Twistedspinster

Memorial Day

You know, I'm a political science librarian, and I have absolute respect for veterans. My nephew is a veteran, and so was my dad. Do I think we should be at war right now?

I'm not sure my opinion really matters. I have a vote, and veterans have fought hard for me to have that right. But there are so many different voices, and so many opinions.

I have the best resources available to anyone without a security clearance. By that, I mean scholarly resources. Journal articles, plus government documents. I could find you the population for any city in any decennial census since 1780. My library subscribes to a database that looks at foreign news and speeches, translates them into English and puts them online in 24 hours. I can look up what they're saying in China about US reporting on the Olympics.

My library also subscribes to a public opinion poll archive, and I recommended it because of a student who wanted raw data from it. She was studying how different ethnicities in Orange County (California) voted on Hispanic issues, like Proposition 187 and 227. By using this raw data, she could see if the rich of any particular ethnicity were more or less likely to favor English as the official language in schools. By precinct. (I still brag on this student, five years after she's graduated.)

But I can't tell you how to vote, and I shouldn't.

Not that I know how I'm going to vote. With all the resources available to me, I can't decide. Is it any wonder that people vote on shallow reasoning?

Yeah, I wish politics were as easy as knitting. But that's another essay, for another day.

Switching focus to fiber (was that as clever a segue as I hope?), today was a kickback day. I dabbled a bit more with the backstrap loom, putting it aside when I got frustrated. Suffice it to say that "good enough" just isn't, when it comes to heddles and ties.

So I went back to ginning and carding cotton, doing at least 30 more punis.

What I should have done, complete with lame excuses:

• Take pictures of the madder and indigo plants. It was pretty cloudy all day, and I was lazy.
  
• Get the brown cotton seeds started. Where the heck did the bag go??? I swear I put it on the refrigerator.
  
• Card and spin up some of the Stardust. If I pick up the handcards for the wool, it will completely mess them up for the cotton. (memo to self: think hard about priorities here.)
  

I feel another bout of self-doubt and list-making coming on... I even dreamed about being dissed by a former supervisor in another library, and feeling bad about myself. Then going back to my own office and realizing I do more and better work than she did. Imagine that.

posted by Ruth S. @ 10:21 PM