Sometimes I hate who I've become. Well, not really, just a bit. Okay, sometimes a lot.
Because I have to care about things that really don't mean anything to me, and I hate that. The whole pretending thing, it irks me. I never wanted to be one of those people, even though I was constantly told that everyone in the world has to be one in order to succeed. I never wanted to accept it, but I find it's true. At least, for me.
I wanted more than what I have, and for much of my life I was told I couldn't have it. I convinced myself that it wasn't true, and in some ways it isn't (my husband is proof of that). But just today I looked around and I realized overall that it was true. And I asked myself, how did I get here? And I came over all sad.
Lord, what whinging! My blood sugar must be low. Whilst I hunt for a Tootsie Roll or something, here is some delightful irony for you...Michael Gorman’s last line in his [brief] inaugural address: My completed remarks will be on my blog in the morning. Child, please!
If you need clarification on this irony, please see my entry for February 25th.
So tonight I was supposed to introduce an author at the store. About an hour before the event, she calls and says she has a friend who wants to do the introduction instead, and would that be okay? I say sure, whatever you want.
None of us, however, were aware that the friend in question was Peter Coyote. Damn! And me without my lipstick.
To say that Peter Coyote is hot is an understatement. Hot, smart, well read, and politically committed. Now that is the whole package. Every female employee over the age of 30 was running around primping and looking to borrow jewelry from the consignment cabinet.
He's local and shops at the store often, but this was really the first time I had an actual excuse to talk to him. He's just as well spoken as I'd heard, and it was fascinating talking to him about his time living in communes.
Oh, and the author was good, too.
Since I am not an actual librarian yet, I didn't go to ALA this year. Which sucks, as it sounds like everyone is having a great time from the blogs and wikis I've been reading. It seems strange in a way, I'm nearly done with school and I've no idea what kind of librarian I want to be!
Anyway, I'm always interested in things that make me think about various aspects of the profession, such as this wonderful article by Chris Dodge former Hennepin County [MN] librarian and current Utne Reader Librarian. It discusses how commerce can impact public service and is, I think, also relevant to fields far beyond librarianship.
Public t.v. and radio get a bit of a reprieve (at least for now).
AND
Mom jailed in pit bulls' fatal mauling of son.
Sadly, they let out on her own recognizance today, but with any luck she'll get hard time for what she so thoughtlessly allowed to occur.
I hate her. I know that's strange, but I can honestly say that I hate her more than I've hated anyone in a very long time. If I saw her on the street, I honestly think I would slap her. And since I don't normally feel that way, I'm perplexed by it.
Giant Popsicle Melts, Floods New York Park.
I just hope the Snapple lady is okay.
As always, Molly Ivins talks to the threat against Public Television much more articulately than I could ever hope. Since I don't like it when newspapers require you to register in order to read things, I've pasted it here for your enjoyment.
AUSTIN -- I was watching the PBS science program "Nova" the other night and spotted the liberal bias right away. I knew it would be there because Ken Tomlinson, the Bush-appointed chairman of the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), says the network is riddled with leftist leanings. Sure enough, in a program on tsunamis and what causes them, the show blamed it on shifting tectonic plates in the earth's surface. Then the graphic shows these two tectonic plates grinding against each other -- suddenly, the one on the left sort of falls down, and the big, aggressive plate on the right jumps on top of it, causing a killer tsunami. See? Wouldn't have happened on Fox.
I have listened patiently to years of right-wing bull about liberal bias in the media, but let us be perfectly clear about what is happening at PBS. Big Bird is not in favor of affirmative action. Bert and Ernie are not gay. Miss Piggy is not a feminist. "The Three Tenors," "Antiques Roadshow," "Masterpiece Theater," "Wall Street Week" and nature programs do not have a political agenda. "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" is biased in favor of boring, old, white guys who appear on painfully well-balanced panels. "Washington Week in Review" is a showcase for "Inside the Beltway," conventional wisdom, power-parroting, political-geekhead, Establishment journalism -- there is nothing liberal about it.
But there is a plot to politicize public broadcasting. It is plain as a pikestaff, and it is coming from the Right. It is obvious, undeniable and happening right now. The Bush administration is introducing a political agenda to public broadcasting. They are using the lame pretext that PBS is somehow liberal to justify it into a propaganda organ for the government. That is precisely what the board of CPB was set up to prevent 40 years ago; it is there to be a firewall between public broadcasting and political pressure. Ken Tomlinson is a disgrace to the purpose of that board, he has a political agenda and is engaging in a raw display of ideological bullying. The right-wingers in the House of Representatives are backing his power play with a threat to cut off funding for PBS entirely.
Tomlinson's claim of liberal bias at PBS is based on the program "NOW with Bill Moyers," even though Moyers' program frequently featured guests on the Right. Moyers is now retired, and the show has been cut to half an hour. Tomlinson "balanced" it with a weekly program by the editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal, who don't even bother to pretend to be objective: They are right-wing beyond argument. Tomlinson actually spent $10,000 of the taxpayers' money to pay some consultant to find bias in Moyers' program but has never released the results of that "study."
Tomlinson, himself a former head of Voice of America in the Reagan administration and a retired editor Reader's Digest, has been an active right-winger since I first met him in 1974. He is also the Bush-appointed chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other official arms of the government's propaganda machine. He is a Bush information apparatchik. It is quite clear he believes PBS and NPR should also function as cheerleaders for the government.
His choice for president of the CPB is Patricia Harrison, who is such a Republican activist she was elected co-chair of the Republican National Committee, where she was particularly noted for attacking Hillary Clinton. This is beyond open partisanship. Harrison is currently at State, where she oversees that department's propaganda arm, including the production "news segments" openly intended to support Bush administration policy. She has testified before Congress about the value of such "news segments" in swaying public opinion.
When Richard Nixon attacked PBS 35 years ago, the Republican chairman of CPB resigned in protest over the political interference. The impeccably Republican Ralph Rogers of Dallas led a nationwide effort to stop the malicious meddling. Where's a decent Republican when you need one?
I've read all those studies that show people on the Right lack the gift of empathy. I can see they have a real hard time imagining themselves as people on welfare or as blacks in East Texas -- that's quite a stretch even for white bleeding hearts like me. What I don't get is their inability to do the simplest exercise in elementary fairness -- how would you feel if the shoe were on the other foot?
Let's pretend Hillary Clinton wins the 2008 election. Who do you want her to appoint chairman of CPB? James Carville? Noam Chomsky? Or should she show how much she understands the importance of the independence of public broadcasting by naming an esteemed Republican, say John Danforth or Alan Simpson or Richard Lugar? How about anyone who understands that the function of journalism is not to toady to those in power but to challenge them? Is that too much to ask?
The ideological Republicans are destroying a fine public institution.
COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Originally Published on Thursday June 16, 2005
House panel cuts funding for public television.
I love Public Television, watch it often and send money when I can. It's such a valuable resource, and I'd hate to see it vanish or lose its overall quality. So if you have some spare $$, and you watch public TV, absolutely send them a little something to keep the good stuff coming.
In other sad news (this is really more saddish than actually sad), the last journalists have left Fleet Street.
Sometimes change rubs me the wrong way.
Anti-aircraft tower turned into luxury apartment.
House Votes to Limit Patriot Act Rules. For now, libraries and bookstores are safe. And so is the privacy of the public's reading habits.
Man With Chain Saw Allowed to Enter U.S.
Meanwhile, my Mom was almost banned from the plane for wanting to carry her Epi-pen on the flight from Omaha to California for our wedding years ago. Apparently it wasn't the appropriate type of weaponry.