Being mentioned in Dispatches, don't you know?

In the Empire's military, being mentioned in Dispatches was sure to bring attention to your heroic (or otherwise) achievements, and since many could not buy their next promotion it remained a valued measure of one's capabilities and potential. Well, I have been mentioned in the Travelling Librarian's Report of 2009.




"4.1.3 McNeil Island Corrections Centre
McNeil Island Corrections Centre is a 20 minute ferry ride from the mainland and
is a facility for male medium security offenders. As it takes time to access the
prison some staff live on the island, outside the facility, in case of emergencies.
There is also a special commitments centre on the island which holds sex
offenders who have finished their sentence but are considered too dangerous to
be released. These men do not have access to the library in the prison and as the
centre is not considered to be a prison no library is provided within it.

McNeil Island has the capacity to hold around 1,000 prisoners and the prisoners
work in all areas, including on the ferry carrying staff and visitors from the
mainland. The library has a stock of around 17,000 books as well as the music
collection. Earl, the associate at McNeil Island had integrated the easy readers
into the general collection although they were still identifiable by a yellow sticker, but he found that the men were more likely to borrow them this way, indicating that they found it embarrassing to be seen borrowing the easy readers than other books."

ILS Quarterly Training Conference...

Close the library for two days, go to Federal Way, Palisades Retreat and meet with all the other Library Keepers and the Gang of Three (Go3). Budget boredom, no money maybe less, keep the library open even if we can't buy more books, keep the libraries open - once the doors close it is over, they don't re-open. Policies and procedures in the afternoon session, and a tearful farewell from one retiring Library Keeper, Virginia. She said good things about all of us that have been working with her - mostly so far away - she used to call me and tell me she supported some of my more foolish risky statements of discord with the establishment - when I am wrong is it easiest to see when I am leading others astray. She is good people and won't be replaced easily.

Final session was of a DVD from the surveillance cameras in the library at the West Complex of the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla. Tough guy heaven, new buildings for the old Concrete Mama stuff... The temporary fill was Joyce, coming down from Airway Heights to keep the library open, she did and while distracted by a reference question about five of the twenty some patrons worked on an attack on another patron. The attacker walked across the entire library, put a book down on a shelf, and wound up and struck the victim from behind. The blow was for shock (worked) couldn't have done more than dislocate the jaw - but didn't. The attacker then wrapped the victim up in his t-shirt put him in a headlock and then beat on him for two minutes in the corner of the library. One of the attacker's partners, perhaps in more ways than one, sat in a chair facing the whole thing, not missing a blow. One other was close to a filled book cart and moving a little to maintain some blocking of the staff member's view of the library, where the fight was quietly going on. The fifteen or so patrons and two inmate workers kept quietly doing the library thing while glancing once in a while to the struggle. Suddenly two inmates come in from outside the library, all the patrons shift far from the fight in one corner and the first two officers show up and start giving orders to the fighters. The attacker lets victim go, victim starts beating up the attacker, more officers arrive, book shelves are being pushed over and around and books are hitting the floor, victim is hitting the attacker. More officers arrive, restraining and cuffing attacker then victim and walking them out and off to segregation cells. The remaining officers pat search all the inmate patrons and workers, clear them out, look for weapons and get statements from the staff about the fight. She saw only the last thirty seconds of the fight, missing the first two minutes (long enough that a deadly attack would have worked) and thinking the response team was quick during those last thirty seconds of fight. There are two cameras in that library, a panic button in the staff office she knew nothing about, and we watched the attack over and over and discussed what could be done to improve security in the library - better view, staying in the library not in office or workrooms, and of course more staff (which isn't going to happen during penny pinching seasons). Valuable training, very valuable.

I got out of my Earl is a loner mode, went for a motorcycle ride and filled my tank up, the Sun is out and it is cool and so is the Trusty Triumph and I. I ride back and stay for dinner at the Retreat (not normal conduct - Earl is a home boy and never stays - but Virginia doesn't notice). After I help move a table, set some stuff around and look at the preparations. You don't think we were going to allow Virginia to quietly slip into that fabled land of Retirement without embarrassing her. Invited old co-workers, gathered presents, letters from the Secretary of State and the Governor, a great scrapbook made by Joyce, pictures by Earl and Doug over the years, and others. About seven, Jeannie cons (prison reference!) Virginia into coming to the Library to play a board game and the Game is On! Surprise Party, three daughters and a grand-daughter have traveled miles in Virginia's van to attend and all of us and the tears start again, the jokes and tales of the troubles told. Jeannie is her old jolly self and cutting up, Doug has brought some decent drinking whiskey, and there is wine and Lemonaide for me. A cake doesn't last after appropriate picture taking and this social stuff isn't bad (says the guy hiding in the corner) but then it is in honor of Virginia, twenty-four years of institutional library service and she has done a fine job. The governor should have come, but then it wouldn't have been as much fun, would it?

Closer than that Hero guy, much too close...

The Muppet Personality Test

You Are Dr. Bunsen Honeydew

You take the title "mad scientist" to the extreme - with very scary things coming out of your lab. And you've invented some pretty cool things, from a banana sharpener to a robot politician. But while you're busy turning gold into cottage cheese, you need to watch out for poor little Beaker! "Oh, that's very naughty, Beaker! Now you eat these paper clips this minute."

The things I learn on the Internet...

From Doubletapper, that other seasonal holiday, Chanuka Festival. Well worth reading.

How to Destroy a Library

Libraries have always been part of my life, I find them full of things I want to know about, think upon and stories to enjoy . They insure that I am continually learning, long after departing the classroom, and they have always supported the quest for knowledge about fighting, loving and foolishness unique to my life. Since I am not the only patron to use the library I would say that for my tax dollars the public library achieves more than the public school system in education, far beyond the K through 12 range. Imagine Lincoln, Douglass, Jefferson and others that valued the printed words with the library systems of our last one hundred years.

Ignorance is destroying our libraries, the people that think they can steal the whole book, CD or tape don't understand the worth as part of a shared collection. I have been weeding the collection at McNeil Island's library of all the books that are missing pictures, pages and sometimes whole chapters. To the one individual that took something away from us all - a curse on your efforts for evil - not that I am a cursor. I don't need to be - in your little world things are stolen from you, you live in fear of being found out. You know the reason you want those pictures of scantily clad elves is because you are attracted to desires for the bodies of children - that is an ugly thing and most of the other inmates will do bloody things to you if they find out. No, you don't need to be cursed for your life is dark, the hidden pictures of beautiful cars, women and motorcycles that you think give you power are just waiting for the corrections officers to find or for you to toss out when the fear finds you again. I know that you won't stop messing up your library, stealing from it and ruining it - not until you grow up and learn to value things you haven't had to pay for, that don't cost you anything directly, until you grow up and learn to share, until you get really old and accept that others will get better people around them in life, and that you will die alone because you never became a better person. You will be back to the library that you have profaned and marred, and those wounds you left don't heal - there isn't enough money for repairing the Vandals' destruction.

Another type of ignorance that destroys libraries, is budget cutting. So having worked in libraries for over fifteen years, the fears of the staff always focus a bit on the budget cycle. There are only so many dollars, and one can hire five people at thirty thousand a year and only one at one hundred and fifty thousand a year. Which is fine if the the big payroll provides more donations and bequests and improvements in how the library provides services and relevance to the community needs. Having been one of the five on budget cuts while there are always well paid leadership and management - leading and managing less every time the budget is cut - I have my opinion. Seems that I have voiced my opinion and shocked some of that leadership a bit before - but I blame that on not being well led and stress relief. Budget is exactly like diet - a word that exists to describe a process and quickly becomes associated with an uncomfortable process that hurts something in one's good life, but if you had always known and observed the process - and lived in moderation - the pain would never be there. But when one has over-reached in spending, the cut back comes and the staff is reduced, the hours shortened, the service slinks off into only a memory and an old fairy tale, until that final cut must be made - that closes the door to the library. Those doors don't ever seem to re-open, and another light in the lives of the library patrons old, new and future is extinguished.

Working a prison library, where there aren't too many lights for the most terrible population of prisoners, 1200 inmates with open time for only six hundred and sixty to have one hour a week, every week that the one Library Keeper is around to open the door five days. There are too many potential patrons that can't improve their minds, lives and futures. They will be coming one day to live with you - to become part of your community. Will they be better neighbors? Did they get a chance to learn what they hadn't before being imprisoned about working for a better life, making good choices and basic good manners? Or are you going to get the fools that still steal from library books, that don't share, that don't care and that only know how to scare?

My sister sends a story to share...

The Story of the Sign and it should be shared. Take care out there and enjoy your days.

Don't trust them enough do you? they die for you.

Just when I thought sanity had returned I am reminded that STUPID still wanders the world striking out in petty spite. And what part of Reason remains to be found in your life?

For all those of many nations that stand to fight for what I believe in, to defend their loves against the coming darkness, that feel alone and so lost in the battle --- remember that I would be there if I could, that I am here when you get back, and that I am not only one, I am legion... God bless all your best, exploit success and discard the rest, All the Way!

There is only one... of me and watch how you step

I was about to do something bad, but got distracted and wrote some replies and that has me on a roll in a different direction... it wasn't evil, just bad, which in degree is almost always excusable, or so I would tell myself if I were caught. Since I haven't done anything bad this morning it must be going to be a beautiful day. Anyway, back to the thought in the title.

There is only one of me, and I am, by law, a taxpayer - so why are there so many layers of government taxing me? What have I done to deserve so much painful attention and extraction? Is it that I was born, that I work, that I invest, that I can smile and think about pretty young women? Is it that I as an individual don't get to decide, my one vote among millions just doesn't count. If I were a Senator in Washington DC I would only have ninety-nine others that would water down my choice, in Congress a few hundred others. If I were a state I would be one of fifty. They (THE POWERS THAT BE) seem to have designed the entire system so I feel I have choice and opportunity to vote - but the reality is that my vote doesn't count, in Washington they keep counting until King County gets a number that picks the proper Governess, and in Florida and Ohio the courts get to decide what a proper vote is until the correct President is selected, or something like that. If I sat out the election it would upset them (THE POWERS THAT BE) only if large bunches of me's would, since I am only one taxpayer and voter, it doesn't bother them at all. All the former Felons can't vote and there are several million of them - wow, several million disenfranchised people? Nah, there can't be that many, can there? Well, back to the important ONE, me, the taxpayer the individual person serving so many Masters.

Federal Government, State Government, County Government (City Government too if you live in the proper locations) - why do they feel the need to suck from my little pile of plunder? I work hard for that, and I do understand that my taxes, with all the blood sucked from other taxpayers build schools, roads, defend my home and country, promote greatness and periodic goodness and in general I am all for that. Here in the Great Northwest, there was a Kingdome and it was home to two professional teams, one baseball and one football - they used the dome for other stuff as well. But the teams, which make lots of money in their seasons, decided they needed new, better places to play, and wanted some of my pile of plunder to pay for it. They could have taken my ticket money and used it, but they decided that the taxpayer needed to make Seattle a first class sports city. The taxpayers voted NO - and they (The Local POWERS THAT BE) went around and over that vote and assumed the bonds and built the wonders and the teams play on. Now why would I want my grandchildren to pay for the lost Kingdome, the current venues and such? I am the fellow that is working to pay off my current debts so no one has to assume them if I crash on my motorcycle - I have insurance coverage to pay every debt I currently have off if I die - but they (THE POWERS THAT BE) are counting on more little taxpayers to pay off their excesses, sigh. What happens when we stop producing more little tax payers?

Ah, well, it isn't really important, I am only one - that is why the system is designed like this, and if I really wanted to I could become one of THE POWERS THAT BE, and live on top of the pile. But then I like myself a bit more where I worked to be a better person, a gentle man, and only the LAW makes me a taxpayer, a voter, a citizen. How much do I count the LAW? not too much : I am me because of my parents and grandparents, friends, relations, lovers, and mostly I am because of the Great I AM, and never because of THE POWERS THAT BE. There is only one of me.

As I watched the media influence me for meds...

The news is on, it is Sunday, and I find the US Supreme Court is going to decide if the Second Amendent is an individual or collective right. I am betting the US Supreme Court already knows the answer to that question, and what they will be deciding is how to make it other than it really is because guns in the hands of law abiding citizens might be dangerous - they had an expert testifying to America that a gun in the house was twenty-two percent more likely to harm one of the family than bad guys. Yep, that kind of expert -- the one that they didn't ask how many guns are there in the United States, how many have been used in harming any humans, and what is that percentage of the total lawfully held. They never ask that, and the media didn't want you to think you should read the Constitution yourself, you do read it every year don't you, but that the learned justices must read the English language of the late 18th Century and tell you what the Founding Fathers really meant or how they couldn't have foreseen. It isn't Latin or Greek, folks, just English.

Okay, you think the media is reporting the question of firearms fairly, well, they followed with a story about doing away with the penny because it costs more than a penny to produce. Almost two cents per penny. So sway you to that side, get rid of the penny. I guess I won't get rich picking them up on my jogs, but do they tell you that the DOLLAR doesn't buy anything like it once did, that it has been steadily sinking in VALUE the last ten years? No, they want you to believe that it will be cared for by the Federal Reserve Bank and the Secretary of the Treasury. But if the Dollar were worth what it was in 1998, making a penny wouldn't cost one cent, it would cost less. What is truth? Why would I buy any medications advertised on television shows that don't really tell me the whole truth? Because I am old, gulible and plain old stupid? Well, maybe one day but not today and probably not on Tuesday when the Supreme Court deliberates about something even I read and do understand.

One of the stories I did like hearing prior to America's invasion and conquest or liberation of Iraq from Saddam, was that Saddam was about to start selling oil for Euros. Couldn't have been much truth to that, but it might have made American interests upset that another currency might share position as a standard. But then I like conspiracies unproven, and other fictions.

Just a short tale about truth or perceptions...

I was once important, and because I had a position and voice I was expected to spout the Party Line, and could have if I didn't worry about Right and wrong. But when questioned I would tell the truth, and that bothers the cowards and the fools. I couldn't believe Oliver North wouldn't talk to Congress, he was a Marine and able to charge enemy machine guns, why would he be afraid of Congress? Lucky me, I only had to charge machine guns and write letters to Presidents and Congressmen and Senators, but since I never counted they weren't bothered.

One day in my attempting to wright a wrong, by beating it until it straightened out, I was found to be in error - seems I had written a letter to a General way up the Chain of Command (in an Army of OPEN DOOR policies at every level - like whistle blowing) and he didn't understand, and asked the fellows between us what the problem was (with me, of course, not with the Command). What was wrong, as I saw it, did not get reviewed nor changed, because it was only my perception of a problem. But now I was exposed and marked for destruction, and the gloves were off. Destroying me isn't easy, can be done but isn't easy. Since I really didn't self-destruct and take the honorable way out of wenches, wine, weed and AWOL: they waited and talked to me and poured it on a bit more waiting to hear me complain again. And I did complain again, I am trained to attack into ambushes and burst through them, don't stand around in the killing zone that is only dead meat there.

After a few more pointed counsellings and some written instructions on my future conduct it became clear there wasn't much of a future for me. I put in my retirement papers and cooperated with the Command structure quietly to smooth my transition out of the Army that wasn't ever going to fight a war again - the last remaining Superpower didn't really need warriors, just more yes men and business majors. Now, and back then, there are a lot of fine soldiers and officers - but they aren't always in charge nor around when one needs them - they are usually at work making war and building a better world, not doing powerpoint and gathering statistics and talking to the media. Rock on! Anyway, all my required by regulation paperwork for my retirement had been submitted and since I had over twenty-seven years of service, much of it overseas (that depends on what you call home, folks) and sometimes in combat central of some American Political opportunity, they were going to allow me to retire - I just had to provide them with a letter describing the reasons I was choosing to retire before my current overseas tour was over.

Ah, I then made a mistake, I looked at my reasons and decided I could do a "The Top Ten Reasons to Retire" and I did. Reason Number Ten: and all the way to Reason Number One: and it was in proper military letter format, with my unit, date, my signature block on it and addressed to the Headquarters that had insisted I write it. I handed it to the clerk for faxing and he glowed with promised potential - he not only sent it to that headquarters, but all his clerk buddies to laugh over, all over Europe. Or that is my story, for sure I was called up on the carpet again, to be told what a terrible fellow I was because of my attitude and what I had written. I would only get a lower level service medal because I wasn't one of the good guys. Ah, yes, the feeling of failure was supposed to descend upon me - but I felt freedom, take my family and flee - they never loved me anyway. Expendable, replaceble parts, worn out.