Proposed by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the Librarian Education Development Act would provide up to $5,000 in loan forgiveness to qualified librarians, teachers, and child-welfare workers in low-income communities.

—American Libraries, “House Bill Would Forgive Student Loans for Librarians”

nineteenfishes: only 5k? seems a little bit lame
DangerCat20: yeah, well.
DangerCat20: i don’t think the teachers get any better a deal.

UPDATE: Jessamyn at librarian.net mentions the story (linking to ALA’s press release instead of the news story linked above), and wonders at the ALA’s motives. Mark at …the thoughts are broken… also comments, pointing out that by the time you’ve worked long enough to get the deferment, you’ll have paid off that much already. . .

Now, for the first time, Dr. Shazia has agreed to tell her full story, even though this will put herself and her loved ones at risk. Her tale is simultaneously an indictment of General Musharraf’s duplicity, a window into the debasement that is the lot of women in much of the world - and a modern love story.

—”Another Face of Terror“, Nicholas Kristof, NYT

(preface: The 11-year-old Wife, 21 June.)

Nicholas Kristof: ‘All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt’:

If only Michael Jackson’s trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.

See also Coalition for Darfur: ‘Witness’.

Got my FAFSA results. Apparently the DoE thinks I have $5000 hidden somewhere up my ass. I get financial aid to go to community college. Where the fuck am I supposed to get $5,000+?

As noted previously, went for a lo-o-o-o-ong bike ride today. It ended up being nearly 29 miles, in about 4 hours (including the stop at the library outside S Lyon). (For the Ann Arborfolk: Pontiac -> Eight Mile -> Spencer -> 7 Mile -> Nollar (anyone know why 7-Mile was closed west of Nollar?) -> 6 Mile -> Whitmore Lake -> Warren -> Gleaner Hall -> Pontiac.)

and then, of course, i missed my bus and had to bike the two miles to work, too.

Good news! Pittsburgh is no longer the worst city in the US to be single!

(Greetings from the Salem-South Lyon District Library, just over 11 miles from the house. Nice day for a bike ride.)

i was alone
i took a ride
i didn’t know what i would find there

another road
where maybe I
could see another kind of mind there

— The Beatles, “Got to Get You Into My Life”

I wasn’t really expecting to come back from Pittsburgh belonging to someone, but it’s been a damned long time since I’ve been as happy as nineteenfishes makes me.

She just seems like the right kind of geek.—nebulawindphone

News from Germany:

A sculpted and polished phallus found in a German cave is among the earliest representations of male sexuality ever uncovered, researchers say.

It’s 20 cm—a bit less than 8 inches—long, and 3 cm thick, just over an inch. It was found in a cave in the Swabian Juria, Hohle Fels (depicted on this map below and somewhat to the east (right) of Stuttgart).

The prehistoric “tool” was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone.

[…]

Researchers believe the object’s distinctive form and etched rings around one end mean there can be little doubt as to its symbolic nature. “It’s highly polished; it’s clearly recognisable,” said Professor Conard.

From BBC News

the problem with making lists on paper is that i always forget where i put them. . . and even if i don’t, they get blown away by the fans. . . .

Yannow, it’s really too bad Geoffrey Pullum is at Santa Cruz and not one of the universities in Michigan, or, say, Pitt. Sometimes I think it’d be a hell of a lot of fun to take a class with him. . .

Dan Brown’s writing is so clumsy and inept that I am definitely (God help me) beginning to enjoy the experience of poring over it. . . .

[T]he acme of inexpertly crunched metaphors in Deception Point is on page 27 (and I swear I’m not making this up): he uses the expression “learning the ropes in the trenches”. Think about that for a while. Learning the ropes is a naval metaphor; it’s about rigging and sails and mooring. Being in the trenches is an army metaphor. You can hardly be in both services simultaneously — hauling up sails on a naval frigate while dug in with the infantry on the western front. Dan has to make his military metaphor mind up.

I’m sorry, but this man is simply not competent to write prose for public consumption. He should be dictating his wild, action-filled plots to a literate ghostwriter who knows how to string description and dialog together. Deception Point, by Dan Brown as told to Henning Mankell.

— “Learning the ropes in the trenches with Dan Brown“, on Language Log.

Some of you may have heard me talking about this article last week in Pittsburgh. . . .

The Speech the President Should Give, by Sarah Vowell (standing in for Maureen Dowd, who’s on book leave, quite capably).