False Drops

Dear student workers and library patrons,

I know the finer points of the Library of Congress call number system can get fairly arcane. Not everyone can be an expert, and there are a lot of call numbers that look alike at a glance. But still, what makes you think that a book about soup belongs in the pattern making section, no matter how similar the call numbers are?

(And then they wonder why we ask them not to put the books back on the shelves...)

This rant brought to you by an afternoon spent in the stacks discovering lots of things that were not remotely where they actually belong.

30 Days: Propositioned

justira asked me to rant about share my opinions on California politics.

The first thing an outsider needs to know is that California is not a monolith. Like most states, we have an urban/rural divide, and it plays out pretty predictably: staunchly liberal urban areas (SF Bay Area, Los Angeles), a few conservative urban enclaves thanks to wealthy suburbanites (Orange County) and/or a strong military presence (San Diego), aging hippies and libertarians along the rural coast and in the mountains, and a solid Red State interior. So there is a sharp political divide in California, but the lines are not all drawn where you would expect them to be. There are cultural differences between Northern and Southern California, to be sure. But they don't really show up in our political discourse.

Okay, now that's out of the way, I'm going to focus on the real subject of this post: California's proposition system, and why I hate it with the fire of a thousand burning suns.

(Technically, there are three kinds of propositions: propositions, initiatives, and constitutional amendments. There are technical differences between them, but on the state ballot they are all referred to as "Proposition N" where N is the identifying number, so I will use "proposition" as a generic term throughout the post.)

( Here's the deal. )

30 Days of... Project! Complete list of questions / Ask a question on LJ or on DW.