Daily Thoughts 4/28/2009

Religious Freedom In America 3 Cent Stamp, 1957

Daily Thoughts 4/28/2009

I spent some more time going through the technical processing area today. We are starting to put out the new video games for patrons. We have Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360. It has a bobblehead doll of the vault dweller that comes with the packaging. We are going to use it as part of the display of the new game material. We also have Guitar Hero II. This is the first time we are going to circulate video games.

I also spent time filing looseleafs and weeding some more of the 700s area. Things are getting a bit more organized.

I am looking forward to going to the Westchester Library Association Conference on May 8, 2009. It should be very interesting to go there.

On the train here, I read Eat This Not That by David Zinczenko. It is very interesting. It is a menu guide comparing different foods and which ones you should eat. It gives the pictures of the best and worst items from fast food restaurants like Taco Bell, McDonald's, Appleby's, Denny's and others. There are also comparisons of different food items in the supermarket; popular brands of cereal, salad dressing, snacks, ice cream, and other food items. There were also guides to choices for food during holiday meals. Do you pecan pie or pumpkin pie?

I learned a few things about food. Green tea and grapefruit help you with losing weight. Sherbet and frozen yogurt are better for you than ice cream. Oatmeal is one of the best foods you can have for breakfast. The tips were simple and useful. The pictures were all in full color. The descriptions and layout were well designed. I can recommend this book. It is a fast easy read.

I am looking forward to getting the Eat This Not That Supermarket Guide.

On the train home, I tried to read Ideas Triumphant Strategies for Social Change and Progress by Lawrence Lader. I could not read that far into the book. The problem was one where the author always seemed to present his side as winning. There was never a retreat from a losing argument, or an attempt to regroup around an idea. I found that it did not portray the full span of conflict between opposing ideas. I believe in the concept of a "war for ideas" where there is continuous conflict about what ideas will become prevalent. The book was too one sided in its presentation for me to read.

The second book I attempted to read was The Anarchist In The Library How the Clash Between Freedom and Control Is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System by Siva Vaidhyanathan. The thing which threw me off with this book is how he portrayed freedom as anarchistic and control as oligarchic in a kind of dialectic. I am not a big fan of dialecticism. I follow with the idea that Descartes was wrong about people being divided into two parts, rational and emotional or the mind and body. People develop rationality and spirituality from baser emotions.

I find myself thinking back to a book called Descartes Error which has influenced my thinking considerably. I like to think of things in a more holistic way. I often find the concept of everything being split into two sides fractious.