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Barry Crimmins might be the most famous person you've never heard of. In "Call Me Lucky," a documentary tribute to Crimmins created by Bobcat Goldthwait, an A-list of comics talk about the influence Crimmins had on them and their community: Patton Oswalt, David Cross, Margaret Cho, Marc Maron, Steven Wright, among others. Crimmins toured with Billy Bragg. He won a peace award, handed to him by Howard Zinn; the other recipient sharing the stage: Maya Angelou. In his younger and wilder days, Crimmins was hugely influential in the rising stand-up comedy scene, although the word influential doesn't quite describe it. In Boston, he was comedy's midwife, and his club was its incubator. Allan and I met Barry through a baseball discussion list in the 90s, quickly bonding over our politics and, for me, a shared identity as survivors of sexual abuse or assault. We stayed at Barry's place on the Cleveland stop of our 1999 rust-belt baseball tour, and went to a few games

When we think of gun violence in the United States, chances are we think of mass shootings. These horrific events which occur with such regularity seem, to much of the world, mostly preventable. The public nature of the shootings, and the often tragically young age of the victims, capture headlines and a good portion of the 24-hour news cycle. Yet murders occur every day in the US, and no one hears about them, except the grief-stricken loved ones and those who fear they may be next. Jill Leovy's Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America is about those murders - both one specific tragedy and what Leovy calls "the plague" itself. Part sociology and part detective story, Ghettoside is a triumph of reporting, of analysis, and of compassion. This book is disturbing and extremely compelling, and it may change forever how you view both violence and the criminal justice system's response to it. Leovy is a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times , and the plague she inv

In library school we talked a lot about the digital divide , the ever-increasing gap between those who have access to information and communication technology, and those who do not. Public libraries are one of the very few institutions that exist to bridge that gap, however imperfectly. What does the digital divide look like on the ground? In my library, located in one of the lowest-income communities in Ontario (and in Canada), we see the digital divide in action every single day. This week a family worked on a visa application for the United States. They had to come to the library first thing in the morning, so we could special-book them a computer, as the process would take much longer than a standard computer reservation. With intermittent staff help, they worked on their application for three hours. There was no way to download and save the application, and no paper version. When they tried to save and submit the application, either the computer or the site malfunctioned (we don&

Some facts. 1.  The likelihood that you will be killed in a terrorist attack is extremely small. You are much more likely to be hit by lightning, killed in a car crash, have a heart attack, or meet your death hundreds of other ways. 2. Most documented terrorist attacks are perpetrated by people who are not Muslim.  And this doesn't count anti-abortion violence or women being killed by abusive partners, which are forms of terrorism. 3. In 2013 and 2014, more than 316,000 people in the United States were killed by guns . 313 Americans died in terrorist attacks. 4. After the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, violence against Muslim people in the US and Canada  have skyrocketed . Mosques have been burned and vandalized , women picking up their children at school have been attacked , people have been shoved, spit on, forced off planes. 5. In the UK and Europe, it is even worse . * * * * Yesterday, in my library, a woman called to alert us to a "security threat". She said s

Remembrance Day readers' advisory: eleven books to help us contemplate the reality of war, and thus oppose it. 1. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque 2. War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, Christopher Hedges 3. Catch-22, Joseph Heller 4. The Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang 5. Regeneration, Pat Barker 6. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut 7. Comfort Woman, Nora Okja Keller 8. Why Men Fight, Bertrand Russell 9. Hiroshima, John Hersey 10. The Deserter's Tale, Joshua Key and Lawrence Hill 11. Born on the Fourth of July, Ron Kovic

Every time I have moved - many, many moves, more than I care to think about, over many decades - I have carefully removed from bulletin boards and walls dozens of buttons, cartoons, photos, quotes, and postcard images that seemed to define my life. I have saved almost all of these in shoe boxes, file folders, and manila envelopes, those then layered in plastic tubs that now live in our apartment storage. They don't take up a lot of space, and as old as they are, when I have occasion to look through them, I never feel that I can part with any. When I think about it, it seems strange that I haven't outgrown this habit. It seems adolescent. But there it is, my inner adolescent. I print out a quote, or peel off a bumper sticker, and it goes on the wall or bulletin board or desk. I do much less of this than I used to; I used to cover huge spaces with this kind of stuff, and now it's only a few pieces here and there. But the habit remains. Here are a few cartoons that I recently

I wasn't planning on writing about Go Set a Watchman , the surprise second - or possibly first - novel by Harper Lee. I am among the legions of readers who were shocked, thrilled, and confused at the sudden appearance of this book, and I didn't think I'd have anything noteworthy to add to the conversation. And indeed I may not. But reading the book, I was so surprised, and so saddened, that I was moved to weigh in. Most media attention to Watchman focused on the mystery and doubt surrounding its origins and publication, and the revelation that Atticus Finch is, in this book, a racist. When I read it, only one thing struck me. It's awful. Taking a more generous view, perhaps Watchman is an early draft. No author should ever be judged by an early draft. And first drafts should never be exposed without the writer's express wishes and consent. If first drafts were exposed and circulated, most writers would never put pen to paper or fingers to keyboards. It would be to