Book Pic former Black Panther

Political Prisoner and Former Black Panther Jalil Muntaqim
by AMG – Arissa Media Group Wednesday, Jul 7 2010, 5:28pm
info@arissamediagroup.com address: http://www.arissamediagroup.com phone: (866) 476-0964
north texas region / freedom and rights / press release

“We Are Our Own Liberators”

A former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, Muntaqim is one of the world’s longest held political prisoners, having been incarcerated in the United States since 1971.

For Immediate Release
July 7, 2010

POLITICAL PRISONER & FORMER BLACK PANTHER JALIL MUNTAQIM RELEASES SECOND EDITION OF “WE ARE OUR OWN LIBERATORS” BOOK

Los Angeles: The second edition of Jalil Muntaqim’s We Are Our Own Liberators was released today by Arissa Media Group, an independent, politically focused publishing house.

A former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, Muntaqim is one of the world’s longest held political prisoners, having been incarcerated in the United States since 1971.

This second edition of We Are Our Own Liberators consists of the prison writings of Muntaqim, which have spanned over the thirty-six years of his imprisonment. This valuable collection of writings represents some of the significant contributions Jalil has made to the Black Liberation and New Afrikan independence movements.

Muntaqim writes, “Ultimately, the U.S will eventually find itself at war with itself, as the ideology of a free democratic society will be found to be a big lie. This is especially disconcerting as greater restrictions on civil and human rights are made into law eroding First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S constitution.”

304 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 inch, paperback, printed on 100% recycled, post consumer waste paper. Retail: $17.95. ISBN:978-0-9742884-6-8

Arissa Media Group titles are distributed exclusively in the United States by Small Press United, a division of Independent Publishers Group.

For more information or to order review copies, please contact:

Arissa Media Group
info@arissamediagroup.com
(866) 476-0964
info@arissamediagroup.com
http://www.arissamediagroup.com

Background to a Booksale

Source: Columbia Journalism Review

Behind the News — March 09, 2009 12:54 PM

Notes from Underground

Revisiting the Vietnam-era radical press

By David Downs

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Storm clouds threaten downtown San Francisco tonight. The San Francisco Chronicle faces closure. Craigslist and its kind starve the local alt-weeklies with every click. Yet inside the Babylon Falling “revolutionary” bookstore, the warm, musty air roars with people excited about newspapers.

Plastic-wrapped vintage newspapers cover the walls and bookshelves: the Seed, the Berkeley Barb, the East Village Other, the Realist, The Black Panther. Former Ramparts publisher Warren Hinckle mingles with young store owner Sean Stewart. Local art students chat with legendary agitprop artist Emory Douglas and former Panther Billy X. Jennings—the archival source of the seventy radical, underground newspapers from the 1960s and ’70s on display through March 11.

The Babylon Falling exhibit comes amid a bona fide resurgence of interest in the Vietnam-era radical press. The Village Voice is scanning and posting all of its old archives to the Net. The Chicago Reader just dug up its founding manifesto, posting it as a blog item. Geoff Kaplan’s new book, Power of the People: The Graphic Design of Radical Press and the Rise of the Counter-Culture, will come out this summer.

“For all their flaws, they captured the period,” says Abe Peck, a former Seed writer and author of Uncovering the ‘60s: The Life and Times of the Underground Press. Peck ascribes this resurgence in interest in part to nostalgia—but also to a renewed appreciation for news sources that are in touch with the tenor of their times. “They were innovative in terms of their display and in terms of the prose that wasn’t jibberish. Some of it was very smart. Some of it was very weird. It’s a manifestation of a time that’s almost time-capsuled, so I think it’s very real when you go back and look.”

How did the underground papers of the 1960s and ‘70s get started? In large part, you can blame it on the kids. The largest crop of seventeen-year-olds in American history were coming of age as conflict raged over issues like civil rights, the sexual revolution, the military draft, and the Vietnam War. Many of these stories were being reported from the establishment perspective; it made sense that youthful activists would try to create their own media.

“There was an official version of reality that flew in the face of the way millions of people were experiencing the world,” remembers Columbia professor and former ’60s activist Todd Gitlin. “You had a supply of writers charged up on telling some different versions of the truth and you have demand from publics who are out of joint with the official version and you had the technological wherewithal to enable rapid transmission.”

From Emory Douglas’s incendiary art for The Black Panther, to Scanlan’s Monthly running an article entitled “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” to the SDS New Left Notes’s coverage of the Berkeley free speech clashes, the papers were the ascendant rock and roll of the fourth estate.

“The underground press was much hipper. It was fun-loving, druggy, musical. They had energy. You could see it. It’s not cookie cutter stuff. Lot of interesting artwork. There were no party lines. Not initially,” says Gitlin. “They were of a moment to which they contributed and in which they mirrored and in some ways focused and in some ways revealed and in some ways purveyed.”

But almost as soon as they arrived, they were gone.

“It ended for a bunch of reasons,” says Peck. “Number one: mission accomplished in some areas. The U.S. left Vietnam. There was the beginnings of an environmental movement, feminism was launched, gay rights was launched. But I think also you deal with a lot of people—primarily young—who are giving their post education lives to being in the crucible 24-7, who, after three or four years, were fried.”

“The consciousness that was embedded in the underground was anarchic and unruly,” says Gitlin. “The organizations were unruly. They harbored people who were quite divergent, and there were often—by ‘68, ‘69, ‘70—huge cleavages between different groups. The movement was becoming demoralized and people were on their way into a different era.”

As the underground press turned inward and fought amongst itself, late capitalism digested the discontent. The papers’ most visible descendants—the alt-weeklies of today—are distant cousins, for good and bad.

Fred Turner, assistant professor of communication at Stanford and author of From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, says the spirit of the radical press still exists, but not in print. “I would say their lineal descendants—the alt-weeklies—are fading away, but the critical voices of communities they represent have come alive online,” he says, arguing that emerging social networks are becoming the matrices of modern political and social movements—similar to what the Whole Earth Catalog did for commune-dwellers—and that bloggers are the newest descendants of the counter-cultural press.

Peck agrees: “I think zines. Some blogs. Some web sites. Graphic novels. Underground comics—that’s where more of the continuity is.”

Indeed, the speakers at the Babylon Falling show were eager to draw parallels between the two eras. In the words of Billy X. Jennings, “people are looking back to understand how to go forward.” So what lessons can this new generation learn from these ’60s papers? How can they confront the neutering effects of late capitalism?

Peck says it’s difficult to extrapolate lessons for today’s young entrepreneurs, other than the need for fortitude and humility: “Be human to your brothers. Don’t cannibalize each other.”

Turner says to avoid insularity: “Make sure that your model reaches beyond people like yourself. One of the great failures of the radical press is it tended to speak to the converted.”

Gitlin says own your moment. “It’s an opportune time for people who want to take chances with their lives to develop solid, useful, in the best sense serious forms of journalism, but it won’t be the forms of the ’60s. One should study what happened not in the spirit of reverence but in the spirit of curiosity and deep consideration of how the cultural sparks that flew then were the ones that [would] fly at that moment, and, comparably, how the ones that ought to fly now would belong to this moment.”

Real-time social networks—we’re looking at you.

“If we had Twitter,” quips Peck, “our demonstrations would’ve been more succesful.”

Comparative Bookfair Atmosphere Analysis: Public or Private

Anarchist Book Fair – short report & photos
by A Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 at 1:33 PM

LOS ANGELES, Monday January 25, 2010 – Yesterday’s 2nd annual Los Angeles Anarchist Book Fair was a huge success. Hundreds, at least 500+, gathered in the beautiful setting that is Barnsdale Park. The weather, the view and most of all the wonderful people all combined for a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon. Many had traveled from out of state (Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico to name a few) to come to the fair.

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More than a book fair the event included workshops, film screenings, bike repair, yoga, vegan cooking demonstrations, native plant gardening and much more. There were so many workshops and tables that is was impossible to see it all.

This reporter attended the Indigenous Resistance Panel comprised of a group that had traveled from Flagstaff, Arizona. It was inspiring to hear stories from this panel of the continuing resistance to a foreign occupation that is now over 500 years long. (audio from this panel to follow in separate post). The panel discussion touched on many issues including: the border wall, relations between the indigenous people’s right movement and the struggle for immigrants rights, the concept of settler privilege, and methods of resistance.

Uploaded are some photos from the fair. See you next year.

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Dangerous Books
by A Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 at 1:33 PM

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Subversive Literature
by A Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010 at 1:33 PM

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Sex Toys Raffel
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Free Food
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Queer Theory Workshop
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Indigenous Resistance Panel
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Indigenous Resistance Banner
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Indigenous Resistance Banner #2
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Your education is what I tell you.

Reading books by cover-up

• John Beveridge
• From: Herald Sun
• November 13, 2009 12:02PM

THERE are many side effects from the Federal Government’s misguided decision to retain the protectionist import monopoly on books.

But the most bizarre is its stated reliance on offshore booksellers such as Amazon to keep downward price pressure on Australian publishers.

Encouraging consumers to help employ offshore shippers and to avoid paying GST on the way through is no doubt a message that will resonate strongly with consumers, who love nothing better than a bit of government-endorsed tax avoidance.

As long as the shipping comes in at less than 10 per cent of the cost, the dollar remains strong and the price is cheaper, the consumer will no doubt oblige and assist in the restructuring of the local industry.

The only victims are taxpayers, Australian booksellers who are prohibited from shopping directly offshore, and eventually the predominantly foreign publishers who continue to treat Australian consumers like colonial patsies.

Related Coverage

• Axa focuses on expansion The Australian, 25 Nov 2009
• We will be unwise to lose Asia The Australian, 20 Nov 2009
• ANZ’s eyes on AXA Herald Sun, 19 Nov 2009
• Allert defends knocking back AMP The Australian, 18 Nov 2009
• AMP chief says AXA deal ‘compelling’ Daily Telegraph, 17 Nov 2009

There are other strange outcomes from maintaining the status quo, the most obvious being that it will potentially rob Australian authors of opportunities and royalties.

If books are available more cheaply it is only logical to assume that people will buy more of them, growing the pie and creating a healthier market for authors.

Instead, the industry gets to hide behind an artificial and anti-competitive wall that will inevitably crumble and will hit bricks-and-mortar retailers and their employees the hardest.

As we have seen before in the case of the automotive and textile, clothing and footwear industries, what emerges at the end of a long period of industry protection is not a competitive and attractive butterfly but a sickly moth on borrowed time.

When the ban on parallel imports on CDs was lifted in 1998, consumers responded to lower prices and the local industry ended up being more competitive and stronger than if “assistance” had continued.

There are genuine issues that could have been directly addressed through grants, such as culturally important authors with small print runs, local language differences (mom versus mum) and possibly local printing jobs, although that is debatable given the penchant of Australian publishers to print offshore.

In the very long term, the protectionist wall will go the way of its Berlin counterpart when “books” are downloaded on to electronic readers rather than coming off printing presses.

In the meantime, it is every consumer for themselves as Australians try to get the best value they can from the $2.5 billion they spend on books every year.

AMP in front

BARRING any competitors spoiling the party, it is looking increasingly likely that Craig Dunn at AMP will get his hands on the levers at AXA Asia Pacific Holding’s Australian wealth management and insurance business.

The $12.5 billion “scheme of arrangement” bid for AXA will need to be sweetened to above $6 a share at some stage, but so far the winds of change have been blowing in AMP’s direction, with a firming share price filling the bids sails and giving it a sense of inevitability.

With AXA’s French parent and 53 per cent shareholder desperate to get direct control of the fast-growing Asian wealth business run by its listed Australian arm, AXA APH’s chairman Rick Allert is now fighting to get the best price possible rather than repelling the invaders from a position of strength.

While it is a great pity to see Australian shareholders lose a listed exposure to an attractive Asian wealth management business built up over many years, the burning question is what Craig Dunn plans to do with the local AXA business when and if he gets hold of it?

The most obvious is to cement AMP’s position as the fifth pillar in Australia’s burgeoning wealth management industry at a time of tremendous change.

There was a time when AMP and the old National Mutual dominated this field with their slick sales forces.

But since then, the big four banks have all busily built or bought significant wealth and insurance arms. Commonwealth has Colonial, NAB the MLC business, ANZ has ING and Westpac BT.

After being badly burnt through British acquisitions and focusing back on Australia, it is a logical move for AMP to bulk up to remain a player of scale.

Another reason to get bigger is the two current inquiries into the area.

Former ASIC deputy chairman Jeremy Cooper is well into a thorough review of the superannuation industry and his recommendations are likely to put downward pressure on fees and charges.

And the Henry review into taxation is having a close look at the tax treatment of superannuation, with a likely outcome higher superannuation taxes (or lower tax breaks) for higher income earners.

The combined effect of these changes and the continuing pressure to phase out the commission structure for financial planning are likely to favour players with large and efficient investment platforms such as the banks and a combined AMP/AXA.

While Dunn faces a mammoth task in integrating AMP and AXA, the restructuring pain is the only strategic option to remain relevant in the more than trillion dollar superannuation industry.

Hot topic

THIS week, the most important players in meeting Australia’s target of 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020 were all rubbing shoulders at a Brisbane conference.

Geothermal Downunder brought together what could literally become the next “hot” sector on the share market.

With 10 ASX-listed players and 48 companies in total, the conference heard that geothermal could become the next coal seam gas industry — a sector that literally came from nowhere to be worth multiple billions of dollars as plans developed to liquefy and export the gas from Gladstone.

Just like coal seam gas, there are plenty of sceptics who point out that so far nobody is producing significant renewable electricity from underground heat in Australia.

The reply from the players is that they are the only ones developing a source of reliable, baseload renewable electricity and if they don’t succeed, there is no way the 20 per cent target will be met in a meaningful way.

While wind power is the fastest growing renewable power source, its intermittent nature makes it problematic for electricity distributors and unreliable for producing power at peak times.

Large-scale solar has similar limitations until practical storage solutions such as electric cars become common.

Which leaves the two main geothermal methods racing to produce power.

The deep, hot rock technology being developed and tested by the large players Geodynamics and Petratherm aims to produce large amounts of electricity at below $100 per MWh to overcome remote locations in the South Australian outback.

With significant partners such as Origin Energy, Beach Petroleum and TRUenergy and recent government grants of $152 million riding on their success, pressure is building up in places other than their very deep wells which produce superheated steam.

Geodynamics suffered a blowout at its Habanero 3 well, but as chief executive Gerry Grove-White pointed out, he would rather find out they needed different steel well casings now than after they had 100 wells operating.

The shallow aquifer players hope to produce smaller power plants closer to established electricity markets using proven lower temperature technology, although they will be more reliant on renewable energy certificates as their electricity will probably cost more than $100 per MWh to produce.

If the 20 per cent renewables target is to be met, we may need both types to succeed.

Missing Manga creator

Creator of popular manga missing

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

 

2009/9/17

KASUKABE, Saitama Prefecture–Yoshito Usui, the cartoonist behind the internationally popular “Crayon Shinchan” series, has gone missing, apparently after setting out on a solo hiking expedition, police said Wednesday.

Police in Gunma and Nagano prefectures are searching for Usui, 51, after his wife sounded the alarm on Saturday.

Usui left his home here Friday morning, saying he planned to go hiking in the mountains in Gunma Prefecture, but failed to return that evening as he had promised, according to police.

There has been no response to calls made to his cellphone, which was still connected as of Wednesday morning.

A keen hiker, Usui regularly went on mountain walks by himself.

His “Crayon Shinchan” manga became a big hit after its 1990 debut. It is about a boy called Shinchan and his family set in a city called Kasukabe. An anime adaptation soon followed.(IHT/Asahi: September 17,2009)

Administrative Ammunition

Libraries on Frontline of Connecting Americans With Online Government, Job Resources

Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:00am EDT 

 

Featured Broker sponsored link

 Libraries on Frontline of Connecting Americans With Online Government, Job

Resources

 

CHICAGO, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — With national unemployment

topping 9 percent and many Americans seeking online information and new

technology skills that can help keep them and their families afloat in hard

times, U.S. public libraries are first responders in a time of economic

uncertainty.

 

“Libraries Connect Communities 3: Public Library Funding & Technology Access

Study 2008-2009,” a new report released today by the American Library

Association (ALA), says libraries are serving as crucial technology hubs for

people in need of free Web access, computer training, and assistance finding

and using E-Government and job resources.

 

The study finds that more than 71 percent of all libraries report they are the

only source of free access to computers and the Internet in their communities.

Sixty-six percent of public libraries rank job-seeking services among the most

crucial online services they offer — up from 44 percent two years ago.

 

When county workforce development agency DavidsonWorks (N.C.) was

investigating ways to better serve displaced workers, it looked to the

Davidson County Library System for support. “The numbers of people that need

services are larger than our capacity,” said Executive Director Nancy Borrell.

“The library is a natural partner — they are located in all corners of the

county and have the space, computers and trained library staff we need. We’re

reaching areas of the county we’ve never been able to reach before.”

 

More people also are turning to libraries to file unemployment forms, apply

for Food Stamps or find other government information or services. Eighty

percent of libraries report helping patrons connect with government

information and services online.

 

“For anyone without a computer, you’re really out of luck without the

library,” said Elsie Werdin, who spent almost two weeks trying to get the

information she needed to enroll in a Medicare prescription drug plan. With

assistance from Pasco County Library System (Fla.) staff, she was able to

complete an online enrollment form in less than 30 minutes. The Pasco library

provided e-government services to more than 9,100 people from October 2008 to

March 31, 2009, up 177 percent from one year ago.

 

“Libraries are part of the solution for Americans struggling to regain their

footing in uncertain economic times. Most jobs, and many government services,

require that people fill out online applications at a time when many people

lack home Internet access and the necessary online search, software or even

basic keyboard skills,” said ALA President Camila Alire. “Investing in our

libraries is key to ensuring every person has access to vital online

information and resources.”

 

While libraries across the country have reported significant spikes in patron

usage over the past 12-18 months, many are struggling to maintain hours and

staffing levels to meet demand as funding cuts at the state and local level

loom large. Forty-four percent of states reported declines in state funding

for public libraries in FY2009 — in some cases as much as 25 or 30 percent.

Fourteen percent of libraries reported FY2009 declines.

 

“Libraries serve as community technology centers for millions of Americans

every day,” said Jill Nishi, deputy director of the U.S. Libraries Program at

the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a funder of the study. “But their role

during the current downturn emphasizes how important it is for local

communities to fund and sustain high-quality online access at their libraries

so it’s available for all people when they need it most.”

 

To meet growing demand, many library agencies are applying for federal

stimulus funds through the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP),

which would help enable libraries to strategically address Internet

infrastructure, hardware and patron needs.  With the BTOP emphasis on

community partnerships, libraries also are ideal public partners with telecom

companies and other government agencies. Nearly 60 percent of libraries report

Internet connection speeds are insufficient to meet patron demand at some

point in the day.

 

Additional key findings on the state of Internet availability in public

libraries include:

    —  More than 90 percent of public libraries provide technology training

        such as online job-seeking and career-related classes, general

Internet

        and computer use instruction;

    —  76 percent of public libraries offer free wireless access; and

 

    —  81 percent of public libraries report there are not enough public

        Internet computers to meet patron demand some or all of the time;

        increasingly, libraries are having trouble replacing outdated computer

        workstations due to cost.

 

 

The Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study is conducted by the ALA;

the University of Maryland (UMCP); and Florida State University (FSU). The

study, funded by the ALA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, offers the

most current data available on technology access and funding in U.S. public

libraries. To view the final report, visit http://www.ala.org/plinternetfunding.

Opinion: Philadelphia library closures

Casual thoughts:

The city of brotherly love will be closing all of its free public library doors come October 2, 2009. The state legislature took no action on the budget question for the system to continue to run in the coming fiscal year. Looking over the life cycle of a book, I can’t help but consider CNN’s banter that the state of the library is changing. We lovers of the physical book are becoming antiquarians along with lengthy attention spans going out of style.

Personally speaking, I have been able to hold the pass gently between the technological world and the love of literary arts and sciences. Still I find that even I have been made uncomfortable at the reliance upon digital resources versus honing one’s skills in the never ending paper chase. Honestly, I love research. I love finding one small article which leads me to a photograph with a small caption then into the stacks to find a remote piece of information in a small book which resides in a dark corner. For me its the love of the chase that always branches in to another direction even if you don’t find your target. Still isn’t that apart of empiricly testing a theory? Meaning your quest embodies proving yourself wrong or even finding out a different perspective to the whole query in the first place.

Holding the pass overwhelmed me when I figured out I had been overcome by the singularity.

The term “singularity” is used in many disciplines to refer to the occurrence of a major event. From a technology perspective, it refers to a point in the future where computers advance so much that people no longer are the source of great invention. At that point, machines will be responsible for creating the most important, new breakthroughs with minimal, or without, human input.

 The concept has been touted by technology theorists for decades but was brought to the forefront in Ray Kurzweil’s best selling book “The Singularity Is Near” in 2005 

Let me explain: At some point there where so many little gadgets, applets, wikis, and widgets coming out, I drowned. I could never see the importance or use for Twitter and other products of Web 2.0. I was in my opinion nothing but another telephone application for a teenager to use. Every so often, what are you doing? And a short answer follows, because they have nothing to say in the first place. Web 2.0, for me, is the best when it comes to blogging. Still that is an extension of the love of literary arts and sciences edge of librarianship. It is a pleasure to post ideas openly in a forum similar to what I relished in graduate school (i.e. critiques. Another name for a day to be ripped apart on your work with enough reason, background and evidence to make your head spin. Basically defending your ever changing thesis in front of an audience twice a month.) Strange how people who have difficulty communicating love twitter while writers and longer winded folk breath easy in forums with typing room.

Fort Worth PL may get an infusion of cash from city pools closing. Even then Wedgewood branch is still on the chopping block.

Hmm.. lastly, for-profit libraries in this economy? Of course to fill the gap. Chicago has an Underground Library that operates solely on donations from what I can tell. Got to get back to that business plan. Somehow.someday. somewhere over the fiscal hump….

~The Underground Librarian

 

 

 

 

Unfinished books

I sorely wish I had finished this book. Its irking to the point that I’ll buy a hardcopy one day. I loved everything as much as I read. Using 1/2 priced books store as a last ditch grab for cash, has depleated my own library. I’ve managed to hold on to a few since the recesssion started and so-called ended. I am peculiar in my reading choices in that the cover and the back page brief has to be enthralling before I will buy it. It also must have some exotic angle to it, just as this recommendation does. Enjoy.

~The Underground Librarian

Birds without wings

A quite astonishing, and compulsively readable, tour de force. . . . De Bernières’s subtly differentiated characters attach themselves to us and won’t let go.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

The introduction, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and author biography that follow are designed to enliven your group’s discussion of Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernières’s eagerly awaited follow-up to the acclaimed Corelli’s Mandolin. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Birds Without Wings is a hugely ambitious novel about the pleasures of peace, the meaning of home, and the foolishness and fratricide of war. In its rich tapestry of scenes and characters, it encompasses the whole range of human emotions and behaviors, from the most savagely cruel to the most selflessly compassionate.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Set on the eve of World War I, Birds Without Wings tells the story of Eskibahçe, a charming and vibrant ethnically mixed town in present-day Turkey, and how it is irrevocably changed by the ravages of nationalism, war, and religious fervor. Before the war, Eskibahçe is filled with a wild assortment of characters, Christian and Muslim, Turkish and Armenian, the mad and the sane, the rich and the poor, living side by side in remarkable harmony. There is Ali the Snowbringer, who lives with his family and his donkey inside a hollowed-out tree; Iskander the Potter, who supplies the town with proverbial wisdom along with his pots; Karatavuk—Iskander’s son—and Mehmetçik, whose deep friendship reaches across religious barriers; Father Kristoforos and Abdulhamid Hodja, priest and imam, who hail each other playfully as “infidels”; Rustem Bey, the landlord and protector of the town, who finds happiness with a Circassian mistress after his wife is nearly stoned to death for adultery. There are lunatics as well—a crazy Sufi known as “the Dog,” who lives in a tomb and terrifies everyone with his smile, and a man known as “the Blasphemer,” who flies into cursing fits at the sight of any holy man. There is Philothei, a girl of such disquieting beauty that she must be veiled, and her besotted lover, Ibrahim the Goatherd, who will be driven mad by the horrors of war. And there is Mustafa Kemal, whose military daring will lead him to many stunning victories against the invading Western European forces and to a reshaping of the whole region. What happens to these characters—and their beloved town—because of the war is the great tragedy that Birds Without Wings describes with such unforgettable vividness.

Highlight to Library Closures

Danny Glover to star in Highland Park library film

The Associated Press

Posted: 09/14/2009 04:06:16 AM PDT

Updated: 09/14/2009 12:39:16 PM PDT

 

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich.—Actor Danny Glover will star in a movie that could help revive a shuttered library in the impoverished Detroit enclave of Highland Park.The film project titled “Highland Park” was announced Monday at a news conference at the McGregor Library.

The story line will mirror the ongoing struggle to reopen the library, which closed in March 2002 because the city could not afford to keep it open.

Producer Chris Panizzon says Glover will star in the film.

Lt. Gov. John Cherry Jr. was on hand for the announcement.

Highland Park Mayor Hubert Yopp tells the Detroit Free Press the library will undergo significant restoration and the movie will be a “steppingstone” to its reopening.

Google’s french death blow

France to oppose Google book scheme

By Stanley Pignal in Brussels

Published: September 7 2009 19:43 | Last updated: September 7 2009 19:43

Google’s ambitious plans to scan millions of books and make them readable through its search engine suffered another blow on Monday after France said it would formally oppose the US settlement that Google needs to circumvent complex copyright issues.

France’s objections came as policymakers and interest groups met on Monday in Brussels to discuss the possibility of establishing a European framework that would give it permission to scan entire libraries in Europe.

France’s opposition to the US deal, on the grounds it will undermine French authors’ rights, means it is far less likely the European Union will adapt its copyright system to suit Google’s digitisation efforts.

Google’s efforts have stuttered in Europe because it cannot legally scan books that are still in copyright, which extends for 70 years after the death of a book’s author.

In the US, by contrast, a 2005 class-action lawsuit by authors and publishers has culminated in a $125m settlement paid by Google and a wide-ranging agreement on how to split any money made from the scheme.

A New York judge is due to rule next month on the legality of the settlement, and is accepting arguments from parties affected by the deal to inform the ruling.

France’s submission, to be signed this morning by Frédéric Mitterrand, culture minister, comes a week after Germany filed a similar objection in which it said the agreement would “irrevocably alter the landscape of international copyright law”.

A representative of the French government cited “a risk for cultural diversity” as being behind the intervention, as well as fears over Google’s dominance in book scanning.

Earlier this summer, France had looked to be an ally of Google in its book scanning efforts: leaks even linked the company to a digitisation deal with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the very pinnacle of Gallic culture.

The rumours enraged intellectual circles, not least Mr Mitterrand, whose lofty rhetoric on the matter recalled his uncle, François Mitterrand, the former French president, after whom the library’s main Paris campus is named.

“The digitisation of our heritage must be done with an absolute guarantee of national independence,” he said last month.

Google faced a mixed reception in Brussels, with familiar friends and foes both at the all-day hearing organised by the European Commission.

Critics were largely unimpressed by Google’s last-minute concessions to European publishers, made over the weekend, that would grant non-Americans a say on how the scheme would be run.

Google said: “We don’t agree [with France’s position], since the scope of our US settlement is limited to the US and comes under US law and only US readers will benefit.”

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Opinion:The New Library

I recently read an article on the future of public libraries by a reporter at CNN (www.cnn.org, article: “The future of libraries, with or without books” written by John D. Sutter in the Technology Column). I whole heartedly concur that digital is the trend and books may be a thing of antiquated past. Although I concur with much reticence. According to the writer, the librarian of the current and new day is a technohound. Twittering and Gaming are de rigour while the “poor man’s univeristy” has gone the wayside of anyone interest. True, to the writer. True that the public library is more and will continue to develop into a community center. “Loud rooms” included. However before my separation from the public sphere there was an internal movement to quieting the whole place down. With as many school nearby, I found that a pure joke and a sign on institutionalized oppression. I guess there is a war inside and outside your local public library. Classic quiet or jovial talk, no food versus the coffee machine in the back, e-books versus overdue fines, and now the push to make the library into a teen technology recreation center. The new target customer has taken over.

What will make the demise of the library and books to go away is a full on push by academia, at all levels, to do away with using text books. Many elementary schools have already shifted to using laptops instead of textbooks to save money. Reading lists aside, leisure reading is more popular among a small class of individuals.That I am venturing a guess. The library where I worked had declining statistics for use of the collection. I had to hone in on what people wanted to read. Popular? Bestsellers? How to cater to the homework generation? More picture books? With this technological upsurge and revolution inside of the building, what will happen to the cycle in the life of a book? Support for the publishing industry may shift towards bookstores. If leisure time is just about getting visual stimulation, then of course technology will take over community centers. Then the public library holds no more purpose than a high tech meet and game center. A librarian becomes just a transition counselor showing you how to use and survive the latest technology. Welcome to the singularity. It is tough to keep up, and I feel I need to drop out of  climbing the curve. Now the title of librarian is over. You begin to hire information technologists and corporate educators.

What I liked most about the authors insight to demise, is his suggestion that the public library we have known will no longer exist. As the economy changes and people needs change, towards entertainment of social networking and gaming, the book warehouse will no longer exist. Libraries may become privatized. That comment right there turned on a series of lightbulbs in my head. It is exactly the niche my business plan fills. 

Technology has its place.  Without some defense it will take over and move vital aspects of business life aside. Maybe the library patron has changed too.  Therefore the public facility has to change to meet and and serve the need.

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Sutter may be more correct than he realizes. The library is dead. The demographic that I saw was: the elderly, which wanted more books on CD, teenagers and homeless that rather spend their time on the Internet, lastly the children who came for storytime. The book collection never got use. People  twenty something to social security filing age rather go to big box bookstore chains for cozy and classic experience and service. I remember a city councilwoman saying to me once that she couldn’t wait till we arranged the library like Barnes and Noble. Nary the day I thought the Dewey Decimal system would be that hard to browse. When it does get used, people look for best selling authors. Very few are interested in reading authors attempts at The Great American Novel. Even classics, most would rather have in hand, so they prefer to buy. For an instituion to spend so much money on bound paper, and not have it used, is inexcuseable in terms of budget and constituency. Finding the new egalitarian consumable leisure expense seems to mean technological investments. People must have spent most of their time in ages gone by reading books, magazines, and newspapers to stay aware of the contemporary age locally and far away. Now it is done quicker, faster, cheaper, and longer by the Internet and mobile devices.