World Book Night (and seriously screwed up priorities)

Tonight is World Book Night.

As a concept, I think it's the greatest thing ever - people all over the world the US, UK & Ireland handing out books for free to celebrate the love of reading and to get good books in the hands of someone who might love those books in specific. Right up my alley, right?

Except that personally, I'm conflicted. I was going to sign up to be a giver this year, but I put it off and put it off and couldn't think of a place to do it so I put it off, and then the deadline passed.

I was going to go *get* one, and that's where my priorities are seriously screwed. Totally. Fucked. Up. It's not like anyone needs to coax me to read. It's not like I don't own one of the books I'd like have an edition of.

It's not like I'm not severely culling my print library because it's simply too full to cope with.

I want one just because I want to own one, and that's the worst idea ever.

While I'm being pensive...

While I'm being pensive tonight, I'll admit that I'm struggling with something I'm starting to see going around the opinion feeds. Not one something, actually - the whole disgusting chest-thumping, dick-waving nonsense that's making the rounds of the opinion feeds regarding Boston & Watertown.

There's the guy who fantasized that liberals were all curled in a corner, pissing themselves in terror and weeping to own semi-automatics to protect themselves now. (A slur so far over the line that even the rest of his party is basically saying "STFU. Now.") These days of Aurora and Newtown, the bodies aren't even cold before some would-be hero claims that if THEY had been there, THEY would have made all the difference. Because THEY could shoot straight across a dark, smoky theater full of running civilians without hitting an innocent. Because THEY could have done something in the few minutes between the first break in and the police arriving.

Because THEY treat their deadly weapon as a binkie with bullets doesn't mean the rest of us suddenly feel the same way.



There are all the self-righteous folks sniffing that the "sheeple" of Boston "hid" behind the police.

The police *exist* for protection. It's. Their. Job.

When the fuck was relying on a socially created security force to, y'know, provide security for society become a sign of weakness? Who thinks that it really is a better idea to have a self-appointed hero with utter contempt for the "sheeple" out there providing vigilante justice? (Not to mention... had some Lone Ranger been out there, shooting to kill, we wouldn't have a living suspect that we could do something really wild and crazy like get answers from.)

Admittedly, I haven't seen anyone so low as to sneer at the people cheering law enforcement and the fire brigades. If you have, kindly leave me in ignorance. I'm disgusted enough with my species at the moment.



These are the usual Rambo fantasies. Perhaps, these days, I should call it the Torchwood fantasy, the idea that the safety of the world rests not in the people who volunteer and train as its security force subject to the monitoring of the protected society and the laws of the land, but instead solely in the hands of a self-determined group of fuckups who have no training, no oversight, no constraints, far too much weaponry, and tend to leave a lot of bodies behind.


And now the one I'm just hearing, even from people whose opinion I normally respect, who are all "ZOMG, MARTIAL LAW IN BOSTON, POLICE BRUTALITY!!"

I cannot wrap my head around the idea that it was somehow a bad thing, with a bomber on the loose who'd already claimed 4 lives and maimed over 100 others, to strongly advise people to shelter in place while the cops did their job and found him. Because the job would have gone faster with more distractions on the streets?

When it's a natural disaster and the local government says "get the fuck off the streets and shelter in place so that we don't have to be distracted by saving your ass when we're trying to keep the infrastructure running" nobody wails about martial law and government overreach. So can anyone explain to me the difference between that and the local government saying "get the fuck off the streets and shelter in place so that we don't have to be distracted by saving your ass when we're trying to find this guy before he kills or maims YET AGAIN"?

Because I don't get it.

Very Cool Art

Something more upbeat: There's a company that does lithographs of artwork that depicts the theme of a book... using the entire text of the book.

http://www.litographs.com/collections/posters

I'm thinking Emma and Great Expectations to fill the long-neglected dead space over my couch, although Persuasion and Secret Garden are particularly beautiful.