De-lurking to ask: Can anyone explain why John Kasich isn't more visible on the national political scene? I've always thought he'd make a great face for the Republican party, once they straighten out their act spending-wise. God knows they could use an efective leader!

And, as for U2: my son's a student at Fordham and so saw them live when they did their Good Morning America gig on his campus in March. He was pretty jazzed.

Ruy, the Cuban librarian travesty is why I decided to drop my ALA membership. There are many like me in the profession, you can be sure. ALA betrayed their own principles in that case, and they've done so again WRT the way they've treated Mr. Spencer.

(part 2)
What interested readers can do is this: find out when your library's fiscal year begins (July 1 and October 1 seem to be fairly common). Just before then, FLOOD the library with requests for books - the money is relatively plentiful then and the staff who order the books have some disrectionary funds available. Include in the request comments like, "I heard about this on the radio," or "I read about this at National Review Online / Instapundit / Reason.com," or "Glenn Beck was talikng about this on his show." While it's not the same as a glowing review from the New York Times Book Review, it cites a source the librarian might at least have HEARD of, even if she doesn't agree with the source.
Look, it's your library - you pay the bills - if you, as the customer, ask that the library buy a certain title at the right time, you can help ensure that the collection is balanced and represents the views of ALL the community it serves, and not just the NPR-listening, NYT-reading, latte-sipping elites.
This is pretty long. I'll go now. I just want to tell you I'm embarrassed for my profession.

(first post here)
Robert,
As a FORMER member of ALA, let me assure you and your readers that there are thousands of librarians who refuse to join ALA or have dropped our membership over just this kind of garbage. For me the breaking point was ALA's refusal to stand up to Castro when he jailed and tortured Cubans for the crime of sharing their books (many of which the regime had banned) with each other. ALA's beef? Some of these people had the AUDACITY to call themselves "librarians" - without the gold-plated union card that is an ALA-accredited master's degree. This latest shameful capitulation to political correctness at the expense of free speech and intellectual freedom (an ALA rallying cry!) only reinforces the rightness of my decision several years ago.

So no, not all of us are flaming libs. Some of us even find ways to make sure our organizations buy books like The Truth About Muhammed. :-) Usually I cite "online buzz" as a justification for the purchase. I have yet to be turned down.