5 Held in Plot to Bug Democrats’ Office Here
By Alfred E. Lewis Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 18, 1972 And so began Watergate, 42 years ago tomorrow. I was in my early teens during the last year of Richard Nixon’s first term, 15 when...
View ArticleLies, Damn Lies, and Librarians
You wouldn’t know the truth if it kicked you in the head. – Hitch I sometimes wonder if the First Amendment should be conditional, though I’m not sure what the criteria or who the arbiter would be. It...
View ArticleWhat Happened to Standards?
Each source you cite in the paper must appear in your reference list; likewise, each entry in the reference list must be cited in your text. - Publication Manual of the American Psychological...
View ArticleYou Can do That
With the arrival of the Vortex I decided to check on an attic window I replaced last year. All things considered it seems to be doing what it was designed to do: keep out the elements. I know it...
View ArticleThe Last Word For 2013
A group of us got together and decided that the last blog post of 2013 should be a shared effort, with each of us offering a notable quote from something he or she read during the 2013 calendar year....
View Article“Air raid, Pearl Harbor. This is not a drill!”
USS West Virginia, Pearl Harbor 12/7/1941 Tomorrow marks the 72nd anniversary of the Japanese attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. The next day President...
View ArticleWhat Your Dad Used to Read
“I am tall, and I gangle. I look like a loose-jointed, clumsy hundred and eighty. The man who takes a better look at the size of my wrists can make a more accurate guess. When I get up to two twelve I...
View ArticleOh, The Places You’ll Go
Most of us have seen or heard comments about books and reading; their ability to transport us away from the here and now to the wherever and whenever. It could be Berlin in the Cold War and you’ve...
View ArticleWords Not Needed
“But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more...
View ArticleBehold: Our Bêtes Noires
bête noire. Noun. Something that is particularly disliked. A person or thing that one particularly dislikes or dreads. Collins English Dictionary Admit it: somewhere out there, there’s a book you...
View ArticleWe Got us a Ball Game
“The Pittsburgh Pirates have the best record in baseball” - USA Today 06/27/2013 I was brought back to my early adolescent years last week. It was Sunday and I was watching our number 5 batter in the...
View ArticleHow I Spent the Morning
Every so often it takes something a little out of the ordinary to recharge the Reference skills. I’ve been filling in this week answering the E-mail reference questions for Tom, who’s on vacation....
View ArticleWhat, it’s not on the Internet?
Generally when we talk about the Digital Divide, we’re talking about the disparities in use and access to the Internet and other digital resources – primarily due to income, education, and/or...
View ArticleIndelible Notes
If I were to ask you about composers named Bernstein and what their most memorable works are, I’ll forgive you if come back at me with West Side Story, On the Town or Candide – all three truly...
View ArticleI Mean to Kill You in One Minute Ned!
In a passing conversation one of my colleagues had an observation about a not so contemporary screen actor – the late John Wayne. I forget the wording but the observation and concurrent opinion...
View ArticleHeroes and Politicians
…11 ALIVE NEED SMALL BOAT KENNEDY Sometime during election week we watched an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show; Rob, Laura, Mel, Sally, and Buddy. Whatever the episode was, there was a stand-up comic...
View ArticleGuys, I have a proposal for you…
Trek. Afrikaans, from Dutch trecken to pull, haul, migrate; akin to Old High German trechan to pull First Known Use: 1835 : to travel by ox wagon : to migrate by ox wagon or in a train of such : to...
View ArticleMy Own Little Myopia
I’m sure all of you are familiar with the parable of the three blind men and the elephant. Asked to describe the animal all three gave widely disparate explanations, informed by the limited sensory...
View ArticleA Tradition is Born
What does the American Declaration of Independence have in common with a village in Russia? I’m going to run on the assumption that the Declaration doesn’t need an explanation. If I’m wrong, then it’s...
View ArticleWho’s Your Tough Guy?
Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Have you ever just latched on to a performer, and they never seem to fail you? Maybe a Springsteen or Stevie Wonder? I’m that way with films and...
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