Cycho Librarian

The Tenth Doctor

2011-11-30T18:24:00.001-05:00

The other day a friend of mine responded to my comment that I missed David Tennant as the tenth Doctor Who, saying that there was something very meta about that because I could be a doppelganger of David Tennant. However, after thinking about it some more I'm wondering if David Tennant might be my doppelganger. So much so that I've started searching my belongings for a pocketwatch engraved with Gallifrean symbols. Consider-- both Cycholibrarian and the tenth Doctor:

Are tall and skinny.
Have a tendency to run their hands wildly through their hair while thinking, and don't seem to care about the resulting mess.
Prefer to wear Chuck Taylor All-Stars (even with a suit).
Have a tendency to talk very quickly about things no one else understands.
Have been known to bellow "Allons-y!" and other non-English phrases for reasons only clear to themselves.
Have very expressive faces, especially when grimacing about Very Important Things.
Move so fast that others frequently have trouble keeping up.
Surround themselves with beautiful and intelligent women, even if they can't have a relationship with them.

And if that wasn't enough, when in High School one of Cycholibrarian's nicknames was "Nick of Time"!

So please keep your eyes open for that pocketwatch... but whatever you do, don't open it!

Sonnet

2011-10-26T21:13:00.000-04:00

There is a magic in the rising moon,
Across the sea the siren voices call,
The mountains pull the wand'rer from his room,
And forests make no lord so fit a hall.
Beneath clear skies we huddle round the flame,
Laughing until our hands and souls are warm.
New faces fast become our ancient names
Known to us all before the world was born.
This is my blessing and my greatest fear:
To see it all and never stop for rest.
I think and new frontiers 'fore me appear,
And pathways spread beyond each undimmed crest,
Until I feel my heart will burst its bonds
With all the possibilities and songs.

Six Degrees

2011-10-07T10:02:00.000-04:00

This morning I had another of those "small world" moments that seem to come so frequently in our hyper-connected world. I'm involved in a public art project for Columbus's bicentennial next year to create original pieces for the carillon bells at my church, and one of the composers who I've shown around the tower friend requested me. Even though I had never met her before this project, I come to find out that she's already friends with two other friends of mine. This is the point where most people just laugh and make a joke about how Columbus is really a pretty small town. But I've thought about this before and I'm not sure that it's so much that Columbus is a small town, but that we are all connected a lot more than we think.

Think about how many times this has happened to you: you're at a party, maybe not even in your hometown, and you fall into conversation with a stranger. That person happens to know someone where you're from or where you work or from your hometown, and son-of-a-gun you know someone who went to school with that person or who works with them or who dated them 5 years ago! Heh, small world, right?

But what if you're not at a party? What about that person walking down the street towards you? If you started a conversation with them, how far from you would they be? Or what about that other driver who you yelled at for cutting you off this morning? Or what about that guy sleeping on the stoop next to the bus stop?

Not so much fun anymore, eh?

I think that the truth we never think about when we laugh about the fact that we "happen" to know someone who knows someone is that really it applies to anybody. And not even people in our own hometown or even our own country. I'm willing to bet that every person reading this right now knows at least one person who either currently lives or used to live abroad. As soon as you find that connection you're into a whole other network. So my parish priest who grew up in Liberia probably links me to the Nobel peace prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and through her to all the people suffering in Africa who she and her compatriots have tried to help. Mankind's suffering and triumphs are not as far removed from us as we might think.

Some may say that this is just the result of our hyper-connected world. Except that it isn't. In the Homeric epics every time a character comes to a new place they recite a litany of connections that tie them to the people in that place. Texts ranging from the Bible to the Norse sagas are filled with genealogies that are designed to give the reader context and connection to the characters in those stories. This is a fundamental human drive: to find the connection, to learn how we are all connected to each other and what that can lead to.

Ironically, I think that the connections we are discovering through technology are are actually allowing us to return to our natural desire to find what links us together. I can only hope that as more people discover this and more connections are forged it leads to more understanding among all people, and a greater care for our common humanity.

Homecoming

2011-09-24T13:39:00.000-04:00

When I studied Greek, and in particular the Odyssey, one concept that always stuck out to me was νόστος, a Greek word meaning the return to one's home, usually after a long time away. As with most translations, this doesn't do the word justice. So much more is tied up in that word than just coming home: the longing for one's home, the comforts of home, the end of a long journey. For me it was always best summed up by book 13 of the Odyssey. After 20 years away from Ithaka, Odysseus is left on the shore of his homeland, and hidden by a mist brought by Athena to hide him from his enemies. At first Odysseus doesn't recognize the island, and when Athena, disguised a shepherd, tells him where he is, he doesn't believe her. Finally Athena reveals herself and lifts the mists, showing Odysseus the familiar landmarks of his home, and Odysseus falls to the ground and kisses the earth.

This is, to my mind, a perfect description of what it's like to come home after a long time away or a long ordeal. As I arrived in New Hampshire yesterday, I felt much like Odysseus. Somehow, the massive changes that I've been through put me in a reflective mood. As I made my way through the mists left by the recent rain, I tried to put myself back as I was 20 years ago, remembering how to get to the places I used to go, remembering driving to visit friends and visit school, seeing all those landmarks that are familiar but at the same time unfamiliar.

I'm also going to be attending my 20th high school reunion, and I went to visit the school and some of my former teachers today for the first time since my brother graduated in 1994. Again, so many things were familiar but at the same time unfamiliar. I watched as the school librarian, my former adviser, taught a group of freshmen the basics of evaluating sources, while another former teacher called out some rowdy students with the familiarly gruff but good-natured "Guys, it's really simple. Be quiet, or die." He turned to me afterwards and said with a grin, "See? Nothing changes." But then lamented that since the school had gone to all white boards he no longer had chalk to throw at the unruly kids.

The school has grown. My old haunts were all still there, but new buildings and additions made them all seem smaller and unfamiliar. However back behind the school I was still able to find the old path to the grove of hemlocks in a ravine that another adviser of mine had nicknamed "Socrates." Someone had added a rope line to mark the pathway, but I'm pretty sure that some of the logs preventing erosion along the bank are the same ones my friends and I cut and put in place more than 20 years ago.

So I have come home after my travels. It may have only been a year since I've been here, but it's been 17 years since I've been here in the Fall, it's been 20 years since I've seen many of my friends from high school, and it's the first time since moving away that I've been here on my own. So much has changed in this past year that I feel like a different person. This time it is my νόστος. I've awoken on my shore, and Athena has lifted the mist, and I will be restored.

Remembering

2011-09-11T09:00:00.000-04:00

Ten years ago we all received an unimaginable shock. Everyone responded to this differently, but for me there have always been two main outlets when I'm dealing with something that extreme: music and writing. After September 11, 2001 I tried to put what I was thinking and feeling into words, really just for myself. I've carried the result around in a portfolio ever since, and it seems fitting to share on the tenth anniversary.

New Phoenix

I saw them once before—
Atlasian pillars thrusting up against the dome
In the futility of concrete,
Pretending that the day begins
And ends because we said so.

So this is what we’ve wrought,
O Beautiful for Pilgrim’s Dreams—
The roar of our invention still echoes down the canyons.
Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam a little less
Now stained by human tears.

Who were we to tempt the sin of Babel?
The peoples of a thousand tongues
Thrown all together in one place
As though the color green were Word enough
To reunite the sons of Abram.

And now we think that all can be restored
If we root out the devil in his hole.
One man could not bring all this pain,
And hurts of millions cannot be assuaged
By further torturing of one tormented soul.

Perhaps there is a larger frame:
Blanched faces dig for crimson under azure skies.
Why chase demons when the phoenix
Has risen from the ashes before us?
We have already won.

Car Free

2011-09-04T17:25:00.005-04:00

One of the more interesting side-effects of the divorce is that I am now car free. The reactions I get when I tell people this are, frankly, kind of amusing. Almost always there’s some look of horror, an expression of sympathy, questions of how I can possibly survive without a car, etc., etc.

The way I ended up here is really very simple: we only had one car, she needed it, I didn’t. I was already riding my bike pretty much everywhere I needed to go. I have one bike with a crate and a trailer, so transporting groceries and so forth wouldn’t be much of a challenge; and in the worst case scenario, my new apartment is an easy walk from stores, restaurants, and a bus line. So really, it’s not that big a deal.

In fact, one of the most interesting things about being car free is how surprisingly easy it’s turning out to be. “But Nick,” you say, “sure it’s easy for you. You’re cycho!” Okay, I grant you that I already ride my bike a lot, but contrary to what some people tell me, you won’t “die” if you tried to do it yourself.

Take last weekend for example. That was the first time I did a big shopping trip by bike. There’s one store about 8 miles away that has a lot of things I need at really good prices. There’s also a Target en route, so I’d be able to knock out two stops on the same trip. I hooked up the trailer and set out at an easy pace around 9:00 in the morning.

One of the first things I realized that I’d have to stop doing if the bicycle was going to be my only means of transportation was treating every trip like a race. I was in no hurry: I had nowhere to be, it was a pleasant morning, and I had planned a route that took me through the residential streets of Upper Arlington. So I just pedaled along and enjoyed the scenery.

As I got further away from the 1950’s sections of Upper Arlington, I began to notice how the options for getting around became fewer and fewer until eventually I was in developments with no sidewalks, huge garages and parking lots, and wide boulevards that drivers treated like highways despite the 30 mph speed limits. Eventually these gave way to roads that hadn’t been improved since they were in a rural area, and now had to deal with huge amounts of traffic with no berm and no turning lanes. When I finally came to the major 4-lane road I had been dreading, I was pleased to see that there was at least a sidewalk. So for a change I broke the law and rode along the sidewalk. There were no pedestrians, and frankly it was in this one case safer than trying to mix it up with cars going 50 mph in both lanes.

Putting that aside for a moment, one of the most common reasons I hear from people why they don’t want to ride their bikes for transportation is a fear of cars. The trick to riding in traffic is simply confidence. You are allowed on the road, and no one except for psychopaths really want to cause you harm. So if the lane is too narrow for a car to pass safely, do what the law says and take over the whole lane. Ride right down the middle where everyone can see you and have to wait to pass you. If you do this, you will be very safe. The only trick is developing that confidence.

So I went through my shopping stops, loaded up the trailer with 28 lbs of cat litter, a 12-pack of coke, and 3 large grocery bags (with room to spare!) and headed towards home. I was grateful that it was (somewhat) downhill from there, but again, riding at an easy pace it really wasn’t a challenge. I made it home after a just about two hour trip, and since I hadn’t pushed myself I really wasn’t that tired. In fact, later that day I would run some more errands and finish having ridden about 35 miles.

My Saturday 08/27/2011

Find more Cycling Routes / Bike Rides in Columbus, OH

Don’t get me wrong, a car is definitely easier. I have to put a lot of thought and planning into making my trips by bike. It’s not a simple thing to hop in the car and run back to the house if I forget something. I have to allow more time after I arrive to cool down and in some cases change clothes. And I have to pay more attention to the weather, so I can either wear the appropriate gear or (as was the case this morning) time my rides to avoid weather. But I can’t help thinking that’s a good thing: being more mindful our bodies’ needs, aware of our connection to nature, and taking more time with our daily tasks.

The bottom line is that living life without a car is a viable option. But the reactions I’ve gotten as I’ve told people that I no longer have a car underscore how much we as a society cannot imagine life without the car. A good thought experiment to demonstrate this is to ask someone how far it is to, say, Cleveland. Nine times out of ten the answer will be “about two and half hours.” The answer given is the time it takes to drive there, not the actual distance of 150 miles.

I think we’ve also begun to lose track of what distances actually mean. Take my big shopping trip again. I rode 8 miles one way, and it took me about 45 minutes at an easy pace. How long would it have taken me to drive that? Well, from past experience, about half that time. That’s right, half. So we’re making car payments of $200 a month, paying $70 a month on insurance, and spending $40 dollars to fill up the tank so we can cut the trip time in half?

I fully realize that this would not work for everyone. None of this changes that our society has become car-dependent, and as a result many people can only afford to live far away from their work. But with careful choices about where we live, and thought and planning about how we structure our lives, it is possible.

Moving on

2011-08-29T12:00:00.001-04:00

Hi there.

It’s been a while, I know. When I look at the last post date I have another one of those 20/20 hindsight moments and think, well of course I stopped writing then, that’s probably around the time things started to really go downhill. Not that they were great before that…

By the time you all read this I’ll be divorced. In the grand scheme of things it’s probably not that big a deal. One of the things that’s struck me as I’ve gone through this and let people know is the number of friends who have already been through this but I had no idea. So that’s a positive to know that things do work out on the other side. But right now, from in the thick of things, it really sucks.

As divorces go, this one is pretty straightforward. There are no children, thank goodness. No property to speak of. Massive debts, but those are easily split depending on whose name they’re in. I’ve found a nice place, moved out, and am starting to develop new rhythms to my life. So what am I complaining about? Yeah, it sucks, but it could be so much worse…

Well, I think for starters it’s because this was not my choice. Jessica has always had difficulties, and those have been exacerbated recently by what we now know to be the onset of Huntington’s disease. But I was prepared to stick by her, to take care of her through to the end. Even though for years now she’s been saying that she wanted to leave, and complained about how the only reason she hasn’t is because she has no job and no money of her own.

So I stuck it out. She left last summer for two weeks, with no intention of coming back. Her mother talked her into returning, and she said we would work it out. Maybe I should have tried harder to find a way to get counseling sooner. Maybe I could have done more…

Or maybe the boat had already sailed.

In November she finally said that she had it, that she wanted a divorce, and this time she was sticking to it. I cried, I argued, I shouted, I tried to persuade… in retrospect I really shouldn’t have. I already knew she was cheating. I already knew she had been messing with guys online and even driving places to see other guys. I probably should have left after the first time I discovered this. But I felt I owed her. I had sworn to take care of her. So I stuck it out. After November she stopped trying to hide it. Guys would come by to pick her up and all I could say was “I don’t want to see any of them because I think I might punch them in the face.”

I thought I could still help her. I thought I could get us both to a place where she would still be okay even though we were apart. But as I started the process, found a lawyer, and eventually tried to find a place for myself I discovered that was impossible. Not only was it hard enough to take care of myself through all this, if we were going to be apart she would have to take responsibility for herself eventually. Even if I did everything for her right up to the moment of the divorce, what about afterwards? I was doing her no service by trying to fix everything, to make everything right. But damn it’s hard. I felt that I was betraying myself by not helping someone in need, but whenever I helped her I felt like I was betraying myself by giving in to someone who had treated me so badly.

So here we are. I have no idea what she’ll do. I have no idea how she’ll take care of herself. And that scares the crap out of me. But I have to let go. I have to move forward and take care of myself and trust that one way or another she’ll do the same.

Now that I’m on my own things are starting to get better. I’m starting to let myself relax. I’m starting to let myself do things I want to do and not feel guilty about it. I’m starting to feel like I’m allowed to be myself and be happy. But there’s still a long way to go.

Through all of this there is no way I could have made it without the help of so many friends. Perhaps the greatest bright spot in all of this is to know how many people care about me and want to see me well and happy. So many kindnesses stick out and hold me up through all of this. The friend who said early on that she had always wished I had a partner like she had with her husband, and that she didn’t think I ever had that. The friend who told me I deserved so much better and then chastised me when I said I had a hard time admitting that to myself. The countless friends who have gone to dinners and lunches, coffee and visits, and listened to the whole sorry story with compassion and love. Friends who have found ways to keep me busy, get me out, and reassure me that the best is yet to come. All of you help me to remain an optimist, and remember that this too shall pass.

It may be corny, but I think there’s a reason we always turn to music to get us through hard times. One song in particular has been my anthem through all of this, and has suddenly appeared at the times I needed a boost the most.

So make your siren’s call
And sing all you want,
I will not hear what you have to say

‘Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it’s meant to be.

A Thought

2009-11-12T20:56:00.001-05:00

Short post tonight: just a thought really.

When was the last time you climbed a tree?

Can't we all just get along?

2009-11-11T20:46:00.000-05:00

Passage of the health care reform bill in the House this past week and the ensuing reaction put me in mind yet again of how absurd our political rivalries have become. That such a watered-down excuse for a "reform" bill would cause this much vitriol back and forth across the aisle is utterly absurd to me. How is it that we've come to a point where something that should be a no-brainer-- figuring out a better way to provide health care to everyone-- leads to protests that our government is either socialist or fascist, or possibly both?

The main thing that confuses me is how we ever got anything done before this. Certainly emancipation, the New Deal, civil rights, and even Johnson's Great Society weren't uncontroversial. But they still happened. You could make the claim that extraordinary circumstances or the force of character of their proponents were the only reason they succeeded, but that seems overly simple to me. What has shifted in our society that now makes passing anything more than a weak excuse for reform all but impossible?

It seems fairly clear to me that the way ideas are presented to the public must play a major role in this. Rather than (as was the case before) elected officials working in what amounted to a vacuum where they could work simply among themselves to accomplish whatever they politically could, instead the public is fed whatever story makes the most headlines and immediately do whatever they can to send those officials off the rails. I'm not saying that the way it was before was ideal. Such a model can clearly lead to vast corruption and cronyism. But does this new model make any more sense?

We seem to be in a situation where whatever spin the media or the media face of our officials puts on an issue is what winds up shaping the debate. And for whatever reason, the media spoon feeds these angles to us instead of acting as the "4th estate" and trying to get at whatever truth is behind the spin. Outlets like Fox News are perhaps the most insidious and irresponsible examples of this trend, where there seems to be an extreme prejudice towards rhetoric over truth, with the result that absolutely nothing gets done. The ultimate irony of this to me is that in many ways Fox News is just as bad as Izvestia during the height of the Soviet Union. Viewers are told whatever the leadership want them to hear. Unfortunately the viewers are lapping up what Fox is selling them.

I have no idea how to get out of this, since the left has had to assume the same tactics in response to what has been coming from the right, and any news outlet that tries to go down the middle loses market share. All I know is that if we can't fix something as obviously broken as Health Care in this environment, how can we move this country forward at all?

Obscenity

2009-11-10T21:04:00.000-05:00

I have something obscene sitting on my desk at work. Shocking, I know. But there it is. Or at least according to these fine, upstanding citizens it's obscene.

What is this obscenity? Shield your eyes children, for here it is:

Yes, it's a graphic novel. Personally, I'd maybe call this one R-rated. But apparently a couple library employees in Kentucky felt it was their duty to shield the community and an 11-year-old from being exposed to this execrable work, which was given a starred review by Publisher's Weekly and named as one of the 10 best graphic novels of 2007 by Time. Indeed, it was so insidious that it was necessary to pray over the reader to prevent the images from penetrating the purity of her mind.

It's utterly laughable to me that a few drawings of boobs and copulation without parts visible would cause this sort of reaction. Don't get me wrong, I don't think an 11-year-old should read this. And having read the book myself, I don't think she'd enjoy it very much either. It's probably over the heads of some adults (as this entire incident maybe demonstrates). But shouldn't the parent's first question to the 11-year-old upon her return from the library be "so what did you get?" And shouldn't the parent then investigate a title that doesn't quite look right?

As a librarian, I'm committed to putting works that the community and experts believe to be important on my shelves. That means that I've got Lady Chatterly's Lover and this graphic novel on the shelves, as well as the latest Ann Coulter and Glen Beck (far more offensive to me, personally). But it's not my job to judge these works' morality or quality. I'm in the business of providing access to information, and these employees should have been too.

The worst part of this story to me is the arrogance displayed by these two in believing that they were better suited to determine what that girl could read than her own parents, let alone what the whole community could read. Apparently the book was purchased at a patron's request, so clearly someone in the community wanted to read it. What made these two think that they knew better than the person who wanted to read the book? Even though I find the aforementioned works by Beck and Coulter as execrable as these two found the graphic novel, I'm not going to tell someone they can't read them.

I can't help but think that we'd all be better off if we just lived and let live.

Steampunk: an Analysis (sort of)

2009-11-09T20:17:00.000-05:00

I first came across the term "Steampunk" earlier this year, and I had no idea what it was referring to. I was actually a little disappointed in myself that I might have missed some major cultural development. With the futuristic elements at first I thought it was based on some sort of "Blade Runner"-esque view of the future. You know, where there's lots of punks, and... well... steam.

I should have known that wasn't what it was about, but it was a while before I figured out that it referred to the Victorian period. It was capturing an alternate history where adventuresome "punks" manage to corral steam-age technology into accomplishing all sorts of futuristic feats. Ultimately, it goes back to H.G. Wells or Jules Verne, who were able to envision fabulous technology in the future but based in the only technology they knew at the time.

The first thing that struck me about this, was how often the signs of a cultural movement show up before the movement is really defined. Taking punk music for example, the Stooges or the New York Dolls were performing their music before anyone was calling it "punk." In the case of steampunk, I immediately started thinking about works like "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" or "Neverwhere." I also saw the origins of the style in goth style. I could even see how it developed looking at my stepdaughter's progression from something vaguely goth to more and more focus on Victorian styles to the point where she bought a top hat and dressed as a sort of Mad Hatter for Halloween.

But the most remarkable thing about steampunk to me is that it even exists. If you think about other cultural movements in recent times, they all seem to be aimed towards the future-- like hippies or new wave-- or total nihilism-- like punk. Either way they're about significant change: trying to make society something different than what it is.

But steampunk doesn't seem to be about making change now. Instead it's almost like it's an attempt to hit the reset button. We don't like how this future turned out, so lets go back to the end of the 1800's when all this wonderful speculation was happening, and let's take a different route. It's total escapism, but it reflects a deep dissatisfaction both with how things are now, and also a strong suspicion that nothing can be done about it. I think this makes it different than escapism like fantasy novels or sci fi. The former talks about the distant past or even completely alternate worlds, the latter envisions a future where at least we still exist, even if things are going significantly wrong. Steampunk seems to say "we messed up in the last 100 years, wouldn't it be nice if we could try again?"

I'm not sure if this is good, bad, or indifferent; but I do think it's worth considering what it might mean about us and about what direction we want our world to go.

Right Here, Right Now

2009-11-08T19:43:00.000-05:00

With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, I've been thinking a lot about the event. Looking back on it, it's hard to describe just how shocking it was for this to happen, and so suddenly. I might have been more aware of the wall and the cold war generally, since I read a lot of spy novels and Tom Clancy books at the time, but I think it's safe to say that at the time no one thought the wall would ever come down, or at least not in our lifetimes.

I had been dimly aware at the time of how relaxed travel restrictions from Hungary and Czechoslovakia had led to large numbers of East Germans leaving the country and trying to get to the west through those countries, but I didn't think too much of it. Anytime there had been protest like this, inevitably the government would crack down, become more restrictive, and do everything they could to prevent things from getting out of hand. I just heard on a documentary about the fall that Erich Honecker had plans to further improve the wall.

But then came November 9th. News showed people standing on the wall. This was just inconceivable. How could they be there without being shot? As we watched we discovered that the East German government had tried to diffuse the situation by relaxing travel restrictions themselves, but the people realized even before the government did that this meant the wall had no purpose.

Anything could have gone wrong at any point along the way. The soliders could have fired to prevent the people from leaving: they had no orders telling them to let the people through. But the beauty of what happened that night is that the Berlin wall fell because the people wanted it to. After almost 30 years, it was finally too much, and it could not stand.

The other thing that I knew that night was that the cold war was over. It would be another year before reunification. Two before the USSR ceased to be. But it was those people standing on the wall that was the real end. And it still gives me chills.

Digital Killed the Radio Star

2009-11-07T20:24:00.000-05:00

For a couple years in college, I got to play radio DJ. I know that I wasn't especially good, but I like to think that at least I played good music. Our college radio station was pretty low tech at the time. We liked to say that we were broadcasting with the power of a light bulb (a 100 watt transmitter on the highest point on campus). And our equipment was far from sophisticated: an ancient board hooked up to a couple cart players, a couple turntables, and a couple CD players.

As you can imagine, with a bunch of college kids running a radio station, it could sometimes be a challenge to make sure that you stayed on the air. Someone doesn't show up for a shift, or they don't pot up the right channel, and nothings going out. Dead air meant someone had screwed up, or the transmitter had crashed (again).

So it always amuses me when I hear professional radio stations hit dead air. But it never really occurred to me why that might happen until today. I had known for a while that radio stations had gone digital. After all, why have to keep swapping CDs and fading between channels when you can set the whole playlist up on a computer and just let it run?

But as I was driving home today, in the middle of the song, the radio station I was listening to went dead. I figured it was a fluke and waited for it to come back up. After several minutes of silence, suddenly, clear as a bell, the station broadcasts the Windows log-on sound.

Apparently, they had to reboot. Who knew that Windows was alternative rock?

All That We're Saying...

2009-11-06T19:30:00.000-05:00

The other night while watching the History channel (yes, I am a nerd) when a trailer for one of the multiplicity of war programs came on, I was suddenly struck by the absurdity of it. Not the absurdity of the plethora of war programs on the History channel, but the absurdity of war.

Think about it. What exactly is anyone hoping to gain in this time and place by putting an excessively large number of people into one place with the sole intent of blowing up people and/or things? I think that what really hit me about it was watching some footage of a sea battle from World War 2. Here are these large vessels in the ocean, pounding away at each other, but all that's going to be accomplished is enabling a force to land on a small island that normally no one would want?

I suppose that there was a time when war made at least a little more sense. One group had something that was desired by another group, so the second group decides to take the something by force and the first group has to defend itself. Maybe it's still unnecessary, but it's at least understandable.

But fast forward to today, and it appears that the sole reason we're blowing each other up is, to quote a book I read recently, "this insidious idea is antithetical to our existence and cannot be allowed to flourish alongside our peace-loving, free society." Where's the sense in that? At a time when you can pick up a phone and instantly make contact with anyone in the world, surely there are better ways to resolve things than resorting to violence.

I think this shift happened sometime in the 20th century. Having lived in the last quarter of that century during a time of apparent peace, it's easy to forget that the entire century was essentially one gigantic war. It started in the traditional way: a few emerging superpowers decided that they wanted more land, and alliances were formed to prevent them from taking it. But that's where it ended. The treaty of Versailles was like no other treaty signed before: the winners got together, carved up the world the way they wanted it, and stuck it to the losers as hard as they could. The rest of the century became about vengeance for that act and rebelling against the imperialism that led those powers to think that they could simply cut the world up like pieces of pie. As soon as you start fighting about ideals like that, war seems to lose all sense of purpose.

The other major shift was away from the "band of brothers" army and towards killing machines. In a significant way, it's a shame that the World War 2 mini-series was called "band of brothers." The line from Henry V continues "for he who sheds his blood this day with me shall be my brother." Remember, that's the King speaking. Where was the "king" in the world wars? No longer were the leaders fighting alongside their men. When the people calling the shots are not putting themselves in danger, they no longer have direct motivation to protect their men. I don't mean to say that every leader since Waterloo has felt this way, but to an extent it's unavoidable. Troops become numbers. Citizens become collateral damage.

And that's ultimately what leads us to where we are today. I'm sure that many of the men returning from Agincourt also suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, but consider that society didn't recognize it until World War 1 when the men started coming home with "shell-shock." And given the vast issues that our troops return with now and the cost to their families and society at large-- PTSD, familial violence, homelessness, depression, suicide-- we have to start asking what we're getting for this and stop sending people out blindly to fight for ideals when there is a better way.

I don't mean to denigrate what the people who sign up for the military sacrifice in the name of protecting us. I think that their motivations are good, and that protection in some form or another is necessary. But I do question the leadership that continues to believe that it's worth the cost to send these people into harm's way in the name of an ideal. Ideas are meant to be discussed, not killed for. Surely it's at least conceivable that differences can be worked out and tolerated by sitting around the table and talking rather than by shedding the blood of millions.

Blow, Winds!

2009-11-05T21:44:00.000-05:00

It never ceases to amaze me how much of a difference wind direction makes when you're riding a bike. Even on days when it's calm, on a bike you can tell what direction the wind is coming from. If you're pushing into it, just a slight change in pressure can make it harder to pedal.

Today was one of the days when, even though the wind was blowing steadily from one direction, down on the streets you could hardly tell where it was coming from. One moment you'll be straining to make headway into the wind, then suddenly it's at your back. The pattern of buildings and cross streets can play havoc with the winds if they're blowing off the street directions. Since wind can make such a difference to how easy or hard my ride is going to be, I almost always check the NWS website before I leave on my rides. It just makes me feel better knowing what I'm getting into.

This close connection to the weather and the outdoors is one of the many reasons I love riding. This week I wasn't able to ride for a couple days in a row, and I realized I had no clue what was going on with the weather. I mean, obviously I could see if it was sunny or not, and I could tell whether it was cold or warm. But I didn't feel it. I wasn't tuned into how the wind could indicate what the temperature would be later. Or whether it was going to rain the next day.

It seems that all the time we spend in cars and well lit, well insulated, cooled or heated spaces has broken our connection with the world around us. There was a time when most everyone would have a decent idea of what the weather was going to do based on the wind or the clouds. There's a reason why the ancient festivals (and even the ones we still celebrate) were tied into the changing seasons. Our ancestors were so plugged into the world around them that even without our sophisticated tools they knew exactly when the seasons changed.

It seems a shame to me that we've lost that connection. And I'm glad that by riding my bike to work every day I can experience a little of what that was like.

One year ago today...

2009-11-04T20:18:00.001-05:00

November 4, 2008. A day that will live in infamy.

Oh, and some guy was elected president.

The Job

2009-11-03T19:57:00.000-05:00

One of the many things I love about my job is how varied it is. The "public" part of "public library" means that we see all sorts, and see the best and the worst of people every single day.

A few events in the past two days really brought this home to me. Yesterday I had young woman come up to me to get her library card number, having lost the card. This is a completely normal transaction 99% of the time, but this time was in that 1%. As soon as I looked up her account I could tell there was something seriously wrong. Looking at the notes on her account I saw that there had been issues with reserved items going missing, and materials adding up to almost $800 checked out in February that hadn't been returned. The notes indicated that we needed to find out what was going on. So I started to ask about what had happened.

As I asked questions the girl became visibly upset. When I asked what her current address was, she told me that she had been kicked out and wasn't really living anywhere right now. When I asked about the materials that had gone missing, she said that she knew about the items that had been checked out, but her aunt had thrown them all away because "she hates me." Since there was no chance of anything being checked out or any more reserves getting placed, I gave her the card number to get on the computers, and told her that if she wanted to she could report her aunt to the police for stealing the library materials. That was the best I could do for her under the circumstances, but that was all she really wanted. This poor kid, totally on her own, just wanted to use the library's computer. As much as her situation ripped my heart out, this is exactly the sort of thing we're here for.

On the other hand side, today as I was flipping through my tweets I came across two colleagues who were having a back and forth about the sorts of questions we get. Anyone who works in libraries can totally connect to these sorts of questions:

What's really scary is that interactions like this actually start to make sense. To the point where you can probably figure out what the customer is actually looking for:

I love my job.

Wanna Bet?

2009-11-02T20:06:00.001-05:00

I arrived home this evening to find the Franklin County Democratic Party sample ballot waiting for me. Imagine my dismay when I found that the Democratic Party is urging me to vote yes on Issue 3!

For those outside of Ohio, Issue 3 is a proposed constitutional amendment to build casinos in Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo. I can barely even begin to describe in this space what's wrong with this picture.

First of all, a constitutional amendment? Really? We need to have it encoded in the very fabric of our state government that there should be 4 casinos in Ohio? How is this possibly a good idea?

Next, the way that this has been promoted just rubs me the wrong way. The overall message is, "everyone else is doing it, so why don't we?" I'm pretty sure my parents taught me that's no argument for doing something. As the tired old response goes, "if everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you too?" But what makes it even worse in this context is how it sets up "us" against "them". Those people in Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and >gasp< CANADA are getting OUR money! Ohioans are just throwing money at them, and it should stay here! One ad featured two old high school friends on a bus to somewhere not Ohio, as they talked about how awful it was that they had to go somewhere else for their monthly gambling outing. Oh yeah, good clean fun. Let's go blow our wads on pointless games of chance where the house, inevitably, wins.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a gambler. I've tried gambling in friendly games of nickel poker and discovered I'm just not good at it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game. But knowing that I'm at best an average player there's just no attraction for me to go spend my money on bright lights and loud noises.

But my last and most significant problem with Issue 3 is the reason why the Democratic Party and so many otherwise sane organizations are supporting it. Ohio needs money. Like everyone else we've been hit hard and need to find ways to make up for the loss of income as jobs were lost. But instead of doing the sensible thing and raising taxes on those who can afford it while also scaling back where we can, we're trying to find ways to get free money. The casinos look attractive because hey, it's money that we don't have to spend, right?

Friends, there's always a cost. This isn't free money. This isn't recouping the same money that's currently leaving the state. This is money taken from hard working Ohioans and given to large corporations. This is far worse than a new tax. This is lining the pockets of wealthy corporations while the state comes begging for a less than 40% share. And the people who are spending this money aren't high rollers. If we're lucky they're at least only spending what they can afford, but chances are they're not. And what of those who will become addicted, ruining themselves and their families and becoming dependent on already strained state resources in the process?

In the name of avoiding higher taxes we're pillaging the people who are least able to afford it. Give me a tax any day. At least then I know that all the money is going to the state. We can all argue about how we're spending it and whether it's well-spent or not, but we have no say in how those developers use their money. They could give it all to charity or they could buy another yacht. But we have no say.

I don't have a moral problem with gambling, but from a purely rational point of view this is a bad idea. It only seems like a good idea if you think there's no consequence to getting this money. But there's always consequences, whether you feel them directly from taxes, or indirectly as bad choices make the rich richer, the poor poorer, and lower all our standards of living. We can be so much better as a society together if we all pitch in what we can. But short-term rewards always win out. I hope Issue 3 bucks that trend and dies the death it deserves at the polls tomorrow.

Welcome Back

2009-11-01T19:58:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know, I've been gone for far too long. It's been almost a year since my last serious post, and six months since my last abortive attempt to get started again.

So where have I been? Here, mostly:

Twitter Updates

follow me on Twitter

Why? I guess it's easier to be snarky in 140 characters or less. Or maybe I'm just lazy. I'll admit, a big part of it is that Twitter feels more like a conversation. The blog is more about self-centered navel-gazing, more or less.

Okay, that's not fair. I'm a halfway decent writer. Maybe some people enjoy reading my rantings. OR at least it's another way for folks to keep up with what's on my mind.

At any rate, we've rolled around to NaBloPoMo once again, and once again I'm going to try to use it to get myself in gear. What's different this time? Well, for one, over the summer I rehabbed an old laptop so now I don't have to run to the office to do my entry. And once again I need to write. I've felt my chops slipping, and that affects not only my ability to write snarky rants on the Internet, it affects my ability to write halfway intelligent sounding pieces to actually create change in my profession.

So once more we attempt to make the Internet explode. On, NaBloPoMo!

Hammer Time

2009-04-08T20:30:00.000-04:00

This evening as I was riding home, I caught up with another cyclist just as I had taken a turn into the 15 mph west wind. I'm still riding my beast of an ancient mountain bike and was wearing my nylon shells, so I was basically a big sail. The cyclist I caught was wearing a nice kit and riding a nice bike, so I figured I'd tuck in behind him and let him pace me into the wind for a bit.

Drafting another cyclist is remarkably effective. That's why you see pros do it in the races all the time. The thing is, in order to get the benefit of the draft, you have to follow fairly closely. There is some skill involved in doing this, but generally people won't try it unless they're pretty comfortable on the bike. There's also a lot of etiquette around what you should do if you catch another cyclist, but generally you should just acknowledge each others presence and then offer to take turn on the front after a while.

So as I fell in behind the other cyclist, I saw him look back at me and I gave him a nod and a smile. He kept looking back at me though, so I said "Hope you don't mind if I catch your draft for a bit while we're heading into the wind." Instead of responding, he slowed down and waved me around saying something. I pulled up alongside and said, "What?" He said "You're too close, I'm not comfortable with that."

"Okay, sorry." I said. But I'm thinking, you're on a nice Giant road bike. You're kitted out in race-cut spandex. And you're not comfortable with someone drafting you? If you were some kid on a fixie or another commuter I would understand, but a roadie in full kit?

So I did what any self-respecting cyclist would do. I put my head down over the handlebars of my 40 pound tank of a mountain bike, dialed it up into the highest gear-- a paltry 44x13-- and proceeded to put the hammer down, leaving him in my dust.

Moral of the story: if you're going to wear the kit, learn the rules.

10 Random Things

2008-12-03T16:53:00.000-05:00

One of our administrators added a bonus challenge onto our 23 Things: Tell everyone 10 random things about yourself.

That's wonderful, really. But I have 2 minor problems. First, I have an unfortunate habit of thinking that everyone already knows everything about me. After all, since I know it surely everyone else does too, right? The other problem is that I like to tell stories, so I've totally lost track of which stories about me everyone's already heard and which ones are new to people.

So chances are I'm going to bore you with at least half of this post. Hopefully the other half will make up for it.

1. I was born in Cincinnati but moved to New Hampshire before I was a year old, so I'm a New Englander at heart if not by birth. It's a complete coincidence that I'm back in Ohio.

2. I've been a Red Sox fan since I was at least 6 (my favorite player was Jim Rice). My mother is a professional singer, and sang at an annual charity event where she was able to get me autographs of many former Red Sox greats (including Ted Williams), and also sang the National Anthem at Fenway park.

3. I started ringing tower bells at my home parish in Concord, NH when I was 9. I still ring the chime at Trinity Episcopal Church on the corner of Broad and Third and was written about in the Dispatch for it.

4. My father and I have climbed all 48 mountains in New Hampshire over 4000 feet elevation, and most of them we did together. This started when I was in junior high school and first got into hiking and woodsmanship and my father realized this was something we could do together during my teenage years. I know this went a long way to making my teen years much better than they might have been and bringing us closer together. We finally finished in 2003 when we climbed Mt. Moosilauke.

5. In college my summer job was working as a tour guide at Canterbury Shaker Village in Canterbury, NH.

6. In college I was very heavily involved in the theater: so much so that even though I graduated with only two half credits in drama, I co-won the departmental award. By the time my senior year rolled around there was literally no dramatic production on campus that I wasn't involved with. In addition to acting, I stage managed, directed, built and designed sets, hung and designed lights, and co-founded an improv comedy group that performed professionally (twice). I even used those skills to work as a master carpenter for Actor's Company of Pennsylvania for a few months after leaving college.

7. I first met my wife while she was still married because her ex-husband was friends with my best friend in college (it's not as much of a soap opera as it sounds).

8. I have a 19 year old stepdaughter who's currently attending Rochester Institute of Technology. When I moved in with them she was 6. So to all of my older colleagues who currently have teenage children or children in college, even though I'm younger than you I've actually already been there!

9. I moved to Columbus to enter the doctoral program in Philosophy at OSU. 4 years later I failed my candidacy exam, quit the program, started working at the library and wondered what I had been doing for 4 years.

10. Speaking of Ohio coincidences, I found out only after I moved here in 1996 that my grandmother's family was from Columbus, and that 4 generations of that side of the family had lived in Central Ohio. If you go to the Cardington cemetery, I'm related to any Maxwell you see there.

Well, that's ten. I'm sure there's plenty more, and like I said I like to tell stories. Ask me sometime and I'll probably yak your ear off!

The End

2008-12-02T09:07:00.000-05:00

We have come to the end of the 23 Things, although hopefully not the end of Learn & Play @ CML. There's no question in my mind that this is one of the best things the library has done to train staff. Not only did it take much less time in the long run than it would have to bring every employee into a classroom to be spoon fed this information, it also brought so many staff across the system closer together. I constantly hear about how people felt like they got to know their co-workers better and felt closer to staff at other locations than they ever did before. Since CML has been battling some provincialism among the branches for years, this alone could have made the entire project worthwhile.

I can't help feeling that there are a couple of things missing, though. Unfortunately, to get this project to work we couldn't make it mandatory. What sort of "play" experience is required? But staff who didn't participate have lost out in so many ways. Not only did they lose a chance to find out more about their co-workers, they lost a chance to discover how their work has changed and gain skills that will be absolutely necessary working in libraries as we move forward. No matter how much you try to ignore all the "Web 2.0" stuff that's out there, it's not going away and it's only going to increase and spread. People and organizations who don't get on board are going to be left behind. This goes far beyond simply being jaded about how the library has changed and mourning the "loss" of books. The way information is organized and delivered has fundamentally changed, and people who don't understand this risk finding themselves without prospects very quickly.

The other element I think wasn't quite right was the scope and size of the assignments. The reality of our work now is that we must spend a great deal of time in the public space. This only makes sense, since our primary job is public service. But this makes it much more difficult to find time to explore a lot of these things in the depth required. I'm not sure if there's any easy way to pare down the assignments into more manageable chunks, or maybe make the tracking requirements simpler than a blog post for each item (a daunting proposition if you feel compelled to write more than a few sentences). But I think a lot of staff won't finish or didn't even start because they felt that devoting as much time as would be necessary to do these assignments well would take them away from the floor for too long, and that's a shame since this project can only help them in their work.

But regardless, this project has been great. I've gotten to know so many people so much better. I've found new tools to help me do my work more efficiently. Tools that I was already using have now been adopted by more of my co-workers, making connecting with them easier. And everyone who participated has a better understanding of how the world has changed and how their jobs are changing as a result. This can't be the end, because we've only just begun.

Lend Me Your Ears

2008-11-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

After our video Thing, we come to our audio Thing: Podcasts.

I don't know why, but for some reason podcasts make more sense to me than video blogging. Maybe it's because I was raised on NPR, so audio broadcast of information just clicks with me. I'm also used to listening to NPR while I'm doing other things, and podcasts let me do that as well. So I'm a big fan of podcasts, even though I've never used them in the truest sense of the term-- that is, automatically downloading them onto my iPod. Usually, I just stream them as I need them.

Naturally, being raised on NPR, my most common source of podcasts is NPR. Not only can I hear articles that I missed and share articles that I especially enjoyed, NPR also offers other streams that I really like, especially their "Song of the Day." This has helped me discover all sorts of new music that I might not have checked out otherwise. The other musical feature that I really enjoy is the full-length streaming concerts that they have archived on their site. I wasn't going to spend $80 and drive to Cleveland to see Radiohead this past year, but lo and behold I can listen to the entire concert on NRP for free!

In addition to this, I'm also a podcaster myself. A year or so ago, the rector of my church asked me about podcasting the sermons from the church, since I'm the resident audio guru. I only knew how to record and edit the audio, but the church's webmanager could take care of uploading the MP3 once I had put it together. Initially this involved me taking my laptop to church every week and plugging it into the PA, but eventually we obtained a digital recorder, making my life much easier. The whole editing process takes me less than hour every week, and that even includes introductions and the occasional musical offering edited into the podcast as well. My favorite so far was a special sermon delivered by Mike Harden of the Columbus Dispatch on the Diocese's Appalachian Ministries Sunday.

Finally, no post on digital audio would be complete without mentioning the library's forays into the medium. For some time now, CML has participated in the unfortunately acronymed Mid-Ohio Digital Library Initiative, or MOLDI. MOLDI makes use of a service called Overdrive, which is used by libraries all over the country for delivering digital content. Not only can you get audio books and music through this service, there's also a selection of digital movies available as well.

I've used MOLDI once before, when my stepdaughter had to read "Frankenstein" for summer homework a few years back and was having trouble actually reading it. She was about to leave to visit her father for the summer, and we didn't have enough time to get an audio book from the library, so MOLDI to the rescue. We downloaded and burned the audio book that night, and she was good to go.

My only problem with Overdrive is the ongoing issue of digital rights management. Once again, the legal mess over these issues only winds up hurting everybody. The books people really want aren't available through Overdrive because the publishers want tons of money for them. And on top of that, only recently did the publishers decide to play nice and let Overdrive put up audio books in MP3 format despite that being the industry standard at this point. Essentially, they'd much prefer you pay for your audio books through iTunes. But once again, all this fighting over cash is only hurting the industry. The more difficult they make it for customers to get what they want, the more customers are going to seek other outlets, even if those outlets involve copyright violations. The only reason there isn't a "black market" in audio books like there is in music is because there's not enough demand for the audio books. But it's still a symptom of the larger problem.

So a final word on all this before we end our 23 Things: the world isn't changing, it has changed. Self-generated and free digital content is already here, and producers of content who don't realize this and get on board are going to die out.

Tubing

2008-11-27T10:04:00.000-05:00

YouTube is awesome.

I know, a lot of people see YouTube as the next great time waster on the web-- people spending hours poking around for videos of bikini-clad exhibitionists or public brawls. But as with so many of the complaints about the Internet, the salacious anecdotes overshadow what's truly remarkable about this sort of website.

Many of my views about sites like Flickr and Wikipedia and YouTube have been influenced by Clay Shirky's book "Here Comes Everybody." The overall theme of the book and what links these sites together is a sort of economy of scale. Whereas in the past it took a great deal of energy to spread any sort of information, now it's easy for anyone to put any sort of information out into the public square. These sites are essentially information aggregators on a scale that has never been seen in human history. The scale is so vast that we tend to miss what it is accomplishing. In the past, it would have taken the few people who were able to put this sort of thing together days, weeks, or even months to compile this much information. Now one person can post one small clip very easily. But when 1 million people post one small clip, suddenly you have more information than you ever thought possible.

I primarily use YouTube when I want to see something that has been broadcast that I missed. This could range from news reports to historical events to TV shows to movie trailers. I have not yet been unable to find a clip on YouTube that I was looking for. Seriously.

I know a lot of people complain about copyright at this point. Distributing the work of the people who produce these clips without their being fairly paid for that distribution is a violation of our copyright laws. But again I come back to what I have said time and time again on this issue. Our current copyright laws don't work. If they worked, sites like YouTube wouldn't exist. Publishers, producers, and lawyers simply have no conception of how their world has changed on this issue. There is no way for an artist or producer to be paid for every broadcast of their work anymore. As soon as you take down one offender, the economy of scale kicks in again and if it's something people want to see, it's back up.

A perfect example of this was the recent leaking of the trailer for a new movie based on the Alan Moore breakthrough graphic novel "Watchmen." A friend who is much more of a comic book geek than I am sent out a tweet that the trailer was on YouTube, with a link. I clicked the link only to find that Warner was on the job and the video had been pulled. But I thought, "it's on the Internet, it's gotta be there somewhere." A few minutes of searching later and I had the clip.

So what's the point? You can't stop the flow of information. Artists and producers will still get paid, primarily for live work. People will still pay to go to a movie theater or a concert. People will still pay to own a physical copy of their favorite book. And, as Radiohead showed us, people will still pay to support their favorite artists' work. But we need to let go of the idea that you can control every instance of your work. YouTube is just one symptom of this, but undoubtedly the best way to share video information currently available.

Apply Yourself

2008-11-26T11:45:00.001-05:00

Yes, I need to apply myself. I've consistently been behind on my 23 Things, and now I have less than a week to complete them all! So I'm going to knock out Things 17, 18 and 19 all in one post.

Shocking, I know.

But there is a consistent theme here: Apps. Especially with the iPhone we've all been hearing a lot about Apps lately, but what's most interesting to me is how the concept of apps has completely taken over computing. When I first started using computers, it was all about just running individual software. You bought the program, stuck the disk in the computer, and ran whatever program you wanted to run. Windows began the change away from this restricted view of what the computer was capable of. Suddenly you could run more than one program at once! What's funny is how much this seemingly simple change began to change how we thought of the computer. Computers stopped being tools that could only do one thing. They started being nexuses where many things came together in one place.

I think that this greatly influenced how the Web developed. While initially the web was simply pages that displayed static information, people were trying to figure out how to get them to do more right from the beginning. Platforms like Java and Flash only helped develop this trend, and now it's to the point where you almost don't need to have anything actually installed on your computer other than an Internet browser.

I first found out about how far this had gone about 4 years ago. At that time the library only offered Microsoft Office products on a small handful of computers at each location, and managing time on those computers was an unbelievable pain. I actually was yelled at by a customer for asking someone to vacate one of those computers because she was "only" using it for Internet and another customer wanted to use the Office products. The reason for the restriction at the time was licensing, and fortunately we eventually saw the forest for the trees and ponied up to have it installed on every computer.

But I digress. Around that time someone pointed me to a beta site called Writely, which was an online word processor app. I played around with it and was floored. Why were we monkeying around with licensing and software costs when this was available for free on the web? Now Writely has become Google Docs, but we still have Microsoft Office hanging around.

But for how much longer? There is an app for just about everything you would want to do on the computer available online now, and many of them are completely free. From family trees to maps to games and even the Operating System and hard drive itself! I used to or currently have software for all of those apps, and now all I need is my browser. Even Google Docs can save your file in a variety of formats, so compatibility isn't an issue, and on top of that multiple users can edit the same document with an efficiency that MS Word can only dream of.

This really is the direction we're headed in. Everything comes through the browser, and the browser doesn't have to be limited to a desktop. It can be in a lap, in your hand, or even strapped to your head. So if we're going to be involved in this development, we need to be there too.

Fortunately, CML has begun to incorporate this sort of functionality by offering some tools for everyone who's constantly plugged into their browsers. Right now this is just a toolbar that allows you to access common features from our website through the tool bar and a search plugin for the ever-present corner search box. But I know more widgets will be coming! We are there now, and this will only help us connect to customers and show just how much we can do for them.

Apologia Gamhon

2008-11-12T08:49:00.000-05:00

I've recently had a number of conversations about homosexuality and Christianity, probably because of Prop 8 in California, and I thought I should put down my thoughts on the matter for everyone to see. Honestly, I've never had any problem reconciling my beliefs as a Christian with acceptance of homosexuality. Like most heterosexual men I went through a period of mild homophobia until I had been around gays long enough to realize that 1) they weren't interested in me and 2) they were a lot of fun to be around. But I never had any conflict between my religious beliefs and homosexuality.

The obvious question then is why do so many others have this problem? Ultimately it comes down to a few key passages in the Bible. I'm not even going to get into the fact that we are obsessing about three or four passages in a text that contains hundreds if not thousands about poverty, forgiveness, and peace. What follows is my reasoning about why these few passages do not constitute a condemnation of homosexuality for Christians.

As a caveat, I should mention that what follows will most likely not convince someone who believes that homosexuality is a sin that it is not. Any of these arguments can be written off by the other side as "rationalization," or ignoring the word of God.

So be it.

One of my most strongly held beliefs is that we have been given reason in order to apply it, even to our religious texts. To not do so is to deny one of God's greatest gifts. The Bible is a guide that should be carefully thought about, not a dictum that must be blindly followed according to whatever interpretation is fed to us. But for those of you who are not religious or who are open to these considerations, here is my understanding of this issue.

Sodom and Gomorrah
The first passage that is typically held up as a condemnation of homosexuality is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. The key passage is:

"But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.’" (Genesis 19:4-5).

Sounds pretty mild, eh? Of course this is "know" in the Biblical sense, literally. Consider what Lot's response was:

"‘I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.'" (Genesis 19:7-8).

Nice father, right? But in this passage is the key to understanding what the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah actually was. It was not homosexual sex. The sin was violation of the stranger. Most early cultures, especially in the Mediterranean, held the tradition of the "guest-friend." That is, if a stranger comes to your house and seeks shelter, you are obligated to offer them protection and treat them as an honored guest. This is the only way humanity could survive in a world where spaces between people were distant and travel was dangerous. The people of Sodom violated this by threatening to gang rape the strangers in order to exert power over them. And Lot was so dedicated to the protection of the guest that he offered his daughters in exchange.

This interpretation of this passage is further supported by Jesus himself in Matthew 10. When giving instructions to the disciples about how to conduct themselves in spreading the good news, he says:

"If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town" (Matthew 10:14-15).

By drawing the connection to Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus is confirming that the sin for which they were punished was rejection of the stranger.

Leviticus
Ah, Leviticus. If you ever want to feel like a sinner, read this book. This is one of several books that lay down the law for the people of Israel. We all know about the Ten Commandments, but Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy elaborate on those 10 simple rules and turn them into a full-fledged legal system. In all honesty, there are many fascinating laws in Leviticus, many of which underpin laws that we still have today (modern property rights, for example). But let's get to the meat of it (no pun intended!):

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22).
"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them" (Leviticus 20:13).

Whoo boy, that's pretty black an white. But as always, we really need to look at the passage in context. Consider some other passages:

"you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning" (Leviticus 19:13).

So apparently getting paid weekly is a sin.

"You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your animals breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall you put on a garment made of two different materials" (Leviticus 19:19)

There goes mules, mixed crop farming, and poly-cotton blends...

"You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you" (Leviticus 19:27-28)

No tattoos, and apparently no haircuts or beard-trimming.

We could go on, but the point is you can't highlight one passage and hold people to it while ignoring other passages. Now, there are plenty of religious groups that try to hold to every law in Leviticus-- Hasidic Jews for example-- but what about Christians? Jesus actually had a quite a bit to say about the Jewish law, but two passages stand out. First, when confronted by the Pharisees for the fact that his disciples did not keep strictly to the Kosher laws, Jesus said:

"Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile’" (Matthew 15:17-20).

Here as he does elsewhere, Jesus's point is that by following the letter of the law they are ignoring the heart of the law. This culminates in the only "law" Jesus gives to his followers:

"‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets’"(Matthew 22:36-40).

In other words, if you do these two things you will be following the law. The question we must then ask is, is it loving your neighbors as yourselves to condemn homosexuals?

Paul
The final passage that is used to condemn homosexuality comes from Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth.

"Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

In accepting this passage as identifying homosexuality as a sin you first must accept that everything Paul wrote was the divinely inspired word of God. Paul himself actually makes distinctions in the same letter between that which he receives from the Lord and that which is his own opinion, but in this particular passage he doesn't specify. So it is left to our interpretations.

But even if we accept that this is the divinely inspired word of God, what is the point Paul is making here?

"The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body" (1 Corinthians 6:13).

In other words, obsession with physical things distracts us from spiritual things. I think we can all get behind that sentiment. But also note that Paul is condemning fornication. That is, unrestrained, unthoughtful, unloving fucking. He later says:

"To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (1 Corinthians 7:8-9).

In fact, all of chapter 7 gives very detailed thoughts on how to conduct oneself in a relationship.

Clearly, Paul had issues with any sort of sexual relations, but he acknowledged that some concessions had to be made in light of human nature. I don't think there's any question that he found homosexual relations repugnant, but it is possible that the repugnance was more due to the unrestrained giving-in to the flesh than the particular act. Keep in mind that Paul was writing at the same time the Epicureans were promoting a philosophy that the pursuit of pleasure was the highest we could achieve in life, and he needed to explain to the new churches
(especially Greek colonies like Corinth) why that philosophy was wrong.

All of this brings us to the final point. The ancients simply had no conception of a homosexual relationship such as exists in our society today. Any homosexual relationship back then had to happen outside of marriage because if you were an adult you were most likely married. In other words, any homosexual relationship was necessarily adultery, and therefore disruptive to society. But today we do not have to get married to survive. Thus a relationship between two people of the same sex is not disruptive in the way it was 2000 years ago. And furthermore, just as a man and woman can join together in a holy union that helps each one understand the love of God, so too can two men or two women. The larger point was and remains:

"Love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12).

Smash

2008-11-07T08:08:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so I was hit by a car Tuesday night.

I was going through the intersection at Broad on Grant when I suddenly see a car turning left right into me. I had no time to react. All that stuff you hear about time slowing down is absolutely true, and the further away from the event you get the more you can parse out what happened. I remember seeing the hood of the car just about to hit me and thinking "You stupid..." I remember rolling onto the hood of the car and then somersaulting over the top of the car. I later found out that in doing so I caved in her windshield. As it happened I didn't notice the pain of hitting it though, just rolling up and over. I remember feeling my arms tossed around like rubber as my backpack came off. Then I remember landing on all fours in the intersection and collapsing.

My first thought was "is anything broken?" I sort of did a system check and gingerly pushed up off the ground and thought "holy crap, nothing's broken!" I saw the front wheel of my bike in the middle of Broad and the rest of it further along. As I stood up people stopped at the red light on Broad were getting out of the car and asking if I was okay. Several of them were calling 911. The light changed and as cars started to go through the light several people were yelling at them to stop. I saw one car drive right over the bike wheel.

Someone asked me if I needed anything, and I asked to get out of the street. I was able to walk to the sidewalk when I started to feel light-headed and sat down. At least since I had been through a major wreck before 14 years ago I knew this time that I was going into shock and needed to just sit down and shut up. The cops pulled up and the squad wasn't far behind. I was able to give a description of the collision to the officer, all the time thinking "wow, that sure was a coherent description, all things considered." I told him where to find my ID and gave him my phone numbers. He said he'd call my wife and take what was left of my bike to the house.

One of the paramedics asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. I said "I'm feeling okay but I know I'm going into shock, so you tell me." They put a neck brace on me and strapped me down. Fortunately we were only a block away. This was my first ride in an ambulance as a patient, and all I could think was that it looked just like in the movies when they shoot the picture looking up at the ceiling.

The doctor came in and checked me out. They took X-rays of my knees and chest and an ultrasound to make sure nothing had been damaged internally. One of the fun moments of this was seeing a little kid in the hall while they wheeled me to X-ray who couldn't stop looking at me. I gave her a smile and a little wave and she waved back. By this time shock was thoroughly set in and I was freezing. They had to pile a couple blankets on me.

Jessica got to the hospital a while after I was back from X-ray and we watched the election returns in the hospital room while waiting for me to get stitched up. Unfortunately, since I had come through it all okay I wasn't a high priority. After the doc stitched me up and a paramedic training to be a nurse (who was a mountain cyclist, so lots to talk about) had wrapped me up, I gingerly made my way out to the car and home. One of the funniest moments of the night was that I had to keep telling Jessica to slow down since I couldn't move that fast. Normally it's totally the other way around.

There's absolutely no question that I was extremely lucky. There's also no question that there was nothing more I could have done to prevent the collision. I was traveling with traffic at a reasonable speed, I had the right-of-way, I had a 5 ultra-bright LED headlight on flash as well as two hanging flashers on my backpack that could have been visible from the side. I do think that several things contributed to my being able to come through it okay. I'm in good shape, so my muscles and joints were able to deal with the stresses the collision put them through. I'm an experienced cyclist, so my body instinctively knew how to take a fall. But if the hit had been a few inches further back my leg could have been broken. And if I had landed on my back instead of all fours the damage could have been much worse.

So for now, I'm simply thankful that someone was watching out for me that night.

An Offering

2008-11-04T23:11:00.000-05:00

Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered;
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.

-- James W. Johnson, 1899

Wikid

2008-11-02T14:18:00.000-05:00

Things 15 and 16 bring us to "wikis." Once again, we have a term that's probably become so over-used that it will eventually be meaningless. But the concept behind it is brilliant.

Everyone knows about the biggest wiki out there, Wikipedia. Wikipedia has generated plenty of controversy on its own, but one thing that seems to be constantly overlooked in the criticism is the fact that it's actually pretty effective.

So why is Wikipedia effective? Surely if we turn the entire world loose to edit an encyclopedia however they see fit we'll have information anarchy! But as with all things Internet, the answer lies in the scale. For every vandal, there are hundreds of people who care enough about the entry to fix it. Basically, why would a vandal want to waste their time messing with an entry that will be reverted to its original form seconds after it was altered?

In this large example there are several clues as to why wikis are a good idea generally. First, anyone can contribute. This makes them an effective way of sharing the work around. One of my favorite wikis that I just stumbled across was the Lolcat Bible. Someone gets the bright idea to translate the Bible in lolcat-speak, puts it on a wiki, and in about a year the project is almost done. Not because a few people wasted a lot of time, but because lots of people wasted a little time. So if you put the same concept to good use, you can get a comprehensive site about just about anything, not because some expert put lots of time into the project, but because a lot of experts put a little time into it.

Second, wikis track changes. This is important for a few reasons. It allows for accountability-- that is, anything you change will be visible for anyone to check on. If you're messing around with the content, someone will call you on it. It also lets you see how an idea has progressed. How many times have you been working on a project and forgotten how you got to this point? Or come to a dead end and have to reconstruct your work to figure out where you went wrong? With a wiki, it's all there. Finally, if you try something and it doesn't work, a few clicks and you can get it back to where you had it originally.

Ultimately, wikis are another sign of how cheap and plentiful data storage has become. To quote Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, "There's plenty of disk space, and as long as there are people out there who are able to write a decent article about a subject, why not let them?" We can keep all these changes and maintain all these authors because it doesn't cost anything more to do so. Wikis create a framework to be able to do this.

The most obvious application for my job is to create a wiki for circulation practices. Our library has almost always had a compilation of best practices for circulation service. The problem is that almost as soon as we have them written up, something has changed. Also, right now the only way to create them is for someone to bring the idea to me, find people to write a draft, and then go through an editing process. But if we put these on a wiki, anyone with an idea can create a stub, any of the circulation experts in our system can contribute to the practice, and it can be updated as things change with little difficulty. In other words, it would take something that's currently incomplete and would be a big drain on my time to complete, and turns it into a self-completing project!

To wrap up, for Thing 16 I've added to the favorite sport page of our wiki sandbox. I'll let you guess which entry is mine.

Welcome to NaBloPoMo!

2008-11-01T13:45:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year, folks! Time to make the Internet explode! That's right, it's time for NaBloPoMo!

Okay, I admit it, I just like saying that.

National Blog Posting Month is another one of those Internet oddities that grew up seemingly out of nowhere, sort of like International Talk Like a Pirate day. A couple people get a crazy idea, a few more people like it, and next thing you know it's everywhere.

I do remember, however, that's it's awfully hard to post something every single day. Fortunately, this year I have my 23 things to spur me along (since I have to finish by December 2nd). Flash drive here I come!

In the meantime, I challenge all you Learners and Players itching for an even bigger challenge to join up with NaBloPoMo. C'mon, everyone else is doing it!

Tag, You're It!

2008-10-25T16:33:00.001-04:00

So for Thing 13 we're investigating the revolution that is tagging through del.icio.us.

I remember when del.icio.us first came on the scene, and the extent of my thoughts at the time were "isn't that a clever way to use a .us domain name." I really didn't think anything of it until we were changing computers at work and I was worried I'd lose my bookmarks. So I created a del.icio.us account and moved all my work bookmarks in there. Turns out my bookmarks all transferred anyway, so I haven't really used my account since. Once again, this is largely a matter of convenience. Since I'm at the same computer at work each day and the same computer at home each day, I almost never have to access the bookmarks on one computer from another. So I never really had the need to use del.icio.us. I could see myself using it instead of bookmarks if Firefox has a del.icio.us add-on that functions like the bookmarks do, but until I need to access my bookmarks from anywhere I probably won't use it.

But the much bigger story here is the concept of tagging. Tagging is what has really revolutionized information retrieval on the Web. Well, that and Google's remarkable matrices and spiders. See, for those of us in the information biz, we've been relying on a form of tagging to retrieve information for decades. It's called the Library of Congress Subject Headings. This is a controlled vocabulary list of terms that allow us to always find related books under the same heading. That way, instead of one person filing a book on the road bike races under "Bicycles" and another person under "Bike racing" and another person under "Racing-- Bicycles," we'll always find it under "Cycling."

The problem is that the controlled vocabulary isn't especially intuitive. Everyone's favorite example is that books about cooking are filed under "Cookery." What the heck is cookery? Well, when someone was trying to figure out what to file books about cooking under, the term they chose was "cookery;" probably completely understandable at the time. But even all these years later, the term has to remain the same so we can find what we're looking for.

The Internet has turned this completely on its head. Now, instead of determining our headings beforehand, we just start gathering data. So one person tags a site as "cooking," another tags it as "recipes," a third tags it as "food preparation," etc. But over time as more and more people tag these sites with more and more terms, certain terms will begin to float to the top. And people tagging will see that others have begun to use one term over another, and that tag will begin to get more and more use until it becomes the accepted term.

A lot of librarians are having trouble giving up the control that LCSH gives them. There's a concern that if people create their own lists of terms we won't be able to find anything. What's missing in this fear is the sheer number of people doing the tagging. Yes, a group of 10, 100, or even 1000 people might not come up with consistent headings. But we're talking about millions, even tens of millions of people all tagging. Clear winners will emerge and certain terms will become accepted. And the terms will be more intuitive and clearer than the good catalogers at the Library of Congress could guarantee even if they worked on it for centuries more. The system also adapts and changes as culture and language changes.

Probably the largest change we have to accept in this new age is the organic nature of information. Information is no longer static and unchangeable once committed to the page. Information can adapt and evolve as the world changes, and our search tools have to adapt and evolve with it.

Disappointment

2008-10-24T12:55:00.001-04:00

I always knew that by this time I'd be sick of the election. There was no way that the campaigning could go on for this long and still have me engaged and interested. What I wasn't counting on was how utterly disappointed-- and frankly upset and angry-- I'd be with the way things have fallen out.

This election has gone far beyond normal negative campaigning. This election has gone so far beyond normal negative campaigning that as far as I'm concerned it's verged into outright libel and slander. Where the disappointment comes in is that it's come entirely from John McCain. There was a time when I thought he had a conscience. There was a time I thought he had the courage of his convictions. But what has become clear is that he is a petty, angry, vindictive, and at best Machiavellian bastard who clearly doesn't care if he drags the entire country down with him.

My problems with the McCain campaign really fall into 4 groups: Muslim, Terrorist, Socialist, and "Real America." There is absolutely no question whatsoever that the McCain campaign has encouraged the completely wrong and many times disproven idea that Obama is a "secret Muslim." There is no question that the McCain campaign has suggested repeatedly that Obama is a Terrorist. There is no question that the McCain campaign believes that if they call Obama a Socialist it will stir up latent "Red Scare" fears. And there is no question that the McCain campaign is deliberately trying to force an outright culture war by creating the concept of two Americas.

The reason this goes completely beyond the pale is that the McCain campaign is actively pushing their hard-core supporters into a frenzy of hate and fear that hasn't been seen since Birmingham in 1963 or Selma in 1965. They simply cannot claim ignorance of this. There are recordings of McCain supporters calling for Obama's death. Interviews with many anti-Obama people show clear signs of racism. The "Real America" comments verge on the re-establishment of Joe McCarthy's Un-American Activities Committee.

Is this really what McCain wants? Is this what the supposed war hero who spent five years in the Hanoi Hilton while fighting for democracy and freedom really wants? A state of mass hysteria and fear just so that he can get elected? I'm sorry, but no "Real American" should stand for this sort of bullshit. And it's a damn shame that Obama can't sue for slander without appearing overly defensive. Unfortunately all he can do is continue to take the high road and only attack McCain on the issues.

McCain must come forward and put an unequivocal end to this. He must come forward and state clearly and without qualification that Barack Obama is not a terrorist. That Obama does not associate with terrorists. That his supporters should be ashamed of their behavior and that if that sort of behavior continues he doesn't want their support. That there is only one America, and that is the America where children are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

But he won't. Because if McCain was judged by the content of his character he would be found severely lacking.

Tweet Tweet!

2008-10-13T20:29:00.000-04:00

Now a month behind, we come to Thing 12: Twitter.

I honestly can't remember when I discovered Twitter, but the first time I tried playing with it was to see if I could find a way to quickly share information across the entire library system. Twitter seemed like an ideal way to do this. If we created location-specific Twitter accounts and then had everybody follow each other, then when we needed to share information quickly between locations we could just "tweet" it. Power goes down at some location? Our infoline tweets it and everyone knows. Staff member goes home sick and you need emergency coverage? Tweet it and someone who can spare a person rides to the rescue. You get the idea.

The catch was that there needed to be a way to see the tweets other than on the Twitter website. The Twitter website doesn't automatically refresh, and it's not sitting on top of your desktop. So the whole "quick notice" idea kinda goes out the window. I played with adding Google Desktop, which allows you to install a Twitter widget. But that clogged up my screen and ran slow. So I pretty much abandoned Twitter.

But now we come to the 23 things and I have to take another look at Twitter. I complained to one of my colleagues that the main thing I didn't like about Twitter was that I couldn't keep it unobtrusively in the background while I was working on other things. It just seemed like too much trouble to have to keep going back to the website to check up on things.

"Oh," she said, "I just have it in my browser."

Yes, I'm an idiot. I use Firefox, and of course there's a Twitter add-on. So I add TwitterFox and I'm off and running.

The most amusing thing to me about this is that as more and more people in the library get on Twitter and start following each other, the more I see my original concept working. I've seen people arrange for emergency coverage via Twitter. I've seen coordination of library programs over Twitter. I've seen information about the power outage and how it affected the libraries shared over Twitter.

But even beyond that, it's another tool connecting people. I can share information, jokes, and ideas with many people at once. I've gotten to know some friendly acquaintances much better. Probably the most fun has been watching the presidential debates with Twitter in the background. Everyone piles on and shares whatever they're thinking and it becomes one gigantic debate party.

So if you'd like to pile on as well, feel free to check me out on Twitter!

The Thing About Libraries...

2008-09-17T08:12:00.000-04:00

Once again I'm behind in my 23 Things, but this time I think I have a decent excuse...

Thing 11 is to investigate Library Thing (I know, that's an awful lot of things for one sentence). Well, according to my profile I apparently first investigated Library Thing on July 24th, 2006. I have a sneaking suspicion I found out about it in one of my graduate school classes. Apparently I went in and cataloged seven books that I had read recently, and then abandoned it. It's not that I didn't see how this could be useful, it just didn't grab me for some reason.

As I'm looking at my account now, I think I know why that happened. First of all, the interface is really complicated. There's too much to do on the main page of your account, and no obvious way to isolate just your books, or just your friends. It puts everything that you can do on the site out there at once. The thing is, I'm not using this site for all those other things. I'm using it to track my books. The rest just becomes annoying. I'm also very disappointed to see that Library Thing has gone the way of so many free sites and is now charging for a "premium" account that will allow you to catalog more than 200 books. Guys, tracking my books online is not worth any money to me each month, especially when there are other options available.

At some point since the summer of 2006, someone invited me to join a different site called GoodReads. This one caught me, probably for two reasons. First, I already had friends using it so I could share titles more easily. But second, it gave me a dirt simple way to add both books I had read as well as books I wanted to read. They seem to recognize that this is important to their users, because since I've been using it the interface to add books has gotten even easier. Now after looking up a title it takes two mouse clicks to add it to my to-read list. Of course, the down side of this is that my to-read list is over 50 books and I'm backlogged to books I added last summer. But I guess that's a good situation to be in.

Another advantage of GoodReads is that it's not trying to be about more than just sharing books. This means that people who don't care for social networking or blogging or the other features that Library Thing seems to be promoting can use GoodReads more easily. My father has absolutely no interest in Facebook or MySpace, but since he's always curious what I'm reading he joined GoodReads to make it easier. Since then, he's added more friends on GoodReads just so he can get ideas about other things to read.

I think that the main Web 2.0 message to take away from this is that you need to focus on what you do well. People already have outlets for chatting and sharing what they're up to. But if you give them a simple way to share just what they're interested in, they'll add that on top of their social networks.

So to finish off, here's my GoodReads "read" shelf. Enjoy!

my 'read' shelf:

Image-ine

2008-09-10T13:30:00.000-04:00

A quick post today on image generators for Thing 10. First, my lovely new logo courtesy of CoolText.

Next, just like everyone else in the world I created my own manga avatar. But I'm so attached to my current Triplets of Belleville avatar that I couldn't bear to replace it. So here's an excuse to share the manga one (since it came out so well, IMHO).

Moral of this post? There's so many ways to manipulate images and text online, why bother with the software?

Feed Me!

2008-09-08T09:29:00.000-04:00

On we plunge into the wild and wonderful world of RSS feeds!

I first discovered RSS feeds about 4 years ago when I was recommending an online comic I had discovered to one of our tech folks at the library. I was looking for library-related cartoons for a PowerPoint presentation and stumbled across a fun and quirky daily cartoon about a library called Unshelved. It spread like wildfire through my branch, with several of the staff going back and making our way through three years of archives to get caught up on the misadventures of the Mallville Public Library staff. After shooting the ones that we found especially funny back and forth by e-mail for a while, I thought it would be cool to share it on our staff intranet, so I sent the information off to the person in charge of the intranet. She responded saying that it looked like we'd be able to embed the RSS feed into the intranet. I had no idea what that meant, so I poked around. Turns out RSS is a Really Simple way to Syndicate new information from a website. That is, whenever you add something new, anyone who's watching the feed will see it.

I didn't think much more about RSS until I upgraded to Firefox a couple years later. I had been following several of my friends' blogs just by bookmarking them, but with Firefox I was able to use live bookmarks to put the RSS feeds in my browser toolbar. Now I could see when they updated their blogs just by clicking on the live bookmark.

This made things a lot easier, but now that I had a way to view RSS feeds, I started adding more and more. I poked around a bit on Technorati and some of the other feed search engines, but most of my feeds just came to me as I stumbled across sites that I liked. Before long my live bookmarks overflowed the toolbar and went clear down the screen when I expanded the toolbar. Suffice it to say, I was back where I started. It was too difficult to keep track of everything I wanted to read.

I had tried Bloglines once before I discovered the live bookmarks. For some reason it never clicked with me. I've been thinking about why since then, and I think that it's just got more bells and whistles than I really need. I want my feed reader to be dirt simple. Tell me what's new and what I have and haven't read, and give me a simple way to flag the articles I especially like. Google Reader finally gave me what I was looking for. Now I've got an absolutely absurd number of feeds in my Google Reader, but at least with the organization it provides I can skip ones that are less important, and skim over my unread articles very easily.

At some point in this process, I realized what the feed reader was doing for me. Essentially, it was allowing me to create my own newspaper. I could include the news, commentary, sports, and humor that I wanted to see. This was especially important for me since I'm not a huge fan of the local paper or most major media outlets, and I am a huge fan of a certain northeastern baseball team and a sport that's barely covered in the United States. All this means that it's very hard for me to get the news I want from traditional outlets. With a feed reader I can build my own "newspaper" and keep on top of the things that interest me. That sort of customization is the huge advantage that the Internet has given us, and technologies like RSS make it easier than ever to get to that level of detail in what we want to read.

So even though I abandoned my Bloglines account, for the sake of this exercise I went in and updated it with a selection of the feeds from my Google Reader. So if any of you are interested in what a progressive New Hampshire ex-pat cyclist living in Ohio wants to read, here's my public feed. Enjoy!

What's a Cell Phone?

2008-09-06T08:23:00.000-04:00

I've now fallen a week behind in the 23 things, so in a desperate attempt to catch up I'm going to try to write the three posts I need to catch up over this weekend.

First off, I'm supposed to write something, anything about technology. I've actually been thinking about writing this post for a while. A few months ago it dawned on me that cell phones are no longer just phones. The first inkling I had about this was the first time we took my stepdaughter to a rock concert about 6 years ago. When the obligatory slow song came along, instead of lighters all over the arena, everyone held up their cell phones. My initial reaction was to laugh, but then I began to think that it made a lot of sense. Smoking isn't allowed indoors in most places anymore, and only 1 in 5 people is likely to have a lighter on them, so why not cell phones? I started wondering who the first person was to do this, especially since only 6 years before that I distinctly remembered being at a concert where it was still lighters that were being held up during the slow song. All it took was the increasing prevalence of cell phones and a new trend arose seemingly out of nowhere.

But 6 years ago, those phones that were being held up were still just phones. In fact, most of them glowed with the green or blue of an old school LCD display. At more recent concerts I've seen the white and multi-colors of color SVGA LCD screens. And even beyond that, a lot of those phones were being held up with the LCD screen pointing away from the stage so that the lens on the front of the phone could take a picture.

More things have jumped out at me recently. My stepdaughter can type faster on a 3x4 keypad than I would have thought was humanly possible, and I've seen her simultaneously holding three conversations by text, five on IM, and commenting on Facebook pages. Not too long ago she was upstairs and forgot to turn on the light in the hallway, so out comes the cell phone to light her way. While she doesn't have a iPhone, she recently got an iPod Touch. With that she has a portable wifi-ready computer, GPS, and music player.

So what's a cell phone?

A flashlight
A lighter
A music player
A pathfinder
A web browser
A note writer
A calendar
An alert system
A camera
A game

and, of course, a phone.

The only real Palin is in Monty Python

2008-08-31T20:07:00.000-04:00

Ever since Friday I've been alternating between mocking derision and panicked fear. What in God's name is McCain up to? Is it really as simple as looking to snatch up the Hillary voters? Or is there something more insidious going on?

I sincerely hope that the only reason Sarah Palin was chosen as the Republican vice-presidential nominee was to snare Hillary voters. If that's the case, there's little question that it will backfire, and do so in a very dramatic way. But that makes me wonder, is that the only reason? Is there something more to this?

Unfortunately, a couple things have led me to think that there may be. First, an offhand comment from a co-worker that this will energize the Republican base. At first I couldn't figure out what she meant, but then I got it: the Dems have their revolutionary candidate, now the GOP has their own! And short of nominating Ann Coulter, this is probably the only woman they could find that could seriously pull off the feat of energizing the conservative base with a minority nominee.

But then another commentary made me realize there's even more going on. In fact, Palin's apparent lack of experience and removal from politics may actually be the reason she was chosen. Any time Biden or Obama try to talk about "elitist" concepts (like, say, real health care or energy reform), Palin can play dumb and talk about how in her town of 9000 people they can't afford to worry about saving the Earth because they already pay too much in taxes.

In other words, they're trying to do it again: get the blue-collar, rural population to vote against their own self-interest because all of these high-falutin' ideals about universal health care, diplomacy, and energy policy have "nothing to do with real life." They're betting that just like they voted for the brush-clearing, born-again, plain-spoken Texan, they'll vote for the lipstick-wearing pitbull, mother of five, married to the oil worker, who managed to become Governor while still being a "Christian Woman."

God help us all if they succeed...

Flickering

2008-08-29T09:43:00.000-04:00

Here we are at the end of week 3, and I'm just getting around to posting now! In my defense, I've been a little busy since last week with getting my stepdaughter off to college. Conveniently, our task this week is to investigate and play with Flickr, which I was doing anyway in order to document the move in.

I've been a little slow to get on board with the photo-sharing movement. Mainly that's because I don't normally have a lot of photos to share. I've been aware of Flickr for some time though, so when my brother and sister-in-law had their baby, I immediately went to Flickr in order to share the pictures from her christening. Since then I've mainly been using it to keep my family up-to-date on what's happening. So conveniently, here's what I've been busy with since last week:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The only downside to Flickr is that there's a monthly limit on how much you can upload unless you pay. I suppose that's fair, but in my wife's case it drove her to Google's Picasa. About the only downside to Picasa is that it doesn't have all the cool sharing apps that Flickr does.

Obviously I'm anticipating thing 6 here, playing with Flickr's own internal badge creator. I think the most surprising thing to me about Flickr is how many different mashups there are out there, and how cool a lot of them are. I'm particularly fond of Mosaickr. I've always wanted to be able to create those photomosaics myself. Now I just need to upload enough photos to do it decently.

The other Flickr mashup that I really like is the Flickr "related tag browser". For some reason, the way this displays just seems to me to be more intuitive than Flickr's own search engine. I also suspect that I'm getting better results out of it. For example, when I searched for pictures of the 2008 Tour de France in Flickr's search engine, I seemed to get a lot of unrelated images. Not to mention that it seems to be a lot easier to browse through, with the large number of related tags it pops up around the image results.

So have fun poking around! I've really been enjoying all the Flickr apps everyone else has been posting!

Learned

2008-08-18T16:36:00.000-04:00

I admit I've gotten a bit behind in the 23 Things. Technically I was supposed to blog about this last week, but I figure since the things for this week are to create and register my blog (which I've already done) that I can avoid any penalties.

Our task for last week was to view a tutorial on lifelong learning. I'll be honest, I hate the term "Lifelong Learning." It's another one of those catchphrases that gets overused to the point where a lot of people start tuning out.

That certainly doesn't mean I don't think it's important. I've always tried to live by a statement Socrates made in his last defense before the Athenians:

This is usually translated as "the unexamined life is not worth living." But the Greek is actually much more interesting. The direct translation is more "the unexamined life is no life for a human." In other words, what it is to be human is to constantly explore and examine everything about the world and about your life in it! Doesn't that resonate more than just calling it "lifelong learning"? (Okay, I know, I'm a nerd.)

Having watched the tutorial, I'd say that my biggest problem is that I don't really do any of this consciously. I'm much more of an intellectual hobo: as I wander along I'll stumble across things that interest me and stick them in my satchel. Putting a formal method around learning kinda turns me off it. So forget about beginning with the end in mind: for me there is no end! But the plus side is that I've accumulated one heck of a learning toolbox along the way, and I definitely know how to play!

So a moral to this post? Don't forget to keep asking questions. It's what makes us who we are.

What I Care About in the Olympics

2008-08-13T09:36:00.000-04:00

Women's gymnastics takes silver to China? Men's gymnastics takes silver too, but in an upset? Michael Phelps breaks every record there is?

No, this is what I care about:

Fabian Cancellara rides the time trial of his life to win gold after taking bronze in the road race, and Levi Leipheimer brings it home for the USA with a bronze. Even though the road race was boring, the boys came through with one hell of a time trial event. The Olympics are never well suited to the 100+ mile road race format, but time trials provide just the right mix of brevity and a close race to make them exciting.

Too bad the men's time trial is only online or on MSNBC. Apparently they're going to broadcast the women's tonight, but the men's is where the excitement was this morning. Thanks to Pez Cycling News for great coverage where the American press falls flat as always.

The Library Goes 2.0

2008-08-12T16:49:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, the whole "2.0" thing is way over the top at this point. It seems like just about anything new with the web has to be 2.0 or it's just not cool. Well, bear with me on this.

My library has embraced the idea that if we don't get on board with all the innovations that the constantly changing online world provides us, we're going to get left behind. If you read back through some of my entries you'll see that I've been preaching this for a while. How we create, get, and interact with information is changing drastically, and if libraries are going to survive we need to adapt to this new world.

So what are we doing about it? For the next 9 weeks staff at my library are encouraged to try all the different things that are available online that are changing the world of information. There are 23 things to do over these 9 weeks, and if you do them all you'll have a much better understanding of how the world is changing and how libraries can stay [effective] in this new world.

We kicked off today with a presentation by Michael Stevens. Anytime I go to one of these sorts of presentations I always come across a whole bunch of random thoughts and notes that I want to follow up on or do something with, even if I don't know what right away. So here's a sample of random thoughts from today's presentation.

It's all about the user experience, both at the library and online. If we create a great experience, people will want to come to both our site and our buildings. But this only works if the experience is seamless. We can't put up a site and wait for people to find us, we need to put ourselves where people already are so that they trip over us. Don't make silos!

What are we doing that restricts/controls customers/staff/spaces/web? Why do we do it? what do we lose by doing it? If a customer has a choice of going to the library where they can't do x/y/z or a bookstore where they can, which place will they go?

Need to start taking down signs.

Need to edit the CML wikipedia entry

Know what groups you're trying to reach and find ways to engage them.

Transparency: why do we lock down everything and keep everyone from making content? Most people are well-intentioned, and if someone decides to do something nasty we can deal with it as it comes up. Or for that matter, make the community self-policing. Let users flag objectionable material or otherwise notify us that there's a problem.

We need to use our staff from top to bottom. Everyone has expertise, how do we mine all that knowledge for our customers? Let them read the staff blogs?

I can't believe how many tweets are out there about the library! Why aren't we already watching this? If someone tweets about the library, we should be answering!

We're putting so much effort into launching chat reference, and all we really need to do is embed a Meebo widget in the catalog! Let's do it!

"To be curious means to explore first."

Why can't we send a bluetooth message to enabled phones as soon as they walk in our buildings? "Welcome to the library, here's what's going on."

Don't let fear prevent you from trying something. There's always reasons not to do something, why not just try it?

The time to act is now. We don't have to proofread every memo for 3 hours. Last night a customer said to me that customers he knows have been asking for more computers for 3 years. We've got a committee working on it now, but why did it take 3 years? What's been holding us back?

Why do we worry about kids using Myspace and FaceBook on the library computers? This is how they communicate! How is it different from the group of teens sitting in the Teen area talking? They're still at the library!

Hopefully this project will give everyone the chance to think about these questions and others, and try to move us forward. We've come a long way, but we've got a long way to go...

Strategy

2008-08-10T10:25:00.000-04:00

I've seen a lot of the liberal bloggers wringing their hands over Obama's perceived lack of response to early Republican attacks. Lord knows they have reason to be concerned. There have been far too many instances in recent elections where an attempt to take the high road and not respond seems to have led directly to the Democratic loss. Maybe Kerry was completely unelectable, but surely a more direct and angry response to the foolishness of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" would have been better than not saying anything and letting the mistatements and outright lies stand.

I'm trying to remain positive, and I recognize that we still have a long way to go. But I recently noticed the convergence of several different items that seem to point to a larger strategy. Am I the only one who noticed that, at about the same time:

Obama went on vacation to Hawaii,
The Olympics started, and
Edwards admitted an affair.

The timing on this is way too convenient. The Olympics drown out the news of Edwards' affair, while Obama is too far away and unavailable to the media for anything more than a soundbyte on a runway. I suspect that Edwards had decided to go public about the affair a while ago in order to not distract from the convention, and thoughtfully coordinated with the Obama campaign to do it in a way that would have the least impact. Further, if Obama had been coming out guns blazing already, the Republicans might have been more inclined to use Edwards against them. On top of that, after the convention McCain will have much less money to draw on than Obama, which will allow the Dems to set the tone going into the election.

Obama has never struck me as a shrinking violet. I think that when the time is right he will come out hard against the idiotic policies and stories that the Republicans have been spinning relatively unopposed up to this point. Plus, why should Obama take on this foolishness directly when one of the other targets of the "Celebrity" ad did it for him?

Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Adfunny videosFunnyOrDie.com

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

More, more, more...

2008-08-03T08:17:00.000-04:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about consumption lately, and not just because of the current state of the oil market. Two things on our recent vacation got me thinking about it. First, when having my usual very enjoyable intellectual discourse with my backwoods friends, the idea was put forward that essentially all that humans do is consume and that there’s not really anything we can do to stop our inevitable consumption of all the resources in the world short of ending the species.

This really gave me pause. I still think that there’s more to humanity than just consumption, but I have to admit that there's something to this idea. Pretty much any example of what we do or what we need to survive comes back to some sort of consumption. On top of that, so much of our history was spent trying to figure out ways to make consumption easier, and then when it became easier so much of our society seemed to be aimed at making us consume more. This is where the state of the oil market comes into play. Consider that in a little over 100 years we have essentially consumed over 800,000 years worth of vegetation that then also took an additional 200,000,000 years to turn into what we now call oil.

The second thing that got me thinking about this was a throwaway statistic in the book Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick, which we listened to on CD on the trip back. In it Philbrick mentions that in 17th century America a European “town of two hundred homes depended on the deforestation of as many as seventy-five acres per year” (p. 186).

This statistic stuck out for me because, while helping my stepdaughter learn to drive on the New Hampshire backroads, I was telling her about how all the woods we saw around there had only grown up in the past 100 years or less. Prior to that most of New England had been completely deforested. In other words, this consumption problem is nothing new. We’ve been dealing with it for hundreds if not thousands of years. The Greeks even had a word for it: pleonexia-- the desire to have more.

But does that mean that all we do is consume? If you look around at our culture today it’s hard not to think so. Even as I try to justify our existence by looking at art and literature and science and education, they all seem to be pointless in the face of our consumption of everything around us to the detriment of the overall ecosystem. We also have to fight the consumer culture that has grown up here in the last 60 years. We need to come to a place where our response to a terrorist attack isn’t “go out and buy stuff or take a vacation.”

I’m also troubled by the view I’ve heard put forward by some religious fanatics that since in Genesis God gives humans “dominion” over all the world, that we’re entitled in some sense to use it all up. That’s not only shortsighted, but it also gets the text wrong. A king who enslaves and kills all his subjects for his own ease and enjoyment is not a very good king. It also ignores all the passages that come later suggesting that we should sacrifice ourselves for the good of all. Consuming everything in the world does no good for anyone.

But I am an optimist, and I still believe that any trouble our brains can get us into, our brains can get us out of. I’m not naïve enough to think that we can remove ourselves from the ecosystem entirely (which I have heard some suggest), and I’m also not suggesting that we should use up the Earth until our brains find a way to leave it. But surely there’s a way that we can live and continue to produce all the things that we value in a way that works with the world rather than against it. The only catch is, we all have to accept this and live into it.

Top Ten

2008-07-27T11:18:00.000-04:00

… signs that you may be Cycho.

10. You regularly show up at work with chain marks on your pants legs.

9. You look at the wind speed and direction before leaving home or office.

8. You get aggravated by red lights not because of the wait but because you lose momentum.

7. An average speed of 18 mph on a ride is frustratingly slow to you.

6. You can think of no better way to spend July in France than in a camper with satellite TV on top of a mountain.

5. You’re just as likely to have your head turned by a nice bike as a member of the opposite sex.

4. You’ll change in restrooms in order to ride to work and meetings.

3. When driving up a 10% grade you think, “This would be a great climb.”

2. You look at your 23x700c’s and think “My tires are too fat.”

And the number one sign that you may be Cycho…

1. “Man, if VdV hadn’t crashed on la Bonnette he would’ve had a chance” actually means something to you.

A Warning for the "Clinton Voters for McCain"

2008-07-11T07:20:00.000-04:00

For those out there who for some inexplicable reason think that it will be better to switch their vote from Clinton in the primaries to McCain in the general, here's another reason not to:

Note that while McCain may have a legitimate complaint in saying that he doesn't remember the vote and will have to look up the background on it (that is, maybe he had to oppose it for reasons other than this specific issue), that isn't what the reporter is asking. She asks if it's fair that some insurance companies cover Viagra and not birth control.

How hard is it to say "No, it's not fair" unless you're in the pocket of the big insurance companies? Not to mention the fact that he obviously doesn't recognize the tacit misogyny of the difference; namely that it's okay for old men to fuck around all they want, but women can't unless they want to risk an unwanted pregnancy.

If you were a supporter of Clinton, especially a female supporter, and are now supporting McCain, you may want to ask yourself if he's really on your side.

Bush is a Secret Terrorist!

2008-07-02T09:09:00.000-04:00

As evidenced by his exchange of the "Terrorist Fist Bump" with what is clearly a foreign agent in the pay of Al Qaeda!

Read a Book, Save the World

2008-06-20T09:10:00.000-04:00

I've always been a Science Fiction fan, although I've noticed that the older I get the less tolerance I have for the more frivolous Sci-fi and the more I appreciate "hard" Sci-fi. For those of you not familiar, "hard" Sci-fi is based out of current scientific theory, attempting to remain as close as possible to what can reasonably be thought possible based on that theory. This is not escapist Sci-fi, this is Sci-fi that really makes you think about where we're headed and what life will be like in the future.

So I was pleased to discover that in a recent poll by the Sci-fi channel, other fans of the genre came down firmly on the side of hard Sci-fi, especially with regards to books. Not only that, but the number one thing you can do to save the world? Read.

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
3. Dune by Frank Herbert
4. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
5. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
6. The Stand by Stephen King
7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

I've read all the books in the top ten except The Andromeda Strain (Sorry Crichton, I've had a hard time liking your stuff since Jurassic Park, and I didn't read The Andromeda Strain first), and they will certainly change your outlook, if not the world. So if you haven't yet, give them a try. If you have, think about what you are doing right now to bring about the good and prevent the bad that they depict. And remember,

"Now they can see us."

Web 2.0

2008-06-07T08:14:00.000-04:00

Web 2.0 has become one of those phrases that is used so much in so many different circumstances that it's almost become meaningless. This is unfortunate, because the concept it represents is probably the most important concept in our society today. The way the Internet has completely integrated into our lives is already changing everything about ourselves, our society, and our world. So in an effort to rescue "Web 2.0" from inanity, I'd like to share (in true Web 2.0 fashion) one of the simplest and best explanations of what it means I've ever come across.

So link, tag, embed, and share, friends. The world is changing.

Idiotic Politicians

2008-05-13T21:50:00.000-04:00

I know this is a little late, but I had to say something about the string of idiocy that came out of the mouths of our fearless leaders/ would-be-leaders a couple weeks ago.

First, let's talk about gas tax holidays. I think by now we've all seen the commentaries that have been floating around about the idea. The thing that gets me is that a lot of the pundits seem to be suggesting that Obama is making a "complicated" argument against Clinton/McCain's "simple" argument. This I don't get. How much simpler can it be to say "You'd only save 18 cents on the gallon, and that will get eaten up by higher summer prices anyway"? Nevermind the 900 million it would cost the federal government in badly-needed infrastructure repairs. I just wish that the media and the politicians would stop assuming that we're idiots.

Next, McCain's recently unveiled health care proposal. Once more we are being told that if everyone went out and bought their own health care, the market would reduce the costs.

I have a good health plan right now. I know it's a good health plan. I'm happy with my health plan. A $5000 tax credit wouldn't cover what I get with my health plan. Here's the thing: it took a group of very intelligent, very skilled benefits specialists 3 months to put together my health plan. And I guarantee that the only reason they were able to get the deal they did was because they were negotiating on behalf of 700 people.

Health care is one place we can't rely on the market. Since it's a necessity of life, the market can charge whatever they want and we have to pay it. On top of that, the whole point of insurance is group risk. How can you distribute risk if you have a whole bunch of groups of one to four people? There's only one solution for rising health care costs: eliminate the middleman insurance companies, regulate health costs, and provide single-payer health care to every American. I love the market too guys, but it won't work with this.

Finally, our dearly beloved decider deigned to speak to the riffraff of the press corps a few weeks ago, and in response to questions about the economy and fuel prices, he essentially whined that Congress isn't listening to him. He took direct aim at Congress's failure to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

Georgie, listen to me. ANWR isn't going to help us. Our best estimates indicate that we can probably get 7.7 billion barrels of oil out of ANWR. The U.S. is currently using about 20,687,000 barrels every day. In other words, the entire amount of oil recoverable in ANWR would power the country for a little more than 1 year. Even if we take the extremely optimistic end and assume we can get 11.8 billion barrels out of ANWR, that only gets us less than 2 years.

So stop and think. In fifteen minutes I can pull that data off our own government's websites. Why is this still an issue? Why haven't more politicians started asking why we can't real find alternatives to oil?

Sadly, I think we know the answer.

Oil!

2008-04-20T15:49:00.000-04:00

First, let me make one thing perfectly clear: I do not hate cars. I actually like cars quite a bit, and I still would love to someday own a BMW Z4. What I hate is what cars have become. It seems to me that the sort of pure enjoyment of a drive through the countryside, or pushing a high-performance vehicle to its limits just to see what it can do have been replaced by the car as necessity. I'd love to be able to keep that Z4 in the garage most of the week and just take it out for a spin when I feel like it.

Unfortunately, in the pursuit of some mis-begotten "American Dream" of living in a single family detached house well away from the city center, suddenly the car has become perceived as an absolute necessity. In a city like Columbus, to do pretty much anything other than sit at home in front of the TV, you have to drive somewhere.

Obviously I do my part to offset this a little by riding my bike to work whenever I can. Although even the simple act of riding a bike 5 miles over relatively flat land is seen as insanity by the majority of the residents of this city. Also, I'm fortunate enough to live within walking distance of several fine grocers, as well as a short bus ride from all sorts of entertainment. I'm not going to say that I take full advantage of this, because I am also addicted to my car. But at least I'm aware of the addiction, and they say that's the first step, right?

Well, now we're facing the prospect of $4.00 per gallon gasoline by Memorial Day weekend, and all the other addicts are starting to come face to face with the same reality. We can't continue to live like this. Honestly, the main thing about this that bothers me is that it will most likely prevent us from taking our normal summer vacation back to the northeast. But a trip that used to cost about $150 is now pushing well over $400, and we just don't have that sort of scratch right now.

Like most addicts, the first thing most people seem to want to do is blame the pusher. Sure, the first one was free, but now you gotta pay! And most people see the big oil companies as the pusher. After all, it's a conspiracy between the big oil companies that have driven up the costs of gasoline, right? They're gouging us to line their own pockets!

Sorry folks, that's not it. Big oil is more like the Columbian drug lord in this story: far removed from the addicts in the streets. Clearly there are issues with big oil: things like persuading governments that invading countries in order to free up a previously restricted flow of oil is in the national interest, or attempting to take over a pristine wilderness to tap the oil underneath. But I never thought there was a conspiracy to raise the price of oil. It's clearly the market at work. The one thing I thought we could blame the oil companies for was their record profits. When I heard about Exxon making 400% profits as the price of oil skyrocketed, I thought we were on to something. Get them to lower their profit margin! That'll help the price!

But recently I was reading a discussion that pointed me to this website, and I realized that I had forgotten one important element in the oil companies' profits. Profit or loss is a result of how much you take in compared to how much you spent to produce your goods, right? The catch is that the initial investment the oil companies made to retrieve the oil that they are selling now was made on the assumption that they would be selling the oil for $15 a barrel, not $110. If the oil companies had made no additional investments in the meantime, they would actually be clearing over 700% profits. In other words, not only did they just make a very good investment, they actually are reinvesting quite a bit back into their businesses. As those initial investments made on the assumptions of $15 a barrel oil peter out, the profit margins will decrease. So we really can't force the oil companies to give up some of their profits, because eventually they'd be losing money.

At what point in time did we forget Adam Smith in all this? This is clearly a case of supply and demand. Regardless of what OPEC does or how much oil we can put on the market, this is a limited commodity. And demand continues to grow and grow and grow as we all try to support driving our Hummers 45 miles to work every morning. So if you want the gas prices to go down, decrease the demand for gas.

And I'm not just talking about switching to bio-fuels or hydrogen or some such nonsense. That's not really decreasing the demand, it's just moving it around. Biofuels still require some petroleum in order to work, and they just increase the costs of food which still doesn't help our bottom line. Hydrogen requires massive amount of electricity to produce, which is more often than not going to take some sort of petroleum product to produce. (Yes, I know most electricity is produced by coal in this country, but there are plenty of oil plants as well.)

What we really need to do is change our lifestyle. Make driving a luxury again. Let's all go back to the cities we used to live in, where you could walk to a corner grocery for everything you needed. Where the car stayed in the garage unless you felt like a Sunday afternoon drive or if you really needed to make that 700 mile trip back home. We don't need to drive clear across Franklin County for some doodad that happens to be on sale. And we certainly don't have to live in Delaware county if we work in Columbus. Not only will the costs of fuel go down, but we'll probably all be a lot more relaxed and happy for it.

Stephen Colbert is a God

2008-04-18T21:38:00.000-04:00

So is John Edwards.

Partially Clips

2008-04-16T08:14:00.000-04:00

I've been really busy lately with all sorts of random family things, so I haven't had a chance to post anything substantial. So in lieu of substance, I give you clips.

First, on the whole Bitter Barack Business. Y'know, I've lived in rural Pennsylvania, and frankly bitter people who cling to guns and God in response to miserable mess their lives have turned into as industry leaves and mass farms take over agriculture is a pretty good description. While the truth may hurt, at least Barack hasn't recanted. But as usual, Stewart has a great take on it:

Favorite parts: How much more blatant can Hillary get in tailoring her message to be the polar opposite of Barack? And yes, if you don't think you're smarter than us, what the fuck are you doing running for president?

Next, from the same show, yet another wonderful spotlight on the surreality of this administration's views of the war in Iraq:

And finally, just for fun:

I'll see you all with some more substantial commentary once things settle down around here. Hopefully before June!

Bike Columbus!

2008-03-17T08:54:00.000-04:00

The mayor recently delivered his State of the City address, and while the biggest attention was on enforcing curfew laws and installing streetcars, a lot of folks in the media seem to be downplaying what was actually a fairly significant part of the speech. Hizzoner committed to spending $20 million dollars in the next 4 years (pending a bond issue in November) on bikeways! A grand total of 86.3 miles of bike routes and trails, 54 of which are on-street routes and lanes.

Needless to say, I was very happy about this. It's about time that people in power started listening to us and doing something about the fact that you take your life in your hands every time you get on a bike in this city. But as nice as it will be to have dedicated bike lanes, this is only the first step in making Columbus bike-friendly.

First of all, I couldn't help but notice that bike lanes certainly didn't make headlines in the reports on the speech, and in many cases didn't even make it into the reports on the speech. Maybe that's because the news outlets don't think it will be of interest to their audiences, but that's really the fundamental problem. People don't realize that this is an issue at all. I'm glad to see that the activist groups in Columbus have clearly finally gotten through to the Mayor's office, but unless we can get through to the rest of the residents of the city, it won't really help.

Which brings me to the second issue. One of the major roads here was recently rebuilt, and as part of the rebuilding they included bike lanes. Great idea, right? The problem is that the road is an 8-lane behemoth that may as well be a freeway the way people drive down it. The bike lane is on the right with no physical barrier between it and cars traveling over 50 miles per hour. On top of that, they created bike sensors at the left turn signals so that a bike can actually trip the left turn signal. Except that in order to get to the left turn signal you have to cross 4 lanes of traffic. Even though I'm an experienced and confident rider, I'm not sure even I would feel comfortable with that maneuver.

To be fair, roads like High Street are better suited to bike lanes. Lower speed limits, more traffic lights that slow traffic further, and a narrower road generally. But really this just points at the larger problem we have in Columbus. We are a car town. Everything in this city for the last 30 years has been built to solely accommodate cars. That's enough of a problem in itself, but the side effects are even worse. The majority of recent developments are so far removed from any services that you need a car to get anywhere. If gas were to go to $10 a gallon tomorrow, at least I'd have alternatives where I'm located. The poor suckers up in Powell and Dublin and Canal Winchester and Dublin would be shit out of luck.

But the other side effect is far more insidious. It's the idea that cars and the people who drive them own the roads. It's the idea that leads to people screaming at me while I'm riding, or thinking it's funny to try to spook me, or pass me so close and fast that the draft almost knocks me off my bike. Frankly, it's also the attitude that has led to so many car/pedestrian fatalities. I'm worried that people will feel so entitled that when it comes time to put a bike lane down High Street, they'll just get pissed off that they don't have a center turning lane anymore and will take it out on the cyclists.

So kudos for putting the plan out there, Mike. But let's start trying to change attitudes as well.

Snow!

2008-03-08T16:26:00.000-05:00

That's right folks, we actually have snow in central Ohio. And not the little piddly crap that usually passes for snow around here. Real, honest to goodness snow that you can sink a shovel into and that makes the people around here who have snow blowers not look like idiots. For once they actually closed the library for good reason!

And it's still falling! This has got to be the most snow I've seen in one snowfall in the 12 years we've been living here. I had forgotten having to clear the steps just so you could get out of the house. I had forgotten the snow being so deep you couldn't tell where the path was. I had forgotten how it clings to your pants leg when you step in up to your knee. I had forgotten what it was like to have to clear your car off not just when you left the house, but also when you got out of the store you were at.

While 12 inches is a respectable snowfall anywhere, it is kinda amusing to watch the city shut down the way it would if there were 3 feet in the northeast. I actually did go out (thank you, Subaru) for coffee and to do some grocery shopping, and as of 10:30 this morning one of the major roads near my house looked like it hadn't seen a plow since the middle of the night. The other major road was minimally better, but not much. When I came back the plows had hit that road, and managed to plow in the side streets. Fortunately the owner of the Chinese market at the end of my street had shoveled the plowed snow out of the middle of the road so I could actually get through.

So now we begin the fun that is watching people who have no clue what to do with this stuff try to get around in it. I had already seen three abandoned cars on my way to the stores, and there probably will be more as people get themselves into drifts they can't get out of. Spinning tires can be heard all over the neighborhood. And we'll probably have the inevitable "I shoveled that parking spot out, so it's mine and you can't park there" squabbles. At least they're prediciting rain and highs in the 50's by next weekend, so this won't last long.

So for a little while at least I can pretend I'm back in New Hampshire, and that there actually is such a thing as winter instead of grey drizzle.

Happy snow day, everyone!

Here Comes Everybody

2008-03-03T22:41:00.000-05:00

After hearing an interview with the author on this past week's "On the Media," I am now anxiously awaiting my copy of Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody. The book discusses how the ease of access to information is lowering the bar for who contributes, and as a result there is more power in numbers online than any other force. In media like television and radio, the producers and advertisers call the shots. But online, no matter how much "official" outlets and advertisers may try to shape the direction things progress, ultimately it's people who make things happen. The interview has some interesting examples, but you can already see it in things like iTunes, YouTube, and even Wikipedia. Their prevalence is entirely due to the number of people who have hopped on board, thinking they're good ideas. I think the biggest proof is in Google. Page rank counts for everything in Google, and that's directly related to how many people are clicking through to your site.

So what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Frankly, it impacts libraries. Traditional libraries are another variety of the old media. The librarians control access to the collection through selection, cataloging, and search skills. But in this new environment, the numbers outweigh those old skills. Forget selection, we've got the biggest collection in the world right here. And the things you want bubble right to the top because everyone is talking about or looking for them. Forget cataloging, we've got tagging. Now some might say that you need to have professional skills to catalog, and that's true if you're just one person cataloging. But if millions of people are doing the cataloging, eventually the preferred terms will rise to the top, no AACR2 needed.

In the interview, Shirky points out that the old model was to gather, then share. That is, you develop your collection, catalog it, and then open your doors to the world so that everyone can share it. But on the Internet the rule is share, then gather. Storage is so plentiful and dirt-cheap you can upload absolutely everything. Then once everyone has shared everything, people start identifying common elements. That's what humans do: x is like y, a is like b, etc. Since so many people are doing this at once though, the common themes float to the top without the need of an actual cataloger trying to guess what should float to the top to help people find what they're looking for. Instead they self-select.

So where does this leave libraries and librarians? First off, we still have searching. We can still do that better than anyone. And even though the collections are being made for us, we still should learn what's in the collection and be able to navigate it to find what's needed. But as for libraries...

Well, doesn't everybody need a place to come?

R.I.P. the Crypto-Nazi

2008-02-29T09:07:00.000-05:00

William F. Buckley Jr. passed away this past Wednesday, and we're all a little worse off for it. As much as I despised the man and his politics, he at least provided some intellectualism to the ancient conservative-liberal debate that has been sorely lacking in recent memory. Frankly, it has been lacking through most of my lifetime. So I, as one untimely born, have had to watch his repartee through the glass of time. Only Buckley could take the nastiest of debates and make it sound like a cricket match. Can you imagine how different the debate would sound today if, instead of having to deal with the blathering of the likes of Hannity, O'Reilly, Robertson, and the entire Fox News network we could instead be told how imbecilic we liberals are in the dulcet tones of his old world New York accent? So I leave you with one of his greatest hits. I'm almost as sorry to see him go as I am glad that he's gone.

When Marketing Goes Too Far...

2008-02-24T08:11:00.000-05:00

This is wrong on so many levels. It's so wrong I wish I could embed it, but I'm afraid you'll have to just click the link:

Okay, aside from the fact that it's a marketing gimmick for Microsoft that looks like a children's book, and apparently you can actually get the book on Amazon, the book itself is just wrong on so many levels. I mean, did you notice that the one laptop is dead because the dog peed on it?

Sadly, I think that it's most likely aimed at people like myself who appreciate the subversive humor, but the problem is that people like me can also see through the marketing. And I for one kinda resent being played to so blatantly. I'm also a little disappointed in the consumerism of it. "Here, you already have three computers in the house, why not get a server now too?" I've already got our computers networked, and while my wife sometimes complains that she has to turn on the upstairs computer to print anything, I don't really want to spring for even the $80 to get a printer server.

Of course, it would be nice to be able to access my files at home from anywhere. And that would solve the problems of having to use jump drives from computer to computer in the house...

Aw crap, now I want one. Damn you Bill Gates!

Check me out!

2008-02-23T08:51:00.000-05:00

Now this is an interesting concept...

Okay, first I have to say how cool is that return system? Seriously, that's the sort of stuff those of us who run circulation dream about at night. Yes, I know I'm a pathetic nerd.

Now on to the meat. Honestly, the first thought that crossed my mind was that I could think of two people who would probably sign on in a second. One of them would probably try to put on 3 different banners, the other would probably try to sign up as a Republican just to mess with people's heads.

Being the intellectual East-coast liberal that I am, I thought this is a great idea. What's better than people sitting down in civil conversation, trying to get to know each other and understand each other? Then I remembered that I live in the U.S., and not Europe. If we tried this here, the Transvestite would probably wind up trying to strangle the Conservative with her pantyhose while the Gun Rights person reached for his AK-47.

But seriously, this is yet another indication of how libraries are changing all over the world. We are no longer static repositories, but are becoming active centers of community learning. We are the common ground where people come together to learn not only from our books and our staff, but also from each other.

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl

2008-02-08T09:44:00.000-05:00

Sarah Gianna, born to Doug and Kristin on February 7th. 7 lbs. 8 oz., 20". (Looks like she didn't get the family heighth!)

I'm an Uncle! (Don't worry guys, I won't spoil her too badly!)

Whirlwind

2008-01-31T09:13:00.000-05:00

Well, between getting badly sick and ending up with pneumonia for the first time since I was a kid, and the maelstrom that is January I haven't posted for a while. Of course, the world continues on without me, even if I'm stuck in my house for a week staring at the mess I just coughed up which I can only assume is my lungs.

A couple things have come up recently that I think are worth note. First, the mad rush to put out an "economic stimulus" package. This sort of thing always drives me crazy. The last time the government tried this after 2001 I didn't make enough money to qualify for a rebate in the first round, and in the second round I got a check for $12. That's right, twelve dollars. It probably cost the government twice that to do the calculations, cut me the check, and mail it to me.

This time around I stand to get a bit more, my economic prospects having improved significantly since then. But is it any more of a good idea now than then? There's a fundamental problem with the entire concept. That is, the assumption that 1) people will spend that money, and 2) that spending that money will help stimulate the economy. On the first point, I imagine most people are like me and have a lot of debt that they'd like to pay down. So there goes number one: the money was already spent.

For number two, I commend to you Robert Reich's comments on the matter. Basically, it's silly to think that lowering the cost of investing will make people invest if there's no demand for what the companies you're investing in are producing. And right now, there is no demand because we're all up to our eyeballs in debt. This is exactly the problem with cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations. If the rich have more money they don't spend it because they already have everything they want. And if there's no demand for products they won't invest it either. We're throwing more money at people who don't need it, so they sit on it and watch it gain interest in securities and futures, none of which helps the economy right now.

The other thing on my mind right now is the Democratic primaries. First, I was extremely disappointed at the sniping between Obama and Clinton earlier this month. I was especially disappointed that it seemed to be the Clinton camp that originated the sniping. This just confirmed my worst fears that Clinton falls into the old-school camp of politics and mudslinging as usual. And as someone once said, the only thing that comes of mudslinging is that everyone gets covered in mud. To my mind this is another reason why we as Democrats shouldn't support Clinton for the presidency. It's not because she's not qualified, but it's because she will turn the presidential race into even more divisive politics as usual. Several people have said that the best hope the Republicans have is Clinton running for president. This worries me very much, and I think that the Democrats need to think about that very carefully.

But the other disappointment I have about the Democratic primaries is the tone things have taken now that Edwards is out of the race. Suddenly it seems that only women and blacks should be interested in the race at all. Even NPR, which I normally consider to be a voice of reason and moderation, said that it's now an open question where white men will vote now that Edwards is out.

First of all, this is just silly given the numbers that Edwards was putting up. If white men were voting for Edwards he would have put up better numbers, because there are still quite a few of us out there. But much more disturbing to me is the assumption that I'm voting based on the candidate's gender or color. I'm sure there are some out there who do, but I think the fact that Obama and Clinton are the front-runners is a very good indication that it no longer matters to us. Speaking as a white man who supported Obama from the beginning, race and gender have never been and never will be a factor in whom I vote for, unless it's voting against someone for whom it is a factor.

So what ties this all together? I guess it's that we all need to move beyond those ideas which have died the death they deserve. Supply-side economics was shown to not work back when Reagan led us into massive debt and the worst recession in recent memory. And race and gender have become increasingly unimportant to those of us who grew up in the post-civil rights era. All the hard work of the 60s and 70s paid off, and we're closer now to realizing Dr. King's dream than ever before.

Vindication, of a Sort

2008-01-09T16:04:00.000-05:00

Every so often it's nice to see confirmation that you're not crazy.

You may recall that almost exactly one year ago I was frothing at the mouth over why no one seemed to think that impeachment of the current administration was a good idea. It seemed to me that if there was ever a presidency that rose to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors," it was this one.

Well today I saw a Washington Post Op-ed from the weekend by someone who should know confirming what I've been saying all along. Not only does it support impeachment, it lists the same reasons I've been giving for well over a year. It seems to me that if the guy who lost to Nixon in 1972 thinks that this administration should be impeached, maybe it's about time we did something about it.

I Don't [Heart] Huckabee

2008-01-04T09:57:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the new year, dear reader. And thankfully our long national nightmare is finally over. The primaries have begun. Even though the results from Iowa seem to rarely be an indicator of the results overall, two candidates who just last summer seemed to be either dead in the water or unable to catch the leader have won.

Naturally, I'm thrilled that Obama won. I'm also glad to see that Edwards made a good showing. We've got a horse race on our hands folks, and despite my doubts about Clinton I would be happy with any of the three.

But on the other side I'm starting to get a bit worried. I haven't quite been sure what to do with Huckabee. Initially he seemed to be a genuine fiscal conservative with some interesting thoughts on our current state and the non-conservatism of the so called neo-conservatives. I was always worried about his social conservatism and the fact that he's a Baptist minister (I'm sorry, but most Baptists in politics that I've seen don't seem to fit any definition of Christian that I know. Maybe that's prejudiced, but I'll at least withhold judgment), but he didn't seem to be pushing that agenda too hard. Since then several things have started to give me pause, and now I'm starting to get downright worried.

First of all, despite his saying a lot of things about the budget and economy that make sense, he has an absolutely insane idea about how to generate tax revenue. While most European countries have a value-added tax, which is similar, they don't rely on it solely. Put in the simplest terms, can you imagine everything you buy suddenly costing at least 23% more? Granted that you wouldn't have income tax getting taken out of your paycheck, and people under a certain income level would receive subsidies, but that doesn't change the sticker shock.

Even worse, it is ultimately a regressive tax. The lower your income, the greater the percentage of your income you would be paying in taxes. Plus if we've learned anything about people living in generational poverty, it's that they don't do well navigating the middle-class rules necessary to receive those subsidies. The majority of them won't even bother applying for them. So we're back to the poorest doing the most work to support the country while the rich get richer.

But the clincher to me was his response to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Apparently what we should take away from what may be the most important event this year in foreign affairs and our presence in Afghanistan is that we have a lot of illegal immigrants from Pakistan.

We've just had 8 years of a president who has no clue what's going on outside our borders. Can we really afford another 4?

Top Ten

2007-12-12T21:05:00.000-05:00

...things I am tired of hearing.

10. "I know I brought that book back."

9. "The streets aren't safe anymore."

8. "Are your children at risk? Details at eleven."

7. "Illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs."

6. "God hates gays."

5. "Waterboarding is an enhanced interrogation technique."

4. "Why should I pay to support a failing school system?"

3. "[X]'s campaign has raised more money than [Y]'s"

2. "Socialized medicine is bad."

And the number one thing I am tired of hearing...

1. "Victory in Iraq."

And We're Back

2007-12-05T21:30:00.000-05:00

Please forgive my 5 day hiatus, dear readers, but blogging every day for an entire month is a more difficult undertaking than I might have initially expected. Suddenly I was no longer obligated to blog on a Sunday afternoon between doing laundry and preparing my church's podcasts, so I didn't. I was no longer obligated to blog on a Monday evening after work, so I didn't. I wanted to play Runescape on Tuesday, so no blog.

Of course, this could easily turn into exactly where I was before NaBloPoMo, so I'll try to get back in the swing of things. I'll at least try to return to my New Year's pledge of once a week.

So not much new for tonight other than to note that we have received our first snow of the winter, gracing us with a lovely 4" that is throughly unexpected for Ohio at this time of year in my experience. I'm grateful though. Oddly the mere presence of snow has done wonders to lift my spirits and alleviate some of the persistent homesickness brought on by the changing of the seasons.

So I'm enjoying our blanket of white and doing somewhat better at ignoring the idiocy of 10 minutes worth of leading news coverage on the "snow storm" from last night, the drivers this morning who either drove way too slow or way too fast, and the joker who screeched down our street tonight belching fumes and burning rubber as he spun his wheels on the icy road the entire length of the street.

Last time I checked, the way it works is that you're supposed to supply power below the coefficient of friction, otherwise you lose your grip. }sigh{ Another failure of the educational system.

The Biz

2007-11-30T20:26:00.001-05:00

My brother (I would insert a link here if he had his own blog) asked me a while back to post something about the new librarianship. I usually don't take requests, my reaction normally being "get your own blog" (sensing a theme here bro?), so I begged off saying that I couldn't write coherently about my own profession.

That's not entirely untrue. Librarianship is undergoing a massive change as the world begins to feel the full impact of the information revolution. I'm at as much of a loss to describe it as anyone. Honestly, I don't think anyone in the profession has quite realized yet just how big a deal this revolution is going to be. Hell, I don't think anyone in any profession has quite realized how big this is. Information has never been more readily available, and it has never been easier to let everyone in the world know what you think about any given topic. We've barely scratched the surface of what technology can now allow us to do.

To really understand what has happened to libraries, we need to go back a few years. In the days before information was this readily available, libraries were the Internet. When you needed any sort of information, pretty much the only place you could get it was at your local library. And to serve that need libraries built massive reference collections and trained their staff to be serious and studious. Libraries were sacred halls of study and learning, where everyone went to satisfy their curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

But then the world began to change. Information could be found in any one of a number of places. Libraries were no longer the only game in town. When your own bedroom can be your hall of learning, suddenly the whole "sacred" thing falls by the wayside. We always knew that by the time people came to us they had already asked everyone they knew; but now in addition to asking everyone they know, they've also gone to bookstores, watched the TV, and surfed the net. Now they've most likely gotten their answer before they have to turn to us.

But libraries didn't give up their high seat. We had come to rely on the public's good will so much that we didn't realize that they weren't coming to us for the same things anymore. They still liked us, but they didn't need us the way they used to. The problem is that we knew that they did need us. Someone once described the Internet as the world's greatest library with the books all piled on the floor. Librarians looked at this mess and said "we know what to do with all this! We can help! We know how to work search engines! We know how to evaluate sources!" Any decent librarian can get better results out of Google than Joe Normal. But Google seemed to work well enough, so no one was listening.

So now we find ourselves in the position of knowing that we can help, but not being able to convince anyone that we can. What do we do about this? We can't just jump up and down and say "Listen to me, dammit!" They're not listening, and they won't. We need to show them that they need us. This has led a lot of old-school librarians to think that libraries are on the decline. They see the public turning to the Internet, and they see libraries building coffee shops and collecting DVDs and they think that we've thrown in the towel. But that's not the point of changing how we present ourselves. That's not why we adopt a retail model of customer service. We do it to make ourselves seen.

What we need to do is not assume that we are the preferred source for information (which we are not), but rather position ourselves so that when people are seeking information we are there. The fundamental difference between traditional library service and library service now is not about lessening the value of our professional expertise in the face of customer demands, nor is it about sacrificing our expertise in the name of meeting the customer where they are. It is rather about proactively placing ourselves where the customer already is so that when the customer needs information we are an assumed source rather than a last ditch.

Thus efforts to place the library online and to rearrange our spaces so as to be more appealing and become the "3rd place" are not playing to the lowest common denominator. They are an effort to bring customers to us so that when they need us we are already there. Even something as fundamental as collection development becomes part of this, as customers will not want to be in a place with ugly or outdated collections. By keeping our collections clean and up-to-date we are creating an environment that customers want to be in so that they do think of us first.

But the approach must be 100% integrated. If every aspect of our presence isn't aiming at that one goal of putting ourselves right under the customers' noses, the entire enterprise will fail. So collections, web presence, physical space, and customer service must all create a coherent experience that will place us in the customer's mind as the preferred source for any information need over other options already available. We also need to remove barriers to using our service, since other sources are so simple to use.

So when I'm out on the floor, my goal is to connect with people. I don't care why they're in the library. I don't care what they're checking out. All I know is that they've decided to come see me. If I can build a relationship with that person, then when they need information they won't turn on the local news. They won't listen to their Uncle Merv who just got out of lockup. They'll think "I'm gonna go ask that tall dude at the library. He'll know what I need." And I'll help them find exactly what they're looking for.

Librarians aren't the gatekeepers of the Information Age as some have named us. We're the guides. We keep the paths open, clear, and well-marked. We'll visit new territory first and mark the way. We will provide a friendly and safe place to explore from where anyone can find help. We will show people how to get the most out of the most exciting time in human history.

And that is why I'm a librarian.

The Eighth Circle of Hell

2007-11-29T20:19:00.000-05:00

Normally I try not pay any attention to Ann Coulter. As near as I can tell, she's insane. Not insane as in "Oh my God, are you insane?" but rather "The nurse will be here any minute with your meds, Ms. Coulter" insane.

Sadly, I work in a library. And as a dedicated public librarian I firmly believe that no matter how absurd I may find a particular title, my community has a right to see it. So it was that today I found myself face to face with Ms. Coulter among the new books.

To understand the nature of my complaint, you first have to see the cover of her most recent book. Those of you with a delicate constitution may want to disable image viewing on this site before reading further.

Putting aside the stereotypically provocative nature of the title, I want you to look carefully at Ms. Coulter's picture. Is it just me, or is she most definitely not selling this book on the basis of her brains? In fact, judging from the cover it would appear that the title should be "If Democrats were Republicans they'd have a chance with this." Either that or "If Democrats were smart they'd submit to Mistress Coulter's tender ministrations."

Ewwugh. I think I just threw up a bit.

However, for those of you who haven't cottoned on to the reference in tonight's title, my main concern is the fact that someone who is selling herself so blantantly, someone who is so clearly trying to sell a book on the basis of sex appeal, should not be the same person who in the pages of that same book doubtlessly references the Bible several hundred times. Here she is, supposedly so religious and so morally upright, on the cover of her book with a come-hither look that would put the Queen of Sheba or Salome to shame.

Thus it is that Ms. Coulter will doubtless one day find herself in the eighth circle of hell, clad in a lead-lined golden robe with the rest of the hypocrites. Dante placed you almost next to the Devil himself, Ms. Coulter. The only sin worse than yours is, ironically, treason.

Bah Humbug

2007-11-28T20:16:00.000-05:00

I am most definitely NOT in the Christmas spirit.

For some reason this season has been less and less fun over the past few years. I used to think this was because I wasn't a kid anymore, or that I wasn't living in a place with a real winter. But no, this year I have finally decided that we have killed Christmas. It's entirely our faults, and we should be ashamed of ourselves.

I remember, and I swear I'm not imagining this, that at one point in time there were no Christmas decorations or products in stores until after Thanksgiving. This year I saw Christmas items for sale in September. I remember a time when Christmas carols weren't used as backing music for advertisements. I remember a time when the news wasn't full of stories about how well the stores were doing in the Christmas shopping season. I mean, all of that was still there, but it wasn't what it was about.

Now the only thing that this season is about is shopping. You've got to give people stuff. You've got to go out, find something that people may or may not like, wrap it up, and give it to them. And one present isn't enough. The tree has to be full of presents. The bigger the better. And that's all there is to it. Forget about altruism and giving and care and love and joy. It's all about how many presents you've got under how big a tree.

I have too much stuff. I have too much debt. I'm tired of being told I have to buy things. I don't want more stuff. I want a new pack for my bike and some new shirts. That's it. And if I didn't get them for Christmas I'd get them for myself anyway because I actually need them.

I know I'm still going to go hang my lights and trim my tree, because that's what is done. Hopefully my own small tribute at a more appropriate time will help me to feel better. And I'll do my best to tune out invitations to buy a Lexus for Christmas or the horrible R&B version of what used to be a lovely carol. I'll try to steer clear of the stores and out of the maddening rush of traffic and people trying to buy, buy, buy. I'll go to my midnight service and try to remember that what we're supposed to be doing at this time of year is recognizing that joy is found in the most unexpected places, and that the light will return.

In Memoriam

2007-11-27T21:23:00.000-05:00

In July our then newest cat, a 1 year old kitten named Gandalf the Grey, suffered a severe asthma attack and died. I've owned a lot of cats in my life, and I can say without hesitation that he was the sweetest cat I have ever known. He is still sorely missed.

Since then I discovered the joy that is lolcats. If you haven't seen these yet you're missing out. Some of them a pretty cheesy, but every so often there's one that is perfect. My wife snapped a priceless picture of Gandalf that was made for lolcats, so I turned it into a lolcat picture.

Yes, he really was riding my bike.

Aren't You Glad?

2007-11-26T21:44:00.000-05:00

It's Monday night, I'm tired, and there's only 5 days left in NaBloPoMo. I'm tapped out folks. So tonight I'll just leave you to ponder the following:

Aren't you glad you don't live in a country where you can be arrested for naming a teddy bear "Muhammad"?

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if religious extremists actually read their holy books. Would Muslim extremists turn into peace-loving, altruistic intellectuals? Would Christian extremists turn into humble advocates for the poor and disenfranchised?

Sadly, I doubt we'll ever know.

You Call That Music?

2007-11-25T22:36:00.000-05:00

A piece from the 1970's followed by a Bach chorale in church this morning got me to thinking about "classical" music. I'm not talking about actual classical music, composed between 1750ish to 1810ish. I'm talking about what Joe Normal probably thinks of as classical music. That is, stuff you hear in church, at the symphony, or at the opera.

I've been thinking about how inaccessible modern classical music is. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of modern classical music that I love. It's just that unless you've grown up on it and trained your ear to hear what's good about it, a lot of the time it's just so much noise. The problem is that it's virtually impossible to tell the good noise from the bad unless you know what you're listening for. On top of that, there's a lot of jokers out there who think they can write good classical music who frankly can't.

What I can't figure out is how we got to this point. Classical music written from around 1600 or so up to the early 20th century was the popular music of the time. Bach was well known all throughout Germany. Mozart was a child star that could have put Macauley Culkin to shame. Thousands lined the streets of Vienna for Beethoven's funeral. Puccini was as close to a rock star as late 19th century Italy could have. And hundreds protested Stravinsky's Rite of Spring when it was first performed.

So what the heck happened?

I suppose it could be that the music has simply gotten too complex. There a very few people who can sit through a contemporary classical performance without being completely turned off. Even someone with a fair amount of training like myself has to concentrate extremely hard to appreciate contemporary music. And part of me doubts that music you have to concentrate on is really worth listening to.

But another part of me laments the loss of the fabulously intricate music that requires massive amounts of skill to compose. Obviously I love rock music, and I appreciate the art form very much. But let's face it: it's pretty straightforward musically. What happened to the multitudes being able to enjoy the intricacies of a Bach cantata, or be transported by a Beethoven symphony, or cry at a Puccini opera?

It's probably the fault of the composers themselves. There's something of an attitude that if you can't get it, you're just dumb. To my mind a perfect example is Michael Nyman. His soundtrack for the movie The Piano was fabulously popular. It was just as difficult in many ways as his other works, but infinitely more accessible. Does that mean he wrote more music like that? No, he continued with his esoteric, avant-garde music. Another good example is the novel Amsterdam by Ian McEwan, which shows how a supposedly great composer can become so fundamentally self-centered that he loses touch with reality.

I guess all I can do is keep listening to the great works and hope that others will hear it too and try to find out more. There's got to be a way to satisfy both the artists and the people.

Aquadotty

2007-11-24T22:22:00.000-05:00

We've all gotten fairly used to recalls this year. It seems like we'd had a long run of nothing more than a few scattered cases of small parts causing choking when suddenly lead-tainted toys appear from China. As if credit woes and a declining dollar weren't enough, now we can't even buy cheap Chinese toys.

Well, the recalls reached a new "high," so-to-speak, with the announcement that a company out of Canada has recalled the latest rage in grade-school crafting, Aqua Dots. Apparently what you're supposed to do is put the beads into patterns, spray them with water, and presto they're permanently stuck.

Yeah, small beads with a weird, water-reactive chemical on them, aimed at the 3 and up set. Couldn't see this one coming.

I don't want to make light of the fact that several children became seriously ill after ingesting these (I mean, what did they think kids would do with them? They look like frickin' Jujubees!). But you can't make this sort of stuff up. Apparently upon being ingested, the chemical coating the beads becomes... GHB.

For those of you who don't watch Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, GHB is more commonly known as the date rape drug. It renders the person non-responsive but with some level of consciousness. Exactly the sort of thing you want your kids to have.

Of course, some people use the drug recreationally. (Why anyone would want to use what is essentially degreasing solvent or floor stripper mixed with drain cleaner is beyond me, but hey, whatever floats your boat.) Which leads one to wonder if the remaining Aqua Dots on the shelves might become hot commodities...

Despite this being a very dangerous and highly unfortunate turn of events for this company, there was very little chance that this could have been determined before the product was released. The GHB only forms after the beads are ingested. What kills me is the reaction some people have to this, making it seem like the company is out shooting kids. Even worse is that somehow this has gotten entangled with the Chinese lead-paint business and now it sounds as though the blame is getting thrown at China again. The Chinese manufacturers made the product to spec in this case. It was the product itself that was bad.

So even when people have a legitimate reason for concern they overreact. }sigh{

Beware Black Friday!

2007-11-23T14:17:00.000-05:00

A little bit of a cheater post today, but after watching local news provide 10 minutes of coverage for "Black Friday" including tips from the Columbus Police about how to not get mugged, this post from 23/6 was just too good to pass up. Apparently my local news missed FEMA's update on how to protect yourself on "Black Friday." Enjoy!

Middle America

2007-11-22T17:17:00.000-05:00

A combination of my entry from yesterday, a most excellent commentary by Daniel Schorr last night, the holiday today, a drive to Cincinnati, and a piece on NPR in the car about The Great Gatsby made me realize an important truth about America. No matter how messed up we seem, no matter how insane Wall Street, corporations, major Industry, and all the rest seem to have gotten, what makes us who we are and what makes us strong is the vast majority of the population known as middle America.

Where Gatsby comes into this is in the undercurrent behind the New York glitterati in the novel. What I realized in the car on hearing an extended passage is that the crux of the novel isn't Gatsby's death. Nick's final meeting with his father demonstrates that Gatsby is just a casualty of bigger problem. The crux of the novel comes with Nick's recollection of heading west from the east coast for the holidays. As he gradually recedes from the insanity that is New York into the small whistle stop towns of the Midwest, he seems to be moving away from the superficiality that defines Daisy and Tom and towards the people who make the country real. Gatsby dies not because he tried to flee his mundane roots for the glamor of the big city-- a sort of Icarus story-- but because the big city is death. Life comes from the "normal" world of middle America, and that is where our strength lies. Gatsby isn't an ode to New York of the roaring twenties. It's a condemnation of it and an effort to show that America is at its best in the heartland.

Immediately following 9/11 that was the first thought that crossed my mind: the terrorists had gotten it wrong. They thought that by destroying a financial and political center they would destroy America. But what they failed to realize is that those things aren't America. America is in the farmhouses I drove past today flying the flag out front. America is in the trucking distribution hub in the middle of nowhere Ohio. America is in the rusted hulks of industry around Cincinnati where new offices and technology spring up like crocuses out of dead leaves.

Sadly, I think what went wrong post-9/11 was that we turned the World Trade Center into a symbol of more than what it was. We should have acknowledged the loss of those who died and then moved on. There should have been no "Ground Zero." There should only have been all the rest of America, standing together united and saying "three buildings ain't gonna take us out."

What makes us who we are is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Our narrative since 9/11 has only been about fear and desperation. There is no overcoming. There is no return to greatness. There is only reaction and defense. To my mind, Gatsby is the definitive American novel because it gets it right. We are at our worst when we sacrifice others for personal, immediate gains. We are at our best when we come together to do more than we could by ourselves.

Getting Home

2007-11-21T21:00:00.001-05:00

On the drive back from work this evening rush hour was strangely reversed. At 6:00 on most days I'll run into traffic just north of downtown where 670 and 71 merge bringing six lanes of traffic down to three. But tonight it was clear sailing from downtown to Clintonville. But southbound 71 was solid, bumper- to- bumper traffic. The traffic wasn't moving southbound from when I got on the highway until I got off.

The reason for this is pretty obvious. Everyone got off work early so they could head over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house. So rush hour out of downtown was negligible, but everyone trying to get from north of the city to south, east, or west was getting hung up on the east-side splits.

I saw this exact same thing last year. I don't remember if I saw it before that. But all I could think both times was, "why?" Why do we put ourselves through this? So that we can show up at the relatives stressed and grumpy, burn the turkey, and watch uncle Merv drink too much and puke on Grandma's antique rug?

And frankly, the drive is probably mild compared to the flights. Horror stories were already coming over the air about delays and the first real snowstorm of the season in the Midwest. Add that to the post 9/11 paranoia about shoes and liquids and you've got a recipe for disaster. Who actually wants to sit on uncomfortable chairs and eat indigestible food for the better part of the day just so you can spend a weekend with relatives?

So why do we do it? I think that a lot of us are trying to recapture some idealized holiday of the past, where everyone was happy to be in each others' company and food and cheer were plentiful. We've seen it in the commercials, surely our childhood was like that, right?

Well, no, it wasn't. And it's foolish to try to recreate it. The word "nostalgia" is a neologism from the Greek "nostos" meaning homecoming and "algos" meaning suffering or pain. The original connotation of the word isn't positive. It's a pathological longing for home that causes you to ignore the things that are right in front of you. We are a society suffering from cultural nostalgia. And worst of all, the "nostos" for which we long was invented anyway.

When we first moved to Ohio, it was too far to drive to visit family for Thanksgiving weekend, and since everything was closed on Thanksgiving we started our own tradition. We locked ourselves in the house with a bunch of movies, made popcorn, and cooked a turkey dinner and a pumpkin pie. It was perfect. A day spent with the people closest to me with no pressure to do anything more than just be there.

If we could all find that place I think we’d all be a lot happier.

Hold It

2007-11-20T20:34:00.000-05:00

"Hey... . . .. ... .. .hold.. . .. .... ..red hat...."

"What?" I said to the young man standing in front of me.

"Uh, the guy in the red hat upstairs asked me to hold these for him but I gotta go."

"So you want me to hold them for you?"

"Nah, I gotta go. Can you hold them for him?"

"Who am I supposed to be holding them for?"

"Uh, the guy in the red hat."

"Do you know his name?" I asked, oddly enough still trying to help.

"Uh, yeah. It's Ali."

"Is that his first name or his last name?" I said, thinking to myself that given how common the name is for both first and last it probably wouldn't help.

"Uh, it's his name. His first name."

"Look, I'd be happy to hold these for you but I really need to know the guy's name. Ali just isn't enough information."

"Uh, okay, whatever."

The young man then walked off with the DVDs. I noticed him set them by one of the checkout machines before he headed off for the teen area. About 45 minutes later they were still there, so I checked them in and shelved them.

Apparently Ali the Red Hatted decided to go with some other selections.

Hello, My Name is Ste... Ste.. Stephanie

2007-11-19T22:06:00.000-05:00

No it's not. It's Anandita or Jagrati or Nishtha or some equally lovely Indian name. Why on earth do call centers make Indians use western names when answering the phone? I mean, I can hear the accent. I know I'm calling India! You're not fooling anyone and you're making this lovely girl stumble over a strange name for nothing!

I think that part of why I'm mad is that when I called and heard the accent, the first thing that crossed my mind was "Oh no, I'm in India." I hated myself almost as soon as I thought it. I'm not that sort of a person. I don't hate people from other cultures just because they're from other cultures! I don't think people are dumb just because they have an accent!

So what happened? Why did I have this reaction? I guess it's that I just wanted someone who could immediately understand everything I was saying, and whom I could understand in return. When you're trying to troubleshoot problems on a website, you don't want to have to keep saying "Huh? What?" every ten seconds. You want the problem fixed so you can get on with your life.

I don't think that outsourcing is inherently evil. I'm glad that we can provide jobs in countries that need them, and I don't think Americans are losing as many jobs as might be thought because of it. But there are some things that shouldn't be outsourced. And tech help is one of them.

Throwing it All Away

2007-11-18T18:07:00.000-05:00

I hate shaving. I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't, honestly. If it weren't for the fact that my face itches like hell when I don't shave I'd probably not shave. Well, that and the fact that my beard is a little thin in spots and since I'm in the public eye I should probably only grow a beard if it doesn't make me look like one of the transient "all-day customers" at the library.

Aside from the discomfort inevitably involved in shaving though, the other aspect of shaving I hate is razor blades. First and most problematic to my mind, is that there's absolutely no guarantee when you get a new blade out that it's actually going to do the job without burning you. Sometimes you'll get a good one and everything will be fine, sometimes the new one you get is even worse than the one you just threw away.

Given the unpredictability of the quality of the blades, you'd think that maybe the companies that make the blades would put some more effort into improving the blade itself. But no, apparently their solution is to add even more blades to the cartridge, probably in the hopes that more blades will increase the likelihood that one of them will be halfway decent.

Of course, the more blades and other bells and whistles there are, the more expensive the things get. I started using a 2-blade cartridge with a conditioning strip and a rubber strip when I was in college, because it seemed to work pretty well. I get 5 of these things for about $9. Y'see, to me that's just insane. The problem is that the generic ones are even worse than the brand name ones, so you pretty much have to stick with the brand names. Worse than that, I got a free sample of a 3-blade one once, tried it and almost tore my face off, so I'm sticking with my 2-blade, thank you. But those 3-blade ones are like 4 for $11. The 4 blade ones are even more ridiculous. So here I have to shell out all this cash for something I have to do daily.

I hate being over a barrel like this.

On vacation this summer I forgot my razor at home, and so found myself needing to pick up something to shave with in the interim. Obviously I wasn't going to buy a whole new kit, so I got some disposable razors instead. Son of a gun if these things didn't do a better job than the ones I had been getting. Even more amazing was that I could get 10 of them for $8.

How much sense can this possibly make? A complete razor-- handle, cartridge and blades-- is cheaper than just the cartridge? And apparently just as good? These guys really do have a racket going! But now I'm stuck with a quandary: I'm now throwing away even more plastic than I was before.

I hate this, I really do! Why can't companies just do something that makes sense? Why do they drive us to be wasteful? Why is conservation so damn expensive? It's completely counter-intuitive!

Moral of this post: buy a straight-edge razor.

You Bet Your Life

2007-11-17T17:27:00.000-05:00

I have absolutely nothing to write about today. Okay, not nothing. I've got some random thoughts about several things banging around in my head, but for whatever reason they don't want to come out yet. So I was casting around for something, thinking about changing seasons and time passing with Thanksgiving bearing down on us, and all I could think was:

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

Ah, good old Groucho. Why can't we have something on TV like "You Bet Your Life" now? Probably because no one's like Groucho. A few more of my favorites:

"Outside of a dog, a book is Man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

"Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men, the other 999 follow women"

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception."

"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know."

Locavore

2007-11-16T20:45:00.001-05:00

The New Oxford American Dictionary selects one word that was added to its pages each year as the "word of the year," and this year the word is "locavore."

A locavore is a person who consumes locally produced food. This all comes back to the idea that the less miles your food has to travel to get to your plate, the less of an impact it has on the environment and the better off everyone will be.

Honestly, I think this is a great idea. I love it when I can get locally grown and produced food. Not only is it always fresher and better-tasting, it feels good to know that you're supporting the people who live near you. The environmental aspects are just icing.

Following this idea through to its logical conclusion, shouldn't we try to accomplish the same thing with everything we consume? That is, why are we purchasing clothing made in China from fabric made in India from cotton grown in Georgia? Your clothes might have literally traveled all the way around the world to get on your back. Even if it might save you a few bucks to buy that made-in-China shirt over one made locally, surely the costs in resources and labor to transport that shirt offset those few dollars!

Bellingham, Washington has tried to expand the idea of a local economy across the town (props to Marketplace for a great report). The idea is that there are so many resources in and around Bellingham that the town could be effectively self-sustaining: a return to the 18th and 19th century models of towns where everyone pulled together to provide for what's needed.

Doesn't that sound cool? Everything you need is right there next door. No more container ships, freight trains, and semis. It all comes from up the road apiece. Why did we ever look further afield?

Well, there are two good reasons. First, they have stuff we want that we don't have, and we have stuff they want that they don't have. Free market, do your stuff. Second, if something bad happens to us-- depression, drought, flood-- we can still get what we need to survive from those others. Marketplace once again did a great job of presenting the opposing view, but unfortunately Mr. Frum played down the benefits of the local economy. It's more than just about things tasting good. It really can be better for us and for the Earth. But that doesn't mean we abandon the global economy. We just need to use it sparingly. Get everything local that you can, and only search further afield if you have to.

Solutions almost always lie in a mean. We may have pursued the global economy too far, but that doesn't mean it's inherently bad.

Short Post

2007-11-15T23:54:00.000-05:00

A homework assignment, put off to the last minute, prevented me from posting until now. Those of you who have children younger than teens: this is what you have to look forward to.

So in the interests of getting my blog in for NaBloPoMo, I offer you these candidates for the Darwin awards:

Road rage certainly takes on a new meaning with these two. What could possibly drive two people to this extreme hatred that they put both of their lives in jeopardy just so they can beat the shit out of each other?

Honestly, sometimes I fear for the human race.

Who's on First?

2007-11-14T15:51:00.000-05:00

Interestingly enough, both political parties seem to be in the odd position of being lukewarm about the candidate leading their respective fields. On the one hand, Rudy Giuliani is leading the polls among Republican candidates, but many conservatives have doubts as to just how conservative he is. Hillary Clinton is leading the polls among Democratic candidates, but many liberals have begun to question exactly what her stances are and her methods of deflecting criticism during this campaign.

So the obvious question is, why are they leading the polls?

Honestly, I couldn't care less about the Republican side. I don't like any of them (although I've been greatly disturbed to find myself occasionally agreeing with things I hear Ron Paul say). Clinton worries me though. She seems to be very hard to pin down on many issues and seems to be more devoted to not appearing to rock the boat than actually affecting significant change.

NPR had very good discussion of the differences between Clinton's stance on health care now compared to her attempts to create universal coverage in her husband's first term. I took two things away from this article. First, Clinton has natural problems with compromise and working with others of differing views. To be clear, I'm not talking about compromise that results in a watered-down version of what you're trying to accomplish. I'm talking about giving in one area of less importance to gain what you want in the area of more importance. Second, Clinton seems to either have or be developing a tendency to be revisionist about her own history or record if it will keep her from having to take a stand that she might be challenged on. Frankly, that is precisely the behavior we've seen from the current administration.

Unfortunately, it doesn't end there. She seems to have become more and more slippery lately and the behavior of her campaign has begun to resemble the current administration more and more. From playing both sides of the fence in recent debates, to planting questions in a press conference (and before you believe the claim that she had no idea the question was planted: how did she know to call on that person?).

I'm seeing Hillary as more and more of a washed-out moderate and frankly I've had enough of that in the Democratic party. Apparently, I'm not alone. And the Republicans have the same issue on their side. Giuliani doesn't seem to have anything substantive to say about anything, and his social views and personal life are anathema to most conservatives.

Why isn't a more charismatic figure like Obama or a more qualified candidate like Richardson leading the Dems? Why isn't a true fiscal and social conservative like Huckabee or Paul leading the GOP? Unfortunately, I think we can lay this squarely at the feet of the press and how the campaign is being reported. All we hear is about how much money Giuliani and Clinton have raised, so those are the only names and facts that the public ever hears. Why doesn't the media report on something substantive?

I just don't want to get stuck with Clinton as the inevitable candidate. I want a choice. And I'm worried that if things continue like this we won't get one.

Music is My Radar

2007-11-13T22:11:00.000-05:00

The missus and I were out to eat tonight, and Barry Manilow's "Copacabana" came on. This song has two very different connotations for us. For me, I want to make fun of it by doing a silly little dance and try to remember the alternate lyrics I've heard for the song. For my wife it reminds her of the elementary school teacher who made her entire class sing his songs.

At any rate, this led to a discussion of musicians who appear to be gay. I assured her that Manilow was straight, although she still has her doubts. The conversation then veered to Liberace, and the inevitable point that anyone who thought Liberace was straight was either clueless, deluded, or both. Bringing things to a more contemporary period, we then discussed Elton John and finally Michael Stipe. Just as we reached this point in the conversation, "Copacabana" ended and to our utter shock "Radio Free Europe" came on.

You just can't make up coincidences like that.

From there the conversation drifted to how, for people of our generation, there isn't really any stigma attached to a performer being gay. When Elton John came out, as far as we were concerned it was no big deal and no big surprise. Michael Stipe was so annoyed that people would even ask that he tried for a long time not to dignify the question with an answer.

But then my wife said that really we are so accepting because of the music we listen to. That is, that we're progressives because we listen to progressive music. I said, "So if I grew up listening to country music, I'd be a Republican?"

Hmm... there might be something to that.

Monday, Monday

2007-11-12T21:34:00.000-05:00

Monday is my night to work. Those of us in public service at the library who work at a location that's open until 9:00 typically work one night each week. At the smaller locations that are open until 8:00 people typically work two nights a week.

Honestly, I'd take the two nights again to not have to work until 9:00.

You wouldn't think that one hour would make a difference, but it does. That hour from 8-9 provides crucial wind-down time. If you get off at 9:00, you don't get unwound until 10 or later, and then you can't really get to bed until 11, which means you're not asleep until 12, and then you have to get up at 6:00 the next morning despite the fact that you've gotten one less hour of sleep than normal.

It sucks.

Another danger of the 9:00 night is that you start at noon. This means that you think you can get all sorts of stuff done before work. That may be true, but you pay the price later when you start crashing around 6 because, well, aren't you supposed to be off work now?

Today was a typical Monday. After getting the stepkid to school I took advantage of the late start to program the new automated bell-ringing system at the church, which took me right up to lunch. Then off to work, but unfortunately it was destined to be one of those "sit in front of the computer all afternoon trying to get work done by e-mail" days. Since I'm normally a fairly energetic person, those sorts of days just take it right out of me.

Then after dinner I get some public time, but since it's Veteran's Day everyone assumes we're closed so the place is dead. So what do I do? Start moving the furniture, of course. Our circulation desk is impossible to work with under our new "let's actually go talk to people instead of sitting behind a desk all day" customer service model. I've been trying to get it arranged better since June. But at least it looks we'll get to remodel next year. In the meantime I'm moving computers and monitors and storage all over the place trying to make it accessible from both sides of the absolutely monolithic desk. Yeah, good luck with that one...

Now I'm back home and I'm tired but too keyed up to go to sleep and I've got a blog entry to write. So you, dear reader, get stuck listening to me complain about it.

Oddly, that makes me feel a little better.

Spamalot

2007-11-11T20:45:00.000-05:00

Like most major organizations, my library uses a spam filter to keep spam e-mail from even getting to my inbox. However, on the off chance that a real e-mail might get caught, we're sent a digest several times a day of all the spam that's been caught by the filter.

It's absolutely astounding to me how much of this stuff is out there. Each of my digests routinely has 15 blocked e-mails. What I can't figure out is why people keep sending this junk. I mean, even my super-basic, free Mozilla Thunderbird has a spam filter. How many people are still getting fooled by these things?

And of course, who would think these things are real anyway? Who says, "Oh, I just got an e-mail from Kiriharan Loies that says 'May i ask why you're so unhappy with your dick?' I think I'm going to read that." Or who thinks that a subject line that says "Shock action! Vi@gra free! no Money!!" is actually going to send you Viagra for free, even if you do want it?

For a while I thought that maybe people keep sending these things because enough people are stupid enough to open them that it makes it worth their whiles. Now I'm starting to think that it really is only malicious hackers who keep sending it. They really are just trying to make a better virus for the sake of making it, and they don't care who they bring down in the process. I mean, can you imagine how much more bandwidth would be available if there wasn't all this spam floating around?

I have to say though, that these make for some entertaining reading. I haven't seen any of the really good "English is my second language" ones lately; but seeing how many different ways they can suggest that you need a bigger penis, or need viagra, or need software, or stocks, or watches, is fun all on it's own. From "1, 2 oh no 3 orgasms! WOW you can have them too" to "Beat her womb with your new big rod" (ouch!) to "This is not a fly by night company" (if you have to say it...). And of course, the senders. Who can forget Lenore Jackman McCracken? Or Guadalupe Sutherland? Or Devin "Powderpuff" Maldonado?

Maybe if you actually open these things, you deserve what you get...

Random Quote Tag

2007-11-10T20:13:00.000-05:00

Caterwauller apparently thinks I've gotten too serious lately and tagged me with the random quote meme. Okay, fine. Maybe I have. I guess I feel like I actually have to say something meaningful for NaBloPoMo, which if you think about it is pretty silly considering the name for a start.

I was going to try for a little more light-hearted piece until I read what I got tagged with, which apparently requires a response. So here's what you have to do: take the book you're currently reading, turn to page 161, and read the 5th sentence. Why that particular sentence? No idea. Maybe it's to ensure that only books of more than 161 pages are included? After that you pass the task on to 5 other bloggers. Wait, do I know 5 bloggers...?

Like most people who work in a library, I'm reading three books right now. First the book that I actually want to be reading, The Savage Garden by Mark Mills. I've actually recommended the book to several people, including the entire city of Columbus, but have yet to finish it myself. Maybe I should stop blogging... Anyway, everyone's said that it's great, so apparently I've mastered the librarian's trick of knowing enough about a book to recommend it without actually reading it. So, page 161, sentence 5: "I'm not screwing her, Harry."

Hmm... better get reading on that one!

Next, the book I started reading when I didn't have The Savage Garden with me at work: The Crime Writer by Gregg Hurwitz. Another promising book that I haven't gotten to yet. ::sigh:: So, page 161, sentence 5: "But maybe he was also ordinary like the rest of us." Not quite as good as the last one. Ah well.

Finally, what I'm reading before I go to bed and am too tired to read a normal book: Gotham Central: Dead Robin, a Batman graphic novel. I grew up as a Marvel kid, so the DC comics always throw me a bit. A friend orders these for me though, and I do enjoy the Vertigo imprint, which is a DC company. So I'm giving some DC a try. Thus far I only really like the Batman ones. So, page 161... well, there's only one sentence on this page, but there are 5 frames, so I'll give you the 5th frame: "...then my husband has died for nothing..." Good note to finish on.

So, on to my fellow bloggers: LARC, Guppybork, The Well-Dressed Librarian himself (maybe now he'll start blogging again instead of typing resumes), and rather than bug some random blogger I'll tag Cat back. I know it seems as though I'm one short, but LARC and Cat have two blogs, so it's really six.

So there.

Are We to Live or Perish Forever?

2007-11-09T19:44:00.000-05:00

I've been dimly aware of the history of Pakistan, with most of my knowledge coming from a combination of Gandhi and The Jewel in the Crown. As excellent as both of those works are, Pakistan is treated as somewhat secondary to the story. A sort of, "Oh yeah, this country started too" sidebar in the story of India's independence.

As always, there's more to it than that. Both of those films do a good job of indicating that there was a push for an independent Muslim nation in that area of the world long before the British left. My title today is taken from a seminal work by Choudhary Rahmat Ali written in 1933 describing such a state. A sort of Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" for the Indian subcontinent. What is the most remarkable to me is how much sense the essay makes. We have a picture of Gandhi as a sort of Abraham Lincoln figure, desperately trying to hold the nation together. But there really wasn't that much cohesiveness to begin with. Add to that the distrust between Christians and Muslims that had been growing for 500 years and the creation of a Muslim state seems inevitable.

But even from these early days it was clear that this wasn't going to be easy, and that it wasn't going to be handled well. From the massive relocation of people to their separate states, uprooting families and turning half a nation into refugees; to an almost instantaneous war with India and tensions that continue to this day.

Sadly, Pakistan hasn't done much to help itself out through all this. A string of military dictators leading the country spelled by corrupt administrations has left Pakistan as a huge question mark between a highly unstable area and an area that while poor seems to be relatively stable and have opportunities for growth.

The events of 9/11 only complicated the situation, as the United States needed Pakistan's help to root out the Taliban in Afghanistan. This meant relying on the military dictator currently in power. Once the war in Iraq was started, the U.S. effectively had to turn the fight against the Taliban over to the Pakistanis entirely. This may not have been the best decision, given that there is a strong undercurrent of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan, and Musharraf came to power through the Islamic parties.

Now Musharraf has again suspended the Constitution and placed the country under an outright military dictatorship. Not only does this spoil any chance of even quasi-democratic elections, it once again opens up the possibility of nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan. It also puts us in the awkward yet all too familiar position of supporting a military dictatorship because it supposedly serves the interests of national security. I can't help but wonder if we had focused all our attention on Afghanistan and left Iraq alone, would Musharraf have been in a position to do this now?

At any rate, the purpose of this entry isn't to say anything definitive about the situation, but just to show how important this is. To really begin to understand what is involved in this, I recommend today's commentary on NPR by Mohsin Hamid, as well as his most excellent book The Reluctant Fundamentalist. These are much more dangerous times in Pakistan than you might think.

In Defense of Cycling II

2007-11-08T19:32:00.000-05:00

I was extremely disappointed that after my last impassioned defense of cycling the Tour descended into an even greater morass than in the previous year. But regardless of the mess created by bastards like Rasmussen (Honestly, I really never did like him-- arrogant prick) and misdirected overachievers like Vinokourov, I stand by what I said. I think that Cycling has turned a corner, and that the majority of professional riders are clean.

Unfortunately all you ever hear about are the ones who mess up, and screw up the sport for the rest of us. I've begun to suspect that Fuentes and the other folks involved with the Operation Puerto scandal were targeting pro riders, and that the "papers" that keep turning up with the names of seemingly every single pro rider with a shot at the big time were just Puerto's files on who they wanted to nab. All of this just serves to give the sport a black eye.

But it's still a beautiful sport, and it's still worth preserving and fighting for. I was thrilled to hear Linus Gerdemann vociferously denounce doping after a thrilling stage 7 win in the Tour where he hugged his top tube on the descent from the Col de la Colombiere to minimize every last possible bit of his profile and shave milliseconds off his time.

Gerdemann represents the new generation of cyclists, and I don't doubt that all of them are sick of doping taking away from the glory of their sport.

A couple months ago Bicycling magazine published a wonderful article by David Millar, who had previously been found guilty of doping, served his suspension, and is now back. This article was moving not only as the testament of a reformed doper, but also simply as an homage to the beauty and power of the sport. I was pleased to see that Bicycling has put it on the web, and I sincerely hope that you all might take a moment to read it and maybe begin to understand why some of us are so passionate about the sport.

Close But No Cigar

2007-11-07T13:31:00.001-05:00

You can be forgiven if you missed the blip in the news cycle late yesterday regarding the greatest debate that never happened in the Senate. Republicans very nearly forced the Senate to a debate on whether or not to impeach Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Amazingly enough, the event that I mentally refer to as "Liberation" was foiled at the last minute by the party that I have been for some time assuming shares my interests, namely the Democrats. Here I was merrily voting along, thinking that the Democrats were a) liberal, b) opposed to the Bush White House, and c) not idiots, when suddenly they ran from the very debate I've been itching for.

I suppose I could be charitable and think that since this wasn't on their terms maybe they didn't think they'd have enough time to put a case together. But in my heart of hearts I know that's not the case. I know that they just don't have the politcal cojones to force this administration to face its sins. Yet again the Republicans were able to run the table. Even the White House jumped on the opportunity to make it look like the Senate was avoiding "real" work while talking about impeachment. Never mind the fact that in reality it's this administration's pigheaded determination to not budge from its positions that is keeping "real" work from getting done.

I can't help but wonder if this is really what the framers of the Constitution thought would happen if it came to impeachment. Did they realize that the political repercussions around impeachment would be so severe that it would only be pursued in the worst possible case? Or did they fail to realize that the message could be spun against the party seeking impeachment in such a way as to render the tool meaningless?

Debating the impeachment of this reckless, stubborn, ill-informed, deceptive, misleading, and close-minded administration should be a priority for this congress. As much as I look forward to January 20th, 2009, I would have hoped we could make it come sooner.

Write Off

2007-11-06T07:58:00.001-05:00

So as we all tuned in to John Stewart, expecting to hear the requisite jokes about Election- Day-tomorrow-but-we're-not- voting-for-president-yet, instead we hear "Happy Halloween!"

That's right, the Writer's Guild of America is on strike, and so we head into the barren wasteland that is reruns. That's okay with me though. I'm a big fan of Unions generally, and in this case the writers are definitely getting shafted.

Writers have always been the red-headed stepchild of the motion picture industry. In reality nothing gets done without them, but for some reason studios have always treated writers as essentially unnecessary. I think that the majority of studio heads figure that worst case scenario they can yank someone off the street to slap together their latest project.

This is really a very strange attitude, though, and seems to me to be a fairly recent development. Prior to the arrival of motion pictures, writers were definitely the most important part of any production. At the end of a successful play, the crowd doesn't chant "Producer! Producer!" or even "Director! Director!" No, they chant "Author! Author!" We all remember William Shakespeare's name, but who knows the name of the Lord Chamberlain who was the troupe's sponsor?

For some reason with the advent of motion pictures suddenly the producers and directors were thrust to the front. Have you ever wondered who those schmucks were who got up to accept the Best Picture award at the Oscars? Those are the producers of the film. Essentially, the bankroll. Even the Best Director gets his award closer to the end than the writers. But without the script there wouldn't have been anything to direct or produce! Why do they get all the glory?

And now the writers are getting shafted again as the industry changes. Just like the music industry, motion pictures can't figure out what to do with the Internet. All that anyone seems certain of is that there's money to be made, and the studios don't want to cut the writers in on it.

But if the writers can't make their money through the industry, maybe they'll start self-producing. I think the main reason producers became so important was that it used to be really expensive to produce a professional-looking film. Now there are lots of quality films that are being produced for (relatively) little. If the writers can make as much or more working for themselves as for the studios, they'll do it.

All of this brings to mind the origins of the industry. One of the earliest motion picture cameras was invented by Thomas Edison. Edison was extremely possessive of his inventions, and held many patents and rights to the technology that he exercised with an iron fist around his home base of New York. Because of the excessive fees he charged for use of his patents, many early filmmakers sought somewhere they could make their films away from Edison's influence. Hollywood provided that refuge. Note that New York is no longer considered the center of the film making universe.

So I'm with you, my brothers! Stand fast against the Hollywood Hegemony!

Protest Song

2007-11-05T08:44:00.000-05:00

My uncle was in college in the late 60's, and did the whole college-protest thing. He had a VW microbus and was in a rock band that actually pressed a 45. I've still got a copy around here somewhere. When I was in college in the early 90's and there was something of a garage-band revival going on I played it for my cohorts at the college radio station, and the music director liked the cut so much that we actually put it on rotation and got it charted in our listing with CMJ.

Sadly, we're once again stuck in a nowhere war that no one seems to know how to stop. So it's time to bring back the protest song. My uncle rewrote the lyrics to that A-side cut, and my cousin who's in video production put together a video for it.

The cool part to me is that since the song is so clearly 60's in style this sounds like an old-school protest song. So, props to Chris and Mark, and I hope the rest of you enjoy it.

Hizzoner

2007-11-04T18:03:00.000-05:00

Election Day is Tuesday, and while the rest of the nation focuses on an election that will take place a year from now, we here in Cowtown actually have some stuff to vote on, namely City Council, the School Board, and the Mayor.

Our School Board is run by a bunch of very well-meaning people, some of whom I've met and most of whom I like. My problems with the city's schools lie much more at the feet of the State than the District. Now, maybe they could be doing more, but I don't think anyone else is in a position to do more than those who currently hold the seats. So that's a no-brainer.

Similarly, City Council by and large does a decent job. About the only thing they could do better would be to abolish themselves and go to Ward representation. But again, in the current state, the folks who are there are doing a good job so I'll keep them in place.

As you can see, I'm not overly enthused about those races. My attitude is basically "eh." However Mayor Mike Coleman is a great guy. And he's doing a great job. On top of that his opponent, Bill Todd, is one of the biggest assholes I've ever seen in politics. His mere presence in the campaign is dragging absolutely everything down and stressing out the residents of this city. In the old days, I would've led the group to tar and feather him and ride him out of town on a rail.

What's he done? Well, for a start he can't say enough about how horrible the schools are. First, he's not running for the school board. Second, the schools aren't horrible, they're underfunded and suffering from bad press like what Todd's spewing. Finally, he owns a stake in a company that runs charter schools, which are essentially competing with the public schools (and still doing a crappy job of educating kids).

As if that wasn't bad enough, he's been spouting about how dangerous Columbus is (Please see yesterday's post for my views on this matter). However, he really took this to new heights with a radio ad featuring the the sound of a woman being raped while talking about how Columbus' rape rate is highest in the nation. Utterly tactless, offensive, and completely ignores the possibility that Columbus' stats are high because we actually report accurately.

Then on the other hand we have Mike Coleman. I was out with a bunch of friends at a spot in the Short North last night when we hear, "Excuse me, I just wanted to say 'hi,'" and turn around to see Mayor Coleman stopping by to chat. Yes, I know it's campaigning, and yes I saw his handler standing right behind me. But he stopped and talked to us, and one of my friends who chairs a political action group engaged him for a bit about what the mayor's already done for them.

I assume Bill Todd was out looking for rapes to record.

Fire Fox

2007-11-03T16:39:00.000-04:00

I really hate Fox News. No, REALLY hate. And I try not hate anyone or anything. There is very little in the world that I hate. Fox News is one of the few.

I know, this seething, blinding rage that boils in my blood for Rupert Murdoch and all things Fox-y is extremely un-Christian. And I will pray for forgiveness on Sunday. But for now, I hate Fox News. There is something about blindly reporting whatever opinions support your world view as fact that makes me mad. But this? This is right up there with Jerry Falwell blaming 9/11 on "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians": totally invented and designed only to scare the bejeezus out of people.

Ever since I saw Bowling for Columbine I've been hyper-aware of the tendency of news, especially local news, to focus on the horrific instead of the informative. And every May and November every report that begins "Your child may be in danger" sets my teeth on edge.

By and large we live in a safe society. The things that we really should fear are poverty, racism, and the loss of civil liberties. But instead for whatever inane reason we focus on kids killing kids, drugs, pedophiles, break-ins, and terrorists. C'mon people! 3,000 people died in 9/11. Over 40,000 people die each year in car accidents. Why are we so obsessed with terrorists?

Or maybe all the bad drivers who cause fatal accidents are terrorists! That's it! They're going to burn down California and kill of the rest of us with bad driving! Quick, call Dick Cheney! We've got to invade Detroit!

What Street Do YOU Live On?

2007-11-02T18:05:00.000-04:00

From this week's The Other Paper:

Ah, dear old Columbus. We've got a substantial enough Gay community near downtown that the presence of an actual "Gay Street" in downtown Columbus is always cause for amusement. Nevermind that the street was named for some family named Gay. You can even take it further and point out that Gay Street is the East-West street between Broad and Long.

Just so you know I'm not making this up:

My favorite of all time though, was when someone called into a local radio station's rapid-fire "Taking Calls" segment (basically people call in and spout nonsense for 5 seconds) and said "I was standing at the corner of Gay and High, and I thought to myself, 'Yes I am!'"

We Are the Champions

2007-11-01T20:32:00.000-04:00

Okay, I admit it. I postponed this post until today so it would count for NaBloPoMo.

That's right folks, the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions for the second time in 3 years. Sure beats 86 years. But it really was a lot different this time. In 2004 I stayed up to watch every game of the Pennant and the Series, sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time. This time (admittedly because I had a couple very busy weeks) I couldn't stay up past the bottom of the 8th for games 2-4. In 2004 I called my brother and my Dad after both the Pennant win and the Series win (I couldn't get through to Boston after the Series win in 2004). This time I still haven't checked in to talk about the games.

So I've been trying to figure out why. Is it because the 2007 team was so much better than the 2004 team, so that victory seems inevitable? Is it because we didn't have to fight the Yankees for the Pennant? Is it because the NL West was so atrocious that there was no doubt that the AL team would win, whoever it was?

An NPR story made a good point. Kids in their early teens now only know the Sox as winners. They don't have the backstory of my generation, watching Clemens' wild pitches leading to his benching and the inevitable slow roller down the first base line. They don't have the disappointment of game 7 in the 1975 series or Bucky Dent's homer 3 years later from the generation before. So the long trial is over. We're just another team now.

Well, not really. I still love the team for the stories, the players past and present, and of course the beloved park. No other park is like Fenway, and no other park will ever be like Fenway. Only at Fenway can you be sure that the entire crowd will rise not just for the last strike of the game, but for a significant strike in the middle of the game. No other park will give the recognition of a good play that goes against our team (grudging though it may be). And no other park has all the wonderful nooks, crannies, and big-ass wall that make for so many interesting plays.

Postscript: The Onion had not one, but two great stories about the series. First, in the "laugh out loud" category:

Colorado Rockies: 'What The Fuck Just Happened?'

Second in the "what the fuck was he thinking?" category:

Slow Month In Baseball Saved By A-Rod

I was completely pissed off when the Yankees stole A-Rod out from under the Red Sox in 2004, but given his behavior since we are well rid of him. This last stunt is just one more thing proving what a self-centered bastard he (or at least his agent) is.

NaBloPoMo

2007-10-31T07:27:00.000-04:00

Well folks, I've decided to take a run at NaBloPoM o. I know, that probably doesn't sound like a very good idea, given my track record so far on trying to post at least once every week. Posting once a day for the entire month of November is going to be quite the challenge. Oddly enough, it seems to be some strange sense of guilt over not posting weekly that has driven me to try this.

Man, I've got issues.

In principle though, I think it's a great idea. Let's get as many people as we can to write something once a day for a whole month. For all our problems getting kids to read and write, we're still the most literate society that the world has ever seen. Things like this can only serve to help that trend.

And you really can't underestimate the power of the Internet in allowing this to happen. The Internet is very quickly becoming the great leveler. I see kids from all sorts of cultural and societal backgrounds in the library daily using the Internet for all sorts of things with no difficulty at all. A lot of these are kids who will never have Internet access at home, but they're still perfectly comfortable navigating the online world. As long as we continue to provide open access and make strong efforts to eliminate the digital divide, this will continue to grow.

I know a lot of people in my profession take issue with providing Internet access, and somehow see the kids playing Runescape or hanging out on MySpace for three hours as a waste of time and resources. But think about it. The kids have to read and write to use those sites. Maybe grammar and spelling go out the window, but they're communicating. And who are we to say that grammar and spelling have gone out the window? Maybe they're just changing. After all, look at what's already made it into our common parlance from the Net: lol, omg, pwn, w00t... heck, even blog!

So let's all get over ourselves and enjoy the free-for-all. Happy NaBloPoMo everyone!

Live Blogging

2007-10-27T22:20:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about live blogging the World Series tonight. Not because I'm a baseball expert-- I know many people who are much more knowledgeable about baseball than I am. I just thought it would be fun.

So I was going to start out critiquing Francona's decision to field Ortiz. Mainly because Youkilis has shown that he can hit well, Papi seems to have been a bit of a slump lately, and I have worries about his ability to field with his numerous aches and pains. I was also worried about Ellsbury leading off.

Well, my worries about Ellsbury were quickly settled. The kid's amazing. I can't believe that he's only just come up. But for the first two innings it looked like I was right about Papi. Plus Fogg was looking unhittable, and we seemed to finally have a game on our hands.

Then the third comes along. Not only was I clearly way off base to worry about Francona's lineup, but what looked like it might be a game got blown wide open. I do feel a little bad for the Rockies, but the Sox are just playing really good ball. It seems like whenever the opposing pitcher starts off ahead of them, after a couple innings they figure out how to hit the guy and it's all over. Back that up with good defensive play, and you've got a Series.

So the lesson here? I'm not a baseball expert (which we already knew), and if I'm going to try live blogging I should probably stick to competitive crochet.

Black Sabbath

2007-10-24T20:42:00.000-04:00

I would not describe myself as a Black Sabbath fan. I definitely don't fit the profile of your average Ozzfest attendee. And frankly I have very little patience for that demographic. I just don't think that they appreciate music.

Yes, I am a snob.

But even though I'm not a fan, I do enjoy a lot of the music that Black Sabbath put out in the 70's. You have to admire rock music that can be transcribed for marching band and still sound cool.

But seriously, it's remarkable how many of their songs like "War Pigs" have entered our cultural consciousness, and their staying power is phenomenal. The fact that a several current bands have covered the song is a testament to that. One of my personal favorites is the Dresden Dolls' version, which I think they only do live. You gotta love a "Brechtian punk cabaret" duo covering a song like that on keyboard and drums.

This morning on the drive in I was listening to Cake's cover of "War Pigs" and, mainly because John McRea has better diction than Ozzy, I found myself really listening to the words-- harsh, brutal, and to the point. Unfortunately, the message of the song is just as applicable today as it was when it was written. So I present for you Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." Think about it.

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death's construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh Lord yeah

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight
They leave that all to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait 'till their judgment day comes

Now in darkness world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgment God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
Oh Lord yeah

Hiya Cuz!

2007-10-17T21:19:00.000-04:00

Ah, the oh-so delicious irony of it all. This is why I love America.

That's right folks, Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are cousins. Eighth cousins, granted, but still cousins nonetheless. Naturally, this immediately led to all sorts of silliness over the fact that Obama is black and, shockingly, Dick Cheney is white. At least NPR did point out the irony that many black families appear to hide the white roots in their tree in much the same way that white families try to hide the black roots in their trees. For Bog's sake people, grow up! I would've thought that Star Trek had long ago pointed out how silly all this blathering about skin color was.
As long as we're on pop culture references, this brings to mind the constant references to Cheney's apparent resemblance to a particularly famous evil sidekick. Now that we've got the family relationship, all sorts of possibilities come up...

Okay, I'm done now.

But doesn't this point out exactly what is so great about the United States? Two men, so different in both their world view and in their appearance, are actually cousins? How can any unyielding, stereotyping, prejudice-filled, evil soul continue to stand in the face of flat out proof that America is the great leveler? That at the end of the day the one who seemed to be our greatest enemy is, in fact, our cousin?

Seventh Inning Stretch

2007-10-07T21:29:00.001-04:00

I am tired of "God Bless America." It was always a pretty stupid song, better suited to being belted by a bunch of 7-year-olds at the school concert than professionals. But ever since 9/11, the song's prevalence has been especially annoying.

I will admit, I got chills when Congress spontaneously sang the song on the steps of the Capitol the day after the attacks. But that was because here were the leaders of our country, brought to this place where the best thing they could think to do was to sing a song of their childhood about how America would survive. That was great.

But why are we still hearing it now? Years have past, and we should have moved on. I mean, we still sing "The Star Spangled Banner" before sporting events, why belabor the issue?

As far as I'm concerned, the worst part is that it's taken the place of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at the seventh inning stretch. First of all, way to kill the mood. We're supposed to be enjoying some lighthearted fun, and then we go all serious about the country. What the hell? I'm at the ballpark to enjoy the game, not get preached to.

Worse than that, now standing up isn't "stretching," it's a sign of respect. And apparently you also now have to remove your hat and put your hand over your heart for the song. I thought that was only for the National Anthem. If you're going to replace the National Anthem, at least replace it with a decent song, like say, "America the Beautiful"?

Please, end the madness. Let us enjoy baseball again. Let's all remember Harry Carey hanging out the press box half-drunk, and sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."