Daily Thoughts 12/22/2011

Illustration de la couverture de la revue Les Soirées littéraires du 25 avril 1880 Paris

Daily Thoughts 12/22/2011

This morning I went to the Board of Estimates Meeting in Mount Vernon, New York for the budget.  It was at 10:00 a.m..  I was the only person there from the public.  I stayed for about ten minutes. Then the Board of Estimate went into executive session.  It was an interesting experience.  http://cmvny.com/2011/12/21/boe-special-meeting-notice/

There is another Budget Meeting tomorrow, December 23 at 6:00 p.m. at Mount Vernon City Hall.
 Please go.
http://cmvny.com/2011/12/22/special-city-council-meeting-2/


The night before, I was at the Mount Vernon Public Library Board of Trustees Meeting.  There was a lot being discussed.  The Amnesty has started out well.  We have gotten $500 worth of lost material back so far.  If you know anybody who has lost library material encourage them to come in and bring in their books.
http://www.mountvernonpubliclibrary.org/amnesty

There was a lot to hear about.  We are planning a number of events including the Kenneth C. Davis talk on January 12, 2012 and other events.  We spent some time discussing the Central Library District allocations as the central branch.

I will be working on Saturday,, January 7, 2012 as part of the process of opening the first Saturday of the month.  There are also a number of programs in the works coming up.

The Trustees meeting room was packed with people.  It was nice seeing some of my colleagues who had left.  

This morning, I was originally planning to go to the dentists.  I had just stopped by work because it was near the dentists office.  I didn't originally plan on going to the Board of Estimates meeting.  I also spent some time talking to people, checked the displays, and looked over the gift books.  I bought a book, Man Made UFOs 1944-1994 by Renato Vasco and David Hatcher Childress.  I find UFO books to be an entertaining mix of goofiness and speculation.  I rather like the pictures of foo fighters, early German ramjet planes, flying wings, and strange disc shaped craft.

I also finished reading The Shock Doctrine.  The writing is very interesting.  Naomi Klein manages to express fascinating ideas like plutonomy, corporatism, and disaster capitalism.  Often the book has kind of extreme praise for the left.  I am not that fond of South American politics.  However, she also describes how corporations are increasingly becoming intertwined with government.  The reader gets to learn about private contractors like Blackwater, Bechtel, and Halliburton and how they have changed our government for the worse in Iraq and places like New Orleans in the United States.

I find myself thinking that there are different answers to our problems than the left is describing.  There has been almost no attempt recently to break up business monopolies and trusts by the United States government. We do not see the commerce department going after giant corporations like Amazon, Google, Halliburton, or Chevron to get them to be broken up into smaller entities.  These giant entities are becoming increasingly intertwined with the United States government.  There is a kind of symbiosis between oversize corporations and oversize government.

Poverty has become an industry where people can get rent to own furniture, layaway items for the holidays, money orders, go to the pawn shop, get credit card counseling and personal bankruptcy, get a pay day loan, buy their clothes from a thrift shop, and live on cheap fast food.

I read this as part of the Occupy Education book list.  I have noticed that almost all of the books they are suggesting are negative.  The books like Griftopia are about how terrible things are.  It is clear to me that Occupy Wall Street is more about protest than actively seeking solutions. There needs to be a little more focus on problem solving.  More focus on reform.

Web Bits

O-Bits Blog: Occupy Wall Street Library
http://thecoffinfactory.blogspot.com/2011/12/peoples-library-of-occupy-wall-street.html#more

The Struggle For Occupy Wall Street Archives
http://www.theawl.com/2011/12/the-st

Police Arrest Protesters at sit-in at Detroit Library Branch
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20111222/METRO/112220477/1409/rss36
There may be more of a connection than many people think between Occupy Wall Street and libraries.

Daily Thoughts 12/21/2011

Therese Schwartze, The Artists Husband, by 1918




Daily Thoughts 12/21/2011


I updated the Twitter and Facebook pages for the library.  I also am planning to go to the Board Meeting tonight at 6:30 p.m.  It should be interesting.

I have been reading more of The Shock Doctrine.  There is a profound irony in Gorbachev trying to turn Russia into a "socialist" beacon based on the Scandinavian model.  Part of the irony stems from the majority of the Scandinavian countries professing neutrality in world affairs.  Neutrality means that there would be no help from the Scandinavian countries to adapt their economic model.  Scandinavia as a region does invest in foreign countries, but they do it quietly without fanfare to make money.

I am finding the book to be quite interesting.  There are a lot of claims about how terrible the IMF and the World Bank are.  The author is claiming that they take much of their philosophy from conservative institutions like the Chicago School of Economics, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and people like George Soros. I think this is a bit biased.  The think tanks on the left also influence the World Bank and the IMF.

I put the book, The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding from You by Eli Pariser on hold.


Web Bits


Drawn and Quarterly Teams up With Kobo to Release Digital Graphic Novels
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/49945-d-q-teams-with-kobo-to-release-digital-graphic-novels-.html
Drawn and Quarterly is known for producing comics lit-- high quality stories.  This is a little different.

Daily Thoughts 12/20/2011

Desk in the library at Zutphen, 1894

Daily Thoughts 12/20/2011

I have been reading more of The Shock Doctrine.  A lot of it so far is about economic manipulation of South American countries by the Chicago school of economics and large multinational companies in the 1970s.  Some of it is very strange and hard to follow.  I don't buy into either socialism or free market economics that much so a lot of the assertions in this section of the book seem irrational.

What does make sense is the author, Naomi Klein's assertion that in democracies that the lower and middle classes opt to vote for programs that improve education, support social services, and protect jobs and industries.  This makes  pure free market capitalism unworkable in democratic countries.  It also leads to large scale protests and social unrest when there are economic downturns.

Another argument that Naomi Klein is bringing forward is that it is possible to have market reform without civil rights and freedoms.  China has reformed its markets and so has Russia, but they they have not increased civil liberties.

I had a chance to watch several movies that I wanted to see; Cars 2, Megamind, Stargate Universe, and The King's Speech.  The King's Speech was an excellent film.  It is well worth watching.  It was a nice way to relax.  It was a nice break from reading.


Web Bits

How Much Should an Ebook Cost?
http://www.thedominoproject.com/2011/12/how-much-should-an-ebook-cost.html
I find Seth Godin interesting.

Kruthof's "Installation of 4000 Books."
http://vikingpenguinbooks.tumblr.com/post/14271762024/now-this-is-clever-anouk-kruithof

Daily Thoughts 12/19/2011

German school of the XVI century Book Oil on wood, 70.2 x 65 Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Daily Thoughts 12/19/2011

I spent a little bit of time this morning updating the library Facebook and Twitter account.  I got a call this morning to see if I wanted to purchase School Library Journal.  It circulates at my job.  I have been quoted in School Library Journal once. However, I have never been quoted in Library Journal.  You would think it would be the opposite because I work with adults mostly.  I also sometimes work with teenagers though.

I have been reading more of The Shock Doctrine.  Something that bothers me about these kind of books is the often distorted language.  Until I started reading some of the more leftists books, I had never heard the term neoliberal.  Apparently Milton Friedman is considered neoliberal..  It is the kind of political language which creates words like proledic and neoconservative.  Political words of extreme opposition and utopian ideology.

I am also realizing that trying to force utopian ideals into existing structures often causes terrible things to happen.  Pure ideologies have a tendency towards "creative destruction".  Oddly enough, when pure ideologies are applied to new economic structures they can be very beneficial.

Paypal was the result of libertarian ideals being applied to small financial transactions and Ebay was an attempt to create a "perfect market". These of course were divorced from existing political institutions which is a major plus.Of course if you are like I am and are into science fiction you hope one day people will be able to go off and start their own countries with little interference.  I am going off on a tangent.  A bit on sea steading. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/silicon-valley-billionaire-funding-creation-artificial-libertarian-islands-140840896.html

 I watched the short Lynda.com class on Pitching Ideas and Products to Executives.  Being convincing is always helpful.

Web Bits

World Book Night April 23, 2012
http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/about-world-book-night/register-as-a-2012-giver

I, Curator
http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2011/12/16/I-curator.aspx

Library Advocacy Store on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/libraryadvocacystore

Daily Thoughts 12/18/20111

Marguerite Gerard, Lady Reading In An Interior between 1795 and 1800
Daily Thoughts 12/18/2011

I have been reading The Shock Doctrine.  It starts with Latin American leftism versus exported Chicago School style capitalism.  Part of this argument is a statement against laissez faire capitalism as embraced by Milton Friedman which tends to concentrate wealth upward and create a large pool of lower class people.  It also tries to equate torture; electroshock and sensory deprivation with laissez faire capitalism. As part of this comparison it describes in very left terms how business is exported to dictatorships from the United States. I am not completely convinced about some of the arguments. The book tends to preach rather than convince.  It seems written for people who already agree with the authors viewpoint.

The book also defines corporatism as the combination of a police state with corporations and trade unions to form a kind of totalitarian rule. This is the darker side of capitalism.

One of the things which the book does do successfully is acknowledge there is more than one type of capitalism.  I find John Maynard Keynes much more appealing than Milton Friedman.  There are a lot of different forms of capitalism. 

I also read some more of The Life and Legend of Jay Gould.  I am reading about how Jay Gould broke away from the Union Pacific and started to form his own railroad group.  The book successfully shows how industrialists often are interested in controlling companies as much as making money.  It becomes a kind of chess game where the pieces are different stocks and corporations.

Updated Press Release for Signifcant Changes at the Mount Vernon Public Library
http://www.mvinquirer.com/mount_vernon_public_library_chan.htm

Web Bits

Read in at Occupy 2.0
http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2011/12/in-the-bookroom/post/read-in-at-occupy-2-0/
Another Library Journal article.

Daily Thoughts 12/17/2011

Alexander Kanoldt: Stilleben mit Büchern und Krügen, Öl auf Leinwand, 85 x 65.5 cm, 1920

Daily Thoughts 12/17/2011

I updated the Twitter and Facebook for the library.  There are still negotiations going on over the budget.  Hopefully things will go well for us. Please support libraries.

I read some more of The Life and Legend of Jay Gould.  The book discusses the ties between the railroads and the telegraph.  At one point Jay Gould worked with Thomas Edison.  He also had a rivalry with Cornelius Vanderbilt.

I plan on going to the board meeting on December 21, 2011 at 6:30 p.m. for the library.

I started reading The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.  I am finding it rather odd. It comes across as muckraking progressivism versus a kind of rampant free market fundamentalism which the author, Naomi Klein is opposed to.  The writing is quite bombastic with strong statements. There is very little that seems factually neutral.  It is very much a right wing versus left wing book.  Her main target initially seems to be Milton Friedman who I am not a fan of.   Because I think of myself as independent thinker in many ways, some of the statements by Naomi Klein are puzzling to me.


Web Bits

Austerity's Attack on Knowledge Assaulting Libraries
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/16/assaulting-libraries/
A British view on libraries.

Take This Book: The People's Library At Occupy Wall Street
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/melissagiragrant/take-this-book-the-peoples-library-at-occupy-wall?ref=search
This is a Kickstarter Project designed to crowd fund a book.