Andrew Carnegie

Courtesy of my Uncle John's Bathroom Reader calendar:

A 21-Flush Salute to Andrew Carnegie, Born On This Day in 1835

One of the 19th century's leading industrialists and richest men, by 1901 Carnegie's holdings in telegraphy, railroads, and steel manufacturing had earned him more thatn $250 million. Two years earlier he had written "The Gospel of Wealth", an essay stating his conclusion that the rich should live modestly and distribute their wealth to benefit the common people. True to his own belief, Carnegie devoted the rest of his life - and income - to building libraries. He put out the word that any town in any English-speaking country could request a grant for a free library. The criteria were minimal: a demonstrated need for a library, an agreement to pay the library's annual upkeep, and a vacant lot. Carnegie provided the money for raw materials, design plans, and a building crew. The first in America: Braddock, Pennsylvania, the location of one of Carnegie's biggest steel mills. By the time Carnegie died in 1919, he'd funded more than 2,500 libraries.

An Article About Information Pollution That's Not Annoying

I never thought I'd see the day there was an article about 'information overload' I didn't find either condescending or arm-flapping woe-is-me, but here it is. Dustin Wax points out some common marketing strategies and offers suggestions regarding filtering your information. I was particularly interested in his theory about dumb parents in television:

Watch a kids TV show recently? Watch a few? You might have noticed a trend — dumb parents. Uncool, hapless, clumsy, dorky, way-out-there dumb parents. Remember the parents of yore? The Bradies, the Cleavers, even the Wah-Wah-Wahing parents of the Charlie Brown universe? They were pretty with it — voices of sanity and authority in an adult world kids struggled to grasp. Not any more — today’s TV parents are hopeless.

Why? Because that’s what media producers’ customers want. Not the kids — viewers aren’t customers, they’re product. You don’t buy Jimmy Neutron. The advertisers whose spots fill the commercial breaks during Jimmy Neutron buy you — the cartoon is just a way to get enough of you watching to make it worth the advertisers’ buck. Well, not you — your kids. You’re just a wallet with legs — what they really want is to show your kids really cool stuff that they’ll get you to buy. And of course, you’re going to say “No”. That’s where the show’s content comes in — your kids have just spent 4 hours learning that parents are uncool idiots who say “No” to all the coolest stuff.

Very true. My personal advertising bugaboo is dumb guys. Those bumbling fools, always needing a woman to save the day. I can say this is annoying; I'm a woman myself and I'm tired of men being presented as idiots. If it's insulting if I swap the genders, it's not good.

A History of the Internet in a Nutshell

A very educational article about the history of the internet. I only came into the picture in around '94. I could've sworn Hotmail was around before '96, but I suppose I could be wrong. I do remember only having a freenet address. All text bulletin boards and IRC chat. Fun times.

Judging a Book's Cover

Here is a look at some of the best covers of the '00s according to The Book Cover Archive.

My favourites are The Abomination one from 2000 and A Shortcut Through Time from 2004. One Perfect Day's cover is clever. The Abomination cover would definitely make me at least pick up the book out of curiosity.

Exile in the Kingdom from 2007 is just painful, while The Way Through Doors from 2009 is just annoying.

No Guns Allowed

In Knoxville, Tennessee, some guy brought a gun into the library. Apparently there weren't enough signs saying DO NOT BRING YOUR GUN. Why would anyone bring a gun into a library? To fight library bad guys? To be very very serious about people being quiet? Scary.

Petit Controversy

A controversial book about the Petit murders will remain in the public library of the Petit family's community of Chesire. In poor taste? Possibly, though yeah, it's censorship. The thing that had me scratching my head at the article was the mention of people's home addresses. Do you disagree with Mary Smith? She lives on 24 Grapenut Avenue. That just doesn't seem wise.

More On the League

A follow-up on this story: The Black Dossier threatens public safety. The Black Dossier being the name of Volume Four of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel.

The petition reads in part, "This community is known to have sexual predators, and works such as these encourage those predators to act out their desires or at the very least justify their desires."

Man, I hope they don't learn other things from graphic novels and comic books, like how to fly or shoot lasers out of their eyes. My favourite quote from all I've read about this case comes from an editorial at Omnicomic:

And here we are now. Cook and Boisvert personally attempted to withhold the book from the public in the "best interest" of kids. Which is basically censorship. Honestly, they have no right to do so and the library was completely within it's jurisdiction to terminate these two employees. It's so easy to forget with abortion, healthcare, war, economy, etc. that censorship used to be a big deal as well. Especially in comic books. Way back in the day of Dr. Wertham and his book Seduction of the Innocent comic books were actually burned in many southern towns. Why? Because of their perceived ill-influences on kids.

Aren't we past that? I understand the desire on the part of adults to want to protect kids. What are we protecting them from though? You don't think that if the book was removed that kids wouldn't see this stuff elsewhere? Even further it's the parents decision regarding what kids watch/read. Taking such a critically-acclaimed book and re-checking it out is almost bush league in it's immaturity. Cook and Boisvert had no right whatsoever to impose their views onto those of the library patrons.

Is The Black Dossier appropriate for an eleven-year-old? No. I can't come up with anything off the top of my head from Alan Moore that would be appropriate for an eleven-year-old. The issue isn't whether the book is appropriate, it's whether library workers can decide what's appropriate.