More from Laura Bush and the President, who were hosts (along with Elmo and his handler, puppeteer and now author Kevin Clash) on Saturday at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC. Check out the First Lady’s sleek new do!
More of the same from a few other sources; ABC, yahoo and newsmax.
Less Puff, More Analysis
For analysis of Mrs. Bush’s initiatives to take over reading and libraries as her ‘signature’ causes, please see these posts at Library Juice and comments.
Are you proud of our National Book Festival? and Laura Bush appropriates title of IMLS grant for librarians and on reading where Mrs. Bush might intercede on behalf of children rather than commerical publishers: No Child Left Behind: $55 Billion Boondoggle?
Analysis….I call it whining
You know if librarians would stop getting their knickers in a knot over minutae perhaps more people would think more highly of them.
Litwin is probably not the best example to hold up as a shining star of the library world.
Librarians should discuss library issues, not constantly whine about how they don’t like what is going on politically. Litwin and the rest of the SRRT whackos are a great part of what is wrong with librarianship, and especially the ALA.
Get a grip, no one gives a damn what librarians have to say about torture, Darfur, hunger- homelessness- and poverty, or any of the other crap the SRRT keeps dragging up. Sure people have opinions on those things but they don’t look to librarians for opinion. They shouldn’t look to librarians for opinion they should look to librarians for unbiased information -yet how can they expect that from a librarian that belongs to a unit of a ‘professional’ organization that does little but come up with off the wall political resolutions.
And librarians wonder why no one gives a damn about libraries anymore. If it were not for free Internet access, your library would most probably be a ghost town.
So whine about the Library of Congress sponsored, commercially supported book fair. Go ahead go off on a tangent and start a looney political discussion – that will persuade patrons you can remain on track and help them.
Idiots.
Re:Analysis….I call it whining
While all that mya be true, and mostly is, whining about them being a bunch of whiners just makes you look like a bigger whiner. The two of you sould exactly the same most of the time, you’re just complaining about different things.
Less name calling and more insightful constructive criticism would do wonders for what you have to say most of the time.
Re:Analysis….I call it whining
OK, get rid of the ALA and the SRRT and get a professional organization that truly represents the profession.
Hows that?
missed opportunity
I am as far-left as they come. I’d like to see Bush, et. al. in a cell in the Hague, playing the harmonica balefully and smoking Kools.
That said the library world has collectively fumbled a potential PR bonanza in not taking fully advantage of Laura Bush’s status as a librarian. Maybe not now since Bush is so unpopular but during the first term when he and Laura were popular the ALA should have had her friggin’ everywhere.
We could have raised our national profile. We could have made all kinds of hay out of that kind of visibility. But we had to cut off our noses to spite our faces.
Dumb.
Re:Analysis….I call it whining
You’ve nailed it right on the head.
ALA, Litwin et al would be wise to recognize the historical importance of librarians not being perceived of any particular political ilk, but unbiased stewards of information. Public libraries will ultimately pay the price for this perception with more stakeholders choosing residential broadband/DSL over subsidizing radical malcontents come levy time.
critical analysis
Blah blah blah W.
Blah blah blah Laura .
Nobody has anything to say about Elmo? He’s way too fuzzy, talks with a lisp, and his unblinking eyes can make a person mad. He’s gotta be a red-stater too. And he was not only -NOT ELECTED- (at least once), he was cast upon us by Sesame Street without so much as as a may I introduce…