Ah Sunday, that last battle of the week before it all starts over.

So yeah, Sarah Palin has declared “We are all Arizonans” and I couldn’t agree more.  I promise though, I won’t have another freak-out about Arizona and all of the crazy going on there.

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaw  – just playin’.  Did you see this?  Turns out that demanding papers from anyone not wearing Crocs and Dockers just isn’t enough.  Governor Brewer decided on Wednesday that it was time to outlaw any public high school ethnic-studies class that teaches that one race is persecuted by another.  Now I don’t know, but it seems like passing a law that forces police officers to harass any person of Hispanic descent might just invite some conversation on race relations and persecution in Arizona.  You know, the kind of thing you would want to discuss in a class dedicated to the history and present of a particular ethnicity.  The mind reels.

It’s not just me, I promise!  Tamar Zilkha @tamarzilkha posted some thoughts on the matter as well.  Watching Eric Holder dance around the issues inherent in the Arizona law by saying “terrorist” over and over reminded me of the good ol’ days of the aughts.  Are we still at level orange?

But hark! We are in New York and not the desert!  And we’re at CUNY,  so enough of my soapbox and let’s talk about the week.

All the regulars popped up this week but there was a new blog in town.  Daisy Dominguez @Daisilla at the Salalm Newsletter posted a handful of blogs this week.  Of particular interest was a requiem for the subject guide.  Maybe not a requiem exactly, but a close look at what it would take to bring subject guides back to life for libraries.  The ideas she bounced around we’re interesting and I know there more than a few librarians are hanging out here.  Did Web 2.0 kill the subject guide?  Are wikis a better format? Paging Scott Voth!

Speaking of – Scott @Scottvoth posted this week with some more news about changes to the Commons.  The Wiki section of the Commons is due for a little upgrading.  I have to say though, I’m going to miss the mountains from the old blog.  That’s life.

Helldriver @helldriver made a brief cameo blogging about an unexpected unicyclist set to the music of Masada.  The whole thing kicked up a little discussion in the comments about serendipity in New York.  I love New York for that.  Maybe it’s the 8 (9, 10, 12) million people who live here, or maybe it’s the magic.  Either way I saw Tibetan monks warding off spirits at St. John the Divine’s this weekend with big horns, that’s enough for me.  I guess that doesn’t really qualify as serendipity but you should still go check it out.

Jeremy Rafal @jrafal had his vacation jacked up by an ad by Americans for Prosperity urging voters to call congress and tell the government to stop trying to “fix” the internet.  I have to say it’s a head scratcher.  The ad wants to imply that the government is out there buying banks, car manufacturers and is now rubbing it’s greedy little mitts together scheming to take over the whole system of tubes we love so dearly.  Personally I kind of like that the government has fixed that whole free speech problem for me.  I also really like the way they fixed civil rights with that anti-freedom American-hating Constitution thing. Clever no?

Finally, Anthony Picciano @apicciano posted this week about an article in the Times regarding too much education.  I don’t want to say too much about the article before you read it but it’s largely concerned with how we decide when to steer people to vocational education.  On the one hand vocational schools are an excellent way to get into fields that require specialized training and often secure great salaries for those who go that route.  The old standby argument in the other direction is that a liberal arts education isn’t meant to be a one way ticket to the middle class.  At it’s best a degree takes a person’s life and gives it a depth and richness that it would have been otherwise unrealized.  The character and thinking skills developed at college are supposed to be skills that often run parallel to what comes to material success.   It’s hard to start a dialogue about the subject because it requires such a broad scope.  You have to take a deep breath before every paragraph. But then again, we’ve got the smartest people in the room right here so why aren’t we talking about it?

Ok, I can’t wrap up just yet because I have this nagging feeling…

I’m sorry about what happened up there at the top.  I lost my cool talking about Arizona…

I know Crocs are comfortable, I know.