Le mieux blog dans le monde!

And I'm known as the librarian with the orange hair.

A kid (a regular) came in yesterday and needed help with his myspace account. The person who helped him suggested he return today so I could help him out; the staff member used my name in the exchange.

The kid, not sure of my name, asked, "Is she the one with the orange hair?"

Orange hair, the voice of an older person....

Can't wait for the next impression!

A Diamond is Forever

Unfortunately, Blood Diamond is the kind of movie that will draw people who are already concerned about conflict diamonds entering the market or other cause-conscious moviegoers. To make a real impact on the diamond industry, more of the population must know about this issue and take a stand.

However, giving diamonds as gifts for a variety of occasions is so engrained in the minds of Americans that I can't foresee a call for the top diamond companies to create stricter measures to prevent conflict diamonds from entering their supply.

Also, as the movie points out, "This is Africa." When has the world truly been concerned for the welfare of Africans? What benefit would the world have in doing so? The Middle East and parts of Central/South America are important because of oil (not to mention the entrenched drug trade in these areas--hey, illegal drugs create jobs in America!). We have strong economic ties to Europe and Eastern Asia. What does Africa have to offer (especially, when we can go there and exploit the unrest and major problems. Wait! We don't have to go there; there are plenty of crooks in "some" of the governments--many of whom are there as a result of U.S. intervention)?

The other day a man came up to the circulation desk to check materials out. I asked him how he was doing and if he found the information he came in for.

His response: "Whoa! I didn' t expect you to have that voice!"

Further explanation: I look like I'm in my mid-20s but have the voice of a person in her mid-30s.
A voice can age (think of puberty or listen to an elderly person speak), but I thought that once between the ages of 13 and 80, there were no real indicators of the age of a person based on voice.

That man's comment-that horrible man (heh, heh, heh)-disturbed me. I don't want to sound 5-10 years older than I really am. I still consider myself young and fresh.

Merry Christmas!

Somehow, not only for Christmas,
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others,
Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing,
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing,
Returns to you glad.

--John Whittier

What a relief it is that the government is watching out for it's citizens!!!

With the extra opportunities for surveillance that the U.S. government has as a result of the USA PATRIOT Act, we can rest assured that when the government spies on "terrorist" suspects (such as the late John Lennon), they will get their man or woman!!

If only the USA PATRIOT Act was enacted earlier.... Maybe John Lennon would have been found guilty of more than not following the status quo.

"The FBI had unsuccessfully argued that an unnamed foreign government secretly provided the information, and releasing the documents could lead to diplomatic, political or economic retaliation against the United States.

"The newly released documents include a surveillance report stating that two prominent British leftists had courted Lennon in hopes that he would finance "a left-wing bookshop and reading room in London" but that Lennon gave them no money. Another page states that there was "no certain proof" that Lennon had provided money "for subversive purposes."

"I doubt that Tony Blair's government will launch a military strike on the U.S. in retaliation for the release of these documents," Wiener told the newspaper. "Today, we can see that the national security claims that the FBI has been making for 25 years were absurd from the beginning." http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/12/20/people.lennonfiles.ap/index.html

Such a waste of resources.... Makes me wonder why the prisoners at Gitmo are really there?

Hello, Ms. President

All this talk about Hilary running for president...
I certainly think she'd have a good chance--she's comparable to the other possible candidates for the Democratic ticket (except maybe Obama, but then that would bring up race--is American ready for a non-white President?).

But do we really need another Clinton in the Oval Office?

Are Americans ready for a female president? I don't see why not. How many people would not vote for a candidate solely because of his/her gender? So long as they compaign well and seem solid, I wonder if gender is an issue.

There are differences in the ways that men and women think in general. Are those differences significant enough to limit one sex's ability to be a good president? Probably not in and of themselves.

I'd like to see Hilary run, simply because she appears to be a women who has transcended the traditional gender divide in politics. But I'm not sure she could inspire me to respect the national party.

Sieg Heil! Welcome to the American Reich....

Our fellow Americans are turning their own democratic country into a fascist, bigoted, sectarian state. While we've probably already been heading in this direction on a smaller scale, with 9/11 the American people have become more united with their distrust of Muslims.

Of course, I'm reacting to one Gallup poll and one Reuters article, but I hear other anti-Muslim/Islam comments from all sorts of people.

Stereotypes that get out of hand lead to the persecution of innocent people. In the poll and article, 39% of 1,000 people polled and a number of people who responded to a "devils-advocating" radio show program, stated that they'd like to see Muslims in the U.S. marked , not unlike the Jews and other prisoners of concentration camps during Hitler's regime.

Any acceptance of this kind of behavior (could we call it "Unamerican" behavior) will lead us further and further from a democratic state. Its interesting to see how people try to make sense of 9/11. I suppose we need real people to point fingers at and get our frustrations on, not just a vague abstract enemy like "terrorism" or an unseen "bin Laden".

I could be overreacting to a simple article that I read, but I really hope that this way of thinking doesn't escalate.
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