SemiConscious Dot Org

Despite my acknowledged status as an honest-to-Jeebus liberrian, I rarely if ever blog about liberry-related issues these days. The reasons for this are twofold, and can be summarized thusly:

1. I work in a school library now, rather than a public library, so there are no more amusing “Stupid Patron” stories to relate.
2. Library blogs are excruciatingly boring to read. The only interesting library blogs are ones by librarians who also happen to talk about what’s going on in the outside world, music, politics, etc.

However, a library-related issue which is currently in the news also happens to have national political importance. Today, the US House of Representatives voted to amend the USA Patriot Act, removing the section that allows law enforcement officials to spy on the reading habits of library and bookstore patrons. If the bill survives a threatened Presidential veto, The Man will have to go to court, show probable cause, and get a warrant before He gets to snoop around in what you’ve been reading…just like He had to do for the first 225 years of our nation’s history.

What surprises me about this vote is that it wasn’t even close; the amendment passed 238-187, with the help of 38 Republicans who risked the certain retribution of Tom DeLay and the White House by voting with their brains for a change. Considering that a similar amendment last year died after the House deadlocked 210-210, this is quite a sea change over 12 short months.

Since Republicans have done something praiseworthy for the first time since…well…ever, I may as well continue with the GOP lovefest, and send a shoutout to my home state’s two Republican Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. In a recent SurveyUSA poll asking voters to rate their Senators’ performance, Snowe and Collins were the only Republicans to crack the top 10 in voter approval. They did so despite the fact that Maine is a solidly Blue state that has voted Democratic in the last four Presidential elections.

I wonder why? Hmm, couldn’t be because they were two of the seven Republican Senators whose compromise with Democrats derailed the “nuclear option,” thereby thwarting the Republican leaderships’ effort to throw two centuries of democratic tradition in the trash heap, could it?

Maybe these positive events herald a new era for the Republican Party. Maybe the continuing downward spiral in DubYa’s approval ratings will spur more Repubs to start thinking for themselves and defying the Christian Taliban wing of their party.

Oh, right. I forgot that we’re talking about a party which still has a sizable pro-lynching faction.

Never mind.