Happy Halloween, Folks

Giant super scary party this morning. LOTS of children waving their creepy spiders they made from pipe cleaners and googly eyes.

We read Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin and Go Away, Big Green Monster! and everyone's Halloween favorite, Bark George.

There were cookies and candy and lots of fun stuff and afterwards I was very pleased with the situation until later in the afternoon when the GSUSy "I don't celebrate Halloween" types arrived to suck the fun out of my life. (yes that was one sentence) But whatever I hope they all get in to Heaven someday.. so I don't have to deal with them anymore.

Halloween link: Cities of the Dead

Oh by the way it's basketball season

And we won!

Good news: Darrell Armstrong played well.
Bad news: Jamaal Magloire did not.

Outlook: You know, I really don't know where the bench scoring is going to come from for this team. I had high hopes for Courtney Alexander this season, but he's out for the year with an achilles injury so it's going to be harder. Also it turns out that the Hornets' owners have been overstating their ticket sales and attendance numbers. I still have serious doubts about the team's staying power in New Orleans.

Bonus: Hornets owner, George Shinn fashions himself some sort of literary individual. Check out some of his output and tell me what you think. My personal favorite is Good Morning, Lord.

Does Wal-Mart suck?

Yup, Wal Mart is just plain EVIL

Wal-Mart has set a trap for us by pitting consumers against workers with the myth that living wages are incompatible with affordable goods. The truth is, in the long run, poverty wages undermine the health of our workers, our families, our communities and, ultimately, our economy.

And it really doesn't have to be this way. I understand how convenient it is to shop at Wal-Mart. I do it myself. But the truth is that the convenience and economic advantages of shopping there do not have to come at the expense of the dignity and livelihood of working people. Wal-Mart simply chooses to do it this way. Until people are willing to bring pressure on them to do otherwise, they will undoubtedly continue to implement this strategy.

Beetle Update

Just to clear this up... here it is from the PETA list.

Carmine. Cochineal. Carminic Acid.
Red pigment from the crushed female cochineal insect. Reportedly, 70,000 beetles must be killed to produce one pound of this red dye. Used in cosmetics, shampoos, red apple sauce, and other foods (including red lollipops and food coloring). May cause allergic reaction. Alternatives: beet juice (used in powders, rouges, shampoos; no known toxicity); alkanet root (from the root of this herb-like tree; used as a red dye for inks, wines, lip balms, etc.; no known toxicity. Can also be combined to make a copper or blue coloring). (See Colors.)

mmmmm...Carmine

Is it journalism or advertising?

As local tv stations search for new ways to cut their production costs, it's hard to tell anymore.
Each year, thousands of such VNRs are distributed by corporations, government agencies, non-profit organizations and even members of Congress who have discovered it's easier to manage the news when you actually produce it yourself. Thus the ever-growing deluge of expensively-produced, news-like video reports crafted, often by ex-journalists, to look and sound like actual telejournalism.

Also see Stauber's book (not available at NOPL)

They Must Think We're Stupid..... Oh Yeah, They're Right

I really don't have anything to add to this. It's just your President lying to you again.

The Pumpkins are safe to eat.... just not very tasty

For those of you who are completely baffled by the nature of this post, please content yourselves with remaining so. You really don't want to know.

So check this out.

Feel free to purchase some.

I see no mention of beetles anywhere.

Today's Wacky Reference Question

Forty-Something Male:"Y'all got any books on tape measures? You know.. how to read them and stuff?"

Sometimes I gotta wonder.

On the other hand... This information is indeed available.
Introducing the tape measure.
See the three important points here
Consult your carpentry textbook and open to the relevant unit
If you follow the instructions correctly, you can use your tape measure to find a champion tree!
Or create a labyrinth
Or make some pants
Or find out how fat you are
You, too, can be a reference librarian. Just try not to misspell Google.

Red Sox Pull Grady Little

Much like Grady's indecision on Martinez in game 7, this move came too late.

Blog Item of the Morning

Josh Marshall is running an item about a Kentucky Republican Party scheme to intimidate minority voters. One of the most underreported aspects of the 2000 Florida recount crisis was the extent to which the Republican party in that state had worked to exclude minorities from the voting rolls. Continuing efforts at this sort of thing remain underreported today. The glossing over of these issues by the mainstream press is irresponsible to say the least. I believe it stems from the journalist's neurotic fear of honest coverage of controversial issues being seen as evidence of some kind of bias. This lazy journalism perpetuates a notion that perfect social justice was achieved sometime in the mid twentieth century and is no longer a point of contention in today's enlightened society. The result is a chronically apathetic public perfectly permissive of the worst sort of behavior.

Liberry Sunday

Sundays are weird around here. Library traffic increases as church services wind down. This morning, on the way in, I found myself sitting at the light behind a vanity plate which read TRYGSUS. Such is life out here in the fundamentalist outskirts of an otherwise livable city. Coming out here to work often feels like visiting another planet. Lots of GSUS on the minds of the folks. As a result, I tend to rack up a lot of blessings. This or that church goer is always wishing me a "blessed day." This always makes me feel uncomfortable. There is something in that salutation that carries an air of superiority.. I've begun to consider it an insult. Add to all this the fact that there is nothing decent to eat, there is nowhere to get a cup of coffee, and no one out here seems to notice if the Saints are playing and you begin to feel as though this little backwater burb is not really part of New Orleans.
Sunday is also homework day. That is to say that the local school children are frantically finishing their weekend assignments. That is to say that the local school children are frantically trying to begin large projects that were due last Friday and complete them during the four hours that the library is open on Sunday. That is to say that the parents of the local school children are actually here without said children and are frantically trying to complete these projects for them. That is to say that said parents are not quite so interested in these projects themselves and are much more interested in bullying the library staff into doing much of the work for them. This is why we need GSUS to bless us so much.

Is anyone even watching the World Series?

One would think so considering it's dead even after four games. According to msnbc, the answer is yes. However, this story compares the ratings of this year's series to last season, when next to nobody cared.... at least nobody who doesn't live in California and, to be honest, who cares what those people think. Their new governor is a Nazi muscleman. According to this Nielsen report, the series ratings really can't touch those for the LCS, when the good guys were still playing. And then, of course, there's the most telling statistic of all and that is I can't even pay much attention to this crap. OK ok so the game was actually on my tv set last night, but the thing went 12 innings and I hardly noticed. I believe I am almost sufficiently brain dead for basketball season to begin.

Ok and no I'm not doing it

But I know some people who will go ga ga for this shit. Write your own novel in a month. I'm thinking about hiring a thousand monkeys and a thousand typewriters to see if they can't accomplish as much as the eventual winner of this contest.... or at least give us something on the level of Nora Roberts.

Hello?.. Anyone?... Is this thing on??

Right.. ok I think we're ready to go here. This will be a lot better. I have more space to add links and other such crap. Also this form will allow/force me to work more directly with the HTML so I won't feel like such a freaking newbie after a while. Plus I think the lighting in here is much more flattering on me don't you? Of course the aol stuff is still up. I think I'll leave it there in the interest of posterity. As usual, I am half distracted and trying to work while I write this stuff, so I can't promise much in the way of daily content until I get internet access from home (this is coming soon I hope.) For now there isn't much to say except welcome to the new digs. Make yourself comfortable. Perhaps.. have a drink?