Saturdays are usually an errand day at Casa BigDog. The Saturday just past was no exception.
We went out on the town, sporting about in Mrs. BigDog's new car... a 2008 Chevy Equinox. We did some shopping, stopped by Orchard Supply and Hardware for a couple garden items. We got our hair cut by the ever funny Lynette, a blue star mom whose soldier is due home from his second tour of the sandbox in a couple of weeks, at the Coconut Room.
Our last stop of the day was at the Petaluma Branch of the Sonoma County Library, as we both had books on hold to pick up.
We have a pretty extensive home library of several thousand volumes. Both of us are readers and have a wide range of tastes. You can find everything from Shakespeare, to history and biography, to Tom Clancy and Jane Austen on our shelves. As our collection has grown, our house has not and so I find myself turning more and more to the library to meet my reading needs. I've always been a user and supporter of the library system, and have contributed books as well. A library is, perhaps, the single most important thing a community can give itself.
I picked up the books I had on hold, a biography and a gunsmithing manual, and also grabbed Glenn Beck's "An Inconvenient Book" as I had not read it yet. While researching the catalog for other titles of interest it flashed on me that I had not read Mark Levin's new book "Liberty and Tyrrany".
I used the library's excellent on line catalog and quickly searched up the book. I found that it was not currently shelved at any of the library's in the county system... which includes affiliated libraries in Mendocino and Lake counties. There were 67 requested holds on the book... 67. I became number 68 and, as I check the online catalog now, I've been joined by four more requestors bringing the total to 72.
Sonoma County used to be a largely agricultural and relatively conservative community. The county has grown explosively over the past 25-30 years and it seems like a lot of that growth has been leftists and now.... progressives. Our city councils and board of supervisors are driven by leftists bent on doing well and spreading the wealth. Hell our Congressional representatives are Reps. Lynn Woolsey and Mike Thompson... and they don't get much pinker than that.
So why is it that I am encouraged and wondering if, at long last, the leftists have over reached? Have they, in the socialist utopian ideals of spreading the wealth, started to push the county, the state, and the country a nudge or two to the right? 72 holds on one book does not a revolution make, but it sure does feel like the word is getting out.
Maybe we aren't winning yet.... but I have hope again.
