Librarian's Rant

Last weekend my church's GLBT Alliance group did the service, relating to National Coming Out Day on October 11th. My friend Denny's story discussed being uncomfortable with the check boxes available to him on a jury duty form, which included Single, Married, Widowed or Divorced. As he and his partner Patrick had a union ceremony in 2006 (I was a groomsmaid!), he didn't feel that any of these fit. He's not married under the law, so it would be improper to check that box. Nor does he consider himself single. He wrote a letter to accompany the form explaining to the courts why this was discriminatory language. One of the many reasons I adore my friends, btw.

So why do I bring this up? Because I was just taking an online survey, and here was how they worded that question:








Clearly the corporate world has figured out they need new verbiage.

The fact that I currently live like a slightly crazy nun would, presumably, put me under "Single or Equivalent", right? Though I wonder how widowed folks would answer this. Would they still consider themselves "Married or Equivalent" or "Single or Equivalent". Tricky.

My stepdad sent me this one (from the NY Times).

German Border Threat: Cheap Books

In the United States chain stores have largely run neighborhood bookshops out of business. Here in Germany, there are big and small bookstores seemingly on every block. ...

Germany’s book culture is sustained by an age-old practice requiring all bookstores, including German online booksellers, to sell books at fixed prices. Save for old, used or damaged books, discounting in Germany is illegal. All books must cost the same whether they’re sold over the Internet or at Steinmetz, a shop in Offenbach that opened its doors in Goethe’s day, or at a Hugendubel or a Thalia, the two big chains.

What results has helped small, quality publishers like Berenberg. But it has also — American consumers should take note — caused book prices to drop. Last year, on average, book prices fell 0.5 percent.

Now this system is under threat from, of all people, the Swiss. Just across the border, the Swiss lately decided to permit the discounting of German books — a move that some in the book trade here fear will eventually force Germany itself to follow suit, transforming a diverse and book-rich culture into an echo of big-chain America.