quick work observation

A customer came in yesterday on a segway. It wasn't your normal model though,but more of a hospital assigned/medical rental outlet cheap model. I had thought I had seen it all. I know now to think better of that.

We're number 1! We're number 1!

NEWPORT BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY RATED #1 (in Cali)

The Newport Beach Public Library received the highest ranking of California public libraries in its population category according to the recently released Hennen’s American Public Library Rankings (HAPLR). Newport Beach is rated number one out of forty-four public libraries in communities with populations from 50,000 to 100,000.

The HAPLR Index attempts to identify the public libraries in America with the highest input and output measures. The study focuses on 15 key factors, including funding levels, collections, staffing, hours open, number of visitors and reference services. Rankings are based on nationwide public library statistics collected from over 9,000 public libraries.

The HAPLR Index for 2008 was announced in the October issue of American Libraries, the magazine of the American Library Association.

http://www.haplr-index.com/States%202008/ca.html

There is none righteous, no, not one (political parties included)

I found this to be an interesting commentary from Michael Medved. I hope y'all know me well enough to understand that I don't think one party is better than the whole. I pretty much hate politics.


"For people who feel lost and lonely, what's the best way to work your way back to home and wholeness? Does it make more sense to rely on faith or politics?

In this autumnal season of electoral fever - and of the Jewish high holy days - the choice between God and government significantly divides right and left, Republicans and Democrats.

At their Denver convention, the Democrats adopted the most unabashedly liberal platform in the party's history, including the following remarkable promise: "We will provide immediate relief to working people who have lost their jobs, families who have lost their homes and people who have lost their way."

While one can imagine frenzied Democratic efforts to muster "immediate relief" for lost jobs and lost homes, how, exactly, do they propose to assist those who have "lost their way"? For all the messianic pretensions of the Obama campaign, the junior senator from Illinois has not yet, to my knowledge, proclaimed himself "the way, the truth, and the life."

Nevertheless, the candidate's most devoted acolyte, Michelle Obama, has repeatedly suggested that the purpose of the campaign isn't just to transform our politics and to heal our earth, but to rescue shattered and stricken souls. On February 3, 2008, she told a rapturous crowd at UCLA: "We have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation." The next week she expressed similar sentiments to an audience in Green Bay, Wisconsin, declaring: "We are dealing with a basic hole in our soul of the nation- we are lost."

In other words, the wife of the presidential candidate echoes the Democratic Party platform in openly defining the campaign's goals in spiritual and not just political terms. Is it any wonder that the movement behind Barack Obama has taken on some of the weird, zombie-like trappings of a trendy religious cult? In promising the repair of broken souls and showing the way to those who are lost, this campaign has undertaken tasks usually reserved for religious institutions.

In the Jewish tradition, the fall season is devoted to repentance, prayer and restoration of the soul, even more than campaigning for your favorite candidate. Rosh HaShannah - the Jewish New Year which began on Monday night - introduces the "ten days of repentance" culminating with the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), which falls this year on October 9th. The Hebrew word for repentance - "t'shuvah" - literally means "return" and the whole purpose of the sacred season is to bring back lost souls (all of us, in actuality) to the Godly and honorable path we are meant to walk. Despite the sad fact that most American Jews feel passionately committed to liberal causes, our liturgy and tradition never suggest that we rescue the lost and repair our souls through supporting specific candidates or government policies, no matter how worthy. The process of slate-cleaning and fresh starts that we undertake every year at this time requires an intensive effort of self-examination and personal change, not the easier (and shallower) immersion in sweeping social movements.

For religious Jews and committed Christians, real change demands a commitment to God and His law, not just volunteer efforts for an inspiring politican. The very idea that government and politics can accomplish the work of spiritual renewal counts as a ludicrous insult, an obamanation. When it comes to the job of "fixing souls" or showing the way to lost sheep, the right response for any presidential candidate would be: "That's beyond my pay grade."

The leftwing tendency to view politics as a substitute for religion will properly worry more Americans than the right's habit of allowing faith commitments to impact political positions. It's true that social conservatives sometimes feel such fervent religious enthusiasm that we allow our faith to spill over into the political realm. On the other hand, liberals nurture the sort of political intensity and fervor that not only invades the religious domain but often takes the place of organized faith. Liberal denominations regularly describe their chief mission as "social justice" - meaning the agitation for redistributionist and activist government policies long advocated by the left. My friend, columnist Mona Charen, memorably described Reform Judaism (the most "progressive" branch of our ancient faith) as "nothing more than the Democratic Party with holidays."

If there's one message of this season's real holidays, it's that no movement, no political campaign, no public initiative can fill "holes in the soul" as effectively as nurturing a private relationship with the Creator. As Rabbi Daniel Lapin trenchantly observes, people will either worship "the big G" - God, or else they will worship "the little g"-government.

The adulation and embrace of government will undermine devotion to God, just as subservience and love for God will dilute the authority of government. That's why totalitarian systems of every sort distrust and suppress authentic religious faith.

This year, the month of October brings both political frenzy and religious reflection. In the dual spirit of this season, may we help to return the lost from their wandering and restore all broken souls, finding the strength and the insight to uphold the right "G." "

For those wondering where all the good library stories are...

Ex-library employee awaits appeals decision

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Sometimes a pen name isn’t cover enough, Sally Stern-Hamilton has learned.

The publication of her controversial book, “The Library Diaries,” written under the pen name Ann Miketa, resulted in her termination as a Mason County District Library employee after 15 years on the job. She is appealing that firing.

Written in the first person and set in what she calls a fictitious Lake Michigan town of Denialville, “The Libraries Dairies” is a series of vignettes about mostly unsavory characters encountered daily at the library.

The Ludington Library is not the purported setting, however a small picture of the Ludington Library is on the cover. “After working at a public library in a small, rural Midwestern town (which I will refer to as Denialville, Michigan, throughout this book) for fifteen years, I have encountered strains and variations of crazy I didn’t know existed in such significant portions of our population,” “Ann Miketa” wrote in the book’s introduction.

Stern-Hamilton was notified of her termination in a formal letter from District Library Director Robert Dickson July 25. In that letter Dickson refers to a prior letter of “Suspension Pending Investigation” that he wrote to Stern-Hamilton July 15 in which he stated:

“The cover of your book includes a picture of the Ludington Library. Each chapter is devoted to a specific library patron or patrons. Your book portrays these people in a very unflattering manner. You describe individual patrons as mentally ill, mentally incompetent, unintelligent, and unattractive. You label several as ‘perverts.’ While you stop short of naming the individuals you targeted in your book, your detailed descriptions of their unique characteristics and mannerisms make them easily identifiable in our small community.”

Despite the picture in the cover collage, Stern-Hamilton is adamant that “The Library Diaries” — though it draws on her personal experiences as a library employee — is fiction.

“Most writers, anyone who writes something, some of it’s going to come from, be rooted in, your personal experience. I don’t think I could have come up with (the characters) on my own. They’re bizarre, idiosyncratic, so they are based on some real experiences, but of course there are embellishments,” said Stern-Hamilton.

She said she chose to use a picture of the Ludington Library because, “It’s a great picture. It looks just like a library. It epitomizes the American idea of a library. It’s a Carnegie library,” said Stern-Hamilton referring to more than 2,500 libraries built worldwide with money donated by businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie between 1883 and 1929.

Stern-Hamilton said she is unaware how Dickson came to learn about the 150-page book, which took three years to write. She said she decided to write “The Library Diaries” because, “I’m concerned about what goes on in public libraries everywhere.” She said she is particularly concerned that known sex offenders are given library privileges which allow them access to computers where they routinely view pornography— sometimes in close proximity to children.

“I don’t think they should be allowed in (the library) — these sexual predators,” said Stern-Hamilton, who claims that she had no intention of “pursue this as a commercial endeavor in Ludington.”

“Out of a town of 8,000, not many people were meant to know about the book. Publish America, my publisher, asked for addresses of people, and sent out announcements to people giving them a chance to purchase it. Publish America is a grassroots organization, and willing to publish people who are unknown, without charging the person thousands of dollars some self publishers charge.”

Publish America uses a business model known as publishing on demand which keeps costs to a minimum since books are only printed when ordered.

However, people in Ludington did learn of the book.

“I went for a hearing where I was able to respond to the letter of suspension that Bob sent me. I went to that meeting and spoke my piece and got a termination letter two days letter. I haven’t heard from any of my co-workers since.”

“The absolute irony is that the public library is a pillar of free speech, and leads me to wonder why the administration is so upset. It’s fiction,” she said. “If It hadn’t gone in the paper only a handful of people announcements were sent to in this area would have known about the book.”

Stern-Hamilton had contacted the Daily News asking for a review of the book, but before that happened, Dickson contacted the paper to report she had been suspended.

n his July 15 e-mail to Managing Editor Steve Begnoche, Dickson wrote, “As she is actively promoting the book I’m assuming that she has or will be contacting the Daily News to request help in promoting this book. The book is now in the hands of our attorney and we have undertaken steps to see what action we might take, including suspension and/or termination of her employment. While we recognize the difficulty for a library to undertake these actions against an employee who writes a book — the content of the book is such that we feel we have no option.”

The purpose of the e-mail, he said, was to request the library “be given an opportunity to provide a different picture, a more balanced view of ‘life in the library,’ than is offered in this book.”

That story ran July 18.

In the past week Dickson twice said he did not wish to comment at this time.

A call to the library board’s president went unreturned.

“In some ways I feel like my privacy was invaded since, after all, I did use a pen name,” Stern-Hamilton said of the brouhaha. “This is not Russia, this is not China. Apparently we’re not as protected as I thought.”

The surname Miketa is Stern-Hamilton’s maiden name, which may sound familiar to some because her father, Andrew Miketa, according to Stern-Hamilton, was a first string center with the Detroit Lions circa 1952. But Stern-Hamilton does not consider herself a Michigan native, as she spent most of her formative years in Chapel Hill, N.C., where she grew up and subsequently went on to study art history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She met her husband, Keith Hamilton — a Ludington area native— in North Carolina and moved to Ludington with him.

“My pen name, Ann Miketa, was chosen because my acquaintances on the East and West coasts would recognize the name Miketa,” she said. “Now that the cat’s out of the bag, the book’s available at Book Mark, Blu Moon and Maude’s Gallery.”

Stern-Hamilton has submitted a letter of appeal. According to grievance provisions contained within the Personnel Policies of the District Library, the library director and board have 10 days to review that letter.

Come on Down!!!

I found myself on my long weekend off last weekend watching AM television. So I turn on the TV Friday morning to a classic I Love Lucy Episode guest starring a young Richard Crenna. Right after that for some reason I put it on CBS. You all know what comes on at 10 AM right? The Price is Right. I was enthralled. They had a game where the contestant won 10,000. I found myself standing, jumping around, and applauding when she won.
It then hit me that was the exact same thing I did as a kid watching TPiR at my grandma and grandma's house with my little sister. We would root for that wheel to hit 1.00, and then perhaps 1.00 in the bonus spin for an extra 10 grand. We would celebrate as if we were on the show, jumping, hugging, high fives. The family always wanted to go on that or the Family Feud, although now they are trying to convince me to go on Jeopardy. Great times, great summers.
It also brought to a moment of reflection when my grandparents lived with us in their twilight years. My grandma had dementia, Alzheimers, diabetes, and was unable to really talk, but on the days I didn't have college, I sat with her and watched Bob Barker and Rod Roddy work their magic. That was one of the few times my grandma would show any emotion. We would jump up and dance when a contestant would win, or both say ayyyye and have a mean expression when they blew it. It's funny how things can trigger certain memories!

I miss her.