"Who is queen?"

"I don't think you're even capable of saying a bad word about anyone."
"I'm Italian-Irish-German. Trust me, I can be vindictive." I don't tell them that I am that special insidious sort of vindictive. The kind that uses sugar, spice, and everything nice. The kind that plays comely and kindly and then turns it into the most intimate of personal embarrassments. It is one thing to insult someone with words-- it is another to prove such accusations true.
"No," he said "No, I don't buy it. You're vindictive like... you're vindictive like a kumquat!"
"What does that even mean?" I ask through my laughter. Kumquats are not anything remotely approaching emotive, let alone vindictive.
"I don't know" he says, "But it fits. You're like the Kumquat Queen"
"Then I wouldn't mess with me" I said
"Touche. But you're still not vindictive. You can't be."

I don't know what made me think of that today. But then, when does one ever think of a kumquat except to make it a figure of speech or the butt of a joke?

Memo:

To: Arizona Drivers

From: Me

Regarding: Your driving "skillz"

Now, I consider myself a patient girl. I have endured California drivers, Massachusetts drivers, New Hampshire drivers, and the occasional Maine/Vermont driver. I endured tourista season in San Diego with valiant effort. And yet, I find myself facing the toughest challenge yet: your driving.

A few helpful reminders:

• The limit line is, in fact, NOT the line furthest from you. That's the edge of the cross walk. You know, where all those pesky pedestrians can often be found? Yeah, stopping at that line in the middle of the biggest/busiest intersection in town when you're in the left hand turn lane? It's what we call "recipe for disaster"
• Speaking of that left hand turn lane? So not necessary to nearly run me over in that lane on your way to the lane furthest to the right in your direction of travel.
• Turn signals-- look into it. They aren't just for decoration anymore!
• Riding my ass (metaphorically speaking) will not make me go faster. The fact that you would like to go 50 mph in a school zone is not my problem.
• Please do not blast loud rap or R&B near my mother. I'm not going to be held responsible for her rolling down all the windows and blasting NPR or Bach right back at you. It's embarrassing for all of us.
• Red means stop. Green means go. Yellow means get your ass out of my way.
• A neighborhood street being undivided does not mean that you get to drive down the middle.
• Pulling out into the middle of the road and stopping in the face of oncoming traffic? Well, let's just say it also falls under "recipe for disaster"
• You do not, by divine right, birth right, Constitutional right, or any other right, possess the power to always go first. Nor can you always run stop signs or red lights. This is how bad things happen.
• Traffic laws are not something that can or should be protested. Just live with it.
• A side note: running over the barista on your way to get into Starbucks isn't really going to help you get your coffee. In fact, it will generally impede that activity. So knock it off.

Hopefully you'll all remember these hints in the future so that my blood pressure can return to normal and I can start sweating the small stuff again. Oh hell, it's the desert, I'd like to get back to just normal sweating with no cause other than the weather.

You know you love me,
XOXO,
Coffee girl

Odds and ends and brick-a-brac

I've disappeared for a month or so, not that that's unusual. For all the time I spend on the internet, I do not think as much as I once did. Perhaps it's my day job-- I can explain the difference between a latte and a cappuccino, why french presses are better, why loose leaf tea is the way to go, why an iced cappuccino is somewhere between heresy and a desire for food poisoning, and so on forever. I can also tell you that the harder the economic times get, the meaner customers get, as though the baristas are personally responsible for their consistent wasting of money in all manner of "must haves" that aren't so crucial anymore. I can even start to talk about what went wrong in the economy, though not very well (it's an expansion on the theme of "who watches the watchmen" if you care). But thinking? Honest to goodness thinking? It doesn't come up very often for me anymore.

I've officially finished my first semester of library school. Not what one might call though provoking, maybe, but it isn't supposed to be. I mean, you are more than welcome to try and come up with a replacement for MARC21 or the Library of Congress Subject Headings (fat chance it'll catch on). But to do that you need a certain amount of time working in the field. What seems good on paper may not be in practice, and you won't know until you've worked as a librarian. So I went about my studies, and learned all about cataloging and collection development and research methods (perhaps the least helpful of my classes because it was all repetition of my Stats class a few years ago-- but with bonus ideology).

You know, the library world is a funny thing. It is at once focused on innovations and integrating the latest computer technology into the library and not moving a muscle from the established status quo. Which, I'll be honest, is befuddling. I understand the drive to get more twenty-somethings into libraries. They use it, they'll teach their kids to use it, etc etc etc. However, TELLING the twentysomethings that are entering the field that they couldn't possibly understand the demands of the twentysomething is ludicrous. So I'm young. So what? I've been computer literate since I was 4, internet savy since I was 6, and marketing myself since I hit school. My experience is most certainly valid-- I'm the kid with the iPod, the RSS feeds, the blog, and more-- all simultaneous activities no less. It appears that, somewhere along the line, the libraries forgot that they were a part of the service sector. I'm not busting out a "Just say Yes" policy (that, by the way, is the way that spectacular failure and disgruntled empolyees lies... from my observations). I simply wonder if libraries could listen, just a little bit, to their constiuents. The fact that they're run by the government doesn't mean they have to try to live up to the stereotype of a government agency. I mean really...

There's all kinds of business going on at my fair alma, though I'm sure everyone who reads this already knows. I'll try not to say I told you so, but I will ply you with arguments similar to those I make to the libraries-- the fact that recent graduate are, in fact, only 22 or 23 does not invalidate their observations, opinions, struggles, etc. My class seems to have been locked out by everyone: admin, alumni, everyone. And quite frankly, we wrote home, we tried to tell people that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. And we were called liars, and anarchists, and moles, and uncharitable, and every rotten name in the book. All of a sudden we were every villain of every piece ever read at that school. And all I have to say is-- we were right. You think we're a bunch of scum bags who lie for shits and giggles? We were trying to save the place that was onnly just turning us loose on a wide world, a place that was shifting right out from under us as we stumbled out into a ruthless world with nobody to watch us. And we were nothing, less than dirt. Well, if things go further south? It's not because we didn't try-- it's because no one else did. And with that, I leave it behind me. It's like ripping out part of my heart-- my graduation, which should have been so happy, was a boot up my ass to get me out of there. I was already forgotten. I'm just returning the favor.

Your monthly-ish Founding Father's reminder:

This month? Well, let's let the first amendment speak for itself, shall we?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances"

That would be verbatim, my friends. As in, I copy pasted the stupid thing from the Library of Congress web edition of the Constitution. Now, what do we notice is missing? Could that be the phrase "Separation of Church and State?" Why yes, it is.

I could wax poetic and non-poetic on the virtues and vices of the Constitutional Convention, the politcal theory of several founding fathers, the whys and wherefores of why the Constitution is written the way it is, but for now, I'll stick with the 1st amendment.

For those in need of a US Government refresher, the Constitution was originally signed and published without a Bill of Rights in 1787. The majority of states passed in in fall 1787 and winter/spring 1788, culminating in the establishment of the current US Government March 4th, 1788. This is all sans Bill of Rights. Now the question many of you may ask is why? We hold these rights to be fundamental. Well, to borrow from Constitutional proponents, it was because all the protection any American could hope for was contained in the preamble. Obviously, this didn't pass legal muster, and the Bill of Rights was passed piecemale up to 1791 (which is when we hit amendment 11).

The Founders didn't include the Bill of Rights, including amendment 1, in the original Constitution (and trust me, I've read the debates and notes of the Convention. These were men concerned with the utility of government as well as the freedom of the people, and making sure that the one ensured the other. They were worried about the actual STRUCTURE of government). Do you know why the Bill of Rights was passed? As a protection against government.

Seperation of Church and State-- the very phrase implies that the State has something to fear of the Church, that the legal protection is OF the state, not FROM the state. Let's face it people, if the founder's thought that the Church needed protection from the State at a time when the Church had more authority then now (not a lot, just more than now), why on EARTH do we feel the need to "Protect ourselves and the government" from religion?

"Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of a church or the free practice thereof"-- that doesn't check your religion at the door, that doesn't mean that someone who follows a religion should leave all that that means out of their decisions when the vote, be they citizen or representative. And for the record? That is why the Roman Church is threatening to excommunicate politicans that support activities that fundamentally undermine all that the Church is. Because if this whole government is about talking and debating and sussing things out, then why should we say "I personally believe but that has nothing to do with anything." There comes a balancing point, between dictating that all laws be in compliance with a single religion, and trying to destroy all religion.

I guess there's one example, and its recent, that bothers me most when it comes to this. The Freedom of Choice Act, among its many stipulations, says that any doctor MUST perform abortion on demand, that no hospital can refuse abortion on demand. What does that do to the free exercise of religion on behalf of those doctors, nurses, hospital workers? What does it do the free exercise of state sovereignty? The bishops are threatening to close obstetrics units over this. How scary is that? Because the amendment designed to protect their RIGHT to practice religion has been turned on its ear, and now they must sacrifice all that they are as a religious person to serve those who demand pure secularization. Makes me scared, more than anything. It should scare you too.

The audacity of questioning

I have always been a questioning sort. Not in the "how does this work?" sort of way. I'm like Mindy from Anamaniacs, I just keep asking "Why?" My whole life I've run into people who were willing to question why things were, what they were, why they existed. As I look back, I realize that most of these people were outside mainstream academia, something that should explain why I sit where I sit now in grad school. It doesn't.

I have a class, Research Methods, which is very heavily grounded in ideology. And no, I don't mean that there's a background idea that weaves its way through the course. I mean ideology as in the dangerous kind, as in an idea that grabs hold of people to the point that their world view is entirely determined by the ideology. You know, the scary kind. In this case, its Italian socialism mixed with bits of Marx mixed with good old fashioned American know how and pushing things to the nth degree. It's certainly interesting, and outside my normal purview. For the sake of my grade, I haven't questioned this within the confines of the class. I have, however, spent the entire semester questioning the why and wherefore. It's a personal growth thing.

Perhaps that's why I was so shocked when the undercurrent I had detected in the comments flared out in the most awkward of ways. One of the students decided to hold forth on the fact that questioning isn't natural, that all of us are preconditioned to NOT question, and that we must learn how. This came from a student who has been nothing but dogmatic on many many issues, not the least of which was a debate with me over the usage of the word "hegemony." It gets me thinking again of how lucky I am, and how screwed we as a society are.

I'm lucky because I have been left to my natural inclination, ie, questioning. Aristotle says that man is, by nature, a political animal. That may be, but I think man is, by nature, a curious animal as well. How much do we prize inovation and invention? What marks a small child as annoying but their insatiable curiousity? Curiousity begats questioning which generally begats thinking. And man is marked by his thought-- what else distinguishes him from the other animals?

And this preconditioning thing-- my colleagues act as though it is nature, when it is the opposite. It's unnatural, it's not good, and its everywhere. It's also how ideologies take hold-- if there is but one school of thought that promises everything you ever wanted and an answer to the evils in the world wouldn't you take it? No difficulty, no pain, just an answer to the questions that you keep trying to supress. How wonderful. And so people stop questioning, and start being lemmings.

I'm sure you all know where that leads to. It's more than just different schools of thought. It's why people of radical political persuations can truly not understand someone with a different view point; it's outside the system so its outside the world.It just frightens me that so many people agreed with her assesment: that people think we are naturally sheep, uninquiring beings who simply live because we are waiting to die. If an entire society has entered that mind set that isn't it too simply living because it is waiting to die? Scary thought.

I've been silent for many weeks now, mainly because I had three rather large projects all due the same day (this past Friday). It was a good thing I did. Prior to those projects, I had felt very discouraged about library school. I felt that I was left to my own devices overmuch, that the lectures were less helpful and more about professorial idiosyncrasies. It took me a few weeks, but I realized that they have finally shown me enough resources that I can do this stuff myself. One can decide to learn, be eager to learn, but without tools that desire often becomes frustrated.

For example, I can now expound the difference between Dublin Core metadata encoding, and MARC encoding. I can tell you how Dublin Core fits into METS, sort of the updated version of MARC with many many fewer fields. I have actively found and developed an outline for the collection development policy for a special collection of web documents. And I remember all the stats stuff I once knew.

All this to say? Academia got me so down I forgot what my purpose was. This is utilitarian knowledge, but not in the bad, decried sense. This is knowledge that leads to reasoning that hopefully leads to showing people where and how to find the knowledge and truth they seek. And that means something.

Hopefully it means I've turned a corner, that from here on I will salvage an education meant strictly to be utilitarian. I've got some time to do it. On Wednesday, I return to NH for a brief engagment (ha ha, if ONLY). Hopefully I'll get some pictures up on here to share with all five of you who check in every once in a while

Stop, look, listen, think about what's going on

Props to anyone who remembers the PSA that the titular ditty is from (rock on 90's cartoon PSAs!)

This, however, is not a PSA about keeping the peace and being strong. It's simply this: Government! Yes you, whom I pay taxes to, who repairs my roads, who keeps me safe in war and peace, yes you. Cease with the bailouts! The mortgage situation, in large part, is a bed made by us and now we lie in it. Lying, in fact, is what got us there. Remember, my mother's brokerage specializes in loss mitigation and loan renegotiation. I'm not just some outsider, I'm on the ground floor of this business, and I'm telling you this: people's own greed, stupidity, decietfulness, and vice is what got us here. People decided they were entitled to the American dream without a second's worth of work; they believed that a house and a Hummer and a Sea Doo and designer clothes should fall into their laps because of the (perceived) cleaverness of them. That's not the way it works, and that's not actually the American dream.

The American dream? That's what you're stealing from me by ponying up trillion's of dollars to save the people who lied about their income, their work, their life, and their needs to get a giant house they couldn't afford. The American Dream, simply stated, is that you get what you give. You work? You can get where you want to go. You don't work? You'll get some help, because we look out for each other, but you don't get a damn McMansion. You get tools, not the fish or the damn fleet.

But guess who now gets to fund the bail out of your fabulous home? Me. The girl who pays her taxes, who's making 7.90 an hour at STARBUCKS and trying to get a Master's degree and trying beyond all reason to get herself closer to her fiance. My parents, who try as hard as they can to keep a roof over our heads, who try to stay out of debt, who work until 3 am and get up again at 8am and keep going. We don't have uber nice things: there isn't a designer dress or shoe in this house, we drive a Camry and Corolla, not a Beemer. But we eat well, and we can afford a bottle of wine with dinner, and we can sit at the table for hours and talk when we have that luxery. We don't buy the latest iPhone, or computer. We buy generic a lot of times because the name brand isn't worth the extra four bucks. And you know what this whole economic crunch has made me realize? That as much of pain in the ass as that lifestyle may appear, it's wonderful. At no point was I any more worried about economics then I ever have been (we watch CNBC in this house, it's not like I'm ever not worried). I havn't feared losing my house, or my way of life. We live, and we delight in simple things-- my hobby is cross stitch, which is a whopping 35 cents to fund (per color of course). We read books, we borrow movies from the library. We take advantage of the one thing that government does really well. Local government has always been about being the closest to the people, to making sure that they're taken care of. Part of that? All sorts of low cost or free stuff. Libraries, pilates, free movie nights, all sorts of community events that you already paid for through your taxes.

You remember all those old stories of village parties and town square fairs? How people came together and just hung out? How they were both self sufficient and part of the community? Why not just update it? There's no reason that it should be limited like it was then. Bring everyone in. Here's where idealism takes over. If you actually interact with people in the community-- people of ALL types, races, religions, ethnicities, tax brackets-- you might find that some social issues ease. If you're my friend you're my friend, and I don't give a damn about the rest. If you annoy me, well, take comfort in the fact that it's likely just clashing personalities and not a deeper problem (I told you idealism). In the meantime, don't take the money for that away so that you can save a bunch of liars and cheats the "indignity" of having to do an honest day's work.