Stopping the Homosexual Agenda in Penguins

Yes folks, if homophobia isn't causing enough trouble in the world, imagine parents getting upset over a non-fictional account of two male penguins 'adopting' an egg and raising the offspring. Hmmm, this is telling us something.

I've ordered this book from the library. I'll tell you what I think about it in a couple of days.

Ill. parents protest "gay penguin" storybook
A picture book about two male penguins raising a baby penguin is getting a chilly reception among some parents in southern Illinois who worry about the book's availability to children -- and the reluctance of school administrators to restrict access to it.

The concerns are the latest involving "And Tango Makes Three," the illustrated children's book based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City's Central Park Zoo that adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own.

Complaining about the book's homosexual undertones, some parents of Shiloh Elementary School students believe the book -- available to be checked out of the school's library in this town of 11,000 20 miles east of St. Louis -- tackles topics their children aren't ready to handle.

Their request: Move the book to the library's regular shelves and restrict it to a section for mature issues, perhaps even requiring parental permission before a child can check it out.

For now, "And Tango Makes Three" will stay put, said school district Superintendent Jennifer Filyaw, though a panel she appointed suggested the book be moved and require parental permission to be checked out. The district's attorney said moving it might be construed as censorship.

Filyaw considers the book "adorable" and age appropriate, written for children ages 4 to 8.

"My feeling is that a library is to serve an entire population," she said. "It means you represent different families in a society -- different religions, different beliefs."

Lilly Del Pinto thought the book looked charming when her 5-year-old daughter brought it home in September. Del Pinto said she was halfway through reading it to her daughter "when the zookeeper said the two penguins must be in love."

"That's when I ended the story," she said.

Del Pinto said her daughter's teacher told her she was unfamiliar with the book, and the school's librarian directed the mother to Filyaw.

"I wasn't armed with pitchforks or anything. I innocently was seeking answers," Del Pinto said, agreeing with Filyaw's belief that pulling the book from the shelves could constitute censorship.

The book has created similar flaps elsewhere. Earlier this year, two parents voiced concerns about the book with librarians at the Rolling Hills' Consolidated Library's branch in the northwest Missouri town of Savannah.

Barbara Read, Rolling Hills' director, has said she consulted with staff members at the Omaha, Neb., and Kansas City zoos and the University of Oklahoma's zoology department, who told her adoptions aren't unusual in the world of penguins.

She said the book was then moved to the nonfiction section because it was based on actual events. In that section, she said, there was less of a chance that the book would "blindside" someone. (Jim Suhr, AP)

Multnomah County Library Catalog Huge Mistake

How long ago was it when Multnomah County Library's management pounded their chests with pride and patted each other's asses over their NEW and IMPROVED website and online catalog. Ever since I've scratched my head wondering what the improvement really could be.

However tonight seems to have not only broken the camel's back but beat to poor sodding critter to death. See it's like this, if you want to check out just about any DVD or VHS from Multnomah County Library you need to put the item on hold and wait. Popular items require a great deal of patience since you will likely be number 254 in line for the item. Even if they purchase 50 copies of an item, considering that people can check each one out for 3 weeks one must be very, VERY patient.

I've been waiting for some items since the beginning of the year. I will be waiting for other items for many months to come...well maybe not.

What would you do if you logged into your account and all your holds were suddenly gone? How would you feel if you spend 10 minutes or so placing each of those holds? Let's just hope you weren't one of the nice voters who actually voted in support of the Library's recent request for money...

How on earth can anyone in their right mind tell us that a system that loses our transactions is an improvement? How can it be better now to have to wait 30-60 seconds for each and every page to load over a dial-up connection? Who in their right mind considers the elimination of booklists (without warning customers first) good customer service? How long did it take to even be able to get this multi-million dollar program to do the basic tasks like print pull sheets and notify staff items are overdue?

And yet the system still seems unable to help staff keep track of library inventory. When I've asked why I've been waiting for an item for months and months that's "In Transit" the whole time, they respond, "If the item was found, it would likely be unplayable - it has been checked out hundreds of times." In other words, you don't really want those grapes - since we can't reach them, they must be sour. Now that is customer service in the year 2006!

And while you can freeze holds for items if there is a long waiting list (say if you go on vacation), you can't freeze items which are on the shelf.

But thank the County Commission we now have a system with cute little rating stars! Like anyone really cares what other users really think when we put on item on hold. Who uses this feature anyway? 12 year old girls who use a little heart for the dot on their letter 'i'? What good is such a feature when you know absolutely nothing about who has rated the item? But after all, Yahoo let's readers rate news articles so of course library users need to be able to rate items in the catalog.

Okay, there is on improvement I can see, icons help us to differentiate between books, CD's, DVD's, and other formats when the title is the same. And I guess having a picture of the item might be helpful to some when trying to remember which version they are looking for. But I'll take a system that works over these features any day of the week!

Imagine if the DMV computer system was such a disaster -- oh wait, it was and heads rolled from the Columbia to California border. But since it's only the library, no one seems to care when they waste money on a new computer system and then blow smoke up everyone's skirt trumpeting how much better things are. But what if the damn thing doesn't work 25% of the time?

Or is it okay if it only malfunctions 10% of the time?

No, it's time to put some decision makers on the block -- they have foisted this system on us and for what?!? It is nothing more than a giant waste of time and money -- just like that beautiful new tramway slowing rising on the east slope of the West Hills.

And they wonder why people complain about how government wastes taxpayer money...

New York Redefines Gender

As upset as rightist America gets about Gay Marriage, I can only imagine how this will get them worked up!

Clearly, as medical science advances, both in terms of gender reassignment therapy/surgery as well as the understanding of the human mind and the individual's gender self-identity, we will need to explore this realm more. Born a man, always a man may work for me and 95% or more of the other men on the planet, but there is still a small group for whom it doesn't and it is time to find room for them as well.

Of course the same applies to women as well, but there seems to be a bit more flexibility for women in how they wear their gender day-to-day. I have more that I wish to say on this subject but don't yet feel ready to begin to address the topic. However, I wanted to save article for future referance.

New York offers revolutionary gender option

SUMMARY: Gender essentially becomes personal choice as the city allows people to alter the sex on their birth certificate without reassignment surgery.

In a momentous move, New York City is about to revolutionize its approach to gender by "separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman," according to the New York Times.

Gender, essentially, will become personal choice as New York's Board of Health will allow people to alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-reassignment surgery.

Those born in the city will be able to change their documented gender by providing affirmation from doctors and mental health professionals explaining why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex.

The documents from the doctors must ensure that the change will be permanent. Applicants would have to change their name and show that they had lived as the adoptive gender for a minimum of two years.

The process to change gender identification on a birth certificate varies by state, and almost all 50 U.S. states make it a fairly easy process for people who've undergone a sex-reassignment surgery to obtain a new birth certificate.

However, only a handful of states allow the change to take place without a physiological change.

Although the move has been hailed by transgender advocates, some health experts have criticized a move which they consider to be rewriting history.

Dr Arthur Zitrin, a midtown psychiatrist who was on a panel of transgender experts at a hearing, criticized the move.

"They should not change the sex at birth, which is a factual record," Zitrin said.

"If they wanted to change the gender for all the compelling reasons that they've given, it should be done perhaps with an asterisk," he said.

Joann Prinzivalli, a lawyer for the New York Transgender Rights Organization, made a counterargument to the doctor's opinion and suggested that the Board of Health's move marks progress.

The decision "is based on an arbitrary distinction that says there are two and only two sexes," Prinzivalli said.

"In reality, the diversity of nature is such that there are more than just two, and people who seem to belong to one of the designated sexes may really belong to the other," she said. (Hassan Mirza,Gay.com U.K.)

Flooding Leave Me High and Wet

In case anyone from some other place has heard about Cascadia's flooding, the good news is my home in Hillsboro is fine. We sit on top of a butte, bluff, or big flat hill of some sort and I haven't yet found the nearest stream to my apartment. (I usually know such things but just haven't found anything in walking distance.)

Everything is pretty wet outside, what wasn't killed by last weeks frosts is drooping from so much heavy rain. But the roof and ceiling have held so Robin and I are warm and dry.

I guess this is the heaviest rain since the Great Flood of '96! It's not that it was that bad, but we just don't get many downpours and even when we do, they don't last for days and days -- this one went for 4-5 days depending where you are at and how you count it. We call this sort of tropical downpour "The Pineapple Express."

Now while I've been whining for months that I want the rains to come, this isn't exactly what I had in mind. But I'll take any rain over months of endless, miserable sunshine! It just makes one wonder if we are really heading into a spell of climatic feast and famine...

Heavy Rain Puts Crimp in Washington State Voting

This is an interesting little story. NW Oregon has suffered under heavy rains and also has localized flooding. I wonder how voter turnout compares in Western Washington and Western Oregon.

Since Oregon voters no longer go to the polls, inclement weather hardly seems a viable excuse for not doing one's civic duty. Too bad folks have used the 2000 Presidential Election Debacle to make voting harder in so many other places and I'm glad we switched before that...

Heavy Rain Puts Crimp in Washington State Voting

All Things Considered, November 7, 2006 · Heavy rain and severe flooding in Washington state have caused mud and rock slides and blocked a number of highways. Voters in several counties are expected to have trouble reaching polling places.

Melissa Block talks with Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy about the state's elections. Pierce County, south of Seattle, includes the city of Tacoma, where folks have had to be evacuated for heavy rains.

Voting is still ongoing, and people are finding alternate routes to the polls.

From NPR