When I have to "huh"?

As a bookseller, there are days when the impulse to laugh has to be squelched mercilessly.  Bad for business.

Evidence the first:
A customer on the telephone wants a copy of The Autobiography of Mark Twain - which we, as well as most of the bookstores/online sources/etc. in this country, are completely sold out of due to small print runs vs. high demand (you can get it electronically, like I did if you want to read it and want to either a) save money or b) save time, or both).  I explain this to the customer who "needs this for a Christmas present today" (it's January, so someone's advance planning has failed).  I apologise, offer to hold the audiobook we have on hand only to be ordered to call the other bookstores in the area.  So in the interests of "good customer service" I put the customer on hold, checked the online inventory, found that the closest on hand copy is several states away, called the local indie bookstore, and they didn't have any either (I believe their bookseller actually snorted when I asked if they had any copies of the Twain).  So I got my customer back on the line, informed him of this, and, once again offered to hold the audiobook because no one has any hardcovers on hand and we're all waiting for the same print run for a re-stock.  The customer explodes "That's Communist!" and proceeds to tell me all about how it's soooo like the Communists that the publisher didn't print enough copies of the biography of the most famous author in America because everyone should have a copy and he wants to buy one, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Um, "Communist"?  Does someone needs a lesson in basic political and economic ideology?  It's "Capitalist" to cause demand to go up by not printing enough copies because "Communist" is where you share everything, i.e. there's one for everybody.  I told him that I'm sure the University of California Press would love to hear his opinion, but I didn't think it would make the printing presses run any faster, and would he like me to hold the audiobook (hint, hint).  He took the hint and the audiobook.  Oy vey.

Evidence the second:
Three teenage girls are wandering around the store, talking loudly about books that they are looking for including The Scarlet Letter and it "has to be on the bestsellers somewhere" (they've walked past me and another bookseller at this point and we both looked at each other and gave the "WTF" look).  I would normally just offer to help but there's some people who just have to learn to give up and ask on their own - these three are those people, plus I wanted to hear more of the conversation.  I should have offered to help because the conversation started to depress me.  This trio of well-fed, obviously well-cared for girls are wandering around talking about how they don't read, and don't go to bookstores, and are being forced to read Huckleberry Finn and it's, like, omigod sooo hard (these girls are old enough to drive themselves to the mall, just FYI).  They are actually PROUD of the fact that they don't read.  So they finally come find me - arranging the new bestsellers, none of which are The Scarlet Letter - and ask for the Nicholas Sparks books....and I show them to the section about 8 feet behind them, alphabetical by author's last name.  Then one of the girls does ask for The Scarlet Letter - so I ask my favorite question ever "Do you need a particular edition?" which completely confuses the poor girl and her face literally goes blank.  So we go to Hawthorne and I pull the cheapest edition off the shelf.  She still looks confused so I take a little pity on her and ask if she knows anything about the book.  Nope, she doesn't know anything about it but she's supposed to read it...nope, she has no idea that it's over 150 years old or about Puritans...and she has trouble reading Huck Finn...and I'm thinking, oh crap, so I ask her, as gently as I can, if she would like me to recommend something else for her to read (I'm assuming it's for school, but I could be wrong).  No, no, this is fine so the trio wanders back off to Nicholas Sparks.  Pretty soon they come find me again - do I have any Cliffs Notes for Nicholas Sparks's The Rescue?  I actually felt my teeth click together so my mouth wouldn't fall open.  Er, no, we don't have any Sparknotes for Nicholas Sparks books...but, yes, we do have Sparknotes for Huck Finn.  I take two of the three over to the Study Aids section (surprisingly, the girl with The Scarlet Letter is not interested in a Sparknotes for her book; she's determined to read it - I could have hugged her for saying that - so she hung around the Teen New Releases) to find Huck Finn and the whole way there the one girl keeps going on and on (loudly) about how long the book is and how hard it is to read and how it has, like, 500 pages and that's soooo unfair and she's not going to read it if she doesn't have to - I wanted to slap her.  So I pulled the Sparknotes for Huck Finn off the rack, handed it to her, and said "Just so you know, all the teachers have read all the study aids and cheat sheets for the books you read in class.  So you'll still need to read the book.  Huck Finn is still relevant because Huck has to re-think his attitudes about slavery and people of color as he and Jim become friends.  And, by the way, Huck Finn is often marketed as a children's book, it's only about 200 to 250 pages depending on the edition...War and Peace has 1000 pages, that's a long book."  That shut her up.

Why are people so proud of being ignorant and stupid?  It's like a badge of honor, trumpeting their stupidity (look at that waste case, Snooki).  In the case of the three girls (because I have no idea what my phone customer looks like), it's obvious that they have money, that their parents spare no expense for them, so why parade around like some uneducated hick?  Why not take pride in the advantages of an education?  I've read Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason so I understand that the divide between the intelligence haves and have-nots has always existed but it always makes me go "huh?"  I try to be helpful and optimistic but the really dogged way that some people just cling to their ignorance makes me want to crawl back in my hidey-hole (or point and laugh, depending on situation).

#SpeakLoudly - LAH's SPEAK is NOT pornography.

Today, a little birdie blogged about a pastor in Missouri who wants to ban Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak because it is pornography.

That's right - a man who has professed to spread the love of the Lord has found scenes depicting the rape of a young girl, who subsequently manifests depressive symptoms after her assault and cannot speak about it, as pornography.

That pastor's spreading something, alright, but it's not love.  Love says Speak tells the truth, that a girl who has had something terrible happen to her is still a whole person capable of giving and receiving love.  That it is not her fault.  That we hear her and we listen when she speaks. 

Speak was first published as I was graduating college and I didn't read it until this year, ten years later.  Melinda is not alone, even if she is a fictional character.  I have a friend who was Roofied and woke up in a strange man's bed.  Another friend was date-raped by a man who she thought was a friend.  Another was sexually abused as a child.  They did not speak.  Not until much later.  One tried to commit suicide, which is how I know about her assault - she told me so I would know why she tried to kill herself.  Laurie Halse Anderson could have ended Speak so differently, it could have been so bad, but she chose to end with hope.  Hope that Melinda could tell her story and people could understand what happened.  They could be her supporters, not her detractors.

Speak tells teens that it is OK to tell someone that you have been assaulted or a loved one has been assaulted.  Listen to Laurie Halse Anderson read her Speak Poem created from the letters sent to her from teens who read her book and reached out to her:



What would those teens have done without Speak?  Would they have ever told anyone what happened to them?

Pornography is meant to titillate, to arouse.  If you consider Speak to be pornographic then you think it is arousing to watch little girls get raped.  People who like to rape little girls or watch little girls get raped are pedophiles.

We need to #SpeakLoudly to keep Speak available and accessible to teens.  Buy a copy and read it.  Borrow it from the library.  Loan your copy to a friend.  Talk about it with your daughter, son, brother, sister, parent.  Watch the movie adaptation with Kristen Stewart.

Don't let someone else speak for you.

Lisbeth Salander is not "gamine"

Pretty sure my allergy-medicated, bordering-on-sinus-infection head almost exploded today when AAKnopf tweeted that Carey Mulligan has signed on for David Fincher's English-language version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  As Lisbeth Salander.

Don't believe me?  Here's the link to the Times Online article.

Number one, why must we have an English/American adaptation of a perfectly good Swedish film?  And you can't claim that it doesn't appeal when we haven't even been given a chance to see it (distributors, I'm looking at you - you all suck).  The history of American adaptations of foreign language films lends itself to looking upon this endeavor with a gimlet eye.

Number two, Carey Mulligan is gamine.  Gamine does not equal Goth, bi-sexual, anorexic, genius computer hacker.  I understand she's trying to break out of her given character rut, and she is talented, but this really does not make me interested in this movie especially since I'm not interested in this adaptation to start with.

Totally, I think this just ruined my Monday.

Penny for your thoughts?

A dollar? Five dollars? $9.99?

Or not?

With the release of the nook I've been seeing tweets and posts complaining about the prices of ebooks being "too high"/"too high at one retailer as compared to another". Prices needing to be "competitive" between retailers. And then there's the price war between Walmart, Amazon, and Target for pre-orders on future bestsellers (don't get me started).

What amazes me is how people keep wanting the prices to go down which is presumably what is meant by that term "competitive". At what point does the price get low enough? Zero? Is that really where we're heading?

What about the author who slaved for weeks, months, years over that book you complain about being priced "too high"? Does the author not deserve compensation? Particularly if writing is the author's source of income - books, articles, essays, reviews, etc.?  There has to be some value applied to the creative output of a mind.  Why is $9.99 so high for 250 pages of writing but $7.50 is better?  A lot of people have to be paid out of that $7.50.  If "competition" is about driving down prices, the competition isn't between the authors, it's between retailers so the author's slice of that little book pie just keeps on getting smaller as the price decreases.

What I find strange is that no one is demanding that the movie industry reign in the prices, that the studios and theatre chains "compete" with one another by lowering ticket prices, that the A-list "stars" work for less.  I don't see anyone "voting with their feet" by going to a different movie theatre chain - particularly in my town where the prices are the same and the choices no better.  I went to two midnight movie premieres this summer and not once did I hear anyone complain that they were spending $12+ and having to wait in line for hours ahead of time to get seats.

I'm not quite sure what I'm driving at in this post.  I got off on this tanget because I was really tired of reading all these wonks who purport to understand the "business model" but who I'm pretty sure have never actually had to stand on a sales floor in their life.  I sell books, pretty much everyday, and I can tell you what sells to what type of customer and what does not, "business model" bedamned.  I'm also tired of consumers who think that the entire driving goal of the capitalist system is to see how much stuff they can acquire on the cheap; my part-Scottish great-grandmother called that "mean".

There really isn't much of a solution in this post.  Just something I had to get off my chest before it manifested somewhere else in much ruder language.

FTC blogger regulations...overkill?

The book blogging world tweeted like crazy Monday morning (at least in my neck of the Twitter woods) when the FTC announced new guidelines concerning endorsements and/or testimonials (I am unable to open the pdf so have to rely on repostings). It's still going strong. In a nutshell, bloggers will need to disclose their receipt of products, particlarly if "endorsements" or "compensation" is involved.


Shorter nutshell: the FTC made some "guidelines" for bloggers but they aren't specific to product.

Several book bloggers I follow put up spectacular posts in trying to unwind the Gordian knot of the FTC's guidelines. Edward Champion posted a short interview with Richard Cleland of the Bureau of Consumer Protection which demonstrated the FTC really hasn't thought this one through (best idea from the FTC: to avoid having to declare compensation, etc., one should return the book when you're done reviewing it, never mind that it was an ARC and you're not supposed to sell those anyway so book is worthless). The Boston Bibliophile has a guest post with Internet and media attorney Jeffrey Hermes to answer some FAQs about the FTC guidelines (NOTE: the post does not constitute legal advice; if you have a problem, hire an attorney). Chasing Ray has posted an email that's going out to any publishers she's worked with. The major problem with the FTC guidelines is that they group everything ever reviewed or advertised in the blogosphere as "product" - anything from books to bookshelves to appliances to drugs is "product" that falls into the new guidelines. As Hermes points out, the issue of false advertising is less an issue with book reviews than, say, claims that Hydroxycut makes your fat melt off in a week but "compensation" is a gray area. Hmmm.

All of the above leads me to the long-term problem: what do the FTC guidelines mean to me? I'm a little blogger; in fact, I've only ever accepted two unsolicited books. I don't request review copies, either, since I'm already drowning in books I own. My second job is as minion at a bookstore and my product links go to my company 99% of the time (I don't participate in the affiliate program because I'm too lazy to actually apply for it); being a minion, I also know that selling your ARC copies is a big, fat no-no. I am an unpaid moderator at our bookclub site and the admins send me review copies of my reading selections if (and only if) I haven't bought the books already. If you read my blog at all, you've probably figured out that I have all kinds of snark in me. Snark is not conduscive to being a review product whore so I would be a poor gamble if a company thought they'd get a good review just because the review item was provided to me gratis. If I don't like the book/movie/CD/whatever, you'll know.

So to me, the FTC guidelines = serious overkill; it's like using a grenade launcher on a gnat. The FTC needs a rethink and probably ought to look at the value of the items and/or risk of bodily harm when laying out guidelines. Remember: be specific.

A quick tic about "Old English"

I was gone much of the weekend to visit the Harry Potter Experience at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago (and the museum, too, because it has some cool stuff) and didn't take the laptop with me. When I was home, I was either working or watching the Iowa Hawkeyes wipe the field with the ISU Cyclones (woot, go Hawks!). So, yeah, not much blog updating and that's kind of a problem with BBAW this week. However, I do have to throw up a quick post about "Old English" and a rant I went on while driving to Chicago.

I brought along Portable Professor's Of Sorcerer's and Men: Tolkien and the Roots of Modern Fantasy Literature to listen to in the car. media_zombie has the first two discs stuck in her car's CD player, so I thought she'd like it and we've both read a good deal of Tolkien so we had a bit of commentary to add to Professor Drout's. At one point in the lectures Drout begins reading Beowulf not in translation but in Old English - it's fantastic to hear but reminded me that not once but twice that weekend I'd heard modern English from a pre-20th century source referred to as "Old English."

Which pretty much makes me flip my shit and proceeded to do so while driving (in a slightly understated way because media_zombie tends to share my opinion on the subject). The first instance had someone linking to a "modern" version of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner because the original was in "old English" (published in 1798). The second instance was some teenager asking for the Cliff's Notes to Jane Eyre because it was in "old English" and hard to understand. Can I flip my shit now? THIS is Old English:

HWÆT, WE GAR-DEna in geardagum,
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð
feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,
oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!
(first 11 lines of Beowulf, courtesy of Fordham University)

This is Middle English, spoken from about 1066 to around 1450:

Whan that Aueryłł wt his shoures soote,
The droghte of Marcħ, hath perced to the roote;
And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek wt his sweete breeth,
Inspired hath in euery holt and heeth;
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne,
Hath in the Ram, his half cours yronne;
And smale foweles, maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open iye;
So priketh hem nature, in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrymages;
And Palmeres for to seeken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kouthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from euery shyres ende,
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende;
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan þt they weere seeke.
(opening of The Prologue from The Canterbury Tales)

Chancery Standard became the dominant language around 1450 to 1650 and is what is known as Early Modern English; this is why Shakespeare writes in modern English and doesn't need "modern translations," just a dictionary from time to time. For people used to writing that breaks grammar conventions (and, I suppose, those addicted to text spelling) I'm sure properly written English looks a bit odd but that's what makes your brain grow. Deal and quit trying to tell me Jane Austen writes "old English."

Cyberbullying Blogger Style

Tonight is a lazy night for me. I didn't close at the store so I've been finishing a few knitting projects (Karma's Poncho is done, yarn ends sewn in, steamed and in the bag, yeah!), having tea and a scone, watching You've Got Mail (because for all my snark I'm also pretty sappy), and occasionally perusing TweetDeck. Oh, we're having a summer storm here, too.

I got totally distracted by series of tweets from BiblioBrat, mjmbecky, and thestorysiren regarding some wing-nut who has Kristi pegged for harrassment (of course, I had to go read all the comments and put in my own two cents). Kristi has been removing some of the more heinous comments from the "crazy person" - who is posting more garbage using the defensive "we" rather than the singular personal pronoun - but the gist of Anonymous/Lena's rant is that Kristi needs to quit hogging the YA books, leave them to the teen bloggers, and just not review YA because Kisti is "old" (Kristi is younger than I am, FYI). In short, the crazy is demonstrating that he/she/they/it has the IQ of a troll and behaves like one, too. The same type of comment-flaming ensued on Tricia's Book Blog this week over the fact that Tricia hit the jackpot and was offered a free bookshelf to test out and review on her blog, lucky her (I have to be slightly jealous of Tricia in a good way because it is a pretty nice bookshelf). And, come to think of it, there was also a crazy person flaming The Yarn Harlot only a few weeks ago; flaming Stephanie is about like self-immolation because we Harlot-ites are militant in our defense of her (and we carry pointy, sharpened needles with us....everywhere).

Either there are multiple flamers running around in cyberspace or one sick individual.

So as I sat knitting the collar for a baby cardie (last piece!) and watching You've Got Mail I was thinking about the inherent community that goes along with reading/loving books and knitting. Those us who love books and love to talk about books - meaning we have blogs and book clubs and various bookish friends in the 21st century - have a very supportive community with all the other bibliophiles out there; we exchange reviews, encouragement, memes, and our love of the written word. Even if we don't agree on a point or have different reading tastes we don't denigrate one another; I don't think I've seen any serious book bloggers get obnoxious with one another (I've not been really active in the blogosphere long, so this could just be a case of not looking in the right places). The same goes for knitters. We all love and admire one another's handiwork, ask about where we got the yarn, support our LYS, and happily troop off to fiber festivals. Look at the Sock Summit that just wrapped up in Portland - if that doesn't say "community" then I don't know what does.

Cyberbullies seem to feed off that community energy; attack one in the community, the community responds with support, and the bully is somehow validated in its sick existence. The more the community backs the bully's victim, the more attention is afforded to the bully. It's a sick cycle and one that is nearly impossible to break. The web affords a cyberbully some veneer of anonymity since one can fake an online ID/persona, at least until the IP address is revealed and then "back-hacked into the Stone Age" (I love Penelope on Criminal Minds). Would ignoring the cyberbully work? It seems responding politely or vehemently only causes more flaming so perhaps pretending the bully doesn't exist will help (and turning on the comment moderation/requiring commenters to have an OpenID or Blogger account). However, remaining silent seems to tacitly agree with a bullying commenter so speaking out against the negativity seems to be the better option.

There isn't a really good way to solve the problem - the best we can do right now is call the cyberbully out and support the bully's target. So keep on blogging, knitting, reading, whatever floats your boat because the community will support you.

I hate SPAM

Some jackass has gotten hold of the "All Internal Medicine" email list at work and is now occupied in sending all of us spam email.

Which, in turn, prompts everyone to get pissed off, hit "Reply all," and request that their email be removed from the list.

Which we all get since about 1000+ of us are listed in "All Internal Medicine" - probably more.

And all of these emails come through on my BlackBerry.

Idiots.

Buyer Beware

When the nice saleslady at Ann Taylor Loft asks if you want to upgrade from the company charge card to the new Ann Taylor Loft MASTERCARD (because you are such a good customer, blah, blah, blah) she is lying if she tells you the balance from the company card will roll over to the new MC.

It doesn't.

I have to pay TWO Loft bills until I can figure out how to pay the Loft store card with the new Loft MC. However, if I play my cards right I might have the Loft store card paid off in a few months, huzzah for that, so it might not come to a pissy phone call to customer service.

Doing my epidemiologic duty

Before I post anymore on books, yarn, my cats, or anything even remotely fun I'm gonna have to do a little PSA about swine flu aka H1N1 flu.

1. The number of cases reported with this strain is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of flu cases reported every year with seasonal flu. If this were truly a killer flu nearly every person who has contracted the swine flu in the US would be dead right now rather than 1 out of about 250 (and that kid brought it with him from Mexico). Also, Mexico is still undergoing it's regular flu season right now - they're probably seeing plenty of seasonal flu strains, too.
2. The precautions being advised to prevent infection with swine flu - handwashing, cover your cough, using kleenexes insetad of hankies, staying away from sick people, etc. - are the EXACT SAME as the precautions you should be taking to avoid getting sick at all. The same - you can prevent catching the common cold this way. Amazing.
3. If you actually have symptoms of influenza (high fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, rhinorrea, etc) you need to stay home. If you have to go to the doctor, call ahead and tell them your symptoms so they know you're coming. This is important regardless of whether you have swine flu or seasonal influenza because, guess what, the symptoms are EXACTLY THE SAME. Do not go shopping, to the movies, the theatre, bars, etc. Stay home (if you haven't been to Mexico/have close contact with someone who was in Mexico and is now ill then you probably don't have swine flu you have either a cold or seasonal flu).
4. Do not listen to anyone who says the 1918 flu pandemic killed hundreds of thousands. That's a known fact but completely unrelated in this case. Times change and we change with them. Medical epidemiology and medical care has advanced light-years since 1918 and we have a far better understanding of how the influenza virus works and far better supportive care.
5. You cannot (repeat: CANNOT) get swine flu from eating pork or pork products. This is why the leaders of the state of Iowa have started calling this thing H1N1 flu instead of swine flu; too many people with absolutely no idea how influenza viruses spread have been shooting off their mouths and now have incited panic among the world's pork importers/exporters (I even read a report that someone in Egypt is going to start culling hogs). Get real people. There are plenty of parasites, etc., that you can get from eating undercooked pork. So if you want to freak out about pork, freak out about worms and then cook your pork thoroughly.
6. Calm the frick down, people. Use your head for what the good Lord made it - rational thought. Wash your hands, don't put your fingers in your mouth/touch your face, and go about your business.

End of lecture. Visit www.cdc.gov if you're really having a panic.

At least it's a start...

The judge in the Madoff trial rejected the application for bail and ordered Madoff straight to jail.

Good.

The only drawback is that Madoff hasn't come clean, yet, and I'm with the investor who says that Madoff isn't sincere and the apology offered in court is garbage. I'm pretty sure that Madoff is only sorry he got caught with his hand in the billion-dollar cookie jar.\

I think the prosecution needs to a) confiscate his $7-million penthouse and b) scare the crap out of his wife because she's probably sitting on some of the ill-gotten gains. Those billions of dollars can't have just 'poofed' into thin air; there has to be a trail.

A few thoughts on the current news stories

Vaccines and autism - The special court ruled that the evidence overwhelmingly does not support a link between autism and vaccination. Finally. I'm an epidemiologist, if none of you already knew, so I read the original paper for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and the original "study" that "proved" a link between MMR and autism had a sample size of 12; that is laughable for a population-based study. You can't just dig up 12 patients with autism and incidentally find that they all had the MMR vaccine thus concluding the MMR vaccine caused the autism; that's bad science - poorly designed and biased. But...in a world where people need causality and want a place to lay blame for the origin of a child's disease that study that "finding" was the "proof" many parents needed. So began that fight. Someone from NVIC did point out that the court's ruling will not dissuade many parents who earnestly believe their children are in danger because of the MMR vaccine (and other vaccines as well) and therefore will fight to avoid vaccinating their children. You know what that does? Endangers everyone else's children. Herd immunity should not be used as an excuse and anyway, you know that thimerosal preservative everyone freaked out about? Well, I'm 30 and had my first measles shot in 1980 and my MMR in 1992 - if thimerosal was going to cause autism it would have caused an explosion of cases in my generation, not the children born in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The "Octuplet mom" - NEEDS MENTAL HELP. She has a narcissistic personality if I ever saw one. She had all those children by IVF, put them in mortal danger through a high-order multiples pregnancy (which is frowned upon by the medical establishment), and now wants us to help care for (i.e. pay for) these children all because she was lonely as a child? She doesn't love those children, she loves herself and the attention she's getting because of it. A reality show? A website to collect donations? She already collects SSDI for several of her older children to the tune of several thousand dollars a month and she was receiving workers compensation for a back injury sustained while working at a mental institution. Now, she doesn't deserve threats but she really needs a reality check. She might not consider food stamps and SSDI "welfare" but that is provided by the tax payers, specifically those of California, and they're going to wind up footing the bill for her children - about 1.5 to 2.5 million dollars. That's a lot of money going to one person just because she wanted a big family. I call that selfish. Oh, and she's going to back to school (she already has $50,000 in school loans) and she's going to rely on *cough*take advantage of*cough* the school's daycare provider and volunteers to care for the children while she attends school. As I said above, I'm 30 - this woman is 33 (her oldest child is 7, I believe); why IVF was required? Higher-order multiples are extremely rare in pregnancies concieved naturally.

Social Hosting laws - Should a parent who provides alcohol to teens for a party/gathering/etc. be held liable for what happens? Yes, it is illegal to provide minors with alcohol; the only exception is allowing your own child to have a small drink in the privacy of your own home for say dinner or a celebration. Should a parent be held liable because their stupid kid threw a kegger while the parents were out of town, either obtaining the alcohol through another source or raiding the existing liquor cabinet (in my experience, the alcohol usually comes from an outside source)? Nope, at that point the child decided to do something illegal but the parents will probably have to foot the bill for their child's stupidity. You can substitute "social host" for parent, here. I'm also a big one for personal responsibility. I'm also a big one for not making alcohol such a taboo; as a younger teen I was allowed to have a small (maybe two fingers worth in a tumbler) glass of wine at dinner if my parents were having wine with dinner or I was allowed to have a sip of beer if Dad was having one. I was taught that having a drink was a social thing and that having a lot of alcohol in one sitting was a really stupid idea. I tested that theory out while in college; yeah, having a lot of alcohol in one go is not the smartest thing ever and I've really not ever done it again.

The stimulus package - First off, if the banks are using the previously-allocated bailout money improperly the government should ask for the money back because it was a loan and I think loans can be recalled (I could be wrong). Second, absolutely NONE of those CEOs should even be drawing a salary, nor should any of the other top executives, that exceeds the salary of the lowliest intern; didja hear me? NO bonuses, NO raises, nada, zip. You got us into this mess, so you better start trying to get us out. Third, why don't we use some of the stimulus money to help people keep their homes? In my opinion, if someone has honestly been trying to keep up with the mortgage payments, then they're probably not trying to play the system, so the stimulus money should be used to help re-negotiate the mortgage so that it is manageable. Fourth, who gives a crap about doorbells in Mississippi? Get real (gotta love StimulusWatch - I hope someone in Washingon sees it). It gets even better - this is the state where I live and there are only two cities listed who have requested federal stimulus funding. I don't live in those areas and I pretty much only see the need for the sewer work, flood mitigation, and ADA compliance projects. Library and wireless LAN projects, parks improvements, etc. are not something the federal government should pay for; if the locals want those things then they better pony up the cash.

That idiot Blagojevich (reposted from a Chicago trib blog) - So he's going to write a tell-all book? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry, still snickering. How does someone that juvenile get elected to public office? Wait, don't answer that.

UI Graduate Students Split from UISG (hopefully that will open without having to register for the DI - Just a bit of local-yokel news and all I can say is about damn time. I did both undergrad and graduate work at the University of Iowa and I can easily say that the UI Student Government is run by undergrads; said undergrads do not want to listen to the Executive Council for Graduate and Professional Students. I can also attest to being pissed that my graduate student fees were going to support activities attended primarily by undergraduates. So, in the next fiscal year GSS will allocate grad student funds and UISG will allocate undergrad student funds.

Ear-worm

I have Taylor Swift's stupid song that goes "It's a love story" or some such crap stuck in my head. Why???? She's a terrible singer (who cares what the teenagers and their parents' money say?), she doesn't have any breath control - evidenced by the fact that she breathes in the middle of both phrases and words, and the words to that song make absolutely NO SENSE. "You were Romeo, I was the scarlet letter" - how does that make any sense? You want to be a social outcast? Did the lyricisit even think about what he/she was writing? Get out of my head!!!!

Jane and Zombies?

Quirk Books - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

What in the absolute hell possessed someone to do that???

Why can't everyone just leave my Jane alone - quit trying to capitalize on someone else's good name!!!!!

Today does hold some good news

Good news: Blagojevich got booted from office

Bad news: My friend lost his job for no good reason other than people just aren't spending money.

Kind of outweighs the good.

Double Gah!

So now that Kate Winslet's won two Golden Globes for both The Reader and Revolutionary Road I'm doubly hacked off that our movie theatres are owned by culture-less slobs.

Perhaps they might now be persuaded to bring these movies in now there's a little gleam of gold.

OMG, snow again!

We're having serious snow today in Iowa; it started about 6am or so and is expected to continue through the evening. We will have more flurries tomorrow and a low of 8 degrees. Brrrrr. I happen to like snow (snow, not ice or "snane") but the city isn't doing a hot job at plowing. Thank heaven the morning bus driver is one of the good ones who can actually handle a city bus as it slides around because the bus routes weren't being kept open or salted. The mall on the other hand doesn't seem to have any salt or sand. I understand the owners are going through bankruptcy proceedings but GET REAL; you have to salt, sand, and PLOW the parking lot because snow on top of ice makes for ZERO traction.

Boss came back today; hooray, because hopefully the people who wouldn't listen to me will listen to her. And I still have enough work to do to choke a horse.

A little note to pushy, "brand new" authors:
If you want me or any other reader/writer/bookseller/editor/Joe-schmo to take you seriously, please learn to write with correct grammar and punctuation. I have absolutely zero interest in reading badly written advertising copy that has random capitalization and no punctuation. I also don't care that you acknowledge you have poor writing skills and need an editor; get a Strunk and White and start re-reading. Additionally, don't tout your work as "the next Harry Potter" - you sound desperate and inexperienced.

Current book-in-progress: Udolpho, bio on Eleanor of Aquitane, Desperaux
Current knitted item: Red variegated scarf (half-done, but I just put some sock yarn in my bag...)
Current movie obsession: Atonement and the original The Italian Job should be arriving in my mailbox
Current iTunes loop: old Filmspotting episodes (I'm up to Episode #44 of 197 that I've been listening to in order to catch up on the podcast)

Love Letters

Remember when the Sex in the City movie came out and everyone wanted the "Love Letter" book? And the "Love Letter" book didn't exist because the movie's producers made it up even though the letters were real?

Well, Ursula Doyle went out and collected a number of love letters written by "great men" from Pliny to Curie; she published the collection as Love Letters of Great Men. The collection is decently wide-ranging, including three letters from Alexander Pope to three different women, Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved" letter, and two of Oscar Wilde's letters to Lord Alfred Douglas (aka Bosie). I'm a sucker - I bought it.

Addendum to yesterday's post:
Not only is the Mall trying to ruin Christmas some nut who has a duplex condo on the bus route is doing his best, too. If I were his neighbor I would probably move. The entire yard of this dwelling is covered with lit-up/moving Christmas objects and twinkle lights outline every angle. There's even a Ferris Wheel with toys and elves that goes around and around. Gag.

Gee, already?

While waiting for the bus I was appalled to realize that the mall was playing Christmas music - Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You was blaring over the sound system followed by I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas (which I particularly loathe). Thanks guys. Couldn't you wait to switch the Muzak until the day after Thanksgiving?

Combined with the huge Christmas wreaths hanging from the ceiling the effect is truly gag-inducing.

Yeah, CR smells, but what else do you expect?

So some travel writer, Peter Greenberg, has a new travel book out that names Cedar Rapids one of the five smelliest cities for travellers to avoid. Oh, and he takes potshots at the city for the flood debris.

Yeah, Cedar Rapids smells. It's a blue collar, processing plant city. Most of the city's industry was built on meat-packing so just be happy that Quaker Oats moved in so that occasionally you can smell cooking oatmeal instead of offal. If you don't like it then you can go somewhere else.

However, don't even think about going after the city or anyone else for the flood debris, Peter Greenberg. That's pretty despicable, just about on the same level as people who tried a little fraud during the flood recovery. Do you have a better idea about where that's all going to go? Millions of dollars in sludge, bacteria, mold, mildew, and destroyed homes and businesses don't just disappear with a snap of the fingers. You can't just wish it away.

Call CR smelly, everyone knows it. Get over it - but leave the flood out of it.