All the King's Men, by the late Robert Penn Warren, just might be the greatest American political novel. I also love Robert Rossen's classic film adapted from the book, and now Sony is releasing a second ATKM-based movie (image). May I suggest that the spirit of Huey Long, the crooked Southern politician on whom Warren loosely based Willie Stark, is alive and well in Washington, D.C.? Don't just enjoy Warren's luscious prose and see Sean Penn, Jude Law and Kate "Titanic" Winslet in the latest ATKM film. Also read Washington's Once and Future Lobby in Sunday's Washington Post. Would you believe,...

"Minneapolis libraries are in terrible financial condition. Not even during the 1930s was library staff reduced by 27 percent, as occurred last year, or were branch library doors closed three and four days per week, as they are today. No other major American city offers library patrons fewer hours of service." - Library Board must reach out, an editorial in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Hooray! Those are the big issues with the MPL. Why is it that the news side of the Minneapolis Strib took time out to beat up on little blogs for criticizing the silly fund-raising campaign featuring Mao the...

China may be E-Book Central, at least in the future. But as TeleBlog regulars know, I'm not a fan of this guy--or of the present Chinese leaders or the PR campaign that a buzz-minded ad agency cooked up for Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library. So I read with interest a note from Robert Nagle of the Idiotprogrammer blog. He correctly worries about DRM being used in the service of Chinese Big Brothers. In fact, Robert wonders if China will go ahead with e-books in the first place, given the possibility of this e-book thing getting out of hand. Okay,...

Dorothea Salo has done two anti-Gorman posts--Why I'll Quit ALA and Your Own Size. I think she's right in criticizing Gorman for putting down hip-hip culture as simplistic. There are racist implications here--far, far more serious than Gorman's hatred of blogs and e-books. Of course, things can tie in with each other. E-books, for example, are one way to spread around neglected writings of minorities. Imagine all the possibilities if copyright law can be changed so libraries can better deal with orphaned works. More minority librarians would help as well--not to mention more disabled ones, too. Note: I'm not telling librarians, "Everyone...

Ouch. A firestorm on the Net has swirled around the idea of the Minneapolis Public Library using Mao as a posterboy. But it isn't ending there. Now Minneapolis TV station KMSP has run the following story: Library Throwing Away Books These are strange times for the Minneapolis Public Library system. As they build a new one hundred twenty-five million dollar central library behind me a quarter of the staff's been laid off. Library hours have been cut by a third. Just when you'd think they'd be holding on to every precious book, we found them throwing them away. "Book on Orwell...

Ryan T. Curry, author of earlier comments in favor of the Mao ad to raise money for the building pictured here, confirms that, yes, he indeed works for the Minneapolis Public Library. He sent along a nice second note, and I'm delighted to reproduce it in full. Ryan assures me he was speaking for himself, not MPL. I'll take him at his word. Read on for Ryan's further thoughts. The positive side of the Mao controversy is that maybe all this passion can now be directed to other matters such as more local and state money to get the MPL hours...

For our Minneapolis readers, we've created a temporary RSS feed and Web page to help you keep up with the Mao controversy and other library matters such as hours-and-staff cutbacks that the Star-Tribune won't cover properly. Reach the page via: http://www.teleread.com/minneapolis.html. Reader contributions cherished, regardless of people's stands! Plug the RSS feed into Bloglines, MyYahoo or other aggregator. The feed will probably not call attention to new comments, just new posts. But I may be able to address that problem later. Meanwhile this blog also offers temporary Minneapolis and Minnesota categories--the minneapolis.html address will take you to the Minneapolis category. If enough...

In its phony freedom-of-speech campaign to raise money for the Minneapolis Public Library, a "buzz"-minded ad agency came up with a slick graphic noting that Mao was a librarian. See the PDF for yourself. The little caption in the ad, part of a series, did not compensate for the visual impact of seeing Mao and the MPL treated the same. The man committed mass murder. To trivialize Mao in an institutional ad for a public library was indefensible, especially in a state struck by cuts in library spending--a place where librarydom can use all the goodwill it can get....

Scads of people on the Net--not all but many--are learning to love blogs and distrust big newspapers. Minneapolis, where a sister-in-law of the mayor tried to do spin control on bloggers while on the payroll of the Star-Tribune, just might be a classic case. The relationship may or may not have counted. But the newspaper's coverage of the MPL is still rather bizarre. Along the way, Minneapolis is also a splendid illustration of bad library marketing. I'll get to the Star-Tribune and a belated news story in a moment. Why did the Strib take weeks to print a story...

"They deserve better than being lumped in with murderers and tyrants." - Former Minneapolis resident Keith Saunders, an ex-library employee now living in Taiwan--understandably angry over the use of images of Mao Tse-tung and J. Edgar Hoover to promote the Minneapolis public library and librarians. The TeleRead take: If you get a chance, Keith, why not show the campaign to some Chinese in Taiwan? I suspect their reaction will be the same as mine. To use a butcher like Mao to promote a public library is like using Adolph Hitler as a happy beer-guzzler to promote Coors, or burning crosses to...

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune apparently still hasn't printed a word on Minneapolis Mao. And, as a TeleBlog reader's angry comment from Minnesota shows, the natives are restless--and understandably so. Will a rumored editorial appear tomorrow?...

Confused about the Mao Tse-tung fuss in Minneapolis? It involves Minneapolis Public Library, which is raising money for the building shown to the, er, left. Smartly, after an uproar in the blogosphere, the MPL's Friends group is putting Mao on hold as a library mascot. Bottom line: An ambitious ad agency may or may not have succeeded in helping the library reel in donors via an edgy funding campaign. In any event, a Putney Swope approach isn't the best news for the library's long-term image. Your typical library-goer wants help with such grubby matters as homework or job-hunting. A phony free...