“One area I’ve been disappinted in is beef. They need
to be eatin’ US beef.(pause) It’s good for
them.(pause) They’ll like it. ”

Yes, the president of the United States is speaking about China as if it were a three year old who won’t eat its vegetables. And yes, The man some consider to be the leader of the free world cannot speak in complex sentences. And yes, he considers part of the solution to the trade defecit with China to be US beef. (I’m pretty sure that sending beef all the way to fucking China is not in keeping with the benefits of local, sustainable agriculture.)

This was not the only thing that outraged me today. (Anybody who knows me, knows that it is never just ONE thing anymore.)

After listening to the President threaten a reporter who dared to question the President’s Iraq policy,(“The terrorist want to kill your children.” Or something like that.) I found out that the Dems in congress caved on the Iraq war funding bill and essentially gave Bush another blank check. And then I found out that we are exercising naval might outside of Iran in what seems to be preparation for the next catastrophic policy decision by Bush.

America, Where the FUCK is your outrage. Every day I read the news and get angrier and angrier. I want to fight, I want to do something, I want the rest of the world to know that most of America doesn’t like what’s happening. That we don’t agree with Bush’s policy of Unilateralism. But I am greeted with silence. Yes, there are a few loud voices out there, but they are the same voices that we’ve been hearing since the war started. We need more voices. We need people to step away from American Idol and Lost and realize that their constitutional rights are being chipped away at as we speak. We need people to rally together, to tell the government that what is happening here at home (Health care crisis, Impossible costs of higher education, Gas prices, and Unemployment) are all more important than pursuing unnecessesary military operations at the cost of American taxpayers.

America, Get Angry!!!! And channel that anger into writing letters to your senators and representatives. Into organizing rallys and protests. Into doing something, anything to stop an administration that has clearly overstepped its boundaries.

After a B.A. in English with a minor in Film and an M.L.I.S. (Master of Library and Information Science) I still have trouble finding a job. I’m looking, and I have faith that I will eventually find one, but I recognize that I live in a society that no longer seems to value culture and education, so finding a job that allows me to utilize skills in these areas will be understandably hard to come by. I think that some Liberal Arts majors get discouraged and maybe even regret not follwing an education path that would be more economically viable…not me.

I was at the library today looking at the CDs. I suddenly decided that I was in the mood for some classical music, and decided on Aaron Copeland. I went home put in Appalachian Spring and upon reading the liner notes realized that it was originally written as a ballet featuring Martha Graham. It then occured to me that the only reason I know the name Martha Graham is because of a Comparative Arts class I took in college. This same class also introduced me to the work of Frida Kahlo and Brancusi. Throughout my undergraduate career I was able to take English, Film, and Art History classes that allowed me to be introduced to artists, writers, auteurs, and composers that I otherwise would not know. To me, this is the essence of education.

An investigation into the american education system shows that it is broken. Teacher after teacher will tell you how the “No Child Left Behind” act doesn’t work. As the price of colleges skyrocket in the United States there is a growing division between those who can afford the education that they want and those who have to settle for the educational experience that will make them the money needed to pay off the massive student debt. I’m not sorry that I chose to get a liberal arts degree. What I’m sorry about is that we live in society where art and culture are seen as luxeries not necessities.

I’m just playing around with the blogging feature on Flikr, and this little guy reminded me of my own two little frogs. (Hiccup and Z,who is named after a Cavs player because he likes to hang at the top of his little box.)

“Oh wait: I should mention that The Catcher in the Rye is this book from the fifties. It is every teacher’s favorite book. The main guy is a kind of misfit kid superhero named Holden Caulfield. For teachers, he is the ultimate guy, a real dreamboat. They love him to pieces. They all want to have sex with him, and with the book’s author, too, and they’d probably even try to do it with the book itself if they could figure out a way to go about it. It changed their lives when they were young. As kids, they carried it with them everywhere they went. They solemnly resolved that, when they grew up, they would dedicate their lives to spreading The Word. It’s kind of like a cult.”

Although technically a ‘Young Adult’ novel, I loved it. It had a very Nick Hornby-esque quality about it. And I confess, when I read the passage about Catcher, I thought of all the people I’ve foisted the book upon. Some who have joined me in their love for Holden Caulfield, others who didn’t see the big deal.

It is the job of the Reference Librarian to provide patrons with the most accurate information available, and in order to ensure accuracy a certain level of authority is looked for in sources. One of the most common criticisms of the user-authored and web-based encyclopedia, Wikipedia is that the lack of authritative authors makes it a risky source of information when compared to traditional print encyclopedias. Although there is much validity to this criticism, it does not serve the reference librarian to completely dismiss Wikipedia. It is able to offer unrivaled access to information on today’s popular culture.

Traditionally, encyclopedias have been limited to entries of proven historical or cultural relevance because of space constraints. If print encyclopedias were to contain entries on every semi-popular televison show or fad, they would soon contain too much information to be useful. The virtually unlimited space of the internet eliminates the need toprove relevancy thus allowing things which are important to the current time period to be catalogued.

In order for something to warrant space on Wikipedia all it takes is one person to feel that thesubject is relevant. Popular culture and Wikipedia are a perfect match for each other because the true scholars of popular culture are the people. The criticism that Wikipedia is written by regular people is now a strength because it allows the culture of the people to be written by them. The open source software that allows anyone to edit it means that the inforamtion can be immediately updated.

One of the best tools offered by Wikipeda to Reference Librarians is the bibliographic citations. ALthough librarians may be hesitant to recommend Wikipedia as a primary source, many entries provide authritative books, articles and web sources. Ultimately librarians who dismiss Wikipeda as an invalid source are ignoring information that could help meet patron information needs.

I start this blog with a few purposes in mind. Since I’ve reached that point in life where my friends and I have moved to many different geographic locations and are busier than we were in college, I feel like perhaps I don’t keep in touch with them as much as I’d like to. I figure that this is an easy opportunity for those who know me to keep in touch. Of course, I’ve also discovered that I kind of genuinely enjoy writing. So, I hope to use this blog as a way to express myself creatively. (But I make no claims to brilliance. I’m just one of millions of people using the medium of the blog to find a place to park my thoughts.)