Turn down the Suck. Turn up the Good.

Remember last week when I said I was looking for “the positive, the optimistic, and the constructive”?  On Babble’s Strollerderby blog, there was an item about an author, Lauren Myracle, who writes for pre-teens. Scholastic, which features book fairs for young readers, had requested that she drop any references to one of her characters having two mothers. If not, her book would not be featured. The author, of course, refused.

The blog post also included this response from a librarian (which I saw a while back on AJ Kandy’s Twitter feed) to a concerned mother who wanted a children’s book featuring a same-sex wedding removed from the library. Instead of snidely dismissing her, he wrote a well-thought out response, to address her objection and used library policies, the U.S. Constitution, the law, and the fact that philosophies can vary within a community to defend his inclusion of the book.

Imagine if people actually took time to openly and politely discuss their differences instead of shouting each other down. Well, cable news and talk radio and about half the blogosphere and most of the Twitterverse would cease to exist but would there also be a down side?

More of this please.