A Bitter Berry

I've never had the occasion to meet ALA's inveterate John Berry. The "Blatant" Berry that is. But had I known him five, ten, twenty years ago I doubt I would recognize him today. Whatever esprit de corps shared by library types in those wonderful Sixties has sadly transmuted some of this vintage to bitter old farts.

I won't go into deconstructing the hypocrisy of Mr. Berry's lamentation. Co-conspirators Heretical Librarian and Annoyed Librarian have already done this. I will also pass with hashing through the difference between anonymous and pseudonymous.... again. But what I will spend a few minutes musing over is introspection....namely for those still kickin' in our profession who could identify a micro opaque card.

I reckon there comes a time in life, after retirement I presume, when one considers what could have been, is and once was. I don't doubt for one minute that Mr. Berry considers the decade of my birth (1960's) halcyon times. They were for me too though I'm sure for different reasons. But unlike me , Mr. Berry hasn't moved past the radical euphoria of this decade. He's still there. Stuck. A perpetual paisley, patchouli on the brain.

Forty years removed, it appears Mr. Berry now spends his time fussing about the temerity of fellow librarians discoursing without disclosing. The nerve. Why would any self-respecting person hide under the skirt of a nom de plume?

But ironically I feel sad for this man. One can imagine him twisting and turning, sheets rumpled, sweat stained pillow held fast over the ears. Quiet! Now listen closely. Can you hear those nameless blogosphere bogeymen echoing over and over and......................?

Bush won, Gore lost
Bad ALA, Good Patriot Act
More filters, Less porn
Buy Rammstein, Book sale Bob Dylan...eh, Robert Zimmerman

Pump Tim LaHaye, Pitch Anne Rice (yep..another pseudonym)

"NAMES.....I NEED NAMES (Employers addresses, phone numbers and email would be nice too)..... NAMES.....NAMES.....NAMES........ WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?????!!!!!"

But equally distressing is Mr. Berry's inability to help himself. It would seem to me a subscription to Mother Jones, dude ranch vacation, maybe lessons on driving one of those silly cars with fellow Shriner Baby Boomers to be a better alternative than to strike up his PC. (I would have suggested RVing around the country however folks that travel like this also talk on CB radios. One can imagine Mr. Berry's reaction to conversing with Pig Pen, Rubber Duck or sundry pseudonymous fellow travelers with their "ears on.")

But he can't help himself.

And like the proverbial old-timer who walked 15 miles to school (one way), I question Mr. Berry's fit of self-righteous indignation for those whom he accuses engage in ad-hominem talk. Let's say we just attribute this inability to recall his own flavor of character attack upon propagandists and the cowardly to perhaps dementia, or worse.....a cancelled PBS rerun of the Moody Blues at Royal Albert Hall.

Getting old will produce two kinds of people. Those that accept change and those who fight it. I suspect Mr. Berry will continue pushing for the status quo in our profession as he's ushered into the sunset of irrelevance. Or when the folks at Reed publishing gently show Mr. Berry door. But until such time, whining about dissent is well within his rights and I for one won't stand on hypocrisy to demand his middle name, country of origin or AARP membership number.

The Sixties are gone. Vietnam, lost. The Great Society... hah! And those clunky machines that read micro opaque cards, comfortably resting next to one of these in a landfill near you. And so (not too soon) the monopoly enjoyed by liberals blogging away as "librarians". Your time is up. Move over. Make way. And, contrary to what some may say about us, we conservative librarians (emphasis mine) understand this is a tough time for some on the left. So Mr. Berry this pseudonymous right-winger wishes you well and hopes this gesture may, in a small part, help alleviate the fear you feel for those with whom you disagree.

Happy trails,.....or better.

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