Posting Mirepoix

The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.

It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.

The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.

This map required:

North and South Vietnam in it

All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated

Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)

Has Laos and Cambodia in it

Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it

So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'

I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.

Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.

The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.

The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc

At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"

My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond

4 year old me: why must we do this

Fantastic old woman in the leopard print coat: "Why yes, my tooth IS real silver! Nobody ever asks me that. Do you like cats?"

Pawpaws are a Michigan native fruit that looks like it should not be a Michigan native fruit.

I'm told that it has the consistency of avocado, but tastes like a combination of banana, pineapple, and mango, with and earthy aftertaste. They are EXTREMELY delicate fruits, such that they are not really shipped anywhere- to eat them you have to find someplace local that has trees, or have trees, yourself.

I've always wanted to try them, so, I bought a few saplings, and spent a couple hours tonight planting them. They won't fruit for another 5 years at least. Each hole dug, each rootball excavated from its pot, each circle of mulch around the base of them... that's hope. That's a promise to be here 5 years from now, to see them flower, to pull sweet fruit from the limbs and try it for the first time.

See, it's not just that he writes mediocre, churned-out thrillers; there are many, many authors of mediocre, churned-out thrillers out there, he ain't special.

It's also not that he "writes" them with "coauthors" and slaps his name on them - again, this is not unique.

It's not even - though this is starting to get there- that he chases every publishing trend and creates His Version of everything from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Nicholas Sparks, which nobody likes as well as they like his thrillers but still buy because they have His Name on them like a summoning charm.

No, what makes James Patterson uniquely loathed is the combination of the frequency of publication and his popularity. Because, to be honest, I'm not sure that anyone even likes his books anymore, but it doesn't matter, because if they have the James Patterson name on them then readers will be queuing up like zombies desperate for a fix of decaying cerebral matter. Which would be tolerable if he had the decency to only write one book a year like most other bestselling authors, but "James Patterson" (quotes VERY intentional) puts out roughly two books per month. So as a librarian, not only do you have to buy every new book James Patterson puts out, you have to buy multiple copies in order to fulfill demand. Somewhere around 5% of my fiction budget is spent ENTIRELY ON JAMES PATTERSON. Every new James Patterson that comes out means a dozen or more queer romances, inventive sci-fi novellas, unique cultural viewpoints, etc, etc that you can't buy because YOU HAVE TO BUY JAMES PATTERSON INSTEAD. (See also, you just weeded and shifted the Ps in fiction to make room and now it's full again oh god why.)

And the clincher - the absolute clincher - is the knowledge that the publishers will be "finding" "unfinished manuscripts" by "James Patterson" for a minimum of fifty years after his death, so even if some right-minded bibliophile with a claymore takes one for the team, we will never, ever be free.

Two Korean activists who were detained by Israeli forces after attempting to break the siege on Gaza and deliver aid recounted abusive treatment by their captors to local press on Thursday.

“After fully armed Israeli soldiers searched my body, I was dragged alone to a dark shipping container. The lights switched on, and whenever I looked at the light, they hit me in the face. Whenever my head was bowed, I was forced to look back up at the light,” said Kim A-hyun, 28, an anti-war activist who also goes by the name Haecho.

“[The Israeli soldiers] had tactical gloves on. After I was dealt a second blow to my cheek, I could hear a shrill sound in my ear. Following the third, I started to bleed from my nose and started to gag,” she said.

Kim Dong-hyeon, another activist who had participated in a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip, testified to similar conditions.

“My hands were tied, my body was searched, and I was continuously pummeled and kicked as I was being taken away. My wrists kept bleeding on account of having been bound so tightly, and I couldn’t feel my hands. My entire body, including my head and my legs, was in excruciating pain,” he said.

“When I started hyperventilating, I began to think that it was very likely that I might die,” he went on.

The two activists claim that they suffered serious health issues, including muscle damage and hearing loss, after being assaulted during their detention.

...

Kim A-hyun was diagnosed with a perforated eardrum as a result of the beatings she took to the face. Jonathan Victor “Seungjoon” Lee, a Korean American who was arrested alongside her, sustained a broken rib and other injuries after being tased.

“We are witnessing symptoms of rhabdomyolysis, which are usually apparent in victims of industrial accident cases involving crushes or those who have been severely injured in traffic accidents. The activists were released on Wednesday, but if that had been delayed by even a day and they had been subjected to more beatings, they would have suffered from severe harm,” said Dr. Lim Sang-hyuk, the director of Green Hospital.

The activists gave detailed testimonies of the abuse and torture they suffered during their arrest and aboard the prison boat.

“As soon as we boarded the boat, they pointed guns at us and subjected us to body searches. They hurled racist insults and curses at us the entire time. Male-passing people were tasered, while women and people perceived as female were subjected to sexual abuse,” said Kim A-hyun.

Spangle-cheeked Tanager