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Carol Vogel at the Times breaks it to art collectors everywhere: if you have $100 million burning a hole in your pocket, here’s you chance to difersify.
"The New York Public Library has decided to sell 19 works of art from its collection – including "Kindred Spirits," a widely admired landscape by the Hudson River School painter Asher B. Durand, and two seminal portraits of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart – so that it can better compete in acquisitions of important books and collections."
Found this article on Tomdispatch.com this afternoon . . .
"In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the USA Patriot Act, the following exchange took place between former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, now Attorney General, and Senator Arlen Specter (R., PA):
GONZALES: Mr. Chairman, let me, kind of, reassure the committee and the American people that the department has no interest in rummaging through the library records or the medical records of Americans.
That is not something that we have an interest in.
SPECTER: Does that mean you’d agree to excluding them?
GONZALES: We do have an interest, however, in records that may help us capture terrorists. And there may be an occasion where having the tools of 215 to access this kind of information may be very helpful to the department in dealing with the terrorist threat.
The fact that this authority has not been used for these kinds of records means that the department, in my judgment, has acted judiciously. It should not be held against us that we’ve exercised, in my judgment, restraint.
It’s comparable to a police officer who carries a gun for 15 years and never draws it. Does that mean that for the next five years he should not have that weapon, because he’s never used it?
SPECTER: Attorney General Gonzales, I don’t think your analogy is apt, but if you want to retain those records, as your position I understand. And let me move on. "
When Germs Travel: Epidemics and Immigrants in the 20th Century
The John K. Lattimer Lecture
Howard Markel, MD, PhD
Thursday, April 21, 6:00 PM
Reception, 5:30PM
This is not the sort of thing one wants to see in the paper first thing in the morning, but it’s not the she sort of thing librarians can afford not to notice either. Anyway, here’s a link to the article and the text is behind the "Continue Reading" link.
I’ve been away for a few days, but I’m back now.
I fell in love with FactCheck.org during the 2004 presidential race—it’s one of the few research sites that really does try to cut through the BS on bothsides of the aisle–and they’ve kept their work up since then, which I think is an amazing service to those of us who aren’t in the middle of national politics. You can sign up to have their bulletins posted directly to your email account.
Today’s article is worth a look: "A $5-million TV ad campaign by People for the American Way portrays the Senate filibuster as a noble tool of American democracy. The ad uses footage from Frank Capra’s classic 1939 movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" – a famous scene in which the hero, played by James Stewart, engages in a 23-hour filibuster to prevent his expulsion from the US Senate on trumped-up corruption charges.
Real-life filibusters are another matter, however. They can be used for good or evil. In fact, segregationist Southern senators used filibusters to preserve the poll tax and block civil rights and anti-lynching legislation for generations. Among the real-life practitioners were the late Senators Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi."
Not too long ago, the NY Times ran a major article concerning the Malloch Rare Book Room at the Academy. The link is here, but you may have to register to read it. Enjoy!
There’s an editorial in today’s NY Times on the subject of whether people who use P2P software like Grokster (who is arguing their case in front of the Supreme Court this week) are breaking copyright, and by so doing, breaking the law. The short version is, well, yes, they are. When you download music from people other than authorized distributors, you are in fact, both breaking the law as it’s written, and you’re taking money out of the pockets of artists who create such products. Being a writer myself, I know how much that hurts. I mean, if I put a manuscript or an article on the web and send a link to it, that’s one thing. I’ve made a choice to share my stuff with the world for nothing. If my publisher does the same thing (and which has been done in the past), that’s their choice according to the contract we have. But if you find a copy of one of my old books and scan it and then send those images around, then Dude, I could have used those royalties. The only time I can see getting around this is material that is no longer in print or otherwise available to the market.
I know, I’m being a bit of a hypocrite here, because I’ve used these programs to grab mp3s of songs I just can’t find in stores or online, and I’m convinced that a lot of people who are reading this (or not) are doing the same thing. I think it’s rare that anyone actually uses this method to acquire music or videos or TV shows on an exclusive basis, however. Most people I’ve spoken to will still plunk down $15 to get a CD from their favorite band or a $20 for that DVD that they absolutely must have. I spent serious money on the Lord of the Rings boxed sets that I probably could have acquired with a broadband connection, a huge hard drive and a few weeks of patient sifting through networks. It was a choice.
I guess my point is that it probably doesn’t hurt too much to download a few songs to see if you like a band . . . but if you do, show them you like them and buy the CD. Independent bands and film makers that avoid the megacorporations and established distribution networks need the money even more. The least you can do is to throw them a few bucks.
From TomPaine.com:
“The past year was an interesting—and not altogether positive—one for the media. There was the rise of blogging, the Bush administration-produced “reports” during election season, the revelations that several reporters had been paid to tout government programs, and the continued move toward faster, flashier news coverage. In its second annual “State Of The News Media” report, the Project For Excellence In Journalism extensively reviewed the media’s work and trends among newspapers, magazines, broadcast, online news and the ethnic press. Among the findings: verification in journalism has fallen off in favor of assertion; broadcast news is reaching a transition point; and we’re not nearly as partisan in our news consumption as we’ve been led to believe.”
This also comes from the “Something to Think About” category. I lifted it in its entirely from today’s NY Times which, I know, is not strictly within copyright, but since all the attributions remain and it wasn’t altered, I think it’s permissible. Enjoy.
The quasi-political rant below the link is something I posted on my Livejournal account earlier. I hadn’t really planned to talk about Terri Schiavo . . . I’d intended to write about Google (and I did . . . sort of), because Google Scholar is a big deal to me, mostly because I can’t imagine how they’ll bring it online on time and on budget. The copyright issues alone are staggering, and the XML is no less daunting to think about. At any rate, I started writing and it went somewhere I hadn’t planned on. I know this is a library blog (or it’s supposed to be) but there’s no rule against being a librarian and having an opinion about something. The trick is not for us to never have opinions, but to not let our opinions interfere with our willingness or ability to find an answer to someone’s question. Even if we don’t agree with their politics. I suspect that’s a hard beam to balance on, and since I don’t work the reference desk at the Academy I don’t have to worry about it often. Still, it remains something to think about.
This comes from Michael Masterson in today’s issue of his e-zine ‘Early to Rise’:
"Bad news: A bill in Congress is giving the FCC the right to fine TV sponsors up to $500,000 per incident for any programming it deems indecent. This year’s Super Bowl carried an ad for GoDaddy.com showing a busty woman in a tank top being interviewed at "Broadcast Censorship Hearings" when her strap snaps and nearly repeats Janet Jackson’s famous stunt. Fearing FCC disapproval, the Fox network pulled the ad. This follows the decision of 66 local ABC stations to ban "Saving Private Ryan" from broadcast.
Some good news. Howard Stern, the FCC’s whipping boy, is not disappearing. Instead, he is going to Satellite Radio, where (so far) the FCC has no jurisdiction.
More good news. The FCC won’t be able to control the latest form of radio broadcasting – something called podcasting. Like blogging, podcasting relies on the Internet to transmit the individual broadcasts of anyone who has access to the Internet, an Apple iPod, or any MP3 player. One example of the way this is being used: Kids are doing their own music shows at universities all over America.”
It’s difficult to know exactly what to post here. I see a lot of stuff come across my desk as I check in journals every day and sometimes an article title grabs my attention. Sadly, that hasn’t happened today (not yet anyway). Part of the problem is that I have this compulsive need to read absolutely everything I find during my lunch hour web surfing but that’s partly genetic . . . my mother has the same problem, except with her it’s newspapers (she keeps them for weeks at a time because she can’t get rid of one without reading every damn article in there, and she subscribes to several). I set up a bunch of links to websites that I like to read consistently (if not religiously) on the left margin . . . take a good look through those and you’ll notice that there’s a wacky variety of subjects and points of view. That’s another part of the problem—I rarely can bring myself to dismiss the other guy’s perspective out of hand. I mean, come on, I’m not that smart. Few are. How do I know that the guy I’m arguing with doesn’t have a good point to make? The answer is simple: I don’t. So, I read the political stuff on the left and right, and pick and choose what arguments and evidence makes sense to me. Call me a coward if you wish (others have) but that’s how I do things.
I like to read, I like to know how things work, I like to think about whether an event or an idea comes from the process or is some kind of fundamental truth, or something in between. And I like to argue, especially with folks who know how to argue (few do . . . I blame the colleges). So that puts me here, back to square one, wondering what I’m going to post here today. Right now. Right . . . NOW!