MLA 7.0

A new edition of the MLA citation system is out with substantial changes. I’ve been banging my head against the wall as I worked on updating our MLA page for the library, but I did find a couple of bright spots. I found a great quote about how they see citing digital sources:
“Electronic texts can be updated easily and at irregular intervals. They may also be distributed in multiple databases and accessed through a variety of interfaces displayed on different kinds of equipment. Multiple versions of any work may be available . In this sense, then, accessing a source on the web is akin to commissioning a performance. Any version of a Web source is potentially different from an past or future version and must be considered unique. Scholars therefore need to record the date of access as well as the publication data when citing sources on the web.”

The web as performance that gives you something to think about.

Wide-Spread Despondency Quote

I think I have found the best Dilbert Quote ever, maybe even better than “Never spend time in meetings with time wasting morons.”  In the second panel of the July 1, 2009 strip, ( http://www.dilbert.com ) Dilbert explains that test of their new software program shows, “Our user interface triggered wide-spread despondency and self-mutilation.” As someone who helps the general public with technology all the time, I surely identify with this. Recently at work I’ve been helping update our MLA handout (an updated version just came out) and trying to find stuff in it, reminded me of the quote as well, so it works for non-computer systems, too.

Manny Returns – Last Bauer BBQ

Those of you who read my recent post, or have talked to me lately know that I have become totally sucked back into the Manny (Michelle and Danny) phenomenon on Guiding Light. Well, a month or so into my getting sucked in, it was announced they were returning to the show in the person of the one and only Paul Anthony Stewart as Danny Santos and Nancy St. Alban who played Michelle to his Danny for 5 years. The child actor Patrick Gilbert who played their son Robbie (Robert Fredrico Santos – named after her grandmother and longtime heart of the show Bert Bauer, Michelle’s great-great-grandfather Fredrich, her brother Rick, and Danny’s uncle Fredrico)  also returned in his original role and Nancy St. Alban’s real life daughter will play their daughter Hope Santos (her name came from Cassie, but also Hope Bauer is Michelle’s cousin and was a longtime heroine on the show, look for the stuff with her and Alan on the island on Youtube). So far we know that they have been living happily in California near Ed. Rick has apparently spent some of his off camera time over the years flying out to visit his family and adores spending time with his nephew and niece and is teaching Robbie his magic tricks. At least for right now you can view these episodes (beginning July 2nd) as officially posted on cbs.com and I’m sure they will be posted unofficially to Youtube as well. Manny has one of the strongest Youtube soap couple  followings with literally thousands of people watching individual clips, even when they are posted by different people multiple times. This was a great Bauer BBQ and even though some things could have been improved on (could Manny maybe have had a conversation with each other or could someone said Happy Anniversary since they were married at the BBQ???) it was great to see together as a family and happy. They remembered Rick always trying to get Danny to wear the chef’s hat and Danny hating it, Michelle making apple pie from Bert’s recipe, had Danny in full father mode running around looking after young Hope, Danny’s cousin Father Ray being overjoyed to have his family back in town, and a tribute to Bert from Rick who she always had a special relationship with. I hope we see Manny again, but even if we don’t it makes their fans happy to know they finally have the life they fought so hard and so long for. They are really, truly happy at last with no more black clouds hanging over them.

If this was the last Bauer BBQ, it was one of the best of recent years, not missing a thing from the traditional beginning of a flag raising, to the annual egg toss and three legged race. Rick spoke about remembering being a kid and sitting on the diving board eating cookies and that’s what makes Guiding Light so unique and irreplaceable. I don’t quite remember Rick doing that (he’s older than me), but I grew up with the Bauers and watched the BBQ faithfully since it started in the early 1980s. I know Rick, his dad, his best friend since high school Philip, all his various wives, all his cousins, and even his grandparents. I can remember his prom with his friends the Four Muskateers all four of which were at this year’s BBQ (3 of which were the original actors and the 4th having played the role for over 20 years). I’ve heard stories about his great-grandparents and various extended relatives from my grandmother who still talks about Papa Bauer (Fredrich Bauer, see Robbie Santos note above). I can tell you the life history of his Great Aunt Meta who was such a beloved heroine that a write in a vote campaign to decide if she would be convicted of murder, let her off so she wouldn’t leave the show, even though the whole audience had heard her kill her ex-husband (she held him responsible for the death of their son). The layers and family connections are all there, built up in real time, you don’t have to make them up. Those kind of connections, a show that you can share with generations of your family, characters you can talk about and everyone knows who you mean and their connections to everyone else in town can’t be replicated in less than each one of those 72 years and when the light goes out for good in September our popular culture will permenantly be the poorer for it. Will any show starting today, no matter how good, still be on in any technological format in 70 years?

Beef Up Our Troops

I was saving this to talk about over Memorial Day, but since I missed that, I think July 4th is fitting, too. When the War on Terrorism started the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association started a program to send them beef, mostly in the form of beef sticks. Local Burger Kings even helped them raise money for a time. However, costs increased and eventually the ICA gave up on the program. Ted and Dee Ann Paulsrud heard that the program was ending and decided to take it over. They discovered that shipping costs would have eaten up most of the money so they started looking for a deal. They arranged to buy the beef sticks from Triple T Specialty Meats who deliver them to the Sioux City Fareway store where the Sioux City’s 185th Air Refueling Station which transport the sticks to Iraq and Afghanistan and distribute them to the troops. They have sent more than 40,000 beef sticks to the troops since taking over the project. Each beef stick costs about 68 cents. I did get my donation sent in for honor of Memorial Day and I hope you’ll consider sending one, also.

$25 donation buys 38 beef sticks
$50 donation buys 73 beef sticks
$100 donation buys 147 beef sticks
A recent generous donor gave them program $1000, but even small donations can add up.

Please send “Beef”n Up the Troops” donations to:

Ted and Dee Ann Paulsrud
4980 – 320th St.
Danbury IA 51019-8505

Laura Days in Burr Oak

I guess I’m still not doing to well on keeping up because I meant to mention this before hand, but last weekend was the Laura Days in Burr Oak, Iowa. This is a new date for their Days which was previously held on the first weekend in June and was usually opposite Prairie Days in Independence. I didn’t make it up this year, but I strongly encourage people to visit the Laura sites during the Days each town hosts. I avoided them for a long time thinking they’d be too crowded to move, but even the largest events are still small enough to be doable. You may have to be more vigilant in getting reservations for a place to stay than normal, but really it’s always a good idea to arrange those well in advance for a Laura visit.

Guiding Light – Cancellation and Michelle and Danny

So since I haven’t been able to think, write, or concentrate, what have I been doing? Well, the first night I literally had to stop reading e-mail because I couldn’t make myself understand it and it was giving me a headache I decided that I would look to see if I could find a video online of a recent scene on Guiding Light. I actually didn’t find what I was looking for, but instead stumbled onto a scene featuring Danny Santos and Michelle Bauer Santos, my favorite soap couple ever. I hadn’t seen them since they left the soap in 2005, but that one scene sucked me right back in. Boom! I was sucked back in. (I haven’t had that kind of reaction since I hadn’t seen any Star Wars films for a couple of years and stumbling across Return of the Jedi late one night created an absolute need to watch all 3 of the original movies as soon as possible.) So while I wasn’t fit to do anything else, I watched their old scenes on Youtube. I think part of that was fate because it was announced that Paul Anthony Stewart (Danny) and Nancy St. Alban (the one to play Michelle the longest to his Danny) will be returning to the show on July 2^nd.

On a sad note after 72 years on radio and TV CBS has cancelled this venerable soap opera. My family has watched it for 70 of those years and I personally watched from the time I was in the crib. Its leadership in the field included the first core African-American family (the father was James Earl Jones), an early adoption of social issues (like breast cancer) into stories, early adoption of color technology, being first to expand to an hour, and just last year changed from three wall sets to a cheaper production model of permanent four wall rooms with much more shot outside and with handheld cameras. Although last year it was a shadow of its former self, BUT since the return of leading man Grant Alexander  as Philip Spaulding and the reuniting of current star couple Bill Lewis (Dan Cosgrove) and Lizzie Spaulding (Marcy Rylan), plus some great supporting stories, the show is hitting its stride. Now with Danny and Michelle’s return what will sadly be the last days of this venerable show may be some of its best. I hope you all tune in to watch.

For those of you who want to catch up, a short version of the story so far, we travel back to 1998….Mick Santos was a troubled young man with a hatred of hypocrites and a willingness to do anything illegal from muggings to protection rackets to blackmail. The best thing about Mick, although it was all off camera, was his love for his younger brother Danny, who he helped pay his way through college and encouraged him to continue with his education. He also told Danny a highly edited version of his life which included flirting regularly (actually it was kind of perverted sexual harassment) with Michelle Bauer who was actually dating Jesse Blue (a reformed street kid who Michelle taught to read and who was the recipient of Michelle’s late mother’s transplanted heart). After Drew Jacobs (a friend of Jesse’s) caught Mick selling drugs at her club, she had him arrested. When he was released thanks to his mafia connections, he came looking for Drew and found her on a lonely beach waiting for Michelle. Mick started to attack her. When Michelle arrived, she tried to get him off Drew. He grabbed Michelle, saying he’d rather take what Drew owed him out of her instead. He started dragging her toward his car, looking at her as if she was nothing and cracking jokes all the while choking her and implying he’d rape and then kill her. Michelle tried to break away struggling and kicking at him. Drew came to her rescue and hit him on the head with a rock. He turned back to Drew and grabbed her again. Michelle picked up the rock and hit him again. He dropped and both girls ran off terrified he was right behind them, not realizing that they’d killed him. They told Jesse and Bill Lewis about the attack and when they realized Mick was dead, they decided they all needed to stick together and not let Mick’s “connections” find out what they did, so all four of them moved into the apartment above Drew’s club.

The police remained clueless, but then one day a young man all in black with piercing black eyes and a knowing smile arrived. He announced he was Danny Santos, Mick’s brother, and he’s there to find his brother’s killer. Danny quickly formed a theory of the crime (a wrong one, but much closer to the truth than the police ever got). He thought Jesse had killed Mick in a jealous rage over Michelle. He intimidated them to hire him as a bartender at the club and he continued his investigation. To prove his theory he tried to get closer to Michelle becoming her study partner in psychology class and kissing her several times. On Thanksgiving Michelle invited Danny to her meal to try to keep him distracted, but when two little girls disappeared from the party, she accused Danny of kidnapping them, a theory shared by Detective Frank Cooper who was the father of one of the girls, but he had to eat his words when Danny not only found the girls, but saved them from falling. (Ironically, within a few years Frank would be Danny’s best, not related by blood or marriage, friend who the so-called “mobster” would call on whenever there was trouble.)

Eventually Jesse felt Danny was close enough to the truth that he wanted Drew to tell Danny that Jesse killed Mick and Jesse would leave town forever to protect Michelle. However, Drew couldn’t stand the idea of Jesse leaving and thinking Danny really wanted Michelle and wouldn’t really hurt her, she instead told Danny that Michelle had killed his brother in self-defense. This put Danny in an awful position because he didn’t have a choice; he had to kill his brother’s killer no matter the circumstances. Danny found Michelle and drug her down to the beach where it happened to make him believe it was self-defense. She did, but he was still under orders to kill her no matter what. However, gallantly and because since the first time they’d talked he’d felt that he’d seen her soul and that she was someone to be treasured, he decided to use “the family” rule that you can’t ever kill family to save her by marrying her instead of killing her. Danny was always a man of character and his mother had given him a code and by carefully controlling what he knew, at this point, he honestly believed Carmen and the other “Family” members lived by it too. (He was totally wrong on this point. Carmen could care less about any code, although it hadn’t come out yet, she had already killed her husband, but saw the code as a useful way to control Danny and refused to easily give it up. She planned to make him say it was ok to kill Michelle or better yet kill her himself.) They struggled to convince everyone their “arranged” marriage was real. Hardest to convince was Jesse, her boyfriend who she hadn’t even broken up with before marrying Danny. They decided they had to let Jesse catch them in bed at their “special place,” the lighthouse. They kissed and lay entwined before Jesse arrived and even though they didn’t make love, she sold Jesse that they had been together for real. However, Danny and Michelle remembered this moment as one of the first of true intimacy. Another major milestone occurred when Danny and Michelle attended Pre-Cana. Michelle told Danny she’d pass by thinking about Jesse and he practically writhed with jealousy as he listened to her answer questions about her dream future. However, the priest had them read part of their questionnaires aloud and they realized their dreams of the future they wanted were the same, the same type of marriage, the same type of family, and the same type of life. Michelle started looking at Danny differently and the effect of her feeling his body shielding her from a bullet started to sink in. Although Danny doesn’t realize it, after this it’s Danny who always brings up Jesse’s name between them, not Michelle.

During one discussion Danny tells Michelle about his grandparents and how their arranged marriage had turned to love and that even when Danny and Michelle were at each other’s throats they had a connection and asked her to give it a chance. Michelle decides that the only way to get her life back was to become part of the Santos family so she could get information to take it down. She started trying to get closer to Danny and to investigate. Carmen initially wanted a church ceremony as one her many plans in these early weeks to try to get Danny to give up on Michelle or get Michelle to crack. Now Michelle decided that the wedding was the perfect way to get close. She took Danny to her family’s home to tell them about the wedding. Her brother Rick, who was against the marriage as dangerous to Michelle, tells Danny if he really loves Michelle to let her go. When Michelle checks on Danny after Rick left him in her room, he talks to her about how while he might not be the man of her dreams, but he was a man and living so closely with her was starting to get to him and could she please keep an open mind about this part of their marriage (“I am a man” speech – look for it, it’s great). Michelle couldn’t be unaffected. However, it was the church ceremony that truly affected them both. Drew, who knew of Michelle’s plan, said after the ceremony that it all was getting real. Danny and Michelle felt the connection when they said their vows and when they kissed it was anything but obligatory. When they returned to their room, Danny wasn’t pushing, but Michelle said she was ready to be his wife and they started to make love. As Danny talked about his feelings and as Michelle felt herself responding to his advances for real, she got scared and stopped him again. Their connection slowly strengthened although the marriage remained unconsummated (with many close calls), without realizing it they were constantly touching and kissing each other. Drew asked Michelle if she was falling in love with her husband for real telling her “You get a big stupid smile on your face whenever he’s around.” Still to save herself, Michelle was willing, if reluctantly, to sell Danny to the FBI and gave them information on him to lead him into a trap until she overheard him confide to his Abuela that he was in love with her. Suddenly horrified at what she had done, Michelle faked her blindness (which she had endured for a short time the year before) returning to keep Danny away from the FBI trap. However, he believed she’d turned him in and was struggling with what he should do as the code now again demanded her death. He got a reprieve when he overheard a henchman thank his girlfriend for making the call on Carmen’s orders. The next day, feeling closer to Danny than ever and upset by how he was worried about her eyesight, she could no longer let there be a secret between them, she told him that she did call the FBI. Danny feels backstabbed and on one of the worst nights of his life he sends Michelle home with Rick and got drunk and slept with her friend Drew (who was also feeling betrayed and alone over people lying to her about her adoption). Fresh off a dream where Danny killed her for betraying him, Michelle grabs a knife when Danny shows up and he realizes he has to set her free even though he will have to blackmail his own mother to do it and still keep her safe.

Thinking he has lost her forever Danny falls apart and Michelle finds herself no longer fitting into her old life. When she kisses Jesse, she sees Danny’s face. When Father Ray asks her to say for the annulment that she felt nothing for Danny, she can’t do it. In internal turmoil, Michelle tells everyone she is leaving town, but really she went to her and Jesse’s special place, the lighthouse. Danny finds himself drawn there too one night remembering lying there with her and she tells him she came there to think about Jesse, but could only remember lying in Danny’s arms and was having trouble remembering Jesse’s face. Michelle thinks they need to give their marriage a chance, Danny almost relented, but felt that she could never be happy with his life and he pushed her away. After agreeing to leave town to get some distance from Michelle, Danny overheard his mother on the phone plan to kill Michelle and rushing to rescue her, he crashed his car, but the report of it got the cops to save Michelle and she ran to Danny’s side. Unable to resist each other any longer, they finally decide to try. Although Carmen discovered his night with Drew and temporarily caused a further estrangement, it’s short lived because by now they know they can’t live without each other.

An attempt on Carmen’s life draws Danny back to the “family” and he tries to stay away from Michelle to protect her, but she finally can’t stand to be apart anymore and insists on staying with him regardless of the danger (“even if there were a thousand guns, I’d want to face them down with you”). Danny still tries to get her to go someplace safe, but Danny learns quickly that Michelle makes her own decisions and he can’t control her. Her brother Rick wasn’t nearly as quick on that point and tried to break them up by having Michelle committed for a Psych Eval saying her decisions made her a danger to herself. Danny tried everything to get her out and finally broke her out and Rick admitted he had wrongly had her committed. The next day Danny threw her a surprise wedding, just for themselves to renew their vows for real at Laurel Falls.

Although they were happy together, Danny’s tendency to not tell Michelle things to try to protect her, his continued draw to the “family business,” Michelle’s tendency to jump to the worst assumption about him, the return of her meddling birth mother, Danny’s slowly realizing that he must risk the danger and destroy an ever expanding circle of the mob to keep his family safe, and Carmen’s efforts to break them up (faking at attack on her life, framing Michelle for a murder Carmen herself committed, framing Danny for killing her, trying to kill Michelle several more times) continued to cause them problems. Although they broke up several times, they always got back together quickly because they just can’t bear to be apart and unlike pretty much every other couple on the show, while they had 6 weddings (4 legal marriages, 2 vow renewals), they were all to each other. Eventually they had 2 children (Robbie and Hope) to whom they were devoted, active parents, but maintained their deserved nickname “the tactile twosome”, always touching and caressing each other, and always looking to “christen” new places. They always had to fight for the life they wanted and while they had a tendency to make the same mistakes, they actually slowly learned not to make them (again unlike many other soap couples) and their marriage got stronger with each reunion, until they left town to get a fresh start near her father’s (Dr. Ed Bauer) current home in California. Danny’s cousin Father Ray (the only Santos currently left on the show) declared at their last wedding, a few days before they left the show in 2005, that they finally had it all figured out and this time it would be forever.

Michelle: “Looking back I wouldn’t do a thing differently because Danny’s worth it. It’s like we’re on some kind of a journey. Sometimes he loses direction, sometimes it’s me, but we’re supposed to be traveling together. I know that in my bones, sometimes it’s the only thing I do know, but I am sure, so wherever we end up together I know that’s where I want to be.

Marah: ”But you and Danny are from such different places.”

Michelle: “Not on the inside. Growing up I had the life he always wanted and now I want to make sure he has that life and that’s the life I want to give our child so no matter what it takes to bring Danny back [I will].”

Although there are more complete versions of individual episodes, the best overall set of highlights of the couple is on Youtube courtesy of Freckles337.

http://www.youtube.com/user/freckles337

Click on see all under playlists to see all 4 Manny (Michelle + Danny) Clips playlists. They start with “Manny Clips – PAS & BJLG” for Paul Anthony Stewart and Bethany Joy (Joie) Lenz and then continue through 3 parts of PAS & NSA for Nancy St. Alban after she took over the role.  Many people don’t like Nancy’s version of Michelle as well, but I think the real problem was that she didn’t get Michelle right away, but once you get to the following exchange in the New York hotel scenes I think she had her and continues well from there:

Michelle: Tell me what I ever did to make you think so little of me.

Danny: What? I don’t…

Michelle: What makes you think that I’m such a coward that I can’t face the same things that you do.

Danny: I don’t think you’re a coward.

Michelle: I’d follow you into hell and pull you right back out.  I’m not giving up on you, Danny.

Welcome back to Me

Welcome back to me. I’d like to apologize to everybody for dropping out of sight online for the last couple of month. There has been some sickness going around here and I’ve had it, but good. It’s been a different kind of illness, it’s been mostly stuck in my head. I’ve had a terrible time concentrating and getting blinding headaches if I tried to read and concentrate, especially online. Every time I thought I was better it came back and hit me again. I finally got to the point where I’ve at least read all my e-mail and I hope that I can slowly catch up with some of the things that I thought and in some cases said that I’d have done by now. I still have to get in fairly short bursts, but now I’ve started again. I hope that I can play catch up. Again sorry for disappearing, but in one of the best pieces of advice I every learned is from the bee story on Captain Kangaroo, “The best I can do is the best I can do and I’m doing the best that I can” and I’ve been following it.

These Happy Golden Years

In a letter dated Feb 26, 1967,Eugenia Garson, the force behind the Laura Ingalls Wilder Songbook,  wrote Rose that she had the hardest time finding the music to These Happy Golden Years. She struck out at the Library of Congress and many other music libraries. Finally she found by chance in a small private collection in New York. It had originally been published in East Liverpool, Ohio, in 1879. Let’s all thank Mrs. Garson and her daughter for not giving up and listen to this great song that gave us a great title. Find it on “Laura Ingalls Wilder Speaks” available from most of the gift shops.

Quote: “What’s popular…”

The November 1. 2008 issue of Library Journal features a review of a new search engine called Hakia. It weights according to content and context rather than popularity and relevancy (as does Google).  Instead it considers peer-reviewed information, commercial bias, currency of content, and source authenticity and has a section called credible sites that are identified by real librarians. So far those are limited to the environment and health, but plans are in the works to expand them to other areas.

COO Melek Paulatkonak of Hakia gave this great quote “What’s popular may not be credible, and what’s credible may not be popular.” A true quote and one well worth thinking about. (p. 22)

Farmer Boy Economics

Once again a reporter is citing Laura’s brilliant description of the labor theory of value, meaning that money or a good is worth the amount of labor it took to produce it. Father Wilder is used as the character to explain the lesson when he gives Almanzo a 50 cent piece, but convinces him to invest his money in a pig rather than spend it on lemonade.

http://tinyurl.com/cjvr27

The theory was developed by British economist David Ricardo who based his economic work on Adam Smith’s pioneering work The Wealth of Nations. In simplified form, it holds that a clock that costs $100 has ten times the labor in it as a $10 pair of shoes or that all that the value in something comes from labor which leads to very interesting conclusions about wages and inflation, but you can look those up for yourself. By the way, the theory has now fallen out of favor in modern ecomonics and been replaced by the marginal theory of value which says that both supply and demand influence value. In the classic example my economic professor gave me, once you have 10 pairs of identical orange tennis shoes, will the 11th pair have as much value to you as the first pair did?