Posts Tagged Book Review

Just a Quick update!

September 10, 2008 at 6:39 pm · Filed under Book Review, Books, Life ·Tagged , , , , , ,

I haven’t updated recently and I had this super exciting thing happen to me so I thought I should update with that!

A local crochet designer and I have started a Crochet & Chat program at the library – Woohooo! And Tuesday was our first meeting.  I was totally stoked and excited and the shindig got off to a good start with 5 newbs!  Then when I was helping a co-worker out one my ASL patrons came up and asked me about the program and that she wanted to learn to crochet a blanket!  Me with my limited sign language brought her over and taught her how to Single Crochet! Woohoo!  And now I even have some ideas on how the next classes can be better and how other libraries can incorporate a positive influence for hearing impaired patrons!  I’m super excited but I need to find a ASL user who knows more signs for crochet specific terminology or else I’ll make up my own.  I’m thinking I’ll just fingerspell the abbreviations for things like SC for single crochet, and DC for double crochet.  We’ll see, I’m going to do some research and find out which would work.

And speaking of sign language I have to say how silly I am.  So I drive 45 mins to work and 45 mins home (on a good day – usually with traffic it can be 50 – 60 mins or more) and today I put on my ipod and listened to a podcast and then after that I put on some music and, lol, started signing to the music.  Which I’m sure isn’t the safest thing but it was fun and helping me to remember my signs (I really need to take an ASL class! I’m sooo rusty!)

Oh and this past weekend I was away in Atlanta for a conference called MACNA which is a fishie keeping convention 🙂 Really it’s Marine Aquarium Conference of North America but it’s about fishies and keeping them so Fishie keeping convention.  It was really fun and informative and I had a good time and learned about a lot as well as Finishing two crochet projects! They are the same project, one’s a different size then the other but I’ll put the picture of the one that I had to steal a baby to take the picture.

-)

Cool hat + stolen baby 🙂

Other things in my life – the usual – starting to think about Christmas gifts and I’d really like to make people things but I don’t think that’s really practical but we’ll see.  I also have other things on my mind but those are going to be secret for a bit longer 😉 muahahahahah I love leaving people in suspense!

OH and I almost forgot – I read the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer!  I totally would not have read the book because they are about vampires but Katie gave me the first book for my b-day and I read it and LOVED it!  I then devoured the remaining 3 tomes in the few following days, literally I read 4 books in 1 week, 2 of the books were read in a day.  I’m insane, yes I know.  Thank goodness I started to read them AFTER Breaking Dawn came out or else I may have hunted down SM and made her tell me the book!  I loved reading the series and HIGHLY recommend them for everyone else!

Okay that’s all, ttyl!

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Book and some thoughts

October 12, 2007 at 9:10 am · Filed under Book Review, Life ·Tagged , , , ,

So I’m reading a book called “The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot” by Naomi Wolf.  I’ve only read the first chapter and already I am scared.  She describes the ten steps any nation has/will take to change from a democratic society to a dictatorship or fascist society.  She also points out where she is seeing these ten steps taking place in the current US.  It really makes me shudder to think that this is happening to us but that we are not fighting to get our rights back…let me explain:

“The turning points can be mapped as vertical lines – the point at which prisoners lost the right to habeas corpus, for instance, is one – which then plateau into the nation’s new normal.  The nation acclimates; then this process begins again at that greater level of suppression.” (Wolf, 2007, page 14)

Think about it for a moment – Just as we acclimate ourselves to a new environment – even our present day environment that is gradually getting warmer (due to global warming) – most people are not getting upset because it is gradual.  Sure this year we broke heat records, but not by much.  But what about next year when we break the heat records by a few degrees – that means in two years time we have raised the heat 5 degrees or so.

Look at airports – 1st we had to remove our shoes, sometimes, to board planes – then we had to remove our shoes every time.  Now they are restricting how much liquid and fluids are allowed on a plane and how we can take it on the plane.  On some flights people were not even permitted to bring there carry on items – AT ALL.  When these changes happened some people thought, oh it’s temporary – but none of these things have been rescinded.  In fact they are now moving to new screening devices that actually x-ray you and take pictures of your NAKED body.  They are slowly changing the temperature in hopes you don’t discern the changes.

Another law that has been passed is the Military Commissions Act in 2006.  “This law gives the president – any president – the authority to establish a separate justice system for trying alien unlawful enemy combatants.” (Wolf, 2007, page 15).   However, those deemed “alien unlawful enemy combatants” are not given any guidelines to determine if someone is a such person.  The president could look at me and decide he doesn’t like the way I flipped him off, or gave him the cold shoulder and deem me an enemy combatant – I would then be taken and tortured, with limited contact with my lawyer (in some cases the lawyer was not even ALLOWED in the Courtroom for the Case!), as well as being forced to stay jailed with no promise of a speedy trial – I could be in prison for years before they decided to try me.  It makes me shudder at how easily this could happen.  I always get nervous when we go through the airports because I’m afraid my traveling companion my get upset and yell at a guard – that would be grounds for an enemy combatant – just like the woman a few weeks ago who died in custody because she was upset about her flight and was screaming – she was arrested and treated like a terrorist.  And if something did happen, there would be no assurance that I would have – I would even bet money that I wouldn’t be allowed to see my lawyer.  Scary!

And yet, even with all this scary, bad change going on, I don’t even feel like I can do anything about it.  If I decide to fight the president, protest, speak against the government – I will lose my job.  Literally – I had to sign a paper saying I was not associated with any groups who were considered terrorists – and remember, a terrorist could be the person who doesn’t pick up after their dog….  How sad is it that I fear OUR government over other governments/groups of people.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying I don’t support our troops, etc…etc… – I’m just saying things are changing and not in a good way – liberties are being taken away from us and we are failing to acknowledge that until it happens to us.   It definitely makes me shudder.  But I will continue to read the book, in hopes that Wolf gives us more information on how to “fix” it.

Okay that’s all for now – if you’re interested in the book, check it out at your library or buy it from your local bookseller – it’s a small book (156 pages) and reads quickly – The ISBN is 978-1-933392-79-0.

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