Alien Corn: Two, (no, make that three) items that caught my eye. (UPDATED)

Two, (no, make that three) items that caught my eye. (UPDATED) The big trip isn't quite over yet, but the next post remains to be written... in the meantime, here's some partisan feces-flinging to keep you all amused.

Via The Corner, via Instapundit, an NYT article about today's new, hip, young librarians:

Michelle Campbell, 26, a librarian in Washington, said that librarianship is a haven for left-wing social engagement, which is particularly appealing to the young librarians she knows. “Especially those of us who graduated around the same time as the Patriot Act,” Ms. Campbell said. “We see what happens when information is restricted.”

Uh-huh. Anyway, I noticed this tidbit in today's unasked-for-newspaper (still arriving daily):

Monday

Film about Sept. 11 attacks featured

The film, "Loose Change 2nd Edition," will be shown at 7 p.m. Monday, July 9, in Ames Public Library's Farwell T. Brown Auditorium. The event is free.

Hmmmm, could a common thread be emerging? It wouldn't be the first time the local public library got itself involved in showing dodgy films.

UPDATE: One of the things I learned from grad. school: If you collect some data, you will begin to see all sorts of beautiful correlations and patterns emerge; if you collect more data, most of your beautiful patterns will fall apart.* Doing some additional poking around the Library's calendar, I found:

Event:

Reel Connections: Confronting the New World Order, "Premeditated Merger"

Time: 07:00 PM

Description: In this film, past President and CEO of the John Birch Society Charles R. Armour discusses U.S.-USSR relations.

Location: Ames Public Library

So, fully consonant with Ms. Campbell's information-wants-to-be-free mantra, the Library apparently makes it film projectors available to any kook who wanders in, not just those of a particular stripe, and inference of partisan leanings would be unwarranted. So apologies are in order, to the library, at least, and the essence of my post lies in ruins upon the floor. Maybe I can just find a picture to post instead...

*This is why a key investigative skill of the researcher is to always know when to stop collecting data.

Posted by David Fleck at 07 July 2007 07:55 PM

Comments

I'm kinda confused as to what information she thinks USA PATRIOT restricted, myself.

Posted by: Sigivald on July 9, 2007 06:21 PM

That was kind of my thought too. Pretty much since 2002, I've noticed that some people have a hair-trigger itch to bemoan The Impending Dictatorial Theocracy / Theocratic Dictatorship, Coming Any Day Now, This Time We Mean It, but said people generally seem to have very shaky ideas about what constitutes "theocracy" or "dictatorship".

It's true that the potential for abuse is there in the Patriot Act, as with any law (for a possible example, see this). But even this shows how the brakes might begin to be applied – the press publicises the onerous provisions, like-minded citizens band together to oppose them, the courts provide temporary redress, now (in theory) the legislative branch, spurred to action, clarifies or limits what it thinks the executive ought to be able to do.

In my mental version of the U.S. government, anyway. In reality, what really concerns members of the government is making themselves more contemptible day by day. But that is an issue for another time.

Posted by: David Fleck on July 10, 2007 07:35 AM