My Life in 12-Point Font

Libraries actually have to have this information before it can be given out. Most libraries are so rabid about protecting patrons privacy (not all but most) that they buy systems that delete the information that you ever had a book when you bring it back. So say they go to your library--chances are, only books that you have a) still checked out b)overdue fines on or c)Lost and are being billed for will be in the system. So if you checked out the anarchist cookbook last year and brought it back undamaged the library probably only has kept the information that the book went out and came back X times.

Still it sucks. You will be glad to know that there will probably be librarians that go to jail before they release this information.

Well, that actually is pretty reassuring. Librarians have always seemed to me like they would be the last bastions of free thought when the revolution comes, and it's nice to hear it from an outside source.

In other news, a California appeals court just ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. I feel smugly vindicated, as for years I have been telling anyone who would listen that it is not right for students to be forced to stand up in a classroom every morning and profess a statement of belief that they may or may not agree with. In fact, I got thrown out of my AP English classroom one morning because I pissed my teacher off one too many times. (Yes, I was one of those students.)

I doubt the ruling will stand, considering that all 99 Senators (wusses) just signed their names to a resolution supporting the Pledge. I feel like writing a letter to Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell telling them how disappointed I am.

It's not that I have anything against the United States in general, or patriotism, or Mom, or the flag, or apple pie. (I almost typed "the fag" back there, and I don't have anything against him, either.) It's just that I think it's an obvious violation of the separation of church and state to have millions of schoolkids standing up every morning saying "one nation under God", and I can't believe it's lasted for as long as it has. I do have to admit that it's one of the least offensive church/state violations, in that the God mentioned is generic and nondenominational, but still, "under God" has no place in a Pledge to be recited in a public school classroom.

Boy, just when you think the whole nation is going to Hell in a shopping cart, along comes California (and Lil) to make us all feel better about ourselves. Which just goes to show, yet again, that God works in mysterious ways.