Apparently some people don't find the term “Zombie Jesus” appropriate, especially at Easter. And they'll show you every offensive reference/graphic they can find so you know it (jus' make sure thee wummins and chillrens is out of the room before lookin'! )
As a profession, librarians constantly struggle with the fact that we aren't exactly regarded as a “cool” profession. (Man, there are times I miss working in publishing – a life full of wine & cheese parties and awards banquets, I tell you!)
Sure, librarians are trying to update their image – getting articles in the NYT about how cutting-edge we are with technology, how kick-ass we are about social justice and just how hip we are in general.
But really, that's the New York Times. They're about as far from defining trends as your great aunt Martha.
“He has declared: “When you are growing up there are two institutional
places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to
God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library
is a great equaliser.””
Bought an iPhone app called “Touch of Colour” that allows you to highlight one area/colour of a photo while turning the rest to black & white (or another colour of your choice.)
I know you can do this with most cameras these days (including ours) and probably with Photoshop and all the other similar programs.
But doing this on the iPhone was, like so many things on that little piece of technological crack, simply very fun! (Plus it helps to have good underlying photos – both of these are from a sitting we did with a very talented co-worker of Shea's – who, if you're in Regina, is currently taking spring bookings.)
Meanwhile, I saw this photo on an atheist message board today with the very un-PC but otherwise fitting caption given the recent sex scandals rocking the Catholic Church: “Happy Easter! Enjoy Your Chocolate Treats – You Know This Guy Will!”.
One of the big hub-bubs of the last week or so was around the fact that American right-wing commentator, Ann Coulter, had one of her speeches in Canada shut down by protesters. The one that was shut down was at the University of Ottawa while others at locations including my alma mater, the University of Western Ontario and my former employer, the University of Calgary (where I spent exactly one week as a page before being hired by the Writers Guild of Alberta!) went on as planned.
After the speech in Ottawa was shut down due to “safety concerns”, I was a bit saddened to see the crowing on Facebook and other social media sites by people who should know better (ie. librarians) about how proud this made them.
See, I have two big insights into this whole “controversy” that I'd like to share – one comes because I worked in publishing and one comes because I was a huge fan of professional wrestling as a kid.
The first observation from the publishing angle is this – the worst thing you can do is draw attention to something you don't agree with as it only gets it more attention/more sales/more money/more notoriety. People on the left and right both seem to miss this anything they try to censor something/someone – whether it's someone like Philip Pullman (great title, eh?) from the right or someone like, well, like Ann Coulter from the left. Often the best thing to do with a book or a person you don't agree with is to ignore it/them (especially one that is so blatantly a media whore like Coulter).
Which leads to my second point. Ann Coulter is the modern equivalent of the Iron Sheik (and I'm not hte only one who noticed the similarity.) Now, for those unfamiliar with the 1980's wrestling scene, the Iron Sheik was one of the leading bad guys who had a gimmick of being an evil Iranian doing battle with the super hero American champ, Hulk Hogan. He got “heat” (or crowd response) by saying and acting in the most inflammatory fashion possible – using the American flag as a prop, belittling his enemies and generally, just carrying on like an ass. (Sound familiar?)
So yeah, if Ann Coulter happened to come to the University of Regina, I wouldn't have been there protesting – I'd have been there with a box of popcorn and a big foam finger (guess which one?) enjoying the show for what it is – a staged exhibition intended to maximize the heat for a performer who is very skilled at what they do.
Oh, and this is a bit of a tangent which has nothing to do with Ann Coulter but I recently learned that Iron Sheik has had a late life career resurgence due to appearances on Howard Stern and YouTube where he plays (?) an amped up, crack-head version of his former character – rambling drunkenly while threatening to humble people by anally raping them! Here's a clip of the Sheik in action which is somewhat NSFW (but compared to some others on YouTube, relatively tame):
And here's a photo of Ann Coulter's face that I photoshopped onto the Iron Sheik's body. (Sorry it's not my best work in this vein but I had to try it.)
I usually have an April Fool's joke lined up for my April 1 blog post but this year it just totally escaped me. So instead, here's a link to a MetaFilter post on the topic o' the day. Weird to note that I often end up doing two blog posts on April 1 for some non-joke reason. Not sure why. Hmm, maybe I should post this then go and do another one? Sure, just listening to the new “She and Him” album streamed from NPR so why not – what else am I going to do?
I wrote a lot about what the number of Facebook friends may or may not mean in a political race during the NDP leadership campaign last year.
I'm not sure what if anything these same numbers might mean for a more local race like the one that's currently happening in Regina – Coronation Park. But I do sincerely believe that politics has permanently changed in the new media landscape so you can't ignore these types of outlets – blogs, web sites, Facebook, Twitter, etc – both as a way to reach people and also as an indicator of support and trends within a race.
Knowing that, I thought it might be interesting to see how the various Coronation Park candidates' numbers changed coming out of last weekend's NDP convention. Although the majority of people at convention won't vote directly in this race, they are the most active, involved members of the NDP so any changes should be seen as potentially significant.
On the other hand, I'm not going to do a full work-through of each candidate's friend list to see if there are any noticeable gaps or omissions in terms of high profile NDP'ers supporting one candidate in this race but not another. And obviously, any of the gains any candidate had in the past week or so aren't all attributable to the Convention either as I'm sure all candidates are out pounding the pavement and working the phones.
Here's what I found…
[Edit: May 15 update inspired by Tory McGregor's correction below. Apologies for my earlier oversight where I'd missed his Facebook group in my searches. Also added a late joiner to the race, Roger Bucsis and history may be repeating itself as I can't find any Facebook presence for him either.]
I freely admit that part of why these numbers are the way they are is because Harder and Kress may not have stood to gain a lot of Facebook friends coming out of convention because both were already quite well known entities within the NDP whereas Jaime is still probably a new face to a lot of people.
But for me, the parallels to what happened with Ryan Meili and the groundswell of support as people got to know him and know his story during the leadership race are pretty exciting to see. I think Jaime has that same ability to impress with his sincerity and enthusiasm and I'm sure he made some believers at the convention based on these numbers.
My candidate for the NDP Coronation Park nomination, Jaime Garcia is having a steak supper fundraiser this Saturday night. If you're in Regina, why not come out and support a future leader of the province?
It's not where I got the name for this recurring feature but did you know there's an advocacy campaign to promote music education that's actually called Music Monday?
Here's a catchy little a capella number from Serena Ryder that's the theme song for the cause which will be sung by school children across Canada on May 3…
Easily the best session at the PLA Virtual Conference I hosted at RPL last week was the one on “Marketing as Conversation: How to Interact with Your Community Through Your Web Site”.
In fact, throughout the
presentation, I just kept nodding my head and grinning like a goofball,
thinking to myself, “Yep, uh-huh, that's right!”
) 
