Comments on: Fusenews: Sifting the Nifty

By: SarahJ

SarahJ — Fri, 20 May 2011 17:10:25 +0000

I have a heart birthmark too! Mine’s on my elbow. It really must be the mark of the librarian!

By: Elizabeth Bird

Elizabeth Bird — Fri, 20 May 2011 16:54:50 +0000

Oh, good memory, Jen. You’re absolutely right. I didn’t think a Faith book would sell particularly well, but a Paula book might.

CLB, you officially win. That answer overfloweth with the awesome.

By: CLB

CLB — Fri, 20 May 2011 16:03:59 +0000

I don’t know about May showers, but I learned from a punny joke book (The Electric Radish and Other Jokes) long ago that May flowers bring…Pilgrims!

By: Jen B.

Jen B. — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:14:38 +0000

I listened to that Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me episode and rolled my eyes mightily at the lack of respect for how hard it is to write a picture book, but it was actually Faith Salie who said it must be an easy thing to do. Paula hopped on the train by expressing amazement that one of her kids’ shapes board books was co-authored and noted that bath books tend to be poorly written, but Faith was the one who basically said she looks at picture books and thinks, “I could do that.” Which Bowen promptly invited her to attempt and to which I thought, “Good luck with that, Faith.”

By: Elizabeth Fama

Elizabeth Fama — Thu, 19 May 2011 18:26:33 +0000

Beautiful baby, James! Hey, I’m not an anatomist or anything, but I wouldn’t say that birthmark is on Ingrid’s thigh. More like her waist. Are you sleep deprived or something? Congratulations!

By: Scope Notes

Scope Notes — Thu, 19 May 2011 18:20:41 +0000

For some reason your blog auto-corrected the word “weird” with “a genius”. Strange…

By: Elizabeth Bird

Elizabeth Bird — Thu, 19 May 2011 16:27:27 +0000

*sigh* Yes, NYC I’ll stay for now. I am pleased that these library interrogations are getting as much news as they are, though. How much worse it would be if this passed unnoticed (or worse, uncared about) by the general public and press.

And yes, James. She bears “the mark”. All members of my occupation have already duly noted her name and placed it in The Big Book of Future Librarians. She will attempt to escape her fate for years, only to find herself filling out MLIS school application forms in her sleep. This future I foresee for your child.

By: James Kennedy

James Kennedy — Thu, 19 May 2011 15:26:01 +0000

Thanks for telling everyone about the baby, Betsy! I was pleasantly startled to learn you have a similar birthmark to baby Ingrid. That’s delightful! Or perhaps ominous?–The mark of a kind of librarians’ Bene Gesserit?

By: Kate Coombs

Kate Coombs — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:36:08 +0000

Being a teacher in L.A., I will just add that some 4,000 teachers are going through the same thing this spring. This is after getting a letter that says you can bring a lawyer and evidence to your hearing, and another letter that says you can file a “Denial of Accusation.” Apparently the accusation is that you work in a district that has no money, in a state that has no budget.

40,000 educators have been laid off statewide in the past 3 years, including librarians. This trend is scheduled to continue for the nest 3-4 years, till the kids will no doubt be taught in one giant classroom in the auditorium, like an endless school assembly–by the one remaining teacher.

So yeah, stick to New York and those excellent lions!

By: Kelly Barnhill

Kelly Barnhill — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:53:50 +0000

The article about the LA librarians was beyond horrifying. Indeed, my hands are shaking as I type this. I hope those lawyers and district stooges end up in that special circle of hell where they spend eternity getting thwapped by wooden rulers wielded by every teacher ever.

And what KILLS me is that hearings like that are REALLY EXPENSIVE. The lawyer, I’m sure, bills the district at around twelve hundred an hour. Interrogating every librarian in the district would have been a ridiculous money waster, and would do nothing more than to humiliate the people who dedicate their lives to educating children.

But really, that’s the point, right? To humiliate.

Do you think that lawyer has to justify his job? Prolly not. We don’t do things like that to men in our society. Only to those “lady” jobs.