In Which I < 3 BBW & CBLDF!

I know it's not Banned Books Week yet (it's September 21-27) - but I can't help myself. It's my favorite holiday.

(It is too a holiday! And I'm expecting presents!)

This year, Banned Books Week is focusing attention on banned and challenged comics and graphic novels.  Comics are awesome - they even make science fun! (No, seriously, go read that article. I'll wait.)

You can tell CBLDF (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund) is also super-excited, because they've provided some awesome resources - not just for Banned Books Week, but for the return to school. I assume they'll have more coming out closer to the big day (squeeee!!!). For those of you who are teachers and/or homeschooling families and/or interested in supplementing your child(ren)'s education and/or like comic books, graphic novels, manga...Okay, it's really for everyone. Here you go:

• Back to School with Comic Books: Using Graphic Novels in Education 
• Back to School with Comic Books: Raising a Reader!
• Toon Graphics Advocates for Comics in the Classroom 
• Back to School with Comic Books: CBLDF Discussion Guides
• Back to School with Comic Books: The CBLDF Banned Books Week Handbook 

I love CBLDF. And CBLDF loves me. Well, CBLDF loves libraries, anyway - for instance, check out their love for Chicago school libraries. 

Links!

• Libraries, Books, & Authors
• Margaret Atwood's new work will remain unseen for a century It's a beautiful idea, but...I'm so jealous of the readers a hundred years from now...My grandchildren better appreciate this! 
• Neil Gaiman Makes All The Book Clubs Swoon I < 3 Neil Gaiman, too. 
• If I were redoing my library school course load: Rupert Giles, MLS : Course List for Rupert Giles, Master of Library Sciences Candidate, Michaelmas Term 1982 
• Tripping through IBM’s astonishingly insane 1937 corporate songbook It's sort of cultish. Just a smidgen. 
• NYPL Sees Success with #Ireadeverywhere Initiative 
• Chattanooga Library official resigns, another suspended after audit findings 
• 5 Book Pet Peeves 
• Net & Tech
• AT&T: If you build your own broadband then we don't get any of your tax money "GONs (government owned networks) should not receive any preferential tax treatment. Indeed, any tax incentives or exemptions should be provided, if at all, to private sector firms to induce them to expand broadband deployment to unserved areas." Wait - AT&T is arguing that the government shouldn't use tax money to provide services directly, but ought to give that tax money to them, instead? That's crazy-talk!
• Science
• Asteroid Discovered Just Days Ago Will Approach Closer Than The Moon This Weekend I'm not comfortable with this level of intimacy. 
• Good news, folks! California Blue Whales Bounce Back From Whaling 
• And more good news! Breakthrough Melanoma Treatment Fast Tracked By FDA 
• Deadly plague and botulism microbes found in US lab Well, that's not good news...Still, it could have been worse.
• Ferguson Et Al
• Ferguson Police Chief Lied About Why He Released Alleged Michael Brown Robbery Tape I'm shocked! </sarcasm> 
• Attorney general announces new civil rights investigation of Ferguson Police Department 
• Three troubling things exposed by the Ferguson police shooting of Michael Brown 
• A Wary ‘Normal’ in Ferguson 
• We can't 'trust' a failed system "Ideally, the public would be able to trust law enforcement and the justice system, but that kind of trust requires transparency and accountability. All too often, as the situations in Ohio and Missouri show, what the public instead gets is stonewalling, disrespect, and even abuse from the people that supposedly work for us to protect us. 'Trust the system' is a nice idea. But the behavior that the public all too often sees from police and law enforcement is instead reminiscent of Cartman from the show South Park yelling, 'Respect mah authoritah!'"
• Other
• The Hidden Cost of Gun Violence: Meet a Mother and Her 7-Year-Old With PTSD 
• Gun-toting border militia terrifies smugglers — who turn out to be bat-counting biologists 
• Woman Involved in Security Lapse at Arizona Terror Center Stripped of Citizenship 
• Federal Court Restores Cuts to Early Voting in Ohio in Time for Midterm Election 
• Religious post: Pat Robertson advises 80 year old tither to get her butt to work That's just wrong. "...this money grubbing scammer has been on the take for so long, it obviously didn't even cross his mind that a religious institution might look into its heart instead of someone else's wallet. Wouldn't the very philosophy of Christianity dictate that the least fortunate among the flock should not be put in a position to sacrifice medical attention or to keep the lights on for the sake of a tithe basket?" The philosophy of Christianity would dictate that the Church meet the couple's needs.
• A more hopeful religious post: A Church for the Poor "...at a time when the economic gap between the rich and the poor is widening, the pope’s rehabilitation of liberation theology is timely and most welcome."
• Former Governor in Virginia Guilty in Bribery Case 
• BP Grossly Negligent in 2010 Big Oozy Disaster 
• Grassroots and Astroturf School Reform 
• Disney veteran raises over $130K to save hand-drawn animation It looks awesome!