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When I agreed to review this book I wasn’t sure what to expect, but after a few pages, I found the old-style charm to be delightful, not to mention educational.

The first printing of Minnie Rose’s Recipe for Raising Chickens hit the selves in April of 1975 and sold 21,000 copies. Now in it’s 3’rd Edition, this book still holds the quaint and old-fashioned feel of the late, Minnie Rose Lovgreen.

Even if you have no intention of ever raising chickens, Minnie Rose Lovgreen’s Recipe for Raising Chickens is a fun and interesting lesson in all things chicken. For example, did you know chickens “talk” to their unborn chicks? Or that mother hen will pluck out all her breast feathers to keep her babies warm? Chickens really are wonderful mothers!

Recipe for Raising Chickens is a must have for anyone just beginning or even all ready in the midst of trying to raise chickens. Minnie Rose’s old-time approach to raising and caring for chickens is wonderfully informative and just plain fun to read – it even has some simple illustrations that only add to its unique quality.

Minnie Rose Lovgreen’s Recipe for Raising Chickens is available on Amazon.com

About the Author

Minnie Rose was born in 1888 in Norfolk County England. She was the eight of nineteen children – all of them worked the 200 acres her father farmed.

In 1912, she and her brother decided to go to Canada and booked passage on the Titanic. But she grew restless when the ship wasn’t ready to sail, hopped on another boat and arrived safely in Montreal.

Minnie Rose moved to Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, in 1920 where she married Danish-born Leo Lovgreen, had a family, and raised lots of chickens on what grew to become a thriving 170 acre dairy farm for 30 years.

A bucket list is a list some people put together of things they want to do before they die. A bucket list, in my opinion is really dumb, because once you have completed it, there is nothing of value left for you to do, except die. With that said, I have put together my own bucket list, a list of buckets.

Metal Buckets

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tudor/3255427501/

Metal buckets are always nice when they get wet, bashed around a bit, and become rusty. Here we see some lovely buckets containing railroad spikes, all good and rusty. Presumably the other buckets have rusted out the bottom thus can not hold water any longer. Pity, after all a bottomless bucket is not nearly as useful.

Beach Buckets

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinkerroll21/2684563098/

These beauties have the advantage in that they can come in many colors and can be filled with wet sand, and flipped over, to create wonderful sand castles. Every year hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of beach buckets are swept away from their owners. Many wash ashore a short time later but some are pulled out into the ocean and are swept to foreign sands. Perhaps some are floating in the giant sea of garbage that has been reported in the Pacific Ocean.

Hydraulic Buckets

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lori_greig/2034382703/

Buckets that can lift people up are pretty cool too. I wonder how much they charge for a ride in one of those things? These buckets have to be made out of hard fiberglass and usually have holes in the bottom to let rain water out. Attached to a hydraulic lift they can be controlled by the people in them or at the bottom of the device.

Water Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/garydenness/1500856927/

When in need of a drink, or putting out a fire, nothing beats a water bucket. As we have learned earlier, a plastic bucket is probably the best for the job. This mans life would not be the same if not for his water bucket.  It might be all he owns. 

Bucket Seats

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cosmic_spanner/2706706837/

Individual seats in a car, which separate the driver from the other front seat passenger are called bucket seats, especially so when they are form fitted. While they do not allow for cuddling as the bench seat does, they are certainly more popular. As always, be sure to buckle up. 

Head Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mugley/511939333/

When out with somebody more pretty than yourself, a head bucket might come in handy. Not too common, but possibly they are a relatively new thing in the bucket industry, look for them to gain popularity in the next few years. Perhaps we shall see them in new colors.   I would stay away from metal head buckets as they would probably be hot. 

Feed Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/charliebrewer/78335363/

Probably a favorite of many, the feed bucket is certainly preferred by other animals. I would have to say it is one of my favorites too, I love taking food out to my critters. If you personally do not like feed buckets you might like the bucket next on the list.

Ice Cream Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettlider/67051314/

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream buckets. No matter how old we get, most of us still love ice cream. Nowadays we can buy ice cream by the bucket full, but it use to be we made it in wooden buckets. My favorites are licorice, Butter Pecan, Maple Walnut, and most recently Ginger ice cream.

Garbage Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/devnull/140485451/

Don’t ever throw away ice cream, eat it all. Use the garbage bucket only for things you cannot eat, or recycle. Garbage buckets tend to get smelly and are not often a favorite bucket of anyones. They are usually plastic, which is not really a good choice, because plastic is porous, meaning it can contain odors and bacteria.  Even my garbage bucket is plastic, I’m tough and a few million bacteria do not scare me. 

Really Big Buckets

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cindy47452/55239683/

Usually the front end loader part of a tractor is called the bucket, but they get even bigger than that on earth movers. This bucket is not even as big as they come, it has been neglected for some time. In quarries and mines up north they have huge buckets.

Feel free to make your own Bucket list.  I am tired. 

A bucket list is a list some people put together of things they want to do before they die. A bucket list, in my opinion is really dumb, because once you have completed it, there is nothing of value left for you to do, except die. With that said, I have put together my own bucket list, a list of buckets.

Metal Buckets

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tudor/3255427501/

Metal buckets are always nice when they get wet, bashed around a bit, and become rusty. Here we see some lovely buckets containing railroad spikes, all good and rusty. Presumably the other buckets have rusted out the bottom thus can not hold water any longer. Pity, after all a bottomless bucket is not nearly as useful.

Beach Buckets

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinkerroll21/2684563098/

These beauties have the advantage in that they can come in many colors and can be filled with wet sand, and flipped over, to create wonderful sand castles. Every year hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of beach buckets are swept away from their owners. Many wash ashore a short time later but some are pulled out into the ocean and are swept to foreign sands. Perhaps some are floating in the giant sea of garbage that has been reported in the Pacific Ocean.

Hydraulic Buckets

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lori_greig/2034382703/

Buckets that can lift people up are pretty cool too. I wonder how much they charge for a ride in one of those things? These buckets have to be made out of hard fiberglass and usually have holes in the bottom to let rain water out. Attached to a hydraulic lift they can be controlled by the people in them or at the bottom of the device.

Water Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/garydenness/1500856927/

When in need of a drink, or putting out a fire, nothing beats a water bucket. As we have learned earlier, a plastic bucket is probably the best for the job. This mans life would not be the same if not for his water bucket.  It might be all he owns. 

Bucket Seats

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cosmic_spanner/2706706837/

Individual seats in a car, which separate the driver from the other front seat passenger are called bucket seats, especially so when they are form fitted. While they do not allow for cuddling as the bench seat does, they are certainly more popular. As always, be sure to buckle up. 

Head Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mugley/511939333/

When out with somebody more pretty than yourself, a head bucket might come in handy. Not too common, but possibly they are a relatively new thing in the bucket industry, look for them to gain popularity in the next few years. Perhaps we shall see them in new colors.   I would stay away from metal head buckets as they would probably be hot. 

Feed Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/charliebrewer/78335363/

Probably a favorite of many, the feed bucket is certainly preferred by other animals. I would have to say it is one of my favorites too, I love taking food out to my critters. If you personally do not like feed buckets you might like the bucket next on the list.

Ice Cream Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettlider/67051314/

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream buckets. No matter how old we get, most of us still love ice cream. Nowadays we can buy ice cream by the bucket full, but it use to be we made it in wooden buckets. My favorites are licorice, Butter Pecan, Maple Walnut, and most recently Ginger ice cream.

Garbage Bucket

http://www.flickr.com/photos/devnull/140485451/

Don’t ever throw away ice cream, eat it all. Use the garbage bucket only for things you cannot eat, or recycle. Garbage buckets tend to get smelly and are not often a favorite bucket of anyones. They are usually plastic, which is not really a good choice, because plastic is porous, meaning it can contain odors and bacteria.  Even my garbage bucket is plastic, I’m tough and a few million bacteria do not scare me. 

Really Big Buckets

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cindy47452/55239683/

Usually the front end loader part of a tractor is called the bucket, but they get even bigger than that on earth movers. This bucket is not even as big as they come, it has been neglected for some time. In quarries and mines up north they have huge buckets.

Feel free to make your own Bucket list.  I am tired. 

While I was at SXSW Interactive, I was finishing the YA novel Feed by M.T. Anderson. I highly recommend this book and am embarrassed to just be reading it now. Still, I can't think of a better setting to be reading about teenagers having computer... Read the rest of this post

I love short weeks. When Friday comes it feels like a nice surprise. Below are some links to help you ease into another weekend.  As for me, I’m off to D.C. and if you are local you should check out the Capitol Celebration at the National Mall, Regina Spektor is just one of the great acts that are part of the celebration.

A harsh critique of J.K. Rowling from an author who has his own series about a little boy with extraordinary powers.

The coolest bookstore in Beijing.

The best cartoon for geeks like me. (A long day in front of the computer and I end up like this.)

Can you teach writing? Kureishi says no.

Twelve years of reading magazines.

The biggest drawing in the world!

The NYTimes embraces the internet.

What was your camp experience like? I was never as miserable as this author.

How to unleash your creativity.

Just how many calories are in that bite?

Wow this is installation art I really want to see.

ShareThis

I'm spending a few weeks sharing tips and observations about novel writing. This week I'm going to focus on one of my favorite topics: humor. I've read many novels and believe over and over that light touches of humor would have improved the stories.

What is humor? I think in the simplest terms it is the ability of people, objects, situations or words to make us experience amusement or happiness. I do think that humor is really about touching the the universal incongruities that are connections between us all. Think about this quote from Jane Austen. "For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?" Just so, Jane. Just so. Humor is something decidedly human. It's the slant in our worldview that brings much needed levity into our lives. We need that light in our stories.

Consider. It is hard to make someone laugh, especially without the support of any visual enhancement, like rolled eyes, yuk-yuks or guffaws. Still, this kind of writing is generally considered base and inconsequential. Humorous books usually don't win awards, but they do win the hearts of readers. I still have a dog-eared copy of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in my favorite books box under my bed. Destroying the Earth to make room for an interstellar highway touches the universal inside me. We all connect with the idea of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. I'm still laughing.

How do we incorporate humor into our books? Think of a book as a hand of cards, one played after another. The best writers are aware that jokers are lurking in the deck. Think about this first line of a book that is serious as a heart attack, Feed. "We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck." This line haunts me and makes me laugh at the same time. In Feed by M. T. Anderson nails the mix of humor and tragedy that is a spot on reflection of life. His observation certainly touches the universal feeling within us all that the great adventure of our life has often turned out to suck. As a collective we can connect with that idea. This is the heart of humor.

Humor relieves intense pain. Humor binds people together. Humor brings us together to laugh and play. It is an emotional response that is derived from the power of words. Our response to humor is instinctive. It is a response to the social nature of the human condition. Our minds search for patterns within stories. Think about this familiar pattern: Boy gets girl; boy loses girl. Boy gets girl again. Now let's disrupt the pattern: Boy gets girl; boy loses girl. Girl kicks boy's ass. The disruption of the pattern creates an opportunity for humor. Look for places to surprise your reader. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is created, the result can be a big laugh.

Look for opportunities to twist the familiar patterns. Step into satire. Try to get more out of humor by adding a barb of the writer's firm belief to that one liner. You can generate humor by approving of things you really wish to attack. Don't underestimate the power of humor.

Wow, I've got a lot to say about this topic! I'll write more about the nuts and bolts of generating a laugh later. I hope that you have found something here that will bring power to your storytelling. Think about it. Write it. Make them laugh.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
William Shakespeare

I just got back from California where my dad had his 4th Change of Command ceremony and then retired from the Navy after 30 years of active duty service. Pretty incredible. Counting college, U.S. Naval Academy, he's been in the miltary longer than I've been alive. I'm impressed. The ceremony was beautiful, the weather was unusually cooperative and even though I felt like I spent more time in airports than I did in the actual city of Port Hueneme, I was glad to be there and very proud of the Captain.

Here's where it all becomes school library/book related. I flew Frontier airlines. I don't think I've ever flown with them before but would like to make a special request that I fly with them for the rest of my life. Friendly, courteous, informative, organized and TVs in the back of every seat. What more could you ask for? Well, how 'bout volume control? Or at least an awareness of when your volume is turned up so loud I can hear you over your earphones, my earphones, the child sitting next to me also watching a movie's earphones, two seats down! It gets worse. She wasn't even watching whatever program she chose to lose her hearing on. She was flipping through a magazine, the TV mere background noise FOR THE WHOLE PLANE. I happened to be reading Fahrenheit 451 for my book club. So, here I am reading about Seashell radios and wall panel "families" thinking for you, replacing your imagination and appreciation for Life, and I hear nothing but unwatched FOX news crap.

Bizarre. It made me laugh and shudder at the same time; I luddered. But it also made me think. Of course. What a cool curriculum could be developed asking questions like "Why read?" "Why think?" "Why imagine?" "Why question?" It'd also be interesting to look at who has asked those questions over time and for what purposes or what were people's reactions to those who asked those questions. Of course I'm suggesting using Fahrenheit 451, but then reading feed, by M.T. Anderson. Especially because there's a line that jumped out at me this afternoon and reminded me of feed: (when Faber learns his two-way ear radio is burnt and he doesn't have another one) "So I haven't another green bullet, the right kind, to put in your head." Surely Anderson read this book. (There's another cool Anderson allusion to his feed lesions in Octavian.)

Anyway, glad to be back. Miss the ocean breezes. Don't miss cluelessly loud airplane people.

By the way, and I meant to say this a few posts ago when I started linking book titles to Google Books. I like this because it shows the cover, a quick synopsis, some reviews, consumer links and then has a special and utterly fabulous Find this book in a library link. Sadly, the nearest library to me it lists is over an hour away. Believe you me I will be contacting my local libraries to gently suggest they give this a look-see.

I’ve hinted at this before, but in watching the discussions unfold on the Britannica blog — discussions I have contributed to directly, in part because my blog post trackbacks don’t show up there — it struck me today, while reading Jane’s parody, that the only woman cited in the entire discussion is, as she puts it, a “watery tart” (and a fictional one, at that).

While danah boyd is on schedule to contribute, and she always rocks out, we haven’t seen her yet. One woman, Rebecca MacKinnon, didn’t get her due for work she had done until I mentioned it (How many more times in my life will I have to do that?) — and because the correction was in a comment, her name doesn’t show up in a search of the site, though Google nicely scoops up the citation with this tailored search.

(How fitting that the Britannica blog limits its search function to the “authoritative” posts rather than the comments from the peanut gallery — even when the peanut gallery is where the facts reside.)

I’m for scholarship; I’m for teaching students research methods; I’m for pushing people past the world of simple Google searching. I’m even — maybe especially — for making Wikipedia’s editorial process more transparent and accountable; as I commented on one post, Wikipedia in some ways duplicates the hidden pathways of accountability used to reinforce power structures in empires big and small.

But when I hear a group of straight white men huffing and puffing about “traditional epistemological and pedagogical practices” — on either side of the argument — I remember that those practices, and the walls they build, have also been used to demonstrate the seemingly innate supremacy of their own kind.

Keep digging, Britannica; that hole is almost big enough to swallow you up for good.

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I love it when my predictions come true. Britannica is indeed using Gorman’s gorp to stir the pot (or hold a “forum,” as they think of it), as the following email that flew into my inbox this morning indicates.

So out of the tens, even hundreds of thousands of librarians Britannica could have selected, they pick the guy who is dedicated to bombasting us back to the Stone Age. His subjects are “many,” they warn us. I’d prefer “few but deep,” but perhaps that’s just me. Not only that, but there’s a part 3; he’s not even done yet.

Naturally, I am encouraged to give the B-dudes loads of link-love on their site. Free Range Librarian “could play a prominent part on this forum.” But do i wantz that cheezburger? (Hey, Pappas, thanks for letting me comment as much as I want… that’s so Web 2.0 of you!)

Do you all remember when I said, no, I am absolutely not supporting Michael Gorman for ALA President? More precisely, I said I was supporting Barb Stripling for ALA President. I had spent years on Council with Gorman and Stripling. My words seem prescient: she had a blog, she understands technology, she has the common touch… O.k., o.k., I’ll stop rubbing it in. Just remember this: Gorman was ALA President for a year, but he’s ex-president for life, and he’s riding that pony to town. For millions of people he now represents librarianship. We have a lot of work to do. (danah boyd, girl, we’re counting on you.)

Should we who get these messages post on that site… or count on the power of trackbacks to draw the conversation back onto the Web… or take some other approach? (I have considered translating Gorman into plain English… and possibly translating the English into lolspeak.)

I’ll ponder all this, and hope for your comments, as I spend this day rendering unto Caesar.

—————————–

Dear K.G. Schneider: Published at the Britannica Blog (http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/ ) is the first of three biting commentaries on learning and education in the era of “Web 2.0.” They’re written by Michael Gorman, past president of the American Library Association. His subjects are many, including blogging and the “citizen journalist,” intellectual laziness in the era of digitized sources, Wikipedia and anonymity on the Web, and the “cult of the amateur” and the “flight from expertise” that many see as characteristic of the Web today. Notable writers will be offering additional and alternative views. These writers include:

• Sven Birkerts (Harvard University; author of The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age)
• Nicholas Carr (noted writer on information technologies and author of The Big Switch: Our New Digital Destiny)
• Andrew Keen (author of The Cult of the Amateur: How the Democratization of the Digital World is Assaulting Our Economy…)
• Thomas Mann (noted reference librarian)
• Dan Gillmor (director of Center of Citizen Media and author of We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People)
• Clay Shirky (consultant, writer on information technologies, and professor in New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program)
• danah boyd (fellow at the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Communications)
• Matthew Battles (formerly of Harvard University’s Houghton Library and author of Library: An Unquiet History)
• Scott McLemee (author of the “Intellectual Affairs” column for Inside Higher Ed)
• Robert McHenry (former editor-in-chief, Encyclopaedia Britannica)
• Gregory McNamee (veteran freelance writer, author of 25 books, and a weekly contributor to the Britannica Blog)

We encourage you to visit the forum, comment on the posts, and leave a link in your comments back to your own site. For the benefit of your readers, we’d appreciate a link to the forum from your site as well. We expect considerable traffic to the blog during these weeks, and you and your site could play a prominent part in this forum. You’re welcome to comment as often as you like, in response to as many posts as you’d like. Best wishes,

Theodore Pappas

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This is brief, because I didn’t learn about this until I had written over 2,000 words on nonprofit IT management for an article that I need to wrap up. But how can I resist?

Having alienated most of his core audience, Michael Gorman has published a two part vent on Brittannica.com that demonstrates how ably he functions as a still point in a turning world. His hair is still blue (I didn’t know he actually liked that picture), he’s still using lots of long words to make small points, and he still hasn’t grokked the Web.

Jason Griffey, over on Pattern Recognition, does a nice job explaining the weaknesses in Gorman’s argument, and I expect more to come from various sections of the biblioblogosphere and beyond.

But I must point out that in the weird way that political extremes resemble one another, I agree with Gorman on some issues. I’m not convinced that the hive mind is always wise (the same mind that elected Bush at least once); I don’t fetishize Wikipedia, and am skeptical of the more woo-woo claims on its behalf; I appreciate the role of individual expertise. Nor do I think every text benefits from audience participation.

But as soon as I start to warm to Gorman’s argument, he turns his cannons toward “Web. 2.0″ — and immediately demonstrates he is fighting the wrong battle.

To start with:

• “Bloggers are called ‘citizen journalists’”: Some bloggers are citizen journalists — as Griffey points out, so was Thomas Paine — but that statement is a simple rhetorical error (or dodge)
• “Alternatives to Western medicine are increasingly popular”: Many reputable doctors encourage the use of alternative medicine; if cranberry juice can fix a bladder infection, do we really need to ask Big Pharm to pollute a river to do the same thing?
• “Millions of Americans are believers in Biblical inerrancy — the belief that every word in the Bible is both true and the literal word of God”: This is true, but irrelevant; Christian fundamentalism predates the Internet by, hmmm, close to 2,000 years
• “[S]cientific truths on such matters as medical research, accepted by all mainstream scientists, are rejected by substantial numbers of citizens and many in politics”: This may be the most inscrutable statement he’s ever made. It conjured up the presidential administration’s resistance to scientific thinking about climate change. But did Bush and Cheney really pick up their ideologies from instant messaging, Facebook and Twitter? “Say, Dickie, what caused global warming?” “IDK… my BFF Jill?”

Gorman’s real motive becomes clear when he makes reference to a Goya etching, El Sueño de la Razon Produce Monstruos, which he — to cut to the chase — looked up in a book. (Books are always and forever accurate, right?)

I know about this etching partly because I read about it decades ago and partly because I recently went to authoritative printed sources for confirmation of what I had read and for additional information and insights. These reference works were not only created by scholars and published by reputable publishers but also contained the paratextual elements (subject headings, indexes, bibliographies, content lists, etc.) also created by professionals that enabled me to find the recorded knowledge and information I wanted in seconds.

O.k., so enlighten me. What harm would be caused if I read this information on the Web, and not in a book? For that matter, what if I didn’t have to worry about “paratextual elements” and just found what I needed through a search engine, with a few contextual clues to reassure me this was a reasonably sound reference and not the work of some 12-year-old (or an outdated art book with old references…)? And what does any of this have to do with Web 2.0 (which in Gorman’s head seems to be the name emblazoned on the side of the firetrucks in Fahrenheit 451, ready to come burn down his bookcases)?

What’s most disappointing is that these “blog” posts (to the extent anything published by Britannica can be said to be blogged) should have been written by Gorman, and not by Jaron Lanier, on whose ideas Gorman extensively, but ineffectively, piggybacks. Lanier is a worthy hawker in this marketplace of ideas. Was his hair not blue enough? His language not fusty enough? (I leave the third question unstated, but while we’re on that general subject, note that fewer than 10 of the Britannica’s “blog” authors are female.)

This contretemps would be funny if it weren’t so annoying. There are important things to be discussed about authority and order and metadata and quality and such, but elevating Gorman to the level of expert pundit on anything related to the Web suggests that Britannica isn’t seeking the intelligent exchange of ideas, but is looking to build its Technorati rankings through the now-tiresome back-and-forth of Gorman-says-X, now-we-disprove-it; I am sure Britannica is now busy finding people to “respond” to their manufactured controversy, like one of those episodes on afternoon TV shows I see at the gym where after the wife tells all, the dazed cuckold is brought onto stage to stammer his chagrine. Yes, I too have now contributed to that weary business, and I wish it were not so necessary to have done so.

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