Destiny r us. Assimilated will be you. Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

Destiny has attacked Dotland! The Dots are all running as fast as they can and Destiny is still gaining on them. Meanwhile, the Lime Green Project Manager is obsessing about book covers. "Things are collapsing around us and he's worried about cover pictures?!" shrieked Silver. Turquiose is having therapy sessions and massages. Sage is increasing her intake of organic phytonutrients and channeling legendary catalogers of the past, like St. Minutia. The Black Queen is, of course, her useful helpful, charming self. Hearing of a library disaster at Blenman Village, she immediately dispatched help. Since Michael Brown's FEMA is no longer available, she called Dotland and demanded an immediate crew of packers or unpackers or something. The Dots attempted to contact the village for details and got no answer! Fearing the worst, Turquoise made a scouting trip and discovered Blenman surrounded by a sea of mud and construction workers. The construction crew was adamant about not wanting aid from FEMA or Dotland. Silver thought that the Queen COULD have checked the construction schedule before demanding a crew. In this highly stressful atmosphere, the following conversation was overheard in the SNEAC building.
[ring]
Hello, may I help you?
Is this Bombs and Engineering?
Yes, this is Bonds and Engineering.
Whatever. I understand that you have a new cannon.
Yes, we have a Canon printer.
Whatever. Can we borrow your cannon?
What did you have in mind?
Well, there's a parking lot on the north side of 10th street, near 1010 E. 10th. We'd like it delivered to that parking lot, pointing south toward the big glass doors. About 10:30 am. They should all be at work then.
Who would be at work? What is this? Who are you?
Never mind who I am. Just deliver the cannon and we'll take care of the rest.

We are Destiny. You have been assimilated.

The Dots are getting ready for the big beginning of the year party. They are worried about how to introduce all of the changes to everyone at the party. This is complicated by not being able find out what the changes are. The Lime Green Project Manager keeps promising to get back to them. He must not be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs because he never manages to find his way back. It turns out that breadcrumbs are very important in Destiny so maybe LGPM will figure it out soon. The LGPM was concerned that the Destiny screen colors didn't match the Duchy logo colors but fortunately Destiny has been give a waiver and doesn't have to match the logo. It's a different story for employers. The Duchy guarantees that all employees match the logo colors. Employees are always either scarlet with fury and frustration or have turned blue from holding their breath waiting for problems to be solved. What color are you currently? Are you holding your breath waiting for the new coordinator to be named? Remember you have to take a breath occasionally. The Duchy logo does not include Corpse Gray or Decomposition Green. Those colors would undoubtedly be a violation of your contract.
The Dots are trying to work out new terminology too. We no longer have the Grand Union. The new system is more of a collective, like the Borg Collective. We are Destiny. You have been assimilated. Silver is trying to figure out what kind of Destiny appliances she should order to better serve the collective. Perhaps a USB port in her left index finger?

The Black Queen and the Library Coordinator, cont.

Anonymous said...
You don't think the Black Queen -wants- a coordinator position? In the long run, wouldn't it help out the Black Queen?

I see what you mean. You realize that the Black Queen has many responsibilities and a competent underling to handle library matters could only help her. You obviously also understand the importance of libraries to education and to higher test scores. If the Black Queen has the best interests of the Duchy and the students in mind, of course she would want a library coordinator to help ensure the quality of the library programs. In addition, a competent, confident and ambitious administrator wants a large competent staff in order to increase their own power and prestige. Further, a library coordinator in between the Black Queen and the Librarians could keep her from making embarrassing faux pas's like attempting to turn all of the Dots "back" into village peasants without checking to see whether that was phyisically possibly ...or accusing the Dots of "skimming" and then having to beg the White Queen for extra money to pay the bills that the Black Queen had forgotten about.

On the other hand, I have observed that the Black Queen usually seems to get what she wants. She wanted SmartyPants Boards and got them. Then she wanted Boards With The Gift of Fire and she got them. She wanted to disband Dotland and it has gone from a staff of 8.75 to a staff of 3.25. She says that she wanted a Library Coordinator but the Gods were apparently just unalterably opposed and prevented this from happening for 8 whole months. I can't help but feel that someone in the Duchy hierarchy does not want a library coordinator. In case you have not seen an org chart recently, that hierarchy is: Black Queen to White Queen to Duke Phfffr. Which one do you think doesn't want a library coordinator?

The Black Queen and the Library Coordinator

I keep hearing that the Black Queen is very supportive of libraries. Really. The Library Coordinator was promised by the end of October - last year. Now, 8 and 1/2 months later and tomorrow there will be interviews for the Library Coordinator. The way the interviews were arranged is evidence of the Black Queen's great dedication to quality library programs. The candidates were notified about the interviews a good 40 hours in advance, plenty of time to rearrange schedules, get airline tickets, cancel appointments. Her Blackness is just bending over backwards to make sure that the very best candidates are available for the job. What if none of the candidates can make it to the interviews? What if not enough candidates can make it for the interview to make it a valid hiring process? Does that mean that they would then have to start all over and readvertise the job again? Am I wrong in thinking that this is a win-win for the Black Queen?

Destined to ?

The Lime Green Project Manager has struck again. He used to be the Lime Green Knight but apparently got tired of jousts and horses and whatnot and promoted himself to Project Manager. Yesterday he arranged a conference call to with Follay to "get answers to our questions." At least that's what the Dots thought. However, instead of arranging a call with someone who actually had answers, LGPM called the Follay collective. "We are Follay. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." The Dots managed to escape without being assimilated. They weren't sure about the LGPM. Maybe he's already been assimilated. Today the LGPM had arranged a "training" for the Dots. It probably would have been more like a real training if LGPM had made sure all of the equipment worked beforehand and had forwarded the training workbook to the trainees, like he was supposed to. Methinks the LGPM needs to go back to being a Knight. After all, Knights have Squires to take care of the horses, polish armor, print out workbooks, make sure the equipment works. When the Dots do training, they make sure the equipment works the day before the training. Of course, they also have a contingency plan because in the Duchy equipment that worked perfectly yesterday doesn't always work today. When Gold and Silver did training they always made copies of the training workbook ahead of time. Maybe LGPM was assimilated long ago.
The Dots did learn something really useful today. With Destiny and the Z39.50 magic ray, you can search the Duchy records and the Library of Congress, all at the same time. And when you find the record you want, you can just save it, instead of the usual sequence of download, count to 100 while Windows hides the file, hunt for the file, and if you can find the file, you get to import it. With Destiny it's just one mouseclick. Wow. That is, in the Wild World it's one mouseclick; in the Duchy, the laws of physicks (and magicks) are different. In the Duchy, electrons don't travel at the speed of light, they travel at the speed of dark. (In case you don't know the speed of dark, it's very slow and falls over things a lot.) In the Duchy, the Z39.50 magic ray can't go through the Duchy walls. Why does the Duchy keep buying technology that they won't allow to operate? We didn't have to pay nearly 1 million dollars for software that the Duchy doesn't want to work. You can buy really cheap library systems that don't have Z39.50. (Actually, you can't. Even free library systems do Z39.50 these days!) Bureaucracies never seem to understand that if you don't want the system to work, you don't have to pay money for it. Since it's not working, you can just pretend that you bought it. A system that doesn't work can be absolutely free, require no power, no floor space, and completely invisible. That would be so much more efficient than paying a lot of money and then having to spend all that time trying to keep the system from working.

All quiet on the Dotland front

Things are still quiet in Dotland, possibly a little too quiet? The Lime Green Knight had a meeting to discuss Dynasty or Destiny or the Destiny of Dynasty or maybe the Dynasty of Destiny. Sage and Silver and Purple and Indigo and Cornflower were there. Makes a nice color scheme, doesn't it? The Lime Green Knight is worried about color schemes. He's afraid that the Destiny colors, dark teal, purple, and dark green, don't match the Duchy colors of blue and red. The Duchy now insists that all colors match. The Duchy is writing a School Bored policy about matching colors. Is part of the Duchy's bid for achieving Unitary Status? Does Unitary mean that all colors are united into one color? If all the colors are united is the Unitary color black or white? Either way isn't it going to be hard to read? Perhaps we should wait for the Bored policy to find out what colors we can have. Maybe this issue should have been part of the Destiny RFP? Silver finally agreed to look into the issue of colors. The rest of the meeting was devoted to scheduling the next meeting which will be Monday or Tuesday or maybe Thursday but probably not Wednesday or Friday.
Since not much is happening in Dotland, maybe this is a good time to do some cooking all of the great Dotland recipes are at http://dotland.pbwiki.com/Food
Enjoy!

The Doldrums

Dotland seems to be in the depths of the doldrums. Blue is gone. The White Tornado is gone. The remaining Dots worked furiously moving from Follay to Destiny until the wind from the desert blew through and shut everything down. Which desert? Gobi? Kalahari? Sonora? No. Mojave. That's it. The great voice from the desert spoke and said "Thou shalt not touch a school server until we've finished rolling them over." So the Dots turned to learning more about Destiny. Their first realization was that the images used to advertise Destiny are really unfortunate. What was their designer thinking? The bridge is sort of twisted and it looks like the last span has already fallen down. It looks like a good image for a story beginning "It was a dark and stormy night..." Follay thinks this is an image of the Golden Gate Bridge. I guess that's what happens when you live in Illinois and have never been to San Francisco. The Dots think that Destiny should have a much more hopeful and positive image. For example, here's one from a Tucson High student. Doesn't the golden castle on the hill look more inviting than the falling down bridge to nowhere? Of course, maybe the falling down bridge is more accurate. Leaving aside the unfortunate choice of design (what

WERE they thinking!) the Dots have found lots of good things about Destiny. Unfortunately, several of the good things don't work because of the Duchy's continual campaign to protect us from information. Save files? Look at images? Search the internet? That might result in the transfer of knowledge from the outside world and that would rock the Duchy on its very foundations.

Run for your lives! The School Bored is meeting!

Tomorrow night there is yet another Bored meeting. On the agenda is:

• the budget override (postponed from the last meeting)
• the reorganization chart (postponed from the last meeting)
• the admin appointments (postponed from the last meeting) including Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, Assistant Superintendent of Student Services, Director of Professional Development, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, and Director of Career and Technical Education.
• the 07-08 budget

What's the difference between Curriculum and Instruction, Teaching and Learning and Professional Development? Why do we need both an Assistant Superintendent of Student Services and a Chief Executive Officer of Educational Support Services? Why are they in completely different offices? Does anyone else find Office (or Department) of Teaching and Learning a lame name? If more than 3 people show up for call to the audience to discuss the $700,000 "accounting error", will all those other sticky topics be postponed again? The $700,000 is not on the agenda, although adding an auditing committee is.
In meantime, Destiny stalks the halls of the SNEAC building.

Library coordinator Blues

People are asking why there have been few, if any, applicants for the Library Coordinator position. Let's see...

• The position has NEVER been advertised correctly. In the current version the listed salary doesn't match the listed grade. The whole saga of wrong listings would seem to indicate a certain amount of administrative ambivalence about the desirability of having a coordinator.
• Insiders know what happened to the last Library Coordinator.
• Outsiders are all rejected by HR (alias Shredder Central) because they aren't insiders and don't have a current local fingerprint card. If the fingerprint card is current then it's the wrong color.
• Thanks to a $700,000 "oversight" the entire United States now knows how well managed the Duchy is. That little fiasco has made its way from the AP wire to Education Week, Insurance Journal, etc. Would you want to work for a Duchy that's likely to ask for your salary back because someone else made a mistake?
• The Black Queen frequently says "No one works harder in support of librarians than I do." This is absolutely true. Notice that she does not say she has supported libraries, just that no one else works harder at it. The Black Queen has indeed worked very hard to see that no one is allowed to support libraries.

In other news, the Duchy Bored held a "Special" meeting last night to discuss the new organization chart, which of course is not on display anywhere. However, following the audio recording of the meeting while looking at the current org chart, the changes are....broad? no... sweeping? no.... negligible? That's it!
They have moved Ethnic studies from the left side of the page to the middle of the page and surrounded it with a dotted line moat. In a major attempt to trim the administrative fat, they have cut high level administrative positions from 47 to.... 46 for a total savings of $0.00.

Bored: What's the difference between an Executive Director and a Director?
Duke: An Executive Director supervises Directors.
Bored: Can you give me an example? For instance, what directors does the Executive Director of Financial Services supervise?
Duke: The Executive Director of Financial Services supervises the Director of Purchasing.
Bored: That's it? The Executive Director supervises ONE Director?
Duke: That's right.
(Hmmm, I begin to see the problem.)

One of the Bored members wanted to see a list of positions with salaries to see why 46 administrators cost exactly the same as 47 administrators. (bulk buying?)

The Duke wanted to point out that students and parents were in Pink and Administrators were in Green.

The White Queen wanted everyone to know what a wonderful job everyone had done in all of the meetings that were necessary to arrive at the new org chart. The Bored wanted to know if the people in the meetings had seen and approved of the new org chart. The White Queen said "No, they were only there to provide Input." (I think I've been misunderstanding that word. I thought it meant information, opinions, things like that. I'm beginning to wonder if it's not like the Matrix. They fill the Bored room with innocents thinking they are part of a focus group, bore them unconsious, hook them up to machines and use their "Input" to power the massive energy drain caused by the incessant powerpoints.)

Civil war in the Duchy?

Duke Phfffr is currently taking heavy fire from a School Bored militant, however, other representatives of the Bored claim to support the Duke. Today's skirmishes together with rising unrest among the Duchy villagers is causing Duchy watchers to ask "Is it civil war?" The administration continues to claim that everthing is under control and "on-track". There are still rumors of new org charts. Sources of unknown reliability claim to have actually SEEN the rumored org charts with their own eyes. These reports are unverified. What has been verifed is that the Bored agenda included "Administrative Appointments" but that didn't happen. Why? The Coordinator Job is once again on display. It just keeps popping up. We're pretty sure that there have been qualified applicants. Maybe the Job is just Bait. Is the Castle attempting to eliminate librarians by luring them in with a "job application" and then feeding them to a monster in the basement? Is there a monster in the basement? (We know there is a basement.)

Dotland's Destiny

Have you seen the Visa check card commercial with all the people whirling in circles of activity in a busy deli? That's been Dotland for the last two weeks. All of the Dots (except Blue who is attending a family funeral) and some of the T's (from TS) have been converting libraries from Follay to Destiny. They all seem to be whirling independently, maybe even randomly, loosely choreographed with checklists and post-its and e-mails. Even though it looks like random, frenetic movement, it all meshes smoothly. An e-mail to a T shoots out of a circle of activity, some time later, a Dot grabs the return e-mail and sends it where it needs to go. Like a factory, at the end, there's a stack of converted Follay databases, just waiting for the Destiny delivery man to roll into town and pick them up. The Dot's productivity has stunned the Lime Green Knight. The White Tornado said "You are kicking butt and taking names." "No", said Sage, "We are kicking butt and taking SCHOOLS, not just names!"

There was a Bored Meeting this week. There was the usual parade from "Call to the audience" when person after person, taxpayers, parents, employees, got up to talk about malfeasance, misfeasance and general distrust of Duchy leadership. Listening to the audiotape you can just see the Bored and the Duke staring stonily into space. There was the usual person complaining that their child was harrassed and discriminated against. It is a pain in the butt to go to a Bored meeting, fill out the little card, wait your turn, which won't come because it always runs over time, coming back the next meeting to wait again. I have trouble believing that someone would go to that much trouble to air a completely baseless complaint. Her child probably was discriminated against. One of the other speakers also commented on the total failure of the Duchy grievance process to ever fix ANYTHING. Maybe if the Duchy would force administrators to pay attention and act on employee and parent complaints, we would not need Customer Service Training and Cultural Proficiency. Actually WE don't need the training however apparently the occupants of the Castle could use all of that training plus some classes in basic check balancing. ($700,000 mistake in the books 2 years ago?!) Fortunately, the call to the audience has a time limit so soon the Bored and the Duke had gone back to telling each other how involved, concerned, compassionate, progessive and just all around wonderful they are.

Technology mysteries revealed

The Dots have been wondering why the brand new computers in the SNEAC building are so slooooooow. (When your computer is slow, you have lots of time for wondering.) This week they think they might have solved the mystery. As you might know information on networks travels in packets. The drawing to the right shows how the packets move in the Wide World. Looks pretty neat, huh? Now lets take a closer look at "Your Local Area Network" in the SNEAC building. Here's a picture of one of those packets moving from a SNEAC computer to the Local Area Network.


The mouse carrying this particular packet of information in his little mouse saddlebag was spotted under Silver's desk moving to the North. Is this what TS meant when they said that the SNEAC building was going wireless? A nest of these little network packet carriers was discovered in a bottom file drawer in Science. The Management of the SNEAC building is calling the exterminators and exhorting the Dots not to leave food lying around. Will this cut the speed to zero? Or is it so slow because the packet carriers are starving because the Dots are only leaving the crumbs around? Do they need to put out cookies and milk? Or is that for Brownies? Would Brownies be better than Rodents? Maybe TS should do a feasibility study?


Letters to the Editor
Re: The Rumor Mill
...and I quote:"This rejection was made by Human Resources without notifying anyone on the hiring committee. (rumor)"does this mean that an actual hiring committee already exists? I'd like to know who is involved on that?
Anonymous

Retraction
The rumor that a hiring committee actually exists was unfortunately left out the of "The Rumor Mill". We apologize for the omission. There is no evidence that any decisions in the Duchy are made by a committee or by any means other than consulting the Magic 8 ball. We would like to be able to tell the public who is actually using the Magic 8 ball but that information is a closely guarded secret.


Thought for the day
"There's no point in having a strategy if you aren't going to pretend to follow it."

- Pointy haired manager in Dilbert

Phfffr's phfffdoms

The U in DUCHY is supposed to stand for Unified, meaning "formed or united into a whole". Even the Town Crier has noticed that the right hand isn't speaking to the left hand. Isn't speaking...shoot, Right Hand doesn't even have Leftie's cell phone number! And then there's the question of whether the Duchy is following it's own policies. Clearly the Duchy is not united into a whole. Actually, it's pretty much a collection of warring fiefdoms. Currently the Keeper of the Castle Checkbook is making war on White Tornado with the Black Queen cheering from the sidelines. (We're not sure who she's cheering for.) The Department of Village and Peasant Resources is working overtime shredding or losing job applications to ensure that all of the Job beasts starve from lack of tasty, nutricious applications. Do they own stock in an Unemployment Insurance Company or what? The Black Queen seems to be waging a stealth campaign against TS, repeatedly threatening them with the Sword of Right-sizing. Dotland and the Village Librarians and Peasants have never done well at the feudal system, prefering to operate in the Information Age, not the Stone Age. So Dotland is secretly collaborating with the Lime Green Knight and TS to bring about our Manifest Destiny. We're all hoping that's a Good Thing, even though it sometimes seems that the Manifest Destiny of the Duchy is to collapse in a cloud of dust and noise.

The Black Queen, again!

The Black Queen is being her usual truthful, charming self.
Imagined conversation between the White Tornado and the Black Queen:
WT: Blue is leaving. Dotland will be too small to handle the workload. We'll need to replace her.
BQ: Oh, didn't I tell you? I just got orders directly from the White Queen and Duke Roger that Dotland will have to be cut by one position.

Yeah, right. We supposed to believe that the same Duke Roger who took months to hear that the Duchy had miscalculated insurance premiums to the tune of $700,000.00 is so attentive that he knows that Dotland is too large and needs to be cut. Get a grip.

Trouble in DestinyLand?

The Dots are deep in the midst of converting to Destiny. The Lime Green Knight seems to have underestimated the time required. He must have been listening to the Tin Woodsman again. If he only had a brain... In all of the meetings, Lime Green would always say "The whole district could be converted in a day." and Silver would say "No, that wouldn't be possible." You see, Silver had read the conversion instructions whereas Lime Green was apparently only getting his information from the Tin Woodsman. Maybe the Tin Woodsman needs to get on the Yellow Brick Road and ask the Wizard for a Brain. Actually, the whole Duchy needs the Yellow Brick Road. All of the denizens of the Castle could use a little more heart, a little more brains (well maybe a lot more brains) and a little more courage.

The end of an era

Blue is leaving!
Dotland is only one Dot smaller...but Blue was the foundation! Blue kept us together. Blue made us nicer Dots. Blue knew everything and, more importantly, knew WHY. What will we do without Blue?
Blue is leaving to join JTED. (Is that like a gang? Will there be colors? Will Blue stop wearing Blue? Will Blue stop being Blue Dot? Perish the thought! Once a Dot, always a Dot.)
On the good side, Blue will still be in SNEAC building and available for potlucks and general moral support.
In other news, the Coordinator Job beast has been sighted once again. The description is much more accurate. I am concerned about one thing. The Job is listed as Exempt Grade 2. Do the grades for Exempt positions differ from regular positions? Grade 2 is pretty low in regular positions. Peasants are Grade 4. So is the Coordinator less important than the Peasant? Oh, let's not go THERE. We all know that without Peasants, it all falls apart. Will the Coordinator be paid less than the Peasant? Hmmmmm.

The Alternate Universe

I've just finished reading Un Lun Dun by China Mieville, which is about an alternate universe containing all that is broken, discarded or worn out from the "real" universe. UnLondon is only one of the cities in the alternate universe. There is also Parisn't, Lost Angeles, Sans Francisco, No York, Baghdidn't, Hong Gone and so on. I know we've always assumed that the Duchy was part of the "real" universe, but look at the evidence. Clearly the Duchy is broken, the teachers worn out, the educational philosophies we keep pursuing are the those long discarded by assorted business philosophers. Remember "strategic planning"? Remember how it was proclaimed last year that we would all be doing this new "strategic planning" lark? The guru of Strategic Planning, Henry Mintzberg, published "The rise and fall of strategic planning" in 1994! I rest my case. Clearly the Duchy is located in the alternate city of Tucsoff rather than Tucson. Doesn't that explain a lot? Most of our tech is broken when it's delivered. Well, of course it is. It was broken in Tucson and leaked over to us in Tucsoff. Really explains GoG and the Black Queen, doesn't it. In Un Lun Dun, the villains are eliminated with the UnGun, loaded with an assortment of appropriate things. What would the UnGun need to be loaded with to eliminate GoG and the Black Queen? Information might be the silver bullet in both cases. The Black Queen has a real aversion to fact checking. She assured Idea that the JOB would be correctly posted Friday. A simple check of the the Duchy Web site would have revealed that the job is already posted, incorrectly again. Incidentally, there is hope in the alternate universe. Broken things that are completely repaired go back to the real universe. (Ever noticed that the things TS fixes are never completely fixed?) However, broken things can be repurposed. How can the Black Queen be repurposed?

The Rumor Mill

Various interesting tidbits have come to the Rumor Mill lately.

• Duke Roger's end of the year letter once again very sincerely stresses the great importance of intercultural proficiency. (Not a rumor - read the letter here )
• Next year all 9th graders will have to take a 2 semester course in intercultural proficiency - which is not on the AIMS. (rumor)
• At intercultural proficiency meetings, below the level that Duke Roger attends, the main concern is with the lack of intercultural proficiency in faculty and staff. (rumor)
• Most people feel that the way to tackle intercultural proficiency is in early childhood, kindergarten might already be too late. (unsubstantiated - can't quickly find the research)
• A certain gap-toothed ex-Bored member is widely known for interfering in Duchy affairs whenever there is a perceived breech incident of bigotry or racism.
• An excellent Anglo candidate for the Library Coordinator job was just rejected by Duchy Human Resources because her Arizona fingerprint card is out of date...because she has been working at the university level out of state...her out of state fingerprint card was current. This rejection was made by Human Resources without notifying anyone on the hiring committee. (rumor)

All of this raises a LOT of questions. Was the rejection "reverse discrimination" or SHEER OVERWEENING INCOMPETENCE on the part of HR? How would GapTooth have reacted if the rejected candidate had been non-Anglo? How many of GapTooth's past crusades have been motivated by incidents caused not by lack of intercultural proficiency but SHEER INCOMPETENCE? Could all relationships in the Duchy be improved by just insisting that a) the entire faculty and staff do their job competently and b) that the operations of the Duchy be conducted with public oversight instead of always sweeping everything under the rug, thereby attracting the attention of community watchdogs like GapTooth? Does anyone believe that the Duchy doesn't NEED WATCHING? Why doesn't Duke Roger know what the inhabitants of the Castle are DOING? Will the new yearlong course in intercultural proficiency be overseen by Curriculum under the Black Queen? In fairness, the Black Queen is equally incompetent in both cultural and intercultural proficiency. This does not seem like a good recomendation for her position.

Other interesting rumors...

• The Lime Green Knight is miffed because he thinks Silver and Idea have been deciding the Duchy's Destiny without consulting him. (rumor) (A lot of nerve on his part since he picked Destiny without consulting them or anyone else for that matter. Maybe he feels that it's HIS TOY and he shouldn't have to share.)
• The previously sighted Library Coordinator Job beast is being dismissed. Supposedly the beast will reappear "soon" in even finer plumage. (Good thing, that last plumage was piss-poor.)
• Idea will be seen in Dotland erratically (or a least as erratically as Idea can be) until the new Job is permanent. Care to join the pool on when THAT will be?
• The Library Technical Coordinator Job beast will not be seen until after the Library Coordinator Job beast. (rumor)
• The Duchy appears to have sprouted two new departments - Student Services and Teaching and Learning. (Not a rumor - see Job Openings for the two assistant superintendent postings.) (I think Teaching and Learning is a LAME NAME, it lacks flow, also lacks meaning.)

Enough rumors. Happy Memorial Day!

Security risks

The Dots cannot use flash drives because that would be a security risk. However, as Purple pointed out, allowing the chimpanzees in the Castle to run the Duchy is an even greater security risk. Purple, Silver, and Sage were attempting to divine the new Org Chart based on clues in the posted job descriptions. However, they were unable to determine which statements were true clues and which was just normal Duchy incompetence. At that point they gave up on the org chart and turned to other possibilities. The Dots were closely questioning YellowandBlack Dot about the new Cannon in Bombs and Engineering. YellowandBlack assured them that the Cannon was a compact model and would easily fit in a car trunk. "Oh, good." said Sage, "No trailer hitch". ("At this point there's a gap in the recording." "What recording?" "Never mind. Just ignore the little antennas in the leftoever cherry tomatoes.") "(inaudible)...back up to the front doors, pop the trunk, fire a volley through the front doors, and leave." said Sage. "A drive-by volley!" crowed Silver. "But's a Canon, not a cannon." said YellowandBlack. "Doesn't matter" said Purple, "It'll still work. We can bury them in paper." (The rest of the conversation was lost when someone ate the cherry tomato.)

As the Duchy turns

The Job sightings get stranger and stranger. Supposedly there were two, count them two, applicants for last week's strangely described "Teacher-Librarian" sort-of coordinator. Boy, the world is really beating a path to the door. Now this week there are a plethora of other jobs. There is the CIO of Technology and Telecommunications Services, which is really interesting because Telecommunications packed his bags and moved to Facilities several months ago. Does this mean there has been a reconciliation? Then there is the CEO of Educational Support Services. That would be the CIO's boss, maybe? Now there is the Assistant Superintendent of Student Services. Is Student Services over Educational Support Services? The CEO of ESS used to report directly to Duke Phfffr. Has the CEO been demoted before being hired? But my personal favorite new job is the Assistant Superintendent Teaching & Learning. WHAT?!! The obvious thought is that the Duchy has changed CITI into T&L (not to be confused with T&A). However, there two NEW jobs listed for CITI. Does that mean that T&L is a NEW department? (Starting salary is $100,000 for the assistant super. Way to reduce administrative costs!) Do we get to guess who's going to get that job? Supposedly there is a new org chart and Libraries are not under Customer Service. Libraries are, however, understaffed, underfunded, underappreciated, underused, and perennially under threat of being eliminated. The new org chart is apparently invisible, sort of the Duke's new org chart. Everyone says it's wonderful but us commoners can't see it.
Back to the question of TiTS. Since Telecommunications has abandoned his partners, we are left with just TS, which appears to be the new department motto. Silver thought we should be able to use flash drives for exchanging information and put in a request for that to happen. Which was denied by the Preventor of Information Technology, head of TS. Exchanging information is a security risk and we will have none of that in this Duchy. (Does this explain our AIMS scores?)