PA author gets fired from job because of book

[nerds]

What a fargin' offensive screed from her. One of my brothers is schizophrenic. He is not a pedophile, but his I.Q. IS through the roof.

The generalizations and views are beyond belief.

 

[Don]

If the swasitka fits, then goose-step away.

Far, far, far away.

Unfortunately, Eugenics wasn't always considered evil.

'The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.'

Historic supporters of Eugenics:
Woodrow Wilson
John Maynard Keynes
Alexander Graham Bell
Margaret Sanger
George Bernard Shaw

Research Funding provided by:
Rockefeller Foundation
Kellogg Foundation
Carnegie Institution of Washington
Harriman Family

 

[Don]

Consider me spanked.

 

[ResearchGuy]

. . .
But then again, it's Publish America, which publishes anything.

Boy howdy. Who needs hoax books when that sort of thing is out there . . .

--Ken

 

[Pagey's_Girl]

My adult nephew has an IQ of 160. He says he feels like he was born without the manual on life. He has either Asperger's or high functioning autism (the drs. aren't sure which). Guess where he hangs out? The library! He's the sweetest, gentlest, most intelligent person I've ever known. If you look at him, you'd think he was homeless yet he lives with his parents. He mutters to himself. He loses himself. Yep, got lost in a hospital once and I had to search for him at ten at night. His parents never drank, smoked, did drugs. It just happened.

How in the world can this woman make such demeaning statements on certain people in society and feel so self-righteous is beyond me.

Then again, she's published by Publish America. <Sigh>

If I ran the library, he'd always be welcome there. .

 

[PVish]

Over on Amazon, the ranking just keeps getting better even though The Library Diaries is still out-of-stock:

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,351 in Books

Why hasn't PA declared this the book of the week? Why hasn't Pa touted the success on its website? Why has no one on the PAMB noticed this book's, er, success?

In comparison, the author of the Purple Snowflake marketing e-book has only achieved this ranking with her PA book:

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,830,005 in Books

Of course, Purple Snowflake's PA book is only available used on Amazon. . . .

 

[kristie911]

How does she KNOW that a lot of the residents have a low IQ? Has she personally given them an IQ test? Is she qualified to score such a test?

What an ass.

She's an idiot. Knowing the wonderful people of Ludington, I'm going to say we're a pretty normal community.

If anything, her low IQ is dragging down our average.

 

[Bartholomew]

My adult nephew has an IQ of 160. He says he feels like he was born without the manual on life.

An IQ test put me around 140, once. I constantly feel like a moron.

I had an acquaintance who confided in me that his IQ was 50. He had a very large forehead, broken front teeth that he never bothered to hide or fix--and he always had a huge smile on his face. He looked like a Neanderthal. The guy was convinced he was the smartest man on earth.

Now that you've said this, I really--REALLY--wonder if self esteem is somehow tied to IQ.

 

[[email protected]]

I wonder if a REAL publisher would have published this book?

PublishAmerica sucks!

 

[Eirin]

Silver lining: Unless Ludington is a very scary little town indeed, she must be damaging herself irreparably with that interview.

And I probably shouldn't make fun of Eugenics 'cause it's a disturbing concept, but she sort of makes a compelling argument in favor of it, if perhaps not quite in the way she intends.

 

[SLThomas]

Silver lining: Unless Ludington is a very scary little town indeed, she must be damaging herself irreparably with that interview.

And I probably shouldn't make fun of Eugenics 'cause it's a disturbing concept, but she sort of makes a compelling argument in favor of it, if perhaps not quite in the way she intends.

Yup...She's supremely moronic.

 

[kristie911]

Silver lining: Unless Ludington is a very scary little town indeed, she must be damaging herself irreparably with that interview.

No, we're not. It's a beautiful little tourist town on the Lake Michigan coast. Perfect white beaches, friendly people.

This interview is going to bite her in the ass for sure.

 

[Pagey's_Girl]

....And I probably shouldn't make fun of Eugenics 'cause it's a disturbing concept, but she sort of makes a compelling argument in favor of it, if perhaps not quite in the way she intends.

I had the same thought watching that interview. Something along the lines of "mean people shouldn't breed."

And my IQ is supposed to be 155, but I'm not convinced there's not supposed to be a negative sign in front of that number. Sometimes I think I'm just bright enough to realize how truly dumb I am.

 

[Christine N.]

Yeah, I mean, I keep thinking of Temperance on Bones - she's SO smart, but almost completely socially inept. She's so busy thinking all the time, her higher brain function is so on overdrive, she can't relate to many other people, and sometimes comes off as harsh or insensitive.

Love that show. (from the girl who consistently scores in the 137 range and almost consistently called a nerd.)

 

[mab]

This whole saga has been interesting for me as I'm both a writer and a library worker.

In some respects, working in a library is the perfect place for a writer...not only do you get to be around books all day, but you get to observe people in all their variety, doing all the good bad and ugly things people do.

Then again, for some people working in a library can be very stressful, even dangerous (particularly public libraries...I work in the 'cushy' academic sector). There are popular blogs and internet communties where librarians anonymously let off steam about the problems of the profession, co-workers, and yes, patrons. The Annoyed Librarian is a sort of celebrity for her daring, acerbic comments on issues including this one. She has skilfully remained anonymous despite huge popularity and numerous attempts to discover her identity. Personally, I think its great- we all need an antidote to the pollyanna-ish blather of library school and the ALA. The problems start when library workers don't disguise themselves or their workplaces carefully enough. I remember someone being fired because they described a bad situation a little too recognisibly on a popular livejournal group. Its a very fine line, and it takes great skill to be able to bring an issue up publically whilst remaining anonymous. Your career and reputation are at stake, and sometimes its better to keep quiet.

Of course this writer doesn't seem to have considered these issues at all, and PA didn't bother to enlighten her.

 

[brianm]

This interview is going to bite her in the ass for sure.

With any luck, this book will bite PA in the ass, as well.

 

[[email protected]]

Yes Brian. That would karma at it's best. I qoute me, from an earlier post, "PublishAmerica sucks!"

 

[mab]

Someone earlier on in this thread suggested that an appropriate response for a library worker who finds someone viewing child porn in a library is to contact the police. Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But this exact response got Californian Librarian Brenda Biesterfeld fired earlier this year. Someone needs to write a book about this issue, this nasty woman isn't the person though!

 

[Birol]

No, we're not. It's a beautiful little tourist town on the Lake Michigan coast. Perfect white beaches, friendly people.

This interview is going to bite her in the ass for sure.

If you listen between the lines of the interview, especially whenever she mentions her hometown or where she's lived before, what's happened is she came into Ludington with pre-conceived notions and a chip on her shoulder. I see this happen frequently whenever someone unwilling locates. She's painted the place she wants to be as this rosy ideal and is constantly comparing the place she is now against the image of this place that is so perfect it couldn't possibly exist.

 

[BenPanced]

Terrific. The Mayberry Effect in action.

 

[Eirin]

No, we're not. It's a beautiful little tourist town on the Lake Michigan coast. Perfect white beaches, friendly people.

This interview is going to bite her in the ass for sure.

That's what I figured. Most people are, by and large, decent sorts.
Which is, of course, exactly what PA capitalize on.

Take f.x. that jail-your-book-and-mortgage your-house contract of theirs. Someone, I believe it was Teresa Nielsen Hayden, said one couldn't possibly make sense of it, unless one assumed malicious intent.

Even a hardened cynic might fail to do that when "They'll publish MY BOOK" is part of the equation.

Of course, in this case, I think I'll just say "Congrats on your publisher. May you enjoy each other to the full extent of the law."

 

[CaoPaux]

Oy. They just ran 30 seconds of "librarian fired over book!" on the morning news (L.A. area), in the Odd Stories slot at the end of the hour. Little more than who, what, where, and why (no mention of publisher), but they did show the interior of the book.

It's printed in ms format: double-spaced, with a blank line between paragraphs.

 

[ResearchGuy]

. . .

It's printed in ms format: double-spaced, with a blank line between paragraphs.

Ick. Even shabbier than usual for PA.

--Ken

 

[stormie]

Next PA will try a new font and color, something like this. Nah, it'd be too much trouble for them.

 

[Hummertime]

Why does that remind me of every engineer I've ever worked with? Wonderful people all, but some of them were so smart that they'd sort of forgotten how to think. It made every workday an adventure..

A good friend of mine is a professional engineer. "Can you name the number one form of birth-control used by engineers?" he once asked me.

After giving him a blank stare, he said: "Our personality."