To the Fragile, Conservative Few

It must be very hard to have your beliefs challenged nearly every single day.  It must be exhausting, indeed, to have to defend yourself, your choices, your "lifestyle" all the time to your detractors.  (I know it's exhausting over here to fight for those human rights.)  It must be tiring to be constantly questioned, especially when you find yourself unable to come up with answers to those questions.  And when you do find yourself ever so slowly inching away from those antiquated, racist/sexist/homophobic views, you probably want encouragement.

I imagine you want praise for gradually moving down the spectrum from "Complete and Utter Bigot" to "Somewhat Intolerant."  Maybe a nice pat on the back or someone to say, "Congratulations on your trek to fully evolved human being!  You are doing the right thing!"  Perhaps a participatory ribbon that says "Not a Complete Asshole...Anymore."  You want acknowledgment of your journey toward enlightenment, and I know there are people out there who will kindly and patiently give you such.

But let us be clear:  that person is not me.  It will never be me.

It is not my job to praise you for doing the absolute minimum when it comes to not being a conservative dick.  It is not my duty to measure your painfully slow progress and give you a cookie at each teeny benchmark.  I have no time for your fragile ego; my time is too busy spent fighting tooth and nail for those basic human rights that you can't seem to accept.

Image Compliments of RogueNegro.com

Another Year, Another Failure

Subtitle:  Stop Judging Me, Goodreads!!!

I failed my reading challenge again.  I even said I was "only" going to read 25 books this time around -- super easy, right?  Wrong (apparently).  I was seven books shy of my goal.

This year, instead of going for quantity, I think I'll go for type of books, as indicated by this list:

I found this list on Facebook, via at least two other friends.  And it's "only" twelve books.  I think this will work.  Maybe.  Some books may satisfy more than one requirement (a book that I've previously abandoned was probably both published before I was born and something I should have read [or finished] in school).

By the way, if you are a Goodreads user (Leonard is), what do you do with books you didn't finish, but you definitely stopped reading?  Because you didn't really "finish" them (especially in terms of a reading goal), but you can no longer waste your time on their insipid prose.  What then?  Just curious.  Leonard tried starting a shelf called "dead files" for them, but they are still listed on one of Goodreads' main shelves (read, to read, currently reading) that users cannot get rid of.  Please leave your answer/suggestion in the comments.