Wasted Words

[kimberlysteele]

I don't get involved with politics because I think my time and effort is better spent elsewhere. Though I have been told from near-infancy that my VOICE MATTERS, do-gooders who utter that line fail to say to whom it matters and if it will change things if it is perceived as "mattering".

Right now, Illinois is a few weeks from enacting the Safe-T act, which removes all bail requirements for second degree murderers, rapists, trespassers, drug dealers, and thieves. What this means is that my neighborhood could very well look like a live action RPG of The Purge, except the guns and knives will be 100% real. I had many chances and plenty of desire to move out of Illinois, but I remain here for my elderly parents.

Back in the day, I worked as a shelver in my local library. That library has become insufferably woke. Not only have they been enforcing masks and MRNA vaccines FOR CHILDREN long after it has fallen out of general popularity, but now they have decided to go the full monty by hosting a drag queen show for tweens and teens.

The library is no longer a refuge for intrepid nerds as it was in my day. Instead, it is a salaried office plankton class indoctrination camp. How sad that one of the few accidentally holy places in our atheist culture has gone the route of Progressive mental illness. The library is now toxic virtue signaling narcissist utopia.... great.

Here is a letter I wrote with them in mind:

Dear Library Board Members,

The Public Library is not the appropriate place for a drag queen show. I once organized a drag queen show to benefit a downstate animal sanctuary. I have nothing against drag, despite it having problematic implications for feminism as it is in essence a minstrel show with women as its subject of parody instead of blacks. Look up the origins of drag if you doubt me. The issue is not drag, it is drag at a publicly funded library marketed to a child audience.

Despite the cost of the performer being donated, the Library must still put taxpayer money into hosting any and all events as it provides the space, the employees, lights, gas, and electricity required to host events. If only fifty percent of taxpayers who bother to voice their opinions approve of a drag show in the library, that means the event has received a failing grade.

The Library seems absolutely determined to politicize itself via virtue signaling. Hard evidence was the extension of masking and vaccination mandates within the library’s walls well beyond January 2022. Discrimination against LGBTQIA+ earns finger-pointing and scowls yet if the unvaccinated so much as walked in the door, it was open season for discrimination of the kind not seen since blacks had separate drinking fountains. Shame on you all, especially in light of recent information coming to light about the horrible side effects (including death) of the MRNA vaccines that people were tricked or forced into accepting into their arms. You played right along while an entire generation of young children was robbed of normal human experience and apparently their future fertility. There is a meme going around that we now know who would have played along if the 2020s were 1930s Germany, and to quote a children’s game that was not allowed to be played in the year 2020-2021, “You’re it”.

Please, for the love of taxpayers, renege on your public funding. The Library is no longer problematic the second it becomes a private library. Since it has become unthinkable to give up the woke agenda, it’s time for you to have your cake and eat it too. Become a private library and this all goes away — you can insist on masks and vaccines for everyone in perpetuity, you can include openly pornographic LGBTQIA+ books in the Junior Room collection, you can beg for funds for an array of woke events, and you can virtue signal to your heart’s content.

Kimberly Steele

Scathing, isn't it? There is so much more I could say. I wanted to mention the woke pushing the envelope and listening for the sound of tumbrils and the creak of approaching guillotines. You DO NOT piss off momma bear, and that's exactly what they've put most of their efforts into: indoctrinating, grooming, and attacking children.

I feel hatred towards these people. I have the extra brain cells it takes not to turn my thoughts into concrete action, otherwise I would have worded it differently. Hating them may not be productive or helpful but I am honest about it. There is no point in lying to myself or papering over my hatred. In a slightly different universe, my alternate self would usher them to the grisly fates I believe they have earned. Plus, even if I send this letter to them, it is pretty much guaranteed it will go in one ear and out the other. I suggested a private library in their case, but until certain heads land on pitchforks, they won't consider it and I know that. I was being sarcastic.

Truly the only thing I can do is to focus on my own projects, my garden, my friends, and my family. Voting doesn't change anything for the better, especially not in corruption-ridden Illinois. I'm not even sure I'll vote for governor this primary -- why? I would put a large amount of money of Pritzker winning because Bailey (Republican candidate for governor) is looking more and more like controlled opposition. The whole reason I will go to the polling station at all is to vote in conservatives for seemingly insignificant positions such as school boards and judges. Those are the positions it isn't so easy for Democrats to cheat and they are the ones that actually matter. Until then, my energy is better spent putting on gloves and boots so I can go outside and dig.

Comments

[methylethyl]

I've been so disappointed by all this. I used to work in a library, back when librarians were anti-patriot-act heroes.

They've come a long way, baby.

[kimberlysteele]

They've lost of their hospitality and graciousness. I don't go to my local library anymore. It feels too much like a psychic battlefield.

[causticus]

This is what it feels like for me whenever I walk into anywhere progressians frequent. Hostile and paranoid vibes all around. I can't wait to get out of there!

[(Anonymous)]

It really does. There's been such a rush to dispose of classic books and, you know, nonfiction I'm actually interested in (decent histories and such), and replace them with new-crap-novel-of-the-week and pop-self-help books that it's just... sigh. I don't enjoy the place anymore. And I practically *lived* at the library when I was a kid! I go looking for books I enjoyed as a kid, to read to my own children, and mostly the library doesn't have them. I have never forgiven my hometown library for discarding their collection of Andrew Lang books. I occasionally go looking for recent research on autism, as its a subject of personal interest, and the number of books on the topic have proliferated, but they're all either cute memoirs or self-help, not recent research, which is what I'm actually looking for. I've never found an Olga Bogdashina book in a library, I've had to purchase each one I've read, and they're the only actually interesting and useful research I've run across in book form. You'd think more people would be interested. I've nothing against Temple Grandin, say, but "they made a movie about it" seems to be a big part of the criteria for whether it's on the shelf or not :(

Plenty of room on the shelf for badly-written-anthropomorphic-dog-wizard-adventures for 10-year-olds who grew up on a steady diet of Paw Patrol, though. Egad. I've read Howard Pyle books (his language is convoluted even for 19th-century writers!) to my kids. Everything actually targeted at their age group these days is like some kind of kindergarten drivel to them. On the one hand: mission accomplished! They know crap literature when they see it, and they find it tedious, because it's so clearly inferior to, say, Kidnapped, The Princess and the Goblin, Tom Sawyer, Men of Iron, Otto of the Silver Hand... all of which they've enjoyed immensely. Their cousin tries to interest them in whatever latest crap tween series she's reading, and sometimes they even try it out, and confide to me later "I don't know why she likes that stuff. You can tell right at the beginning everything that's going to happen, and then it only takes like an hour to read. Why bother?" "This seems like just like somebody trying to write Harry Potter, but worse."

It's also disappointing that so much of the library space has been re-oriented around computer access. I get it: you can't do anything without internet these days, and part of the library's mission is democratized access to information. But dang. There was a time when a determined person had access to everything he or she needed to get a first-class education in nearly any subject, through the library, for free. Now? Well, there's internet access. Actually-useful reference books have been sort of falling off the back of the shelf for years, and I notice it because the library's a resource I mine relentlessly for homeschool education material. The kids outstrip kid-oriented nonfiction on any subject very, very fast, and then want to move on to the grown-up books, and often there's... nothing. My older son's personal reference library on aviation is about ten times as large, and far more comprehensive, than the library's. And that's a topic that attracts obsessive males, so you wouldn't think any such books would languish from not being checked out.

Not coincidentally, we've acquired two more bookshelves in the last month. If you want a decent library, you have to build it yourself.

[kimberlysteele]

When several local libraries bought 3D printers and devoted entire wings to "Maker's Spaces", it smacked of funds misappropriation. I don't want the library to devote spaces to 3D printing. That is not what the library is for. All the public libraries around me rent ebooks online. I don't want to rent an ebook and usually I don't use my Kindle for reading ebooks -- I use it to provide lyrics for my vocal students when they are in the studio booth. Don't get me started on the switch from card catalogs to digital ones -- ugh. Card catalogs are much better and cannot be wiped out by a hacker in a few clicks.

Books

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps this would be a good place to ask for book recommendations as you are ahead of me in the children arc. I have two boys who are 7 & 10 and I have a hard time finding books to interest them. My daughter doesn't have much trouble finding books.

I hadn't heard of Howard Pyle so I will definitely give his books a look. I also tried G. A. Henty but after two books they get pretty formulaic.

I got some hand-me-down books from my dad and there were some books on WW2 books that the oldest read.

I've been looking for age of sail or discovery that's geared toward teens but not had much success.

We have a local bookstore that has a reading program that incentives reading kind of like the old pizza hut program Book It that I did when I was little. That's been helpful.

Anyway, always looking for whats worked for others.

Thanks!

[illyria2001]

And they never seem to ask why these drag performers are so obsessed with gaining access to children and teens...

[(Anonymous)]

Friend of the family who is a professional drag performer-- I've never seen his show, but the rest of my family reports it's hilarious. *He* is adamant that drag is ADULT entertainment, and has no place anywhere near kids, not just because of the nature of the entertainment, but because so many of the performers are psychologically damaged people who just shouldn't ever be around kids. He says... many, maybe most, queens including himself, have no interest in children. The ones who *do* have an interest in children are the ones who should, absolutely, be kept away from children at all costs.

Imma take his word for it.

[kimberlysteele]

Yep. Seems very fishy, if you ask me.

Thanks

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Kimberly,

Thanks for writing that letter.

So many people these days are just plum out of their ever-livin' minds. Personally, I find drag shows, or at least the ones I've seen, kinda fun. But the idea of doing anything with drag for children in a public library--! I have no words. Drag is for adults. Period.

For some years now, and especially since covid, our public institutions seem to be rotting from the core from some fungazoid mind-virus.

I believe the future is going to be private libraries. I know you've been working on a private subscription library. I wish you well with it. I hate to say it, but the model where one has a foundation (501 c tax status) and a board is going to leave it vulnerable to that wokie nuttiness. The most stable model I believe is going to be a small-scale, one person-in-charge enterprise. I'm thinking of JMG's blogs, for example. Wokie craziness floats in, he just feeds it to his astral monster.

PS Libraries are so wonderful, this sort of thing really crushes my heart.

CHICKEN SOUP FLOGGER

Re: Thanks

[kimberlysteele]

Yes, I completely agree -- there is no way I would ever entrust any library I built to a board. The government-funded salary class types are the worst of the worst. I was eating alone in a restaurant a few weeks ago and I could not help but overhear the conversation of a gaggle of schoolteachers. I was struck by how competitive they were with each other (who can be the coolest???) and how they postured for each other. Not one of them considered the students as anything but an afterthought. The alpha female of the group mentioned a half-black student who had moved here from the African continent just to demonstrate how hip her classroom was. A teacher admitted how much she loved the lockdowns because she could stay home and it saved so much time in the morning. No worries or concerns about the damage lockdowns did to the students. Public school was already a joke when I went... nowadays it is much, much worse.

Preach!

[(Anonymous)]

Can I get an Amen! https://youtu.be/N2vTsJJQrAY

Re: Preach!

[kimberlysteele]

🙌 🙌 🙌

[temporaryreality]

Sigh. I'm now contemplating a letter of my own to the local annual sheep/fleece/fiber event. Just saw on their website that anyone who wants to take a workshop has to be "vaccinated."

I'm in blue country, so there's no visible pushback, just quiet objection (and, I admit, I was part of the problem in that I complied with masks back when I thought they did some good) and I have no idea if anyone else even cares that this event is requiring this.

I'm just going to grumble and stew to myself for a little while as I think through what I really want to do here. Thanks for being a clear and principled voice Kimberly. I'm trying to learn from you to speak out more (though it really, really rubs my inner-hermit the wrong way).

[kimberlysteele]

I didn't send the letter, just so you're aware. I did not feel it was worth it and my Ogham suggested holding off, so that is what I did.

I wore a mask in a few stores and at the hospital when my dad was there in 2020. Nobody's perfect.

I think they need us far more than we need them. That's why I ghost. I'll never go into that library again.

The library cancelled the drag event anyway. They got so much flack, they felt they had no choice. Feel free to paraphrase or even copy-paste what I said in the unsent letter. I think one size of excoriation fits most sheep.

[causticus]

If you actually sent that letter, it's very likely the recipient(s) would cry victim and claim you are trying to oppress or domestically-terrorize them, lol.

[kimberlysteele]

I've had that reaction from Coviditarians before -- they love trying that one out. It does not work on me. The easiest way to corner them is to inform them that they are rude, nasty, and disrespectful. Usually they don't register it on the surface but it does plant a seed in their rotting minds about being the embodiment of what is considered low class.

[(Anonymous)]

I would rather have been molested a child than the sleep deprivation and betrayal that my mother put me through for years, which is all too common of an experience for children.

"Mama bear" is just a myth that second wave feminists created to absolve themselves of any social harm that would be caused by argumentative working moms who get divorced a lot. Most moms couldn't give two shits about their children's future, and that's reflected in the exponentially growing supply of children hanging in their closets and dead people laying in the streets with syringes poking out of their bodies in every cardinal direction. Most the byproducts of single parent upbringings, and most in git-r-done states like West Virginia where trans people just cant exist.

I fail to see how encouraging more boys to become girls could be a bad thing. It hasnt't hurt East Asia or Latin America.

[kimberlysteele]

Please seek professional psychiatric help immediately.

[(Anonymous)]

Unfortunately the entire psychiatric and psychological establishment is lining up to affirm and humor certain people's delusions. I'm afraid the advice in today's world if followed would send the above commenter further down the path.

[kimberlysteele]

True. The commenter might do better by obtaining an exorcism from a competent exorcist, and I say that with zero sarcasm. The whole "I would have preferred to have been sexually molested as a child" and visions of teens riddled with syringes and hanging from rafters could be demonic.

[(Anonymous)]

Check the suicide rate, drug overdose rate and alcoholism rate. All at astoundingly high levels, and this is mostly confined to Republican-voting Christian states, where it is worsening with each passing year. I noticed pro-LGBT areas like California and New York City tend to be much better in this regard. Turns out Jesus Christ is the actual demon, and now his emaciated followers are walking off the face of the Earth as this annoying popup religion, which never had
an ounce of intellectual or moral value, finally expires. We will no longer have to hear about "child molestation" and other Christian mass paranoia.

[kimberlysteele]

Looking at the CDC statistics for the three things you mentioned reveals that the suicide rate is lower on average in California and New York, or at least the deaths that are counted as suicides are lower. For the other two, drug ODs and alcoholism, Maine and Louisiana have the same drug overdose rate and Florida and Connecticut have the same alcoholism rates. When someone takes three MRNA vaccines and dies, is that suicide?

As far as "JC is a demon", that kind of embittered ennui makes me chuckle because I used to live there and frankly, I was far cleverer at it. Like it or not, Christianity is far more than a pop up religion, and if I were you, I would focus on the (ironically) Christian practice of discursive meditation instead of trying to go up against the Christian egregore, which will never concern itself about little old you. Though I believe Christianity is dying out and will soon become a minority religion on par with Zoroastrianism or Jainism, it actually does have some good stuff to be plucked out of the dumpster fire it has become. Maybe think about what you are saying about value judgements. Do you consider yourself a moral authority? You seem to. I'm not and I don't pretend that I am.

[(Anonymous)]

Mais qui est ce type??

[mr_nobody1967]

Every month, if not every week, I am confronted with more evidence that prog-dems on some level are trying to get reasonable people who never or hardly ever vote for Republicans to vote straight ticket Republican in the next two elections at least. JMG would probably say that's because prog-dems know deep down inside that their day is coming to an end, so it just seems natural to them to try to hasten that ending with the choices they're making.

[kimberlysteele]

The Republican party sucks pretty hard as well -- it's fissured and cracked, if not entirely split. Lib-dem woke idiots are the Republican's best allies because they help irrelevant, Bible-thumping Republicans to look like a great choice in comparison to themselves.