You're Terrific.

Megan Mullally portrays an evil librarian/temptress on Parks and Recreation. According the writers, it was an absurdist lark. Like all good absurdist larks, it turned out to be totally true.

Amy Poehler explains…

How much does Parks and Recreation hate the library?

The library represents that branch of government that’s like the smart kid—the teacher’s favorite. And the library always wins. They get whatever they want. Everybody loves them—nobody can say anything. People who work in the library think they are so much better than everyone else. And what’s really funny is we’ve been doing Q&A’s about our show, and people from local governments have said, “You guys nailed it about the library.” We were just making it up as a joke on the show, but I guess everyone hates the library.

Quoth Poehler: “We don’t want to spend all our time talking about the fucking library.”

Via Marginal Revolution:

American schools are more segregated by race and class today than they were on the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, 43 years ago. The average white child in America attends a school that is 77 percent white, and where just 32 percent of the student body lives in poverty. The average black child attends a school that is 59 percent poor but only 29 percent white. The typical Latino kid is similarly segregated; his school is 57 percent poor and 27 percent white.

My colleagues at The Civil Rights Project are studying this problem (and being sued by Arizona for protecting the anonymity of research subjects).