Professor Barbie Bubbles | 25.09.2003 12:17

Criticism of Librarians and the USA Patriot Act by Rich Lowry of the National Review, September 23, 2003. This antagonist has painted Leftist Librarians as promoters of pornography and disorder, as well as being soft of the homeless and on Castro, and as weak on Righteous Patriotism. Disrepect for the general intelligence of American's librarians has surfaced.

Rich Lowry of the National Review has written like a Fool would be expected to do. By Adjunket Professor Barbie Bubbles, Sea Change University of Beach & Beer, Los Angeles.

The San Diego Union Tribune editorial staff has resorted to printing something stupid. In fact that editorial staff has now managed to stir up a witchs brew if you will, somehow by lowering their standards to this point of stepping on a dragons foot, and believe me as I write; you really do not want to wake a sleeping dragon especially when your propaganda borders on idiocy. Please take some time to examine the recently published editorial reprint entitled: Librarians and the USA Patriot Act by Rich Lowry of the National Review, September 23, 2003.

Newspersons and political scientists ought consider who it is they criticize, such as which professionals they bad mouth, before they step too far. Yet somehow this male mouthpiece of dogma, as some of these talking heads little consider themselves in professional or intellect status, have now found that it is OK to attack librarians, in the cheap shot sense, which apparently they presume to be female, read passive in nature; and, therefore they, in their limited perspectives, feel these sheep are for the intimidational picking by the big bad wolves of Americas presses. Or did the editors of the Union Tribune just feel a need to play? Foolish folk, do they not know of whom they speak? Yet is it not news media people and political scientists who consistently consider themselves Americas Foremost leaders in the arts of intelligence?

Still has it not become apparent to Americans in general that both of these professions, journalists and political scientists, have their share of spiritually bankrupt and intellectually corrupt people? My, my some big male egos take themselves serious do they not? Intelligence is ultimately a process of gathering information from various sources and using those various pieces of information to do something constructive. Librarians also engage in these various forms of intelligence processing, and sometimes much better than do some desperate editors or political propagandists. However Mr. Rich Lowry now seems to think he has the Big Gun himself, that is the infamous Attorney General John Ashcroft, on his side to buttress what really are his own limitations of imagination and intellect, as he writes: Librarians have recently let down their hair, usually wrapped in a tight bun, to become some of the most vocal opponents of the Bush administrations and the USA Patriot Act ? Librarians now constitute one of the countrys main centers of thoughtless and unreconstructed leftism.

You might read this September 23, 2003, page B6 column of the hoary Union Tribune, the paper that is always proud to announce how many awards it wins from its own profession, to get the full flavor of this majestic work. I am not likely to rewrite it as I will only allude to it, but it is now stands as an important document in provoking some other powers that be to respond appropriately. That is to say we have now and finally found it necessary to confer with special colleagues and spirits to establish a committee to compose a series of essays that will shed some light on various aspects of American politics, in which the main stream media seems to neglect, as the blind can only lead the blind or the ignorant can ignore the ignoramuses.

These essays, to be composed in a seminar fashion, will not however be of a usual collegian sense, but rather they will be more, if you will, a school not too unlike the School of Hogwarts for wizards and witches. That is to say, you can not physically attend it, but you are invited to participate in reading these lectures that will appear sporadically henceforth with in the proper time. You are forewarned that you will have to warily use your intuitive sense to ascertain which are really of our groups work. Note that this seminar is currently a tentative idea but we have already received interest from some renowned personages, whose names I can not share, and you are not likely to recognize anyway since their fame is of another realm. We currently plan to call this series: Tales of the Folkloric and Fairie Arts as discussed in the 21st Century by The Committee to Confront the Fools of Feebledom. Yes it is kind of a hokey title but we will spend our energy on the gist of the matter rather than thinking fancy titles like the US Patriot Act and Victory Act, etc.

Back to some quick notes on Lowrys lopsided brain damage spiel that he seems to have confused with his own dire need for resuscitation or private therapy. However, this antagonist has painted, in his words, that Leftist Librarians as promoters of pornography and disorder, as well as being soft of the homeless and on Castro, and as weak on Righteous Patriotism. He implies that the collective reaction of the left regarding the Patriot Acts supposed right to search library user records in secret, was clearly an over reaction, not unlike Henny Penny screaming that the sky is falling, since the Justice Department now claims not to have used this investigative option?what lies in the bushes then?

However this choice of reluctance bespeaks as much to the fact that some of those within the Justice Department know of the chilling effect it does and will have, and the violation it can or will portend. Furthermore since when has the US Government been completely honest, especially the FBI? Why should anyone in the general populace believe this statement to be completely true, because these officials fear that such searches could leak or because they have mobilized common herd of ordinary and vulgar masses? Librarians just better get patriotic! Have we forgotten that the main stream news media not so long ago has attempted to attenuate Americans concern about domestic espionage with the vapid statement that the US Government is not interested in spying on ordinary citizens? Were we not predisposed to have already known that it always the EXTRA-ordinary that are of concern? What culture and its dictators are worried are ordinary people? Now we should pell mell assume the Department of Justice is being cautious primarily due to its concern for the meager individual? No doubt many people now question how free they are to go into a library and check out any material, knowing it will be an entirely private matter. There has been an intellectual chill put on America and we should not ignore this fact or belittle it. We need to discuss our feelings and thoughts about what this provision that the Ashcroft Pentagon crew has railroaded through Congress, known as Patriot Act 1, which is composed of some 240 odd pages and Congress took no time to read, especially from this notoriously scholarly and upright cabal known more politely as US Representatives. Notice how they explain they had no time to read rather than admitting the demanded no time to read. How many people now will not check out materials on certain subjects, or even buy those materials in bookstores, without some slight paranoia, terrorism has many flavors, that the FBI or the newly formed, and possibly about to be KGB-like, Homeland Security Department forces may be watching? We Americans really need to understand the impact of what those august minds in Congress have already signed. If Americans were truly aware or they would not be acting like everything is as it has always complacently been. They would be concerned as to how far the US Government can penetrate electronic records and e-mail, and they would become very familiar with the document grandly called the Patriot Act 1 and 2. They would read it in detail like it might have some real long term impact.

Read all about it: Mr. Rich Lowry attempts to write as if he is knowledgeable about the field of librarianship in his reference to the Library of Alexandria and Ptolemy II Soter of around 283 BC, its supposed founder, as if by reading a few facts in some encyclopedia makes one an instant expert and therefore ready and able to criticize a different profession, something rather typical of some big shot media people and political gurus. His work is a mere smear job in the second rate, really third rate sense, that one has come to expect in America through the decades. McCarthy?s ghost and fear of pinkos has come back for Halloween? Do these political journal pundits really think that other people, and other professionals, are as narrow and smug as they sometimes betray themselves? Why would he paint with such broad strokes as to insinuate that because many homeless are filling up our libraries they know little about reading and information perusal? How patronizing are those, who from upper economic classes, who deign to think that poor people in general are so ignorant. Sure there are a number of homeless who take up space in our nations libraries. Why would they not? They have access to water, bathrooms, telephones, and a safe environment. Is this the librarians fault? Does he mean to suggest society should have library staff watch every person who walks in the door of a public library with a suspicious eyeball as to if they are not acting and comporting themselves as clean cut Americans? Should librarians discriminate against people based on the quality of their clothes, or how badly they seem to need to use the bathroom?

Who is this library information for if not for those that need it, those that merely presume to live an intellectual life? Perhaps staff members of the National Review have areas lacking in respect to their library records? Perhaps they are not reading the right materials or why would their capacity to analyze information seem little beyond an ability to absorb and regurgitate propaganda? Currently, more than ever, when people go into public libraries they are subject to be eyed by security guards that previously have never been employed to work libraries like they now are routine fixtures. Already there is a feel of government watching those who come into libraries, especially if they feel watched while using the computers and the Internet. Whose fault is it that Americans have shunted the cost of mental institutions for the freeloader answer to the streets? Is this because of non patriotic librarians? News media people and political asses do not live with Americas problems, they merely write about them, similar to their rhetoric about police brutality so as to not confront their own psychological brutality and mind control, like for example how much psychological rape and humiliation they like to engage with their dirty laundry lists.

Now there has been concern about how much censorship should people have on the Internet or how much should city, county, state and federal governments get involved? Librarians in general, one can somewhat safely assume, are no more predisposed to like or dislike various forms of pornography, however they are more ominous concerns about censorship then the fear of erotica, which makes professionals like librarians and those lawyers of the ACLU bent vulnerable to various pressures from the sanctimonious and holy handed.

I personally go to libraries on a somewhat regular basis, and I do not, and have not seen, very many people watching porn on Internet screens. In fact this has been rare, but then I do not make it my business to snoop into other peoples lives. It is not like people are just sitting around getting aroused all day which they can at adult bookstores, as Lowry may presuppose, but then some tend to exaggerate issues and lie without any statistics so as to sell their tabloids and sensational fear mongering. We do know that some censors are predisposed and obsessed to want to preview porn so as to judge that others may not see it. We Americans forget that one reason why there is so much erotica produced in this culture, and why it seems to make so much money for some, and cost others money, is because we live in a sexually repressive society that still can not get psychologically naked, yet is all too willing to get physically naked. We forget how much guilt and shame still dominates American lives, and how persecutors/ prosecutors are forever after any and all sexual offenders of every kind for witch trials of our modern age, and never to be forgiven because you have to be able to forgive oneself before you can forgive others. Is this reality of excessive capitalizing on Americas sexual frustrations because of what Librarians do and think, in their tight hair buns, who we suspect have let down their hair that any common voyeur may comment?

Rich Lowry asks us to consider whether Shakespeare could have written or we as a culture should rewrite his play to state: But only if we can kill all the librarians, to answer his suggestion that we kill all lawyers in whatever classic play, as if we all should know. This seemingly lame attempt at intellectual creativity is composed in his mosaic suggesting that there exist zero librarians who might have suspected that the American-Cuban connection in Florida is not in fact related to a Mafia connection the White House seems to also protect under the guise of anti-Castro capitalism propaganda. Yet librarians, according to this Washingtonian hero, are all pretty much in the antiCastro camp because they are mostly more fearful of Bush and Ashcroft, but now they should simply allay all fears now that we have the official opinion from on high. The National Review apparently suffers from that common human weakness to over generalize onto others. I doubt librarians on average think or act all the same, and they hardly are all kneejerk caricatures. To think that some people with a propensity to write dribble command actual paychecks to do so when so many are unemployed is somewhat amazing? Perhaps some of the homeless will get jobs after all?

Note the Union Tribune would not likely print this rebuttal in anything close to its entirety since certain professionals are more comfortable dishing it out than taking it.

Grammar, Usage, and Proofreading? 29.09.2003 08:20 While I'm in agreement with some of the content, the author need not complain about the style of writing or intellectual capacity of good ol' Richie. There are more than enough grammatical and usage errors in this article to safely assume the proofreader was out to lunch the day this article was submitted. These errors do not make me ph34r the waking of the dragon, they undermine the content of the message. de1373 e-mail:: de1373@yahoo.com