(09:33 pm) Warning: Foul Mouths Ahead

     As soon as a conservative pops his head up for the first time in various library groups there are some who are quick to try and chop him down. Suddenly the conservative is expected to have explanations for all policies and philosophies related to conservatives and/or Republicans. Any comments remotely hostile or even just defensive in attitude automatically label him as just one of those ugly red staters.

     Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, as long as you carry their water for them, you can get away with throwing out things like this little bit shared on IFFORUM:

John Smith wrote:

> If you decide to decline my offer, then at least
> you should sleep well tonight knowing that men wearing
> black facemasks and carrying AK-47s yelling “Allahu
> Akbar” over here are proud of you and are forever
> indebted to you for advancing their cause of terror.
> While you ponder this, I’ll get back to the real
> “die-in” over here. I don’t mind.

> > -Marc Fencil, a senior majoring in political
> science, criminology and Spanish, is currently serving
> in Iraq.

Now that is one Ugly American Asshole who I hope doesn't come back from Iraq in one piece.

I wish the Iraqi resistance good aiming if Mr. Fencil ever enters their sights.

Fuck the troops!

John Jones

     Names changed to protect the innocent and the retarded.

  (09:17 pm) Life Is Good

      ALA honors Mrs. Laura Bush for service to libraries.

     Meanwhile SRRT Members throw hissy fits:

This gratuitous award to Laura Bush is a deplorable abuse of our membership's confidence and a betrayal of our principles. The bestowal of this award is nothing but undignified sucking-up to a representative of one of the most anti-free-speech, anti-intellectual regimes in this country's recent history. Laura Bush manipulates her connection to librarianship only to advance the agenda of an administration which is hostile to virtually all we, ALA, stand for. We should be MINIMIZING her tenuous connection to our profession , not commemorating it! What's wrong with you people!!??
Mark Rosenzweig
ALA CPimcilor at large

Sunday April 10, 2005

  (09:45 pm) Sin City

     I went and saw it on Friday. I've never actually read any of the graphic novels though I'm certainly familiar with the topic and the creator, Frank Miller. Miller was also the man behind The Dark Knight Returns, a reimagining of Batman later in his life. This is considered the beginning of the grim and gritty phase of Batman that is still ongoing now since the 80's. Hopefully we're almost out of it. I don't hold it against Miller for the original story but wish it hadn't born as many children as it had. Suddenly every hero in the comics, the ones we were supposed to look up to, had to be dragged down into the worst parts of being human. Not just shades of gray but one big sheet *of* gray. (Next time someone tells you there are shades of gray, tell them yes but that two of those shades are black and white.) A fog is not where heroes belong, its not why characters like Batman or Superman were created. Sin City is a different story.

     Sin City was meant to be a fog. No black, no white. Sometimes close but never quite really. As much a section of Hell The Farm was, even the good cop in the story knew it was there. Sin City was created to be what it was, a soulless place not meant for long life. The movie takes you on a tour of it. There are certainly fascinating characters there. Marv will always be the first one you hear about, and rightfully so. He's a force of nature. A hero but also an animal. You cheer for him the same way you'd cheer for White Fang or Old Yeller. The hookers of Old Town are a wolf pack defending their territory. The voiceovers are far from being an annoying Marty Stouffer but they might as well be describing the same thing, animals in the wild. Its a brutal place and you hope there's no place like it but you know there are some that are close. Its not for the faint of heart but its good at what is, grim, grit, and all gray.

     Just a small addition. I don't doubt that this will end up in many many library collections. Just a warning, this movie is why the 'R' rating was invented. The sex is an afterthought but the violence is beginning to end. If you have a no-restrictions policy on minors checking out videos, if you can sit down and watch this movie and still keep that policy, then your building is as soulless as Sin City.

  (09:30 pm) National Poetry Month

     I got a reminder over at Norma's. This I can get into a bit. I know a whopping whole two poems by heart. Bits and pieces of others and a few songs, assuming those count. The two I know are Poe's El Dorado and Byron's She Walks In Beauty. Its good for the memory to have something to try and recall on occasion. Good for the spirit too if its something you like.

     I'll share a short one that I should know but always get the wording slightly off:

If you don't believe in dragons,
It is curiously true
That the dragons you disparage
Choose to not believe in you.

     If you can get your hands on Jack Prelutsky's The Dragons Are Singing Tonight I also highly recommend I Am Boom!

  (09:23 pm) National Library Week

     Ever feel like you're too busy to care?

     Every year it just seems to creep on you and then suddenly "Oh yeah! What are we supposed to do now?"

     "Oh yeah. The same thing we do every week."

     Only thing we're missing is two mice and a plan.