TAKE FIVE...With the ZenFo Pro

- 5. -

I'm a dork.

Proud of it, in fact. I watch tons of sci-fi and horror flicks. I have obscure musical tastes. I read comic books and graphic novels. According to my transcripts, I'm the proud owner of a combined 48 undergraduate credit hours in cosmology, physics, calculus, and biology - most of which I took for fun.

How dorky, exactly?

I've spent portions of the last ten days watching the entire seventh season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine...

Twice.

- 4. -

The most exciting things I learned last week:

Sub-Saharan African nations are getting ready to launch one of the largest multinational information infrastructure projects in the history of the Developing World. A faculty member at Washington's prestigious I-School earned some much needed press for the fact that, yeah, the tools used to measure information poverty levels need to be recalibrated to reflect the Real World. Moyers on America has an episode dedicated to Net Neutrality, the digital divide, and the Ownership of cyberspace.

Most depressing things I learned last week:

A group of students told me, point-blank, that they'd never heard of this digital divide thing, that they always figured somebody like Bono would just buy the Developing World iPods and laptops, and that, well, I'd be more cute if I didn't talk so much about all those poor people. (Too depressing.)

- 3. -

Don't even get me started on the Material Girl's latest mid-life crisis.

Who the fuck adopts a kid, then leaves the child with their "entourage?" Damn straight there are people in Malawi seeking to halt the adoption. Seriously, Africa is not "Baby-Mart for Rich White American Entertainers Who Feel Guilty for Living Like Gods While the Developing World Starves."

- 2. -

Political Commentary of the Month, based on a Conversation with one of those pesky Over-the-Top Ivory Tower Academics, the kind of prof who has no problem blending their political views with their syllibi into something more important than, well, teaching what they're paid to teach (and who apparently has no problem insulting students who dare to challenge them):

//:-------BEGIN RANT --------://

So North Korea may or may not have the Bomb. Either way, they now have the UN sanctions to show for it. Iran's not backing down, either.

We're in a position now where the world probably wouldn't mind seeing the U.S. threaten the Bullies of Pyongyang - but we can't. Tehran will eventually require some sort of military threat - but we don't have the manpower.

Axis of Evil? Sure sounded nice when some speechwriter watched too many Justice League cartoons and coined the phrase. How is it that of the three members of that Axis, we somehow invaded the one nation without the potential to one day be able to turn major cities into radioactive wastelands?

Since the end of the Cold War, the American Public has been quite content to sit by while brutal dictators committed everything from genocide to the suppression of democracy, content to grow fat and lazy, in peaceful, self-imposed ignorance.

That time is over. Welcome to the Real World.

The Far Right deserves some of the blame, sure. Six years of worthless chickenhawk rhetoric has taught Joe Sixpack a valuable lesson. But don't be fooled into thinking that Joe Sixpack is ready to jump into bed with an equally menacing chickenshit Far Left. America - and the world - needs leadership willing to make tough choices, willing to build consensus, dedicated to making the world a better place.

Ideology is irrelevant, in the end, when a nation's leaders command respect simply by being something more than politicians who say anything to get their side to vote their way.

North Korea may have the Bomb. Iran will probably be next.

And if you're not terrified yet, maybe it's time to put down the crackpipe.

//:-------END RANT --------://

- 1. -

Speaking of clusterfucks...

After discovering that a few colleagues and readers were a bit uneasy with the subject matter of the previous post, I figure I'd better offer a bit of clarification...

• The young woman in question is not a local woman, nor a student of the Local U. or any other U. for that matter. She is, however, someone's daughter and sister. If it were your daughter or sister, wife or lover, I seriously doubt anyone would bother questioning my involvement.

• The person in question is not a patron of my library and has never visited my library. The incident did not happen at work. Patron refers to any customer of an information resource - in this case, my patron was someone I was once paid to tutor (in rabbit and venison, because the family couldn't afford to pay cash and refused to let me work for free.)

• There is nothing romantic about violence and I don't wish to glamourize it any more than I already have. But there is nothing wrong in one defending him/herself- or others - if one has the ability to halt certain actions.

• If you're a librarian and you're offended by my vulgarity and my critique of the profession, please don't IM me about it. I could really care less. For every "shame on you" IM I've received from library folk, I've received five or six from college students, parents, and victims of domestic violence. Please feel free, if you must, to shove that into your next PowerPoint presentation.

• I even had a very sweet patron/reader pull me aside Sunday afternoon, tell me her story, of how she once took advantage of my library's late evening hours to hide and eventually escape from a violent ex. She offered me a hug. That was the highlight of my career as a librarian, to date. If you're the kind of librarian who thinks being a human being is somehow secondary to whatever it says in your job description, well, please feel free to visit Oxford Fucking Ohio. I'd love the opportunity to tell you, face-to-face, where you can shove that.

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