the age of 100. She was one of the people who helped hide Anne Frank, her family and four other people in the Secret Annex for two years during the holocaust. Gies is the person who kept Anne's diary after she was taken away to the Concentration Camp -- because of her and Otto Frank, we have The Diary of a Young Girl and Anne, in a way, will live on forever.

Gies says on her website that she is not a hero, that she was just doing what other people also did, and that even that was not enough. But she risked her life to hide the Franks and the other people in the Annex, and she (and the other helpers) reminds us of the basic goodness of people, of the best of human courage and generosity and we owe her a debt of gratitude for even trying.

Here's Miep Gies website: http://www.miepgies.nl/en/