Monday, Monday

[altivo]

Not the best. Some sort of power failure in Rockford took down the internet connections at most of the consortium's member libraries. We were one of three exceptions because we are far enough east that our T1 line goes through a different POP. Not that it made much difference, since with the main site offline, we had no catalog, no technical services, and no library user validation. The rest of our internet access remained intact and normal. This was not cleared up by 5 pm, which was the original estimate, and in fact seems not to be cleared up even now, at 9:30 pm. I hope they get it going before tomorrow morning.

Columbus Day is a holiday in name only for us. Worse, the schools were closed, so we were flooded early with noisy, boisterous kids.

However, it's a real holiday in Canada, and I wish all my Canadian friends a happy holiday and hope you are enjoying it rather than just putting up with family or in-laws because it's expected of you. ;p

I see that Governator Schwarzenegger of California today signed two bills that will surely make him very unpopular with the right wing in his state. One of them declares official state recognition of "Harvey Milk Day," something he has rejected in the past on the grounds that Milk was only a locally respected person. I guess he has changed his mind now.

The second is far more significant. It requires California to recognize same sex marriages that are solemnized in other states where such contracts are valid (such as Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, and I think Vermont.) Some people predicted that this would happen based on the poor wording of Proposition 8 as passed last year, and now it has arrived, and a full year before another election in which the right can try to override or repeal it. I predict a lot of histrionics over this one.

Comments

[equusmaximus.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the well-wishes, Altivo. It is indeed Thanksgiving Day up here in Canada, though its status as an official holiday has bene greatly downgraded over the years, as have most of our other holidays. It used to be unheard of for any business to be open on a "stat" holiday, but now they're all being used to promote sales and new movie releases. :P

Ah well... Our usual routine is to have the meal itself on Sunday, thus giving us the "holiday" Monday to recuperate from an overindulgence of Turkey. For me, the only difference this year was having the dinner with Trixstir's relatives instead of mine. My Brother-In-Law is a professional chef, and I guess I'm biased but frankly I think my Mom's a better cook. ;)

Sounds like The Governator has made the right choices, even if The Right doesn't think do. It will certainly be interesting to see What Happens Next.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Sounds like The Governator has made the right choices, even if The Right doesn't think do

I've never understood Schwarzenegger personally. He's always struck me as a Republican that (if I was in a position to have to) I could just about do business with. He seems to be straddling two horses, both of which want to go in opposite directions. He seems keen on the GOPs fiscal conservatism, but he's never appeared to me to be genuinely too sure of it's stance on social issues. It probably clashes with modern European philosophy on the matter (remember he WAS born in Austria.)

I worry that the guy is having to "make a pact with the devil" in that respect, and bite his tongue on equal rights issues that in private he might feel very strongly about. Maybe his decision is his way of sending a message to his party that he has bitten his tongue long enough.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

I think that sounds like a good description of Schwarzenegger (as a politician), as far as I can tell.

I'm not really sure about "modern European philosophy", though. I mean, it's not like we don't have our share of Helen Lovejoy-conservatives here, too... (and Austria, in particular, has had folks like Haider, although admittedly, that one never seemed to rail against gay people as much as against foreigners and the like, probably because he himself was apparently gay as well).

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Schwarzenegger is just another politician. As time goes on, he has changed sides and compromised himself so that he looks just as unreliable and crooked as any of them. Given the huge financial power of the right wing, though, as demonstrated in the Proposition 8 business, he's putting himself at risk here. If they decide to get rid of him, he'll be kicked out just like his predecessor was. Elections in the US are mostly bought, rather than being decided by the actual voters. Whoever makes the most obnoxious television ads filled with lies and distortion usually wins.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I saw him on an Japanse antiseptic cream telly ad while I was in Japan once :D It had him trying to sing in Japanese, very funny

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's one of the really embarrassing things that happens when movie stars become politicians. The entire eight years that Ronald Reagan held office as US president, we were plagued by images of him with a chimpanzee taken from a rather stupid film in which he once appeared.

I'm surprised we haven't seen more images of Conan the Barbarian taking on the California legislature, actually.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Sounds like what has happened to most holidays here as well. Thanksgiving itself remains relatively clean though. Since it always falls on a Thursday, they have the day after to defile with all the sales and the official "opening" of Christmas shopping. That's a disaster to be avoided at all costs in my opinion.

Columbus Day has never been a big deal here. It's mostly a phony holiday for pushing inaccurate stereotypes and distorted history onto schoolkids, and as such has fallen into disfavor. The only place I ever worked that actually closed for Columbus Day was De Paul University, and they used it as a celebration of St. Vincent de Paul day rather than Columbus. ;p

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Is Columbus day not a holiday for you? Do you get time in lieu if everyone else is off?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Columbus Day is one of many holidays in the US that are ignored by most businesses and local governments. It is not a holiday for the City of Harvard. The schools were closed, though when I was a kid I'm sure we did not get it off but had to spend the day listening to phony stories about how Columbus "discovered" America even though it was already populated and had been visited by many Europeans before him.

Banks are closed, but they close for a sneeze. Federal government offices are closed and there is no mail delivery or pickup. But for most of us, it's just another day.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

That's annoying. I hope at least this morning is going better for you so far.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Dunno. Won't be at work for a couple of hours yet (it's 7:15 here now) but I see that the catalog is back online now, so that means we'll probably have a whole lot of transactions to enter manually and a mountain of books to check in.

[shadowtxhorse.livejournal.com]

Down here, the County gave up Columbus Day as a holiday so we could celebrate Cesar Chavez Day instead. *makes odd face* I just LOOOOOVE being politically correct.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Cities and counties here ignore these "minor" holidays completely.

In general, I find that holidays that have been shifted so that they always fall on a Monday are little regarded and mostly a commercial sham.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

no library user validation

We have to resort to Millennium Offline when we crash, and there is no way to know if the card presented is even in the system anymore, much less if it has blocks on it for fines or lost items. After uploading the data we're guaranteed a lengthy report detailing all the null transactions.

OSL does recognize Columbus Day, which is nice, because this is always the prime 'farm stand' visiting weekend. We picked up pumpkins and Indian corn and some assorted goodies while out touristing (my garden, r.i.p., was a disaster this year).

One of the local colleges felt that Columbus day was way too not-pc and dropped it from their calendar.

Good for Schwarzenegger. RI has been battling recognition via a court case involving a divorce rather than a marriage. Hope it comes out well.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We stopped using Millennium Offline years ago. I think there were problems with transactions being processed out of order, so that books that had been checked out AND returned within the offline period got checked in BEFORE they were checked out. Consequently, people had books still checked out to them even though they had returned the items, and it caused a big stink.

We do a manual circulation process for checkout, scanning barcodes into a spreadsheet. They get entered manually when the system is available again. Books returned during the period are held, and checked in only after all the manual transactions have been processed.

The academic institutions I've worked for or attended have all uniformly ignored Columbus Day, with the exception of De Paul University mentioned above.

I don't know what Schwarzenegger is about. There's nothing consistent about him. He opposed recognizing gay marriages in the first place, and in fact was always pretty homophobic before he became a politician. I'm sure this will get his right wing supporters into a snit, though, and they'll have another referendum to override the new law as soon as they can get it on the ballot.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

What worries me is that America doesn't really seem to have that many "Moderates" I never quite understood this.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Fifty years ago we had lots of moderates in both parties. Sometime in the intervening period, more and more extremists became visible, and commandeered the public media, especially radio and television. Their misguidedly entertaining rants seem to have completely polarized American politics so that there are only two extremes that refuse to compromise and will both attack moderates with every intention of devouring them and spitting out their bones.