Former Tina Turner Impersonator for Mayor(!)

hoooooo boy, readers: I knew the Louisville mayoral race (which, 7 months away from election day, has already begun to heat up) was going to get interesting, but I had not dared to hope for this interesting, this early. Lest you think the title of this post is in jest, let me first assure you that, yes, indeed we do have a candidate seriously contending to be our city's next mayor who, in a past career, was a Tina Turner impersonator (although it is currently unknown if she held any formal accreditation). Connie Marshall, a currently unemployed western Louisville resident (although some sources refer to her as a "community activist"...) is running as a Democrat along with Tyler Allen, Greg Fischer, David Tandy, Shannon White, Burrel Farnsley and, of course, the reviled Jim King.

You may be wondering what else Ms. Marshall has to offer besides her accomplished (we assume) knowledge and mastery of Tina Turner mannerisms and performance. Well, according to a recent article in the Courier-Journal, she is also quite the prolifically litigious nut bag: she's sued the Louisville Gas & Electric Company, the U.S. attorney, the governor, the sheriff, the chief of police, various police officers, FBI agents, the U.S. Department of Justice and a few federal judges--19 law suits in all, along with a handful of suits in Jefferson District Court. Marshall acknowledges that this is kind of a lot: "I've sued the whole town, because the whole town is corrupt. If I'm leaving anybody out, I just haven't gotten to it yet." So, residents of Louisville who are not currently being sued by Connie Marshall, don't worry: it'll be your turn sooner or later--it's just that Connie has not yet been made aware of your vile corruption.

The suits claim harassment, intimidation, waste, fraud, racism, physical and mental assault, illegal incarceration and surveillance. But the coup de grace? Brace yourself: she says she is the victim of electromagnetic attacks from the government(!) They manifest themselves, she explains, through a "piercing and humming electronic sound that come into her home through telephones or other electronic devices." These attacks, she says, are apparently coming from satellites or drones that "often hover above her western Louisville home, causing her pain and sometimes paralyzing her for minutes." She claims that she is also being watched through her television: "You can tell when it's happening because the TV (screen) gets real bright." Apparently Marshall's platform for mayor will be based on wild-eyed anti-government conspiracy theory and, as Louisville's alt-weekly, LEO, remarked "other tinfoil-hat stuff." According to the C-J article: "...as mayor, she would help people who are suffering from similar attacks and anyone else who needs assistance from metro government." Yes, excuse me mayor: my neighbor's garbage cans are not in accordance with the city's ordinance...oh, and, uh, their dog has been illegally transmitting some disturbing messages to me through my toaster oven.

So, yeah--elect Crazy McGee for Louisville mayor and you can expect her to: a) wage war on the government (destroy it from within, I guess), b) say so many insane things on a daily basis that it'll make Jim Bunning seem mentally stable, and, probably: c) sue your ass. Realistically I know Connie doesn't stand a chance of getting her party's nomination (anybody else smell a future lawsuit?), but you know what? If she was smart enough to run as a Republican she could probably give em a run for their money by riding the wave of tea-baggin' anti-government angst. All she has to do is switch parties and start referring to her plight as the "elite big government socialist mind control agenda" and she's golden.

I swear, it always takes a sarcastic flowchart to calm me down. This weekend I've been getting a little seduced (all over again) over the newest iThing. But, seriously: can you blame me? They've finally managed to make a real working version of the Padd--that great Star Trek mainstay dating from the Next Generation, a ubiquitous Trek technology--and now I can go to a store and buy one! Of course, I can't get too carried away: if I had 500 bucks I shouldn't be spending it on some first gen device from Apple, the overly proprietary bully of the technology set.

But gosh--I've had it in my head ever since reading Marilyn Johnson's excellent This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All that I need to be unchained from the desk, out in the stacks and in the streets doing my reference thing in a mobile capacity in order to be truly relevant. The chapter about the Minnesotan librarians (see page 105) who went into the streets to help direct protesters during the RNC in 2008, bringing their iPhones and ready reference binders to the people who needed information, was pretty inspiring. The idea of being a renegade librarian is pretty awesome--not waiting inside a building for someone to ask you a question, getting all proactive, embracing technology, networking/plotting with other subversive librarians...it's all very invigorating/intriguing.

Anyway, so how does all this relate to me salivating over an iPad? Well, you know--I could run around town with it, aggressively providing reference service to random strangers...how great would that be? On my days off I could be the Kamikaze Street Librarian; when we inevitably lose internet access at my branch I could totally save the day; I could roam the stacks and help patrons without having to run back to the computer at my desk to search our OPAC or WorldCat, search the internet for some fact or title, or whatever. Pretty exciting stuff, when you think about it (and I have been thinking about it a lot), but of course I would have to wait till later this month when Apple releases the 3G version. And shit, would I have to pay some crazy AT&T data plan bill every month on top of my usual cell phone charges? That would be pretty pricey. So, alas, for now I think I will be taking the advice of our snarky friends at BBSpot who created our helpful (and sobering) flowchart above. But just wait until the iPad gets a little competition and the price drops--the KSL (Kamikaze Street Librarian) will be realized, then no one will be safe from my maverick brand of street reference!

The Progressive Librarians Guild

Readers, ever since I earned my masters degree this past December I've become quite the joiner. Contrary to my past group-related behavior--a sort of flaky, half-interested hoverering--it is currently my habit to compulsively join any professional organization that catches my eye. The American Library Association? Yes! The Society of American Archivists? OK! The Freedom to Read Foundation? Sure! The Art Libraries Society of North America? Why not? It's really addictive, this joining business (and kind of expensive too--although it's one of those things that you can talk yourself into pretty easily by saying that it's integral to your career and "participating in the profession").

The benefits of this kind of mass subscription are pretty good: I get to list them on my resume under the impressive-sounding "Memberships & Organizations" heading, plus I usually get access to some job-related service the organization may provide (like listservs), I can join a round table discussion group or regional chapter, and, most of the time, these types of groups will publish a journal, which you automatically get a subscription to as a member. Oh, boy, do I love journal subscriptions! I currently get Ohio Valley History and The Filson (both from being a Filson Historical Society member), Library Journal, Art Documentation (from ARLIS), American Archivist (SAA), and soon: The Progressive Librarian!

That last one is something I'm particularly excited about, as they are a fairly radical, pro-union, pro-humanist, pro-F-the-establishment lefty group of librarians who aren't interested in being pushed around by The Man or inviting Starbucks to set up shop in our public libraries. According to their statement of purpose:

"Progressive Librarians Guild was formed in New York City on January 1990 by a group of librarians concerned with our profession's rapid drift into dubious alliances with business and the information industry, and into complacent acceptance of service to an unquestioned political, economic and cultural status quo."

Hmm, I think I'm pretty much on board with that. It's a little jarring, though, to see some library related organization rail against the word neutrality like they do:

"Members of PLG do not accept the sterile notion of the neutrality of librarianship, and we strongly oppose the commodification of information which turns the 'information commons' into privatized, commercialized zones. We will help to dissect the implications of these powerful trends, and fight their anti-democratic tendencies."

One assumes they are referring to being against neutrality as a way of being complicit with corporate/government control of information, and not as being against the unbiased dissemination of information no matter what our own personal feelings/beliefs (i.e. letting people know where the Ann Coulter books are, even though we know she's a giant D-bag. 'cause I agree with that kind of neutrality...). Anyway, I'm pretty sure that's what they're getting at, so I sent my $20 check off this afternoon to the PLG. I'm also totally making an iron-on transfer of that bad-ass eagle logo above, which I found on their website, and will be affixing to a t-shirt in the near future (along with a handwritten source citation, 'natch)

Muchos frijoles, readers! I've recently discovered the wonders of Southwestern cooking, and refried beans are my new specialty/obsession (note the clock on my oven reporting that I was indeed boiling a large amount of mashed pinto beans at 9:30 pm). I'm also quickly perfecting my handmade corn tortilla technique, which combines with my massive bean fixation to equal one titanic stockpile of muy deliciouso burritos in my freezer. And now that warm weather is upon us it is only a matter of time (I'd say this weekend) before I bust out my beloved Waring professional bar blender (in retro green) and finish the deal with some high-octane frozen margaritas--viva!

So everybody who's from KY will know what I'm talking about when I say "Hurrah" for House Bill 251, aka, the "stray horse bill."

Finally! Now there's policy in place for dealing with all these damn stray horses. What? You say you don't have that problem where you're from? Well, welcome to KY, stranger, where you can't go more than a block or two without stumbling over a flaxen-coated Derby contender. Pffsch! Thoroughbreds! Big deal--in my state they're a dime a dozen, and they eat all your grass and shit on your front porch. "Majestic" indeed. There's a reason Kentucky isn't the tourist mecca that Florida or Nevada is (two words: horse flatulence). Now that our streets will soon be equine-free I think we can expect cleaner living, a dramatic drop-off in stampede-related property damage, and a generally more hygienic environment in which to pluck our banjos in our bare feet while courting our first cousins. Yee-haw! *shoots pistols in air*

Wacky (Informative?) Library Books for Kids

Oh boy, readers--it's time for another look into the collection of our favorite local library to see what far-out reading materials are available for the education of our youths! Ready, children?

I found the above item, The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts by Shinto Cho, the other day. It's one of those kids' books that try to be informative, but really just come off as being unsettling and weird. I guess I can appreciate the effort, though--kids really do need to understand bodily processes and their reasons for being...but it freaked me out. The text went randomly back and forth between using actual medical terminology (e.g. "anus") and alarming, crude description ("that hole in your bottom"). I think that's probably what makes this book so...distressing: I'd rather just have the real, technical terms thrown at me than be given a creepy, Disney-rated version that makes it sounds like it is something Not-To-Be-Named. That kind of vague insinuation just sends the wrong message (the message being: "I don't want to hear about that hole in your bottom").

So, I don't know if I will ever be recommending this one, but really: what other childrens' non-fiction books about flatulence are really out there? I can't just hand a 5 year old Gray's Anatomy...(although that would be hilarious). I guess I'll have to keep this one in mind for just such an occasion.

(Oh, Also: the artwork is ATROCIOUS)

Filibustin' a Move with Crazy Jimmy B

Well, readers, you may have noticed that one of KY's original good ole boys has been in the news rather prominently (again) as of late--and you know that's never a good thing for KY. Well, this time it's really not a good thing for the huge numbers of unemployed: everyone's "favorite" cantankerous governmental nap-taker, Jim Bunning, has been a lot more active than usual in his job this past week: he's been the lone Senator holding up the legislation that would extend jobless benefits (i.e. unemployment and health insurance) to roughly one million currently out-of-work Americans. Way to take a stand, there, Jimmy boy--right onto the backs of your constituents (KY's unemployment rate is currently one of the nation's highest--10.7%), and during the worst economic crises since the Great Depression, no less.

You may remember the salad days of Jim Bunning insanity fun--back in the years and months before he "decided to retire" (read: before he was pressured by the entire GOP to bail on reelection due to a torrent of gaffes and truly offensive outbursts). You could pretty much count on Jimmy to make the news bi-weekly--whether it was dissing Mitch McConnell or publicly celebrating Ruth Bader Ginsburg's cancer diagnosis or cussing out reporters during a conference call, you knew that if Jimmy had shown up somewhere and said something, whatever it was would be derogatory, petulant, sexist, rude, profane, and/or outlandish. The local newspaper had even suggested (bluntly, and not in jest) that he was getting dementia--they ran an interview last summer with a mental health specialist who used Jimmy's behavior to diagnose a possible loss of brain function(!).

So anyway--here we are, every single one of the other Senators voting to extend unemployment except Jim. Jim who, suddenly, feels like taking a stand rather than his usual MO: i.e. stare in jaded silence, perhaps blurt some shitty remark and then, later, a nap. Or maybe just stay home and skip the whole ordeal. But now we meet principled Jimmy, Mr. Fiscal Responsibility. But don't be fooled, it's still the same old Crazy Jimmy B: while his fellow Senators tried to change his mind he complained about missing a UofK basketball game; when Sen. Jeff Merkely (D-OR) asked him to stand down Jimmy replied "tough shit!"; and when reporters asked him for an interview he casually flipped the bird to one of the producers (according to ABC News)(!).

Of course, these days Jimmy can afford to be a self righteous finger-wagger at our expense: he's not running for reelection next year, so he doesn't really need to worry about the fallout (although, I'm not sure he ever really worried about it before, either). So maybe he figures that by using his final months in office to be an anti-middle class obstructionist A-hole he can cash-in on a little of that tea bagging fever. Maybe Fox News will even make him their newest correspondent...he would fit right in, maybe even make some of their other sideshow attractions seem sane and well-balanced in comparison (note to Glenn Beck: it's gonna take a mighty river of tears to compete with the cluster bomb of crazy that is Jim Bunning, so start hydrating now).

And it's not just unemployment benefits that will be affected: 2,000 federal workers will be furloughed, reimbursements to states for transportation projects will be halted (including two bridge replacement projects in Kentucky), a provision expired that would have stopped a 21% cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors, and loan programs for small businesses are now on hold. Whew! That's a whole lotta work for an old guy like Jimmy--I'm sure it was enough to really tucker the poor guy out. Let's hope all the angry phone calls and bomb threats that his Kentucky office has been receiving this week hasn't kept him from catching his z's.