Bah! I say to them. The West Wing is one of my formative experiences growing up. And so I was much dismayed to learn that Aaron Sorkin, the show’s creator and writer, spoke at Syracuse’s commencement ceremony this year. My own commencement speaker in 2011 was rather lackluster. I know, I know – Syracuse is Sorkin’s alma mater, blah blah. Whatever. Doesn’t he hear my appreciation for him calling across the eons?

Okay, so that was creepy. But the point is, Sorkin said something very interesting to the class of 2013 of Syracuse University. He said:

“And make no mistake about it, you are dumb. You’re a group of incredibly well-educated dumb people. I was there. We all were there. You’re barely functional. There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups, but the screw-ups, they’re a-coming for ya. It’s a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.”

This, coming on the heels of an economic crisis that has left many of us wondering if college is worth it, is sort of disheartening. The worth of college has become a numbers game – how many graduates are still unemployed a year after commencement? How much money are graduates making? How many of them feel they are using what they learned at university in their jobs post-graduation?

This is a load of crap. Education is important. My current job is a glorified assistant, which I could have gotten and succeeded in without my diploma from a well-reputed university. But I would not trade in those years at school for all the tea in China. Getting to spend four years discussing ideas, thinking critically, reading and writing and arguing was an invaluable experience. At no other point in your life is anyone going to care that much about what you think purely for the sake of thinking it.

College isn’t for everyone. I’m not saying it should be – technical schools, community colleges, apprenticeships, jobs, the military – these are all equally valuable options. What I am saying, however, is that learning is important. That settling, that being stagnant is antithetical to being human. We can always be better. Sorkin’s point is that we’re going to mess up. We’re going to fall over and over and over again. But that only means we’re can keep learning, keep growing. Elite is not a four letter word. Smart is sexy. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or jealous.

We can always be better. Let’s remember to try.

photo courtesy of THE DENVER POST | RJ Sangost

Perhaps, however, we can take heart in the mere fact that such things are being taken so much more seriously than before. Even if this bill doesn’t pass now, other bills will pass later, and the issue is becoming more and more pressing. At this point, people all over the country are beginning to realize a few things about the fight for equality:

• Yes, this really is a serious human rights issue that isn’t just going to go away if you ignore it.
• This issue isn’t only of concern to the LGBTQ community; people of all religions, creeds, sexual preferences and races are standing up and demanding that same-sex couples have the same rights as everybody else.
• States that have passed civil-union laws–yea verily, and even same-sex marriage laws(!)–have not turned into dens of iniquity. In fact, they’ve carried on just like all the other states, only with more happy couples.
• Finally, progress is inevitable, eventually. You can’t stop it, but you have a choice when it comes to facing it. You can fight against the inevitable, or you can embrace it–and maybe even help it to occur.

Maybe, just maybe, today will be the day. Maybe my state won’t make the same mistake as NC (though, obviously, this is a different type of bill we’re talking about). Maybe, I can wake up tomorrow feeling proud of my state and my country, and certain in the knowledge that change is happening for the better.

And then again, maybe I’ll be throwing things at the wall and hoping for next time.

Now, if you will all indulge me for a moment, let me tell you a story of three mothers: one who gave everything for her child, one who–even though she might not have seemed to be there, came through for her family when the chips were down–and one who stuck by her family through absolutely everything.

Let’s start with the most obvious, at least to most Harry Potter fans. Molly Weasley is many people’s dream mother. She is always behind her children, giving them everything she can, many times even when her kids don’t think they want what she has to give. Above everything, she is passionate for her kids, putting herself in danger in front of one of the scariest people in the entire wizard world to save her daughter.

Not my daughter, you bitch! ~Molly Weasley, Deathly Hallows

She reminds me of the metaphorical mother hen, always fussing over her kids, always there for skinned knees, sometimes overbearing, but always loving.

Credit to jelaa.tumblr.com!

Second, we have Lily Evans-Potter. We’ve never heard much about her, but she, at least in my head, has always seemed playful and caring. (Who wouldn’t be playful, connected to the Marauders like she was!) However, at the end, she showed the ultimate love by sacrificing herself for Harry. Lily reminds me of the moms who walk in on their kids playing Mario and tell them that there are 1-ups in the kitchen for when they finish the level.

Finally, we have a mother who on the surface has never been seen as one of the best mothers, but I have to say is one of my favourites. Narcissa Malfoy is probably on the surface, the most reserved mother we see in the series. However, when she had to choose between Vold… well you know who… and her son, her family won. Narcissa loves her son, no matter what the world would try to say about her. When it matters, she’s there, and her love overcomes even her fear of what could happen. She’s the hands-off mother, but when it matters, she steps up and shows how much she cares.

Now, before I leave you to go hug mothers in your life, I’d like to add one of my other fandom-favorite mothers (other than the one referenced in the title. Points if you get that reference!). Sally Jackson, Percy Jackson’s mother from the series of the same name, is just plain awesome. She’s really a combination of Molly and Lily. For those of you who don’t know the series, Sally works at a candy shop and marries an ogre of a man so that Percy will be alright in the middle of New York City. Without spoilers, she bakes Percy blue cake, creates blue coke for him, and is always there, through everything that Percy has to do.

So, now it’s your turn. Who’s your favourite mother in fiction? Have I missed anyone? Let me know in the comments!

Yep, that’s right. Whatever you think of him, President Obama just became the first American President ever to openly support gay marriage. I think that deserves a round of applause, personally. It’s a huge step forward in the fight for equality, and coming as it did on the same day that North Carolina passed a bill making same-sex marriage bans part of their state constitution, it was even more powerful.

Politically, it was a risky move, and may well hurt Obama’s re-election campaign. But knowing that, he stood up and did it anyways, claiming personal reasons for the sudden move.

“At a certain point I’ve just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” ~Barack Obama

Pete Souza/White House, via Reuters

The announcement has certainly reminded me of the importance of voting, and whatever the outcome of this year’s presidential election, I think it is safe to say that Obama’s legacy will be greatly enhanced by being remembered as the first American President to stand up for LGBTQ rights.

What do you think of the President’s announcement? Tell us in the comments below!

There must be something in the air.

As per usual, the reasoning goes back to the uneducated idea that teenagers are too impressionable and never do anything so questionable as talk about sex (or curse, but that’s not the issue this time).  A bill was recently passed in Tennessee that says teachers can’t encourage any kind of “gateway sexual activity”.  This is the basis behind the sudden string of Looking for Alaska bans in the state.  A two-page oral sex scene.  In a 250-page novel.  Such a high ratio.

Courtesy of Emily Rachel Hildebrand on flickr

I have to admit, in a time where any information is accessible online with the click of a button, half the shows on primetime TV talk about sex at least once, and the big controversy rocking through high schools is sexting, I get a little dumbfounded when parents and school boards get so worked up about a few pages in a Printz-recognized novel.  I was a high schooler not all that long ago, and I can say without a doubt that these teenagers in Sumner and Knox Counties are talking about sex on a far more regular basis than the adults in their community seem to realize.  And if they read the scene in Looking for Alaska, they would likely not be phased one bit by its supposed suggestiveness.

They see worse things on TV at 9/8 central.

Not only that, the new law in Tennessee restricting what teachers can teach feels very Educational Decree Twenty-Six to me.  Restricting things such as this don’t deter teenagers, but there is the possibility that they will get hurt because of it.  Being undeterred, but perhaps not being educated on the risks…it’s not a good mix.

What particularly got me worked up about this, though, was something said by Jeremy Johnson, a Sumner County school spokesperson:

You take somebody like Hemingway or a John Steinbeck and there can be some language or description that may make parents uncomfortable, but the value of a writer like that outweighs what controversy may be in the individual book.

As a writer, I take particular offense at this.  Saying that one writer’s value is worth more than another’s, just because their books are considered classics now, is petty.  But beyond that, you shouldn’t be able to pick and choose.  If Tennessee wants to cut books that contain suggestive scenes out of the curriculum, for fear that these books will infect the poor, impressionable minds of the teenagers, they should cut out ALL of them, not just ones that have been published in the last decade.

Or, perhaps everyone should allow teachers to teach and teenagers to learn.  They’re going to learn it anyway, if they truly want to.  It’s probably better to learn it from a Printz Award-winning novel than from Jersey Shore.

Good question. I’m glad you asked.

Well, I have no doubt that it’s important for all sorts of reasons which we don’t have time to go into at the moment, but in the ongoing battle for equality, May 8th is the date of the next engagement. On May 8th, North Carolina will vote on an amendment to the state constitution that would ban same-sex marriage completely.

Actually, same-sex marriage is already illegal in North Carolina, but the new bill would define marriage in the state constitution as a union between a man and a woman, and thus would ban any type civil partnership or domestic union. Although this bill originally failed to receive enough votes to be placed on the ballot, the second time it was brought up it passed the House 75-42 and the Senate 30-16.

Can I just take a moment to express my extreme frustration with this whole situation? I mean, I’m an optimist. It may seem silly, but I like to think of the future as being progressive. We should be improving things, not taking bad decisions from the past and making them state laws. But maybe that’s just me.

The good news is that there is a very strong resistance to the bill. Opponents of the bill include everyone from President Obama to various town and city councils, and even churches around the state. Many local people are standing up and speaking out against it, and the press is following suit.

“North Carolina can cast a clarion vote against discrimination and in favor of human dignity and loving relationships by rejecting Amendment 1.”~The Independent Weekly

So while it may seem a little bleak when we consider that such a bill even made it as far as the ballot, I’d like to take a moment to cheer on the people fighting against it, and wish them the best of luck in tomorrow’s voting. Let us hope that citizens of North Carolina will take the initiative and refuse to allow discrimination to become a state policy.

For more information on the North Carolina bill, click here.

Photo courtesy of Ruud Panhuysen

In a lot of ways, this project shows all the greatest abilities of creative minds. Not only does it help to solve multiple problems in one go, it does it in an artistic, and and imaginative way. Just take a look at at their incredible “Robodock Fenix” sculpture, an exquisite–and environmentally friendly–testament to creative minds at work.

If the future of our planet and our species is to be as bright a one as we ever-hopeful fans could wish, it will depend on this sort of approach. Clever and creative and resourceful all at once–the ability to take our past weaknesses and turn them into future possibilities–the ability to take what life has given us and imagine better.

To learn more about the so-called ‘architects of waste,’ check out the video, and tell us what you think in the comments!

Happy New Year.

But this was beyond what book banning and censorship usually involves.  This wasn’t just saying that a book or books had too much sex in them or too much violence or foul language or witchcraft or any of the other reasons that books usually get challenged and banned.  The books banned by the Tucson Unified School District were “works ranging from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest to Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.”  And along with that, the schools involved were forced to cut their ethnic studies programs.

In other words…the book censorship was focused on ethnicity.

This week, though, at the University of Oregon, a number of students and professors came together to host a public reading of the works banned by the Arizona law in January and to stand in solidarity with the students in Arizona affected by the censorship.

We’re all part of a shared community that needs to listen to these different voices. These are good stories; we just need to hear them.
–Amalia Gladhart, Spanish associate professor

The participants of the public reading each chose a book the list of books banned by the Arizona school district, and then read an excerpt from their chosen book.  An independent book store was also on hand with copies of some of the books from the list.

Standing up for books, and the people whose stories they tell, is something that more people should do.  If no one speaks out against censorship, it will only get more out of control.  So follow the University of Oregon’s example and speak your voice against censorship!

Knowing that, it’s really no wonder that I got all fangirly excited about an organization in Denver, CO called Burning Through Pages.

Used with permission from Burning Through Pages

What got my attention was a picture that showed up on my Facebook news feed earlier this week.  “These are your kids,” it said.  “These are your kids on books.” And the four entirely ordinary figures were decked out in all manner of costumes.  I shared the picture on my mom’s wall and her response was, “Are you the one in the witch’s hat and wand?”

She knows me so well.

That simple picture sent me on a hunt for more information about this organization.  I was fascinated.

Burning Through Pages has a single goal:

To inspire a love of reading in today’s youth by recommending, donating, and discussing books.

They’re like a book club on steroids, because they’re a collection of book clubs, and they encourage people to start new ones.  They’re getting teens to not just read books, but to talk about them.

It sounds so unbelievably simple.  But more exploration made me discover that Burning Through Pages is even more epic than that one goal.  Many groups have a similar goal, but it’s how Burning Through Pages aims to achieve that goal that makes it so extraordinary.

Wanting to bring current literatureto the current youth, they do something that I’ve never seen before.

On their site, they have a collection of books (currently, there are thirteen books).  “Here are some reads that we think don’t suck,” their website says.  And then they encourage visitors to click on a book they think looks interesting and read a little bit more about it.  Each book has two bits of information: what it’s about, and “why we dig it.”

For example, why Burning Through Pages digs John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars:

This book had one of our Directors (Male) watery eyed and laughing at the same time. In public. On the train. It was embarrassing how good this book was.

So if you read this description and decide that you really are interested in reading this book, you add it to your cart.  And then Burning Through Pages sends it to you.

Here’s the amazing thing, though: Burning Through Pages sends the books for free.  They are, quite literally, giving books away.

If you don’t like the book, you can give it back. If you do like the book, there’ll be another one waiting for you, free of charge. The important thing is that an adoration of reading grows. It’s not what you read that’s important to us, it’s that you enjoy whatever it is that keeps you burning through the pages.

I can’t get over how incredible this concept is.  A small, local non-profit organization, giving away books to encourage young people to read something that interests them.  And then encouraging them to talk about the books.

What makes me even more excited (can I GET more excited about this?  I’m not sure I can) is that after that “Kids on Books” picture spread across Facebook this week, Burning Through Pages is getting so much attention that their Volunteer page crashed.

Which means that, not only is this organization doing great things to get kids and teens into reading, but so many people want to be part of this great thing that the organization’s website couldn’t handle it.

Please consider my mind blown.

Now, after a paragraph like that, it is very tempting to brush our collective hands together, sniff importantly, and say something to the effect of “My work here is done.” But that’s not how we do things at the HPA. No-sireee.

This year, the second graders at the New Beginnings school will be taking State Exams. The New York Dumbledore’s Army (who did a tremendous amount of work unpacking boxes, organizing and shelving books, and basically making the Imagine Better library possible last year), is rising to the challenge the way only HPA chapters can. They’re helping to kick off the student’s summer reading by adding some more books to their collection. And here’s the really good news, the news you’ve all been waiting for: You can help!

Now, these aren’t just any books, they’re specific books chosen by the children’s teacher to match the student’s reading level and help prepare them prepare for their exams. Please check out this google doc for a list of books wanted, and use it to report any books you’re going to send. Tempting as it may be to turn this into an all out Accio Books!, please stick to the books on the list. We’re aiming for fifty books, so jump right in and let’s do this thing!

Books should be sent to:
Karen Jones
Bedford-Stuyvesant New Beginnings Charter School
82 Lewis Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11206

Label packages: Second Grade Summer Reading