Opening A Closed Mind - My Own

Well, my toe bones are starting to recover. I wore the poor things out trying to hit every exhibit in the Anaheim Convention Center in one day. Evelyn was there the whole time and it is amazing what she saw and witness. She wall all over the joint.

We both are going to try to give you the highlights of the convention and draw upon some of the resources we packed away. We have got stuff. Bags of stuff. But not as much stuff as we could have had if we had my rolling supermarket cart (the vertical, not the horizontal kind.)

At some point we won't necessarily say we learned or had an experience the convention but it might take a month or two of sorting and reviewing what we have snagged.

The One That Got Away

Yes, about the photo. This is my reminder about preconceived notions and bias. This was one of the first tables I saw as I entered the Convention Center. I looked at the table and read some of the titles. They appeared to be Christian focused. My guard went up. I kinda, sorta read the title and the sub-title, "America's Addition to Porn."

I backed away from a free book. I should not have done that. The more I thought about it afterwards the more I regretted it. But not enough to try to find that table again. I gave up an opportunity to understand a different perspective on how some folks feel about the public and semi-private displays of the time honored YouBangHe or Her discussions.

As I moved though the convention there were all kinds of vendors and exhibitors. Some I gravitated to, some I questioned and others I had heard of via the media. Others vendors I kept my distance. I flat out did not trust them or their content. No need for names.

Lessons Learned

Whatever my believe system or my feeling about commercial displays of carnality, I should have at least flipped it in my bag for a later review.

For the record, I backed away because I was fearful. I'm not sure what being a Christian means (and please don't try to tell me. That is not the point of the post.) so I had an image of what mainstream media tells me and that is kinda scary to me.

I also have my feelings about erotica, sexual information and individual rights. If I plan to work in libraries I have to find a better way to balance the fears with the pursuit of knowledge.

It is not as easy as it sounds. I am still taking the logs out of my eyes.