Almost no one makes a living from writing short stories anymore. The story has to a large extent been severed from its traditional roots, from popular, large-circulation magazines, that is, and it has been transplanted into the greenhouses of the academy. Collections of stories occasionally sell more than modestly, especially if they’re by new authors. Oddly, though, you can still make a pretty good living by teaching other people how to write short stories. The form survives, and even thrives, in a forced, hothouse sort of way, because it has become the instructional medium of choice in most of our writing programs. Read More.
Ieleen
Woman Admits Part in Library Books Theft
A woman has admitted her part in a book stealing scheme which plundered books worth more than $34,000 from Christchurch, New Zealand city libraries. A police search of the woman’s home recovered about 30 books and several sets of library identification. She initially denied involvement, but later admitted her part.
A total of 337 books valued at about $18,000 were recovered by police, but 320 worth about $16,000 were still outstanding. Read More.
Universities Curtailing Online Piracy
Despite evidence that sharing music and movies online remains popular, a report issued Tuesday by a committee of entertainment and university leaders says universities have made strides the past year to curtail online piracy.
The report, submitted to Congress by the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, highlights steps taken by the universities to tackle Internet piracy but offers few details of their effectiveness.
The recording industry has sued more than 3,000 computer users since September in a campaign to stem file-sharing. Studies differ as to the effectiveness of the campaign, but at any given moment, there are upward of 4 million people in the United States swapping files online, according to Beverly Hills-based BigChampagne, which tracks activity on file-sharing networks.
Police Chiefs Want More Access to Private E-mail, Internet Communication
Canadian police want the federal government to revamp 30-year-old Criminal Code provisions and give them greater access to fight hi-tech crime carried out via e-mail, the Internet and other forms of electronic traffic. Police organizations want more power, through lawful access with warrants, to monitor e-mail, web surfing, instant messaging, mobile telephones and telephone services that use Internet connections.
The police are especially concerned about child pornography, exploitation of children, and organized crime. Read all about it.
Idea of Implanting ID Tags Raises Orwellian Fears
Advocates of technologies like radio frequency identification tags say their potentially life-saving benefits far outweigh any Orwellian concerns about privacy. RFID tags sewn into clothing or even embedded under people’s skin could curb identity theft, help identify disaster victims and improve medical care, they say.
Critics, however, say such technologies would make it easier for government agencies to track a person’s every movement and allow widespread invasion of privacy. Abuse could take countless other forms, including corporations surreptitiously identifying shoppers for relentless sales pitches. Critics also speculate about a day when people’s possessions will be tagged, allowing nosy subway riders with the right technology to examine the contents of nearby purses and backpacks.
Read More.
Presidential Libraries Seek Tourists in Theme Park Era
Mary McKnight calls herself Ronald Reagan’s No. 1 fan. Gazing somberly at the 40th president’s tomb, the retired nurse from Kansas murmured, “It’s humbling to be here.”
Nearby, a boy in a New York Yankees jersey seemed less impressed by Reagan’s library and museum, muttering about wanting to go to Disneyland.
The contrast illustrates the challenge facing the nation’s 11 presidential libraries–soon to be 12 with the opening of Bill Clinton’s this fall–as they compete for visitors at a time when many tourists would rather be riding a roller-coaster than sifting through presidential archives.
Although Reagan’s death has led to a surge in visitors to the library, attendance at the nation’s presidential libraries during the past five years has declined about 13 percent. To reverse the trend, libraries are adding attractions, turning to more-aggressive marketing tactics and leaning on tourist attractions to promote themselves. Read more.
Soothing Murderer’s Feelings with $1200 Political Correctness
The Privacy Act is completely out of hand when a convicted murderer can get a payout for “hurt feelings” because he couldn’t read all of a letter about himself, says National’s Law & Order spokesman Tony Ryall.
He is commenting on a report that the Human Rights Review Tribunal has awarded a prisoner $1200 for hurt feelings and humiliation because the Corrections Department did not show him all of a letter that made allegations about his behaviour while he was on temporary release from jail. Read More.
Something New to Check Out at the Mall: Library Books
Typically, people go to malls to shop and to socialize. They may meet a friend for a quick lunch and then hunt for a new outfit. But at two malls in the greater Seattle area, they can also pick up a copy of the latest bestseller, do a computer search for a new job, and listen to a Spanish- language CD, all for free.
The freebies aren’t some enormous give-away by the malls, but typical library services in a not-so-typical location. Read all about it.
Walden at 150: What Would Thoreau Think of the 24-Hour News Cycle?
In his time at Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau periodically returned to Concord, MA, and when he did, the village seemed to him like a “great news room.” After days alone, he found himself surrounded by gossip on all sides, from the idle talk of his neighbors to the frivolous reports in the newspapers. Thoreau was not immune to the appeal of gossip, which he saw as “really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.” But he worried that society was being dulled by its fascination with trivial events. “Hardly a man takes a half-hour’s nap after dinner,” Thoreau lamented, “but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, ‘What’s the news?'”
Thoreau would be disturbed by today’s endless flood of celebrity bulletins and made-for-cable-TV courtroom face-offs not because he thought gossip was inherently wrong, but because of what it was distracting America from. He missed the opportunity to deplore the fact that people who can rattle off the details of the voting in “American Idol” know little about the presidential campaign, and that the Laci Peterson killing gets more attention than North Korea’s nuclear program. But he anticipated, long before the 24-hour news cycle and cellphones, that in modern America the problem might well be not too little access to information, but too much. “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas,” he writes in “Walden,” “but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.” Read it.
El Paso, TX Library has Ghosts, According to Staffers
The discovery of a possible Civil War-era skeleton buried next to the main branch of the El Paso Public Library on Thursday was not a surprise, library employees said Friday.
“We figured that’s why we have our ghosts,” said staffer Charles Apuan while walking down a shadowy row of bookshelves in a sub-basement that is said to be the epicenter of eerie phenomena at the library, 501 N. Oregon.
Several members of the library staff have reported apparitions, strange noises and items moving by themselves.
Workers excavating a site behind the library Thursday discovered a skeleton, thought to be a soldier because in the 1860s the land was a military cemetery, which was later relocated. Skeletal remains were also found in the neighborhood in 1998 by crews replacing water and sewer lines. Library staffers expect other remains to be found as construction continues. Read all about it.
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