Spelling Bee Protests

Four people dressed in bee costumes protested the Scripps Spelling Bee in Washington, DC.

According to literature distributed by the group, it makes more sense for 'fruit' to be spelled as 'froot'...

While I agree literacy is important, I don't think dumbing language down will help anyone. In fact, I think it might be UNGOOD. Perhaps DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD.

Rocket Men: Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

So this book called Rocket Men was published. Supposedly all about the history of space travel, it is factually incorrect yet receiving positive reviews from the press. Does no one fact-check these days?

I suggest authors and reviewers who get space history wrong be required to take a punch from Buzz Aldrin.

The Worst Sci-fi/Fantasy Book Covers

Good Show Sir is a site dedicated to finding the absolute worst sci-fi/fantasy book covers. And they have succeeded. This stuff is scary.

That Keith Richards Thing is Really True

Just in case you needed it, another article about Keith Richards' love of books. Worth posting about again because everyone I mention this to stares at me with disbelief. Also a good plug for his upcoming autobiography, which I believe I am now interested in reading.

Library of Congress and Twitter

Every Tweet Will Be Preserved for History. Seriously?

I wonder what category tweets go under in the Library of Congress Classification system.

Keith Richards, Librarian

Wait, what?

Keith Richards wanted to be a librarian. And still does. Apparently he reads a lot and keeps many, many books. I had no idea.

Smelling Books (Again)

In Which, Emphatically And Forever, I Decline To Care How Books Smell, Linda Holmes. I kind of want to marry this woman now.

My day-to-day experience of reading generally involves things that I am reading now, which often means relatively new books -- either new books, or newly acquired copies of old books. Now, I freely admit that if I get my nose within in inch of the paper, I can smell "book." Which, loosely defined, means "paper and ink." I cannot smell wisdom. I cannot smell memory, or the past, or people who were reading a hundred years ago and have handed down their tradition of reading by firelight.

You know when I sense wisdom? I sense wisdom from the words. For me, language contains wisdom and tradition and history, whether printed on a page, heard aloud, read on a screen, or recalled because it was meaningful.

Weird book smell people. Weird, weird, people.

Books to Pass On

A poll commissioned to mark World Book Day asked British People what books they would like to pass on to the next generation.

Number one: the Harry Potter books. Okay, yes. Not always the best written. Number two: The DaVinci Code. I still need to read this one, but I really don't want to based on opinions I've heard (Dan Brown is a hack being the most common) and the fact that I didn't much like his book with the Illuminati. I didn't like it enough to even look up its actual title. Anyway! Number five: Twilight.

No, no, no, was my immediate thought. Twilight? Not very well written, horrible message for young girls, blah blah blah. Then I thought about other books I found annoying, like Sense and Sensibility. I have never wanted a character to die as much as I did when one of the sisters fell ill in Sense and Sensibility. I tossed it down in disgust at one point. I guess that's how things like this get started: someone passes down something that's not all that great (yes, I just said Jane Austen's book wasn't all that great and I was being kind) and then years and years later it's a 'classic'. I hope I die before Twilight is ever considered a classic. I hope I am so, so dead.

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

More in the battle against late fees! A teenager in Colorado has been sent to jail for an overdue DVD.

Apparently the kid borrowed House of Flying Daggers and accidentally packed it up while moving. The DVD's about $30; it cost $200 to get the kid out of jail, another $200 to get his car out of the impound lot, and $60 in court fees.

Littleton Mayor Doug Clark said the city plans to change its policy on overdue DVDs and books as a result of the case.

"We're not going to arrest people who don't return $30 DVDs," he said.

Gee, y'think?

World Book Day

Today is apparently World Book Day... in the UK and Ireland. I only stumbled across this article on it and immediately felt bad. World Book Day? What? I didn't know that! Some wannabe librarian I am! But it's not so much my fault, because World Book Day doesn't really happen in the rest of the world. Or something like that.

Name aside, this is still a very cool idea.

So on this World Book Day, if I have one modest wish, it is that, at least for a day, we ponder the real and spiritual poverty of a life lived without the ability to read, without the sheer joy of escaping into a good book. I can't put it half as eloquently as Julian Barnes who, explaining how books can help us steer through the tricky waters of life, said in Flaubert's Parrot: "Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't."

Yeah, Barnes put it much better.

Google Execs vs. Italian Privacy Laws

Some Google executives were charged with breaking privacy laws of Italy because someone uploaded a video to YouTube in which a child with Down's Syndrome was taunted and hit by other schoolchildren.

While the executives had nothing to do with the incident, they still had charges filed against them and received suspended sentencing. One of them, David Drummond, had this to say about the verdict:

"I intend to vigorously appeal this dangerous ruling. It sets a chilling precedent. If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our position at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability."

Google plans to appeal the verdict.

Mystery Book

There's a mysterious book at the Reading Public Library in Pennsylvania. With a flowered cover and orange lettering that looks kind of like Hindi but isn't. Very odd.

Beware of Science Fiction

Way of Life Literature has posted an article warning Fundamentalists against science fiction. Not only does the article point out agnostic and atheist authors, it even mentions that Arthur C. Clarke was 'probably a homosexual'. Okay.

Abe Books Weird Book Room

And now for something completely different: the weird book room at Abe Brooks.

Included on the page age books about:

• Jewish chess masters on stamps
• 50 sad chairs
• Farting proudly
• Whether or not Karl Marx was a Satanist
• Bowling better through self-hypnosis
• How to survive a robot uprising
  

Another Lady Saves Us All From Filthy Library Books

Can a man please pull something like this sometime soon? A judge in Lewiston, Maine, has ordered a woman to return two library books or go to jail. This woman at least sent cheques to cover the costs of the books she is not returning, which I guess is somehow better.

Why is it up to the ladies to protect us from pornographic sex-ed books and The Black Dossier? I'm starting to be concerned about the lack of men in the library. Where are the self-righteous grandpas?

More Library Porn

Now there's a woman in Pataskala, Ohio, wants a sex book banned from the public library. At first she wanted it moved out ot the eyesight of kids, but on further thought decided it shouldn't be in the library at all. Shades of The League of Extraordinary Porn! And just like Sharon Cook in Nicholasville, Kentucky, Marti Shrigley is keeping the book checked out and paying the fines. (Maybe they should find an eleven year old girl to put a request for the book on hold.) And here we go again:

Currently, parents or legal guardians must sign permission statements on card applications submitted by minors.

Other libraries follow similar policies, and Nojonen said libraries find themselves caught in a Catch-22 because what one parent objects to, another parent might not object to.

"Parental responsibility is the foundation of what does and what does not get borrowed," he said.

This is not a difficult concept.