Well, okay, not quite. But I suppose anyone who wants to jump on the "You don't need a Master's degree to be a Librarian" wagon can certainly look no further than this missive against blogs by none other than ALA President Michael Gorman. It's shockingly ignorant and ill-informed, especially coming from someone who is meant to be educated. I don't know if he's just really worried about people taking blogs as "gospel" for sources of information and can't express that accurately or what, it's just strange coming from a librarian.
Most of the blogs I read, policial or otherwise, speak about their opinions or thoughts and then link to something relevant. That's what I try to do, at least. But I know that my opinion is hardly law, nor should it necessarily be taken as gospel no matter how many sources I have to back it up. I do think people are taking blogs too seriously as a new source, but the whole blog phenomenon fascinates me. It tells me that there are so many people in the world who don't feel that they're heard, so they create a place in cyberspace where they can feel visible. I don't think this is a bad thing necessarily, except of course for those poor people whose lives are so empty they use the web as some kind of online diary to bare their deeply personal business.
I, personally, don't feel heard, and that's part of why I have a blog. That has a lot to do with my upbringing, which is really not the main topic of conversation here at BotNC (nor should it be; that's why I prefer e-mails to comments). It also keeps me in touch with people around the world that, otherwise, it would be hard to chat with. Lets them know what's on my mind, and helps me see what's on my mind when I look back at the entries.
While I certainly don't pretend to be a very eloquent person, most of the people whose blogs I read are, and express themselves very nicely, thanks. Although in a resonse on the ALA Countil ListProc he contends that he was merely being satirical just isn't ringing true to me. I just wish poor Mr. Gorman had his own medium of online expression that could help him reach others...
If Gorman were not the President-Elect of a major professional organization, I'd not be as het up. I've read more concentrated bad-mouthing about libraries, librarians and the ALA the past two days than I've ever seen, and that's not okay with me. I'm trying to think of it as a growing pain within the profession. I mean, we're long overdue for a growth spurt. But then I keep thinking...do I really want to deal with ANOTHER idiot President?
Look. It's a giant nintendo mural made of post-it notes. Don't say I never gave you anything.
Book of the Night: It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America, by Christine Todd Whitman.
note to cat...meet note from cat
I'm contemplating a note to french bulldogs myself. I'd be interested to see what people would come up with.
Book of the Night: The Twelve Little Cakes, by Dominika Dery
Sandra Dee and Hunter S. Thompson. The only reason I would possibly mention them in the same sentence is if they died on the same day. Which they did.
Don't really know what else to say. Hunter, I'll miss your irreverence. There had to be another way.
Book of the Night: The Way the Crow Flies, by Ann Marie Macdonald.
just oddly comforted that some feelings I have about her are valid. I've always thought she looked a bit Báthory around the eyes. I understand that she's an abstinence-only kinda gal, too, which would certainly give her access to virgins.
This, for starters. The survey, sponsored by the James L. Knight Foundation, found that 35% of the high school students surveyed thought the “First Amendment goes to far in the rights it guarantees.” The study also found that three-quarters of the students think that flag burning is illegal and that “they don’t know how they feel about the First Amendment, or they take it for granted.” This sort of ignorance and apathy from the next generation makes me nervous.
I think the difference can be attributed to the change in the political climate over the past half decade. Look at the PATRIOT Act. Look at these challenges to our civil liberties that are made in the name of protecting us from terror. Look at how the government has limited our access to information and to music and literary works for the sake of the corporations (particularly the publishing and entertainment industries). Is it any surprise that high schoolers who have grown up in this environment have such an ambivalent relationship with their own freedoms? Christ, it's like a giant Omaha.
The political climate in America has become so contentious and so nasty. Anyone who disagrees with the views of the moral majority is unpatriotic or doesn’t care about the welfare of children or is a communist. And anyone who disagrees with the liberals is an idiot or a bigot. There seems to be no intelligent debate, just name calling (and that goes for many “liberals” too). Even in Congress, it’s the left versus the right, and there are so few examples of true cooperation or bipartisanship anymore. Everyone is just so polarized, and that makes it more likely that the people in power (the conservatives) are going to do what’s good for them and not what’s good for the country.
I read an interesting article by Frank Rich in the New York Times, about how Clint Eastwood, a Republican, has been painted by the Right as a communist due to his recently released film, Million Dollar Baby. I won’t spoil the movie, but I’ll just say that it touches on a certain theme that the Christian Right is not fond of (though it also touches on several other themes that are a favorite of the Right). Eastwood defends his film and discusses how the political climate has changed in recent years:
“Maybe I’m getting to the age when I’m starting to be senile or nostalgic or both, but people are so angry now,” he adds. “You used to be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Now you hear these talk shows, and everyone who believes differently from you is a moron and an idiot - both on the right and the left.” His own politics defy neat categorization. He’s supported Democrats (including Gray Davis in the pre-Schwarzenegger era) as well as Republicans, professes the libertarian creed of “less government” and “was never a big enthusiast for going to Iraq but never spoke against it once the troops were there.” In other words, he’s in the same middle as most Americans. “I vote for what I like,” he says. “I’m not a loyalist to any party. I’m only a loyalist to the country.” That’s no longer good enough, apparently, for those who feel an election victory has empowered them to enforce a strict doctrine of political and spiritual correctness.
Eastwood is one of the last few free-thinkers in this country – a man who votes with his conscience rather than based on the party affiliation of the candidate. And this is how I think it should be. During the whole presidential election insanity, I thought about campaigning for Kerry. But really, the people that I spoke with about opportunities disconcerted me. Their whole argument was that they wanted to get Bush out of the White House, which is hardly a bad thing. But they really had nothing to add about Kerry being great or being the best guy for the job. I wasn’t willing to tell people to vote against one candidate by voting for the other. Is that supposed to inspire anyone? It’s that kind of narrow-mindedness on both sides – this red state/blue state mentality – that is tearing our country apart.
I wish I had some words of wisdom about all this. I know I’ve kind of gone off on a tangent, but I think all of this is connected in some way to how our nation and our political system is changing. And I really don’t know what we can do about it. I wish that people would take a lesson from Eastwood and be true to your values, not to a party. Keep an open mind. Respect what the other side has to say and try to work with them, not against them. Remember that this country was built upon the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, and that they should be upheld in all spheres of American life. The government is supposed to be the voice for the entire population, not just those in the red states.
Words you may have heard spoken before, but not for the same reason.
NOTE: Perhaps not to be viewed when drunk or dropping anything. Like acid.
Book of the Night:: Burnt Bread and Chutney: Growing Up Between Cultures - A Memoir of an Indian Jewish Childhood, by Carmit Delman
This woman spent the last 71 days sailing around the world. Alone.
I, on the other hand, have just tamed all of the paperwork on my desk by encasing it in file folders.
Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl was perhaps the most brilliant thing I've ever seen. I stumbled upon it accidentally and was instantly hooked (the cute Frenchie has surprisingly little to do with it). The whole thing was like a three-hour canine Seinfeld episode, where basically nothing happens but it's entertaining nonetheless.
And may I just add that here is no way that Bandit was the MVP. What's up with that? The freakish little thing spent the whole time trying to hump one of the other dogs (I think it was poor Amos). Itsy the Frenchie, who had much more style and finesse, came in 4th. Poor Its!
Jinfo, which will be helpful should we ever move to the UK
General Good Reference Book: Web Search Garage, by Tara Calishain. I keep it at work and check it out when I can, since I'm taking Online Searching this semster and need all the help I can get! Not just for searcheads like me. She discusses more than Google and more than just the basics and offers some really good step-by-step approaches to ferreting out tough-to-find information, specifically things that are not just Googleable. Check out the preview chapter and a few freebies on her web page for starters.
Book of the Night: Now May You Weep, by Deborah Crombie
And there's downloadable video, too.
Book of the Night: Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith (review), by Martha Nibley Beck.
And so it begins. The Bush Administration shakes it's finger angrily in the direction of PBS as Margaret Spellings, the newly-minted Secretary of Education, lets it be known that in her world, there are no federally-funded children's television programs with homosexuals on it. Or rather, there shouldn't be. Or rather, Despite the fact that PBS strives to show the diversity of the United States by featuring families that all children may conceivably have, we have decided that not all children deserve to be validated in this way. Just hide the homos or we may stop funding you.
Okay, I may be overacting a bit, (maybe she thought that because the episode was called "Sugartime" there might be illicit displays of affection) but this does unsettle me. If one of the first things that the new Secretary of Education does is threaten an institution like PBS because she isn't personally comfortable with something, where do you go from there? Only up, I hope.
I will say that I understand that PBS had decided to remove the show before Spellings started squalling, but in some ways I have a hard time believing it because it was shot nearly a year ago. Why pull it now? What makes something on that show unacceptable now that was okay last March when it was filmed?
I love PBS; before cable it was really the only place on television to find out about the actual world. How other people live, what their experiences were. Growing up in Nebraska I craved otherness, sure there was something out there aside from the white, emotionally repressed, politically conservative people I was raised around. And PBS showed me that there was.
I don't know what I'd do if I had a child and we saw a children's show that featured a polygamous family group, or one that practiced polyamory (which I don't necessarily think is wrong; I just don't feel it's a good type of relationship for children to grow up around). I would be hard pressed to explain what my children were seeing to them, but I would. As carefully and as calmly as I could. Because that's what you have to do. Because that's how the world is now; people can and do feel comfortable living in it in all kinds of ways. Which is overall a good thing.
While I am not completely sure that W and his ilk could take down PBS, I don't like the way the agenda for their "mandate" seems to include making children of gays and lesbians (or any child, for that matter) feel invisible. Taking away an image of a gay family does not erase them from society, the same way that abstinence education (which is cheerfully Federally-funded, or should I say blessed?) does not decrease the likelihood that teens will have premarital sex. It's just more of the turtle behavior that the Bush administration encourages, which isn't the actual world. My PBS affiliate is showing Postcards From Buster tomorrow, and my TiVo is at the ready. I'll watch it, and I'll be watching you, Dub. Don't mess with my PBS.
Book of the Night: Where She Came from: A Daughter's Search for Her Mother's History, by Helen Epstein