People having a worse Friday than I: August edition

Here's another dose of perspective for me...I know that on any given day there are people having a harder time of it than I:

Heidi Dalibor, aka: The Library Lady



This sweet young thing from Grafton, Wisconsin owed $30 in library fines. Let's hope she REALLY loved "White Oleander" and "Angels and Demons," because they landed her 20-year old parts in jail. Not sure what she did to offend the Grafton Library VIPs, but failure to pay her library fines (and failure to take the library's calls or heed their notice to appear in court) resulted in a warrant for her arrest. Cops showed up at her door, cuffed her, and hauled her off to the clink. Her mother coughed up the $172 needed to free her daughter (whom I'll call the "Black Widow of the Grafton Library System"), Heidi ponied up the $30 in late fees. The library director claims that "a couple of dozen people are cited each year for failure to return materials or pay fines." Apparently "cited" is a nice way of saying "tossed behind bars." A visit to the U.S.S Liberty Memorial Public Library of Grafton website offers the following information about the library's policies:

Loan Periods
Books check out for 28 days.
New Books check out for 14 days.
DVDs and Videos check out for 7 days.
Magazines check out for 14 days. The most current issue does not circulate.
Compact discs check out for 14 days.
Books on CD and Audiocassettes check out for 28 days. New audio books check out for 14 days.
CD-ROMs and Software check out for 14 days.

Fines for Late Items
Books, magazines, compact discs and software and audiocassettes are charged 10 cents for each day overdue.
DVDs & Videos are charged 50 cents for each day overdue.
CD-ROM are charged 50 cents for each day overdue.
Damaged materials: a charge is assessed when materials are damaged. Fee ranges from cost of replacing the item to 50 cents.

Looks like that could use an update - something along the lines of "Occassionally the library exercises its right to incarcerate card holders for unpaid late fines. Thank you; happy reading."

The Phelps Ghost Writer

I just don't envy the person responsible for milking an entire book out of the story of Michael Phelps' success story. Oh - I'm sorry, am I being hasty to assume that Flipper isn't going to write his own book? Am I underestimating the Human Submarine to assume that the same man that uttered the phrase, "A vintage Aston Martin, like a James Bond car would be sick," when asked what he'll do with his million-buck Speedo bonus will have what it takes to pen an entire novel about "his philosophy on training and competition, as well as his life being raised by a single mother and coping with an attention-deficit disorder" in just 3 short months (because, in true "Capitalize on Flipper" fashion, the publisher is cranking out the book in time for the holidays)?

Sure, he can do that.

And the poor soul that has to crank out a few hundred pages of compelling material about the copious amounts of Frosted Flakes, chocolate chip pancakes and Mac & Cheese Flipper puts away before swimming his 5 miles a day and the rumours he deflects about which She-Swimmer he was glimpsed slipping tongue to in the Olympic Village is having a worse Friday than I'm having, that's for sure. I wonder how many different ways you can spin, "I'm just speechless!" to fill the pages of that book destined to stuff billions of stockings and be translated into every language ever spoken before Christmas?

This is one kid that hasn't jumped on the Phelps wagon.