Book Review

Spector, Robert. The Mom & Pop Store: How the Unsung Heroes of the American Economy Are Surviving and Thriving. New York: Walker & Company, 2009.

When I lived in Richmond Virginia, I had the fortune of living near a street which was filled with unique sole proprietor stores. I especially remember with fondness a bookstore, where every time I went into it, I could be guaranteed to find exactly the book I wanted to read next. I now live in northern Indiana in a city where mom and pop store do not seem so be as prevalent and I miss the unique character of the one or two person shop. Certainly Borders does not have the intimate nature of Carytown Books, and certainly it employees have no where near the love or appreciation of books that one would find at a good independent bookstore.

Robert Spector is the son of a butcher, Fred Spector, who owned his own butcher shop in Perth Amboy New Jersey. Robert has fond memories of his fathers store in new Jersey. Spector recounts how his grandfather and father came from Europe to the new world, and he reminisces about how his father worked to build his store into a successful business. He also remembers how members of the community felt at home at his father's store and demonstrates the special personal touches that his father was able to provide because he grew to know his customers wants and needs so well. Spector recounts that although he was not always the best employee at his Dad's store, he learned enough lessons in customer service to become a specialist in customer service when he grew up.

Spector also travels around the country to visit various “mom and pop” stores in an effort to find out what makes a mom and pop store a success. He visits bookstores in Washington State and Washington D.C. , a soda pop specialty store in California, a cheese shop and pharmacy in Manhattan and many more. He discovers that what makes a mom and pop store last is knowledge of the product, a personal touch and the ability to diversify.

I liked this book very much and found it easy to read. I had thought it would be more of a business book, but instead it was a collection of charming essays on the history of successful family businesses which in the end gives a clear picture of the ingredients Spector feels need to go into a successful Mom and Pop Store. Also he writes a powerful case for patronizing Mom and Pop stores and staying away from the “Category killers.”

Book Review

Balali, Mehrdad. Houri. Sag Harbor, NY: Permanent Press, 2009.

Shahed, the main character in this book, grew up in Tehran but now lives in California where he is unhappily employed as a gas station attendant. After the death of an on and off girlfriend in California, he returns to Tehran to confront the ghosts of his past, most particularly those concerning his father who died three years earlier.

Shahed's father was a gadfly who squandered any money that the family acquired on “friends” who conveniently appeared to enjoy his largesse and on his many girlfriends, leaving his family impoverished and leaving his wife to have to provide for the family with what little she could successfully keep from him. Houri is the object of Shahed's childish affections, a friend of his mothers who eventually becomes yet another one of his father's conquests. Eventually Shahed is able to realize his dream of leaving his father behind and moving to the United States. This is in the late 1960's when Iran is still a secular nation.

When Shahed returns to Tehran in the early 1980's, he returns to a much different city, one ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. The contrast from the Tehran of his youth to the Tehran under fundamentalist rule actually causes him to be sentimental for the father who tortured him so in his youth.

I found this book to be very well written. The account of being an immigrant to the United States of Iranian descent in the late sixties and early eighties is much grittier and more realistic than other similar books, from the unsatisfying choice of employment to the overt racism which Shahed encounters. In contrast, Shahed's former life in Iran is by no means idealized. From the poverty of his background, to the the account of his father's selfishness, to his encounters with cruel headmasters and his Opium addicted uncle E, this is a much earthier depiction of pre-revolution Iran than one usually encounters. Highly recommended.

Book Review

Adrian, Chris. A Better Angel: Stories.
New York: Picador, 2009.

This collection of nine stories is written by a fellow in pediatric oncology who is also a student at Harvard Divinity School. All nine stories deal on some level with themes of grief, sickness and dying, and very often the protagonists are bereaved or ill children.

In Stab a young twin bereaved by the loss of his brother befriends a homicidal girl and joins her in a killing spree of animals in the neighborhood in hopes that she can bring him closer to her brother. In The Sum of our Parts a woman who has recently attempted suicide haunts the halls of the hospital where she lays dying and divines the innermost thoughts of the staff members. In A Child's Book of Sickness and Death, a teenaged sufferer of short gut syndrome becomes a hospital regular and writes about animals suffering from unique and horrible diseases. In Why Antichrist, a bereaved teenager is befriended by a popular classmate whose father died in the 9/11 attacks who becomes obsessed with the idea that he is the Antichrist.

Adrian's stories are beautifully written and engaging and very very dark. The strangeness of his stories as well as the religious undertones present throughout are reminiscent of the short stories of Flannery O'Connor. I enjoyed reading them and would be interested in reading his previous books.

Book Review

Jones, Sherry. The Sword of Medina: A Novel.New York: Beaufort Books,2009.

This book is set in the eighth century in Saudi Arabia right after the death of Muhammed. Before Muhammed died he left his jewelled sword, al-Ma'thur, to his favorite wife Aisha, telling her to use it in the jihad to come. Aisha's father Abu Bakr takes over as Kalifa but quickly succumbs to the same illness which took Muhammed's life, creating yet more turmoil over the who will be the next Kalifa. The turmoil created fissions in the Islamic religion which still continue to this day. Another candidate for the position of Kalifa is Ali, a relative of Muhammed, who is Aisha's sworn enemy due to unkind comments he made years ago. Aisha does all she can to prevent this from happening.

This book of historical fiction is told alternately between the point of views of Ali and Aisha both of whom express increasing dismay at the changes developing in the Islamic religion since Muhammed's death. Eventually Aisha and Ali come to respect each other and Aisha come to see that Ali is the best choice for Kalifa but Ali is murdered before he has a chance to serve.

I very much enjoyed this book. I found Jones' writing style to be engaging from the very beginning despite not being sure what to expect from this book. I have read books before that are set in the contemporary middle east but nothing from around the time of the beginning of Islam so I did not know most of the history. I like the fact that although Aisha and Ali are initially enemies that time and wisdom erases their differences and they begin to see how alike they really are. I would like to read the prequel The Jewel of Medina.

Book Review

Soctomah, Donald. Remember Me: Tomah Joseph's Gift to Franklin Roosevelt. Gardiner, ME: Tilbury House Publisher, 2009.

Remember me is set in Campobello Island New Brunswick where Franklin D. Roosevelt's family had a summer home. Remember me is a fictionalized account of the story of Roosevelt's friendship with Tomah Joseph starting at age 10. Tomah Joseph is a member of the Passamaquoddy tribe who was hired by Roosevelt's father to teach him how to paddle a canoe.

Along the way, Tomah Joseph teaches Roosevelt a lot about the history of the Passamaquoddy Indians and their traditions. There is also a lot of information about Franklin D.Roosevelt's early life.

This is a sensitively written story about a friendship which lasts until Joseph's death when Roosevelt is a young man and tells about how Roosevelt came to acquire his canoe (a gift from Joseph) which is still on display at the Roosevelt's family home. This book would most likely be interesting for children around grade 3 to 5.

Book Review

Wall Carolyn, Sweeping up Glass. New York : Random House, 2009.

Olivia Harker Cross lives in the mountains of Kentucky during the time of the great depression with her elderly and insane mother and her young grandson, abandoned by a mother with dreams of “making it” in California. Olivia has not had an easy life. She lost her beloved Pap at an early age and has been left with her mother Ida who is crazy and abusive. Furthermore her life has been marred by extreme poverty especially since the impoverished residents of her community have not been able to pay for items from the store she runs nor for the “doctoring services” provided by her Pap to local animals. Olivia also has dangerous enemies who are making life treacherous for her and now her enemies are killing her beloved wolves.

Carolyn Wall writes Olivia's story in a fast paced and engaging way which is tinged with mystery. Her style is reminiscent of other Southern writers such as Harper Lee and Dorothy Allison. This book was an engaging read and I would highly recommend it.

Book Review

Hopgood, Mei Ling. Lucky Girl: a Memoir. Chapel Hill, Algonquin Books, 2009.

In 1974 Mei Ling Hopgood was adopted from Taiwan by Rollie and Chris Hopgood in what was to be one of the first international adoptions. After about seven months of bureaucratic red tape, Mei Ling was finally able to join her American family. Growing up in Taylor Michigan ( a suburb of Detroit) with parents whom she loved and who loved her dearly and with two younger brothers who were adopted from Korea, Mei Ling lived an all American girlhood and barely gave a though to the family who gave her up. But her birth family showed up out of the blue wanting to meet her and would not take no for an answer.

Her birth family turned out to be a middle class family of Chinese ancestry living in Taipei, defying Mei Lings expectations of a poor peasant family living in the country. Along the way she also met her sister Irene Hoffmann, also given up at birth by their birth parents to a couple from Switzerland.

Mei Lings memoir deals sensitively with the conflicting emotions she has felt about meeting a family who is so different culturally from her in ways she can't ignore. She also deals with how she felt growing up in the seventies near Detroit as one of the few people of Asian descent and facing barely disguised anti Asian discrimination while at the same time considering herself to be fully American.

This was a wonderful book which was hard to put down. I would highly recommend it.

Book Review

Mintle, Linda Dr. Press Pause Before You Eat. Howard Books : New York, 2009.

I will begin by saying that Dr. Mintle is a well known author of Christian self help books. I did not know this before reading the book and mention it only because this book will not speak as well to a non-Christian audience. Indeed many Librarything reviewers were suspicious of this book because it was Christian.

That being said, the topic of this book (mindless eating) is a timely one which affects so many of us. Her book is very conversational and includes many anecdotes from her personal life and from the lives of her friends and the patients she encountered in her years as an eating disorders specialist. Dr. Mintle is very knowledgeable and her suggestions are very sound. Her book was very easy to read because of her conversational tone. I have struggled a lot myself with mindless and emotional eating and I definitely recognized myself in many of her stories. I also learned some tricks that might help me in my own struggles with weight. I also found her use of scripture to be very insightful and inspiring and not at all heavy handed.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a Christian perspective on overcoming struggles with emotional and mindless overeating.

Book Review Levine, James A. The Blue Notebook. New York : Spiegel & Grau, 2009

I have two small children. Needless to say it has been a very long time since I have sat down with a book and obsessively read it until I was finished. The Blue Notebook is the book that ended a seven year streak. I started reading at 6:30 and did not (as much as possible) put it down until I was done somewhat after midnight.

The Blue Notebook is the fictional diary of the precocious and imaginative 15 year old Batuk Rasmadeen who was sold into sexual slavery by her father at the age of nine. Although Dr. Levine is a middle aged British doctor living in Minnesota, he is able to convincingly portray the interior mind of a young female prostitute living and working at Mumbai's notorious “street of cages”.

His portrayal is of a young girl who is secretly horrified by the circumstances she finds herself in, yet learns to internalize this, because she quickly learns that working is the only way to survive in the life in which she finds herself. Literate in a society where many are not, she knows that she is capable of much more than her narrow circumstances allow, but she is she is treated as a pariah by her “betters” in Mumbais's constrained society. Due to her imagination and ability to write she is able to have an escape of sorts but there are to be no happy endings for Batuk.

I would recommend this book wholeheartedly. It is beautifully written and shines much needed light on a persistent global crisis.

Book Review - Ready, Steady, Spaghetti

I will start my review by saying that my daughter (6 1/2) loves to cook and loves to browse for recipes. She collects cookbooks and sometimes even steals my cookbooks and cooking magazines. Needless so say, I was excited to receive yet another cookbook to add to her collection, and I was very interested to see what she thought of it.

My daughter is a huge fan of the Annabel Karmel cookbooks and already has a couple of those, so I was on some level comparing this recipe book to the ones that she has. We flipped through the cookbook together. A small number of the recipes were definite must tries, a few were definite never tries (chicken noodle omelet?) and there were a few old standbys the appear in just about every cookbook imaginable. (scrambled eggs, anyone?) Not that I have anything against recipes for scrambled eggs in a children's cookbook. However I haven't noticed scrambled eggs necessarily being a real hit in my household and I liked the idea in one of our other cookbooks of making a "sun" out of pieces of toast surrounding the scrambled eggs and calling them "sunny eggs", which turned plain old scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast into a feast for the eyes, so to speak.

An issue I had with the book is that safety was not emphasized enough. I understand that 6 is not the age group that this book is aimed at, but even for eight and nine year old's, it would still be a good idea to emphasize the need for adult supervision.

In short the book had beautiful pictures which to my mind had more of a visual appeal to adults than to children, some interesting recipes (the coconut ice was delicious and easy). What it lacked for children was more visual appeal geared towards a child's taste and more frequent warnings about food safety, and what it lacked from an adult perspective was more recipes designed to make healthy foods more appealing to the fussy eaters in their lives. (And please no recipes for hummus, you will not gets beans into either my daughter or her 4 year old brother so don't even try.)

In conclusion, I would say that even though I initially wondered whether my daughter would ever give this book back to me so I could actually look at it, but in the end she lost interest in it pretty quickly. (By contrast I'm still waiting for my "Taste of Home" Halloween special and would really like it back please.....)

Book Review - The Best Mariachi

Book Review Smith, J.D.The Best Mariachi. McHenry. IL : Raven Tree Press, 2008


Gustavo wants to be a Mariachi. Gustavo wants to be the best Mariachi. He wants to wear a sombrero and a charro and play the guitar, or the trumpet or the violin. He wants everyone to clap when he plays. Unfortunately for Gustavo he can't play the violin or the guitar. He can't play anything. He is not the best mariachi in the world, he is the worst mariachi in the world! He would never get to wear a charro or a sombrero and nobody would every clap for him. One day he gets up early to sing. He can't stop singing, and he is good at singing! Everyone claps for him and he is no longer the worst mariachi in the world, he is the best mariachi in the world!

I tried reading this book to my children since they would be the best judges of whether this was a good book for their age group. I found that the book was a good read aloud book, with nice illustrations and a good moral about not giving up and trying to find your best role in life. Gustavo was an appealing character who you really wish the best for and are happy to find can do something really well. My kids let me know that the story is sticky and that there are parts that small children will remember for a long time. Weeks after reading this book my son (four) remembered that the book was called the “Best Mariachi. This book also introduces children to Mexican culture and teaches them a few Spanish words. To be honest my daughter did not like this book as much as my son did, who kind of “adopted” the book and carries it around with him. But it really seems to be easier to find books that appeal to girls than books that appeal to boys.

I would recommend this book to any children from around 4 to 7, especially little boys.

Book Review - Any Given Doomsday

Book Review: Handeland, Lori Any Given Doomsday. New York: St. Martins Press, 2008.

Word of caution here: I am not a fan of genre fiction, especially thriller fiction,and I was very surprised to hear that I was receiving this book. That being said I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this book - at first. Liz Phoeniz is an ex-cop turned bartender who is also a psychic. She has a “sense” that her former caregiver , Ruthie needs her help. When she gets to Ruthie's house, she finds that Ruthie has been brutally murdered. Even worse, her former lover Jimmy Sanducci is the prime suspect. She soon finds out that Ruthie had special powers that Liz inherits and that she is about to be in the front lines of a battle of good versus evil, loosely based on the biblical book of revelations. Jimmy and others are also involved in this battle.

As I said I enjoyed this book at first. However the more supernatural forces that entered the picture the less I found myself enjoying this book and the more I found my belief suspended. I also found none of the characters likeable, especially not Liz and Jimmy. As I often find with genre fiction, the plot and the characters were somewhat formulaic. (Bitter ex-cops who are products of the foster care system anyone?) but I recognize for many readers that this is an appealing aspect of genre fiction. However what really lost me was the amount of gratutitous violence and later the amount of gratuitous sex. The amount of sex in the book was especially of putting . Was this a paranormal thriller or a romance novel? There was far too much genre mixing for my taste.

Readers who enjoy paranormal thrillers might enjoy this book, but as someone who does not usually read thrillers, this book seemed to be a not particularly well written representative of the genre

Book Review - Sweetsmoke

Book Review: Fuller, David. Sweetsmoke. New York : Hyperion, 2008

Sweetsmoke follows the story of the slave Cassius Howard living on his masters plantation in Virginia during the civil war. When his friend and mentor Emoline Justice is found murdered, Cassius sets out to find her murderer, hardly an easy task for a slave in Civil War Virginia. His ability as a carpenter has kept him in the favor of his Master Hoke Howard, but when he investigates his friends murder he finds out things about his master that strain their relationship.

This was a very difficult review to write as I wasn't sure what to say. I was excited to hear about this book being available. I read a lot of fiction about slaves living in the pre-antibellum south. However, when I read this book I just never connected with it. There is no doubt that this book is very well researched and the story is compelling. Nonetheless I wasn't drawn into any of the characters and I felt that sometimes the narrative jumped around quite a bit. By contrast, the next book I read was Somebody Knows my Name by Lawrence Hill, a book with a lot of similarities in subject matter butt I loved it. I think that Sweetsmoke is very well written and would recommend it to the many readers who enjoy well researched historical fiction and will really enjoy it.

Book Review Mired in the Health Care Morass

Davis, Neil. Mired in the Health Care Morass: An Alaskan Takes on America's Dysfunctional Medical System for his Uninsured Daughter. Ester Republic Press, 2008. (Book Review)

In 1994 Patricia Davis faced an increasingly common dilemma. Symptoms indicated that she should seek medical care immediately. Having just started a new job, with health insurance that didn't kick in for six more months, she was trying to put off seeing a doctor until then. Three months into this job the need to seek medical attention had become inescapable. Her diagnosis was lung cancer. She did not have insurance yet and her cancer was now a “pre-existing condition”. Now she was faced with tens of thousands of dollars in potential medical bills that she could not afford to pay. Enter her father, Neil Davis, who offered to pay her bills to the best of his ability.

It didn't take Davis long to notice huge discrepancies in the billing. Thus began his education on medical billing practices in the United States. He discovered that uninsured patients are billed fees that are astronomically higher than the fees the paid by insurance companies on behalf of insured patients and by Medicaid on behalf of Medicaid recipients. This is to cover expenses that have not been paid either by indigent patients or by ordinary middle class patients who cannot cover their uninsured expenses. The many charts and statistics he uses to illustrate his findings can be hard to understand at times, but believe it or not they accurately illustrate his point that the complexity of the American system creates expense. He skewers some fondly held myths about the U.S. Health care system and shines light on the health care systems in other nations. He also gives his prescription for how the U.S. Health care system can be changed.

Neil Davis has experiences in being a consumer of health care that most of us never hope to have, but which will become increasingly commonplace as the health care becomes increasingly broken. His answers to the health care crises (universal, uniform payments, distributed to patients regardless of ability to pay, regulation of drug companies) are well thought out and do not come from a place of a particular political ideology but instead from his own experiences and research. His book is well researched and a convincing call to radically overhaul the American health care system from someone who has experienced the worst that the American health care system has to offer.

Book Review "The Translator" by Daoud Hari

Book Review
Hari, Daoud. The Translator New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2008.

“I bring the stories to you because I know that most people want others to have good lives, and, when they understand the situation, they will do what they can to steer the world back to kindness” writes Daoud Hari at the beginning of his new memoir The Translator. Most of us in North America have only a vague idea about the troubles in the western Sudanese region known as Dafur, and even those of us who are reasonably knowledgeable about the situation there cannot even begin to imagine the levels of the atrocities there. This allows Americans to be complacent about the situation in Dafur and fail to respond with the help that is so clearly needed.

The deterioration of the climate in Sudan and subsequent famines during the eighties and nineties led to a worsening of relations between Arabs and the indigenous Fur and Zaghawa. In April of 2003, thirty three rebel land cruisers attacked a government military base. In retaliation President Bashir began a program of systemic genocide by the Arab government forces against the Zaghawa majority. Daoud Hari watched the harrowing destruction of his own village. Heartbroken at the deaths of friends and family members and armed with high school English and some key telephone numbers, Hari offered his services to western journalists so that they would have no reason not to come and get the story out about what is happening in Dafur. In the process he put his life on the line over and over again so that western journalists could get a realistic picture of how the people of Dafur have suffered. In the end he was imprisoned and tortured along with American journalist Paul Salopek, with his life being spared only through the intervention of Americans who were helped by him in the past.

Hari's description of the violence is harrowing and heartbreaking. This makes it impossible for the reader to look away and ignore what they have read. His courage and determination that one person can make a difference should be and inspiration to everyone. This is an important book that should be read and talked about as much as possible. I will definitely recommend this book to my friends.

Book Review - The Story of Forgetting by Stefan Merrill Block

Book Review Block, Stefan Merrill. The Story of Forgetting. New York: Random House, 2008


“Once, I fell in love with everything” writes Stefan Merrill Block at the beginning of his first novel The Story of Forgetting. With this one sentence I was hooked. This book tells the stories of Abel Haggard, a elderly hermit who is stuck in the past and Seth Waller, a lonely and precocious 15 year old whose mother is afflicted with a rare and inherited form of early onset Alzheimer's disease. As the stories of Abel Haggard become more inextricably linked, it seems at first as if the only thing these two characters have in common is a memory of stories of a fantastical land called Isidora, which are interwoven throughout the book.

Seth Waller is an intelligent and sensitive teenager living in suburban Austin, who is rejected by his peers. It does not help at all that his mother is becoming increasingly forgetful and absentminded. After his mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease he conducts an “empirical investigation” to determine the source of his mothers affliction as his mothers background is shrouded in mystery. Abel Haggard is a hermit who is becoming increasingly mired in the past, especially the past with his brother and his brothers wife with whom he is in love and their daughter whom he claims as his own. He lives on his broken down family farm on the outskirts of ever encroaching suburban sprawl on the outskirts of Dallas.

Blocks prose is very lyrical and at times almost reads like poetry. The narrative flows along very smoothly and Block does an excellent job of blending all the disparate elements (Abel's story, Seth's story, Seth's “empirical investigation” and the Isidora story) and I though the themes of the Isidora story mirrored perfectly the state of mind in the main narrative at the time. I also felt the Block dealt sensitively with the motivations and feelings of his characters, whether dealing with the emotional baggage of having a familial form of a debilitating disease such as the type of Alzheimer's disease which afflicts Seth's mother which affects half of all descendants of its carriers in the prime of life or dealing with saving the family home in the face of increasing suburban sprawl. I have not read a book which dealt so well with the issue of trying to live while literally living under the threat of what must feel like a genetic time bomb, which may or may not cut short the prime of one's own life or that of one's own children.


In short, I felt that the Story of Forgetting was an excellent debut and I would be very interested in reading more from this young author.

Note: This review is based on the Advanced Reader's Edition.

Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, The Risk and the Reckoning : Book Review

Burton, Katherine Hedge Hunters: Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, the Risk, and the Reckoning (Hardcover). New York: Bloomberg Press, 2007.

Burton, a journalist for Bloomberg news, writes eighteen short profiles of some of the most important hedge fund investors working today including profiles of 13 up and comers picked by the master hedge fund investors themselves. I found the book somewhat informative as someone who is not very familiar with the world of Hedge Funds.

On the down side, many of the profiles were on the superficial side often dealing with the personal style and background of the investors. From the tile I expected that the book would provide more critical analysis but the profiles were short, not particularly pithy and some of her insights were not particularly revelatory. For example that Good Hedge Fund Investors are smart, independent, ambitious and have lots of connections is not exactly news.

In short, this book would appeal to business people who would like an inspiring and not too long read. Unfortunately the title might imply a larger readership.

Donde Esta Rosetta Stone

Perhaps you've been wondering where I've been. For the last few months I've been trying to learn Spanish using our public libraries remote subscription to Rosetta Stone. For the last few weeks I've been trying to "Spanish up" before Rosetta Stone pulls the plug for good on allowing libraries to serve Rosetta Stone to their registered users over the Internet. In our library access ends on October 31st. I suspect they want all those poachers who use Rosetta Stone from their library to pay for the product themselves. I'm not sure how their thinking is going. Do they think that all of a sudden thousands of library users will magically have another $500 to pay for their own copy? I guess they hoped libraries would provide free advertising for them so that more customers will buy their overpriced and over hyped product. Me, I'm hoping that some nice person will buy me Auralog's Tell Me More Spanish Intelligent solution software for Christmas or even better that our library will subscribe to the Tell Me More service.

Steven Colbert Has His Finger On The Pulse Of The Nation

Last week Colbert was "congratulating" students at the University of Florida for standing by and doing nothing while a fellow student was Tasered while attempting to ask John Kerry questions during a speech and predicted that the brave students would fight back by blogging about it. Predictably he reported the next day that some students protested his comments on their blog. And here I am writing about it in my blog. Makes me ashamed to have a blog. Remember action on the streets?(or in the administrators office?) Colbert is right. Now whenever any one feels that rights are being violated they add to the general decline of the national discourse by blogging about it.

Why do I have a blog? Because some in my profession feel that "social softwares" are the greatest doggone thing since sliced bread, so I feel the need to "become familiar" with blogs despite real misgivings about the amateurisation of North American culture. I also have a facebook account although it seems to me that facebook society attempts to mimic all aspects of american adolescent culture except possibly the warmth of human contact. Take Top Friends for example. Why do I want to rate my friends and post their ratings on my page? I already went to junior high, years ago, and I really don't want to go back. Or do I really need to know that according to Facebook, I am considered a social outcast? (ouch!) Also as a Christian I am sometimes put off by some of the *ahem* cruder aspects of Facebook (and anti social aspects as well, to be frank)

This is not to say that libraries should not be interested in social technologies, just that sometimes we get all excited and happy about the cool (and fun!) new technologies and very rarely ever spend the time considering the social consequences that new technologies leave in their wake.

Ballerina Culture

My daughter started ballet lessons last night and she absolutely loved it. Like most of her almost five year old friends she is going through a fairy princess ballerina stage. Barbie actually capitalizes on this trend the best by making movies in which the main characters literally are fairy princess ballerinas. Of course she needed a tutu and all the fixings. The class really was more like pre-ballet but most of the little girls had tutus and slippers. Now I'm not going to be the one to burst her bubble (unless of course she is seventeen and STILL considering ballerina as a career choice) but I don't see my daughter as a ballerina. For one thing she most likely will be far too tall and for another thing, as thin as she is now the tutu made her look like a fullback for the Fighting Irish or at the very least a soccer player for the little miss USA soccer team. In fact whenever she ran "daintily" around the room she really looked like she was barreling across the soccer field. Of course I don't want to hurt her feelings but I also don't want her to get totally involved in ballet and have someone else hurt her feelings down the line. Maybe I'm over thinking this. Hopefully she'll enjoy this for a few years, get sick of it and go onto the next project. I just wonder why it seems that nowadays all little girls get on the "princess" bandwagon and why being a tomboy just is not as acceptable a choice nowadays, especially for little girls little my daughter who are, shall we say, more "athletically built" than dainty.