Weather has been much calmer in the past 24 hours. There were a few scattered raindrops when I took the dog out a few minutes ago, but nothing beyond that other than the sight (which I love) of a sky full of gray rainclouds tumbling overhead in a dark night framed by the lonesome-looking telephone poles on the side streets beyond our house. A tornado devastated the small town of Bradgate in north-central Iowa Friday night, and the recent storms were blamed for three deaths in Berrien and St. Joseph Counties. Although there was very little in the way of rain here Saturday, the Free Press says that four tornadoes were reported between Flint and Saginaw. I guess we’ve been fairly lucky here.

… And then there’s a whole discussion thread (same site) about libraries in which someone says she never goes to libraries because the thought of touching books that someone else has handled freaks her out, which is about the strangest reason not to go to a library I’ve ever heard.

She writes, seeming to think she’s got it all figured out: “In the end, I buy my own books and add them to my personal library.”

What, so people don’t handle books in bookstores? Even your nicely-boxed Amazon delivery has been handled by a stock person. Guaranteed.

Someone wrote in to I Love Books asking what it was like to work in a bookstore. Here’s one answer:

You don’t sit around and read and discuss literature all the time when you work in a bookshop. You do tell customers where the latest Mitch Albom book is a million times a day. You learn to identify bestsellers by cover color. People insist they have just seen a certain book in paperback at another shop and your explanation that the book has only been out in hardcover for a month and will likely be in paper within a year is listened to with disbelief and an insulting air indicating you are a moron AND a liar. You listen to people tell you they could get every title in your shop more cheaply at Sam’s Club. You learn the inner significance of the deep philosophy in science fiction and fantasy titles. You get lectures about why a certain author is or is not fantasy or science fiction and how only feeble minded idiots would mis-shelve them as dismally as you and your colleagues have. You sometimes get to handsell a book you believe in to a person who might actually enjoy it. You watch terrific books languish on the shelves and eventually get sent back to the publisher while Nicholas Sparks titles must be reordered bimonthly. You become expert at finding the most popular TV talk and news show sites on the web instantly because customers want “this book they were talking about on the Today Show, it was written by a general? Someone in the military anyway.” You become accustomed to being called a liar when you tell someone a certain book is out of print. “It can’t be out of print, (you are informed.) It was only published 5 years ago!” You learn every single day that (1) Amazon has it cheaper and (2) Amazon doesn’t charge sales tax.

From Tuesday’s Ann Arbor News:

A 34-year-old man admitted he punched a pedestrian in the face in Liberty Plaza Park in downtown Ann Arbor Monday because he didn’t like the look on his face, city police said.

The 53-year-old victim said he was walking through the plaza at 7:40 a.m. when he was suddenly punched by a man who didn’t say a word. A passerby called police, and the victim pointed out the man who struck him, reports said.

The suspect told police that he didn’t like the look on the man’s face and he felt intimidated, so he punched him. The man was arrested on assault charges.

From yesterday’s Ann Arbor News:

A 19-year-old Ypsilanti man told several people waiting for a city bus that he planned to rob them, then ran from police when they tried to question him, Ann Arbor Police said.

The incident occurred at the Blake Transit Center in the 300 block of South Fourth Avenue at about 8:30 p.m. Thursday. An officer stationed there said he was approached by several people who pointed out the suspect and said he was telling people waiting for an AATA bus that he would rob them, reports said.

There’s an article in today’s Ann Arbor News about cafes that you may have seen. I’m happy to say Ambrosia wasn’t mentioned in it once, not because I don’t wish Ambrosia long luck and much prosperity, but because it’s nice to know there’s a cool cafe that somehow manages to slip under the radar of whatever is supposed to be cool and hip in Ann Arbor.

There’s a new Starbucks opening soon on Liberty and Main, which is kind of bewildering. There’s already a Starbucks on Liberty and State (a huge-ass one, by the way; the News informs us that this Starbucks is the sixth largest Starbucks in the country), just seven blocks away. The News says that with the addition of the new store there are five Starbucks in town, but if you count the two at Briarwood Mall and the two within the Maple and Plymouth Road Kroger, that makes eight. (That’s still nowhere near as many as San Francisco, which at last count has a whopping 68 Starbucks, with a new one opening any day now at King and Fourth in China Basin.)

Anyway, I’m all for coffee shops, and I want to try out some of the places mentioned in the News article that I’d not heard of before, but I’ll probably stick with Ambrosia (and occasional visits to Espresso Royale). If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

What gets me is that the town boosters quoted in the article seem to think that that ineffable quality of coolness that Ann Arbor is eternally chasing like the fabled holy grail is synonymous with being “rich with coffee shops,” as though that represented some sort of bragging rights over Ypsilanti or Dexter. It is to laugh.

A quote from his new book, On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) In the Future Tense (quote courtesy New York Times):

In America, it is acceptable to cut off any driver in a vehicle that costs a third more than yours. That’s called democracy.

If that’s democracy, then Michigan has democracy (or, I guess, reverse democracy, since the cutting off usually comes from the vehicles that “cost a third more than yours”) in spades.

But David Brooks never makes any sense, so never mind.