Secret Plan Revealed

We recently had a telephone interview with Gold, long known for her brilliant tactical mind and innate logistics ability.* Gold, having time on her hands since being stupidsized by the Black Queen, has discerned the outlines of the Black Queen's plans for the Duchy libraries. To explain the Plan, we have to go into a little history. First, King Hairboy used the Sword of Rightsizing on the Library Queen and her protectoress, the Undisputed Reigning Queen of K-12 Education in the Realm of Arizona. The Diva was assigned to watch over libraries, however, the elimination of the K-12 Queen left a Power Vacuum in the Duchy Castle. The Black Queen moved into vacuum and wrested control of the libraries from the Diva and started her machinations. First it was necessary to eliminate any central library organization, so the Black Queen introduced Strategic Planning to keep Dotland busy for a while. Then she decreed that the librarians could not use the services of Dotland in an attempt to discourage and isolate the librarians. This caused a certain amount of restlessness and the Black Queen was forced to bring in the White Tornado, allow training and make lots of promises, none of which have yet been kept. The White Tornado and the promises have allowed the Black Queen to stall for most of a year. At any sign of organized opposition she brings up Strategic Planning and Job Descriptions again. That brings us to the present. What does Gold think the Black Queen's future moves will be?
The Black Queen has already committed to buying and installing expensive library software without buying any hardware and while banging away at TiTS with the StupidSizing Mace. With non-functioning library software, old hardware, no TiTS support, no Dotland support, the librarians will no longer be able to buy books, catalog books, look up books, check out books or any other library activity. At that point the Black Queen will be able to say "The libraries are no longer being used. That proves that libraries and books are old technology. We need to turn all of these useless libraries into Technology Classrooms and equip them with SmartyPants Boards. Since the libraries are useless, you can eliminate Dotland. With the SmartyPants Boards we will no longer need teachers, either, a clear savings."


*Silver reports that people keep asking her questions like "How many shelves will these 10 boxes of books require?" assuming that since Silver and Gold were inseparable, Silver also has a brilliant logistical mind. Silver's logistical mind can be summed up by telling you that Silver once broke an entire set of expensive, French, heat-tempered, stacking, glass mixing bowls because she thought she could replace the middle bowl of the stack with one hand.

The way of the Duchy

I think I'm finally beginning to see how things work. I could not understand why the Black Queen would try so hard to make the Dots get fed up and leave. After all, if she wants to get rid of the Dots, she has the power. And then I realized what would happen if she turned the remaining Dots in Dits like Pink and Navy. In order to make the Dots into Dits, she would have to claim that there was no more work for Dotland. And after claiming there was no work for Dotland it would be extremely embarrassing if the villages complained about work that the Queen said didn't exist not getting done. In addition she wouldn't be able to hire replacement Dots ever. However, if the Dots would quit, take better jobs, retire, whatever, then the Black Queen could say " We are trying very hard to hire replacement Dots but the paperwork just keeps getting lost. " This is an excuse that she could use for years (after all, look at Silver's new robes that still haven't come) and she could use the Dots salary to buy more new tech toys. Probably the SmartyPants Boards could use Hello Kitty holders for their markers and things like that. Unfortunately for the Queen's plans, the Dots are hard to discourage. After all, working in a library is sort of like being in the Marines...the few, the proud, the Librarians and all that.

CENSORSHIP!!!!

Dotland Dispatch Censored!

In a suprising move, the Duchy today blocked access to this blog. Is there no end to the tyranny? Is this another move by the Black Queen to surpress dissent? Supposedly the Black Queen was recently devastated to learn that she was not wildly popular. What could have given her the first clue? Was it the peasants marching on the castle or the Librarians petitioning the White Queen for redress of their grievances?

In other news, GoG is working hard to gain the coveted title of Preventer of Professional Learning. Today she and Sage were engaged in a swift exchange of pigeons as GoG attempted to keep librarians from learning anything from Dotland. GoG claimed that librarians had learned everything they needed to know from her last year and it would be redundant for the Dots to teach anything. Of course, GoG seemed a little unsure of exactly what the librarians had already been taught. As Purple said "She should have remembered that the Dots know the details of EVERYTHING. We are Detail Divas!" "Why does GoG object to librarians learning from the Dots?" asked Sage. Purple responded "I think she doesn't want librarians mingling with us peons" "I'll pee on her anytime!" muttered Sage as Purple prudently stepped a bit further out of range.