Robocall warns about porn in Pima County libraries: The medium: robocall
The message: The call features Republican Supervisor Ray Carroll reading a message about Bronson.
“This is county Supervisor Ray Carroll with a call about protecting our kids. Our libraries have become places where adult men watch X-rated video pornography with our kids nearby. We need to put an end to this,” Carroll says.
Submitted by StephenK on October 19, 2008 - 4:05am
After getting all the Obama-Biden campaign e-mails clogging my inbox prodding me to go participate in "early voting", I figure I should write something. It is only fair that I should speak from news reporting experience. Some of my best memories as a print reporter were the camaraderie among reporters on election night regardless of who competed against who in what format.
Election night reporting is misleading. The results reported are merely unofficial. Election races are never decided on election night. In the wake of the Help America Vote Act, there is no way any election in the United States could be decided that way.
Absentee ballots are not counted on election night. "Provisional ballots" are not counted on election night. Ballots cast during early voting, such as in the period that kicked off today in Nevada, are not counted on election night. The totals we see on Election Night frankly aren't real as they reflect regular ballots cast only that day.
As someone with interest in politics, I do occasionally watch C-SPAN. A panel discussion was presented a couple nights ago in which there were guesses made. The guesses focused on the potential percentage of ballots in play that won't be reflected in Election Night totals. Ten years ago such votes would only make a difference in very close elections. Current guesses are that perhaps fifty percent of the nation's ballots are already cast.
What might this mean? If almost fifty percent of the ballots are not counted in the totals reported on Election Night, any frustration coming out of such is likely quite pointless. Depending upon the state, the count of absentee ballots as well as provisional ballots and early ballots could stretch onward to Thanksgiving.
Why bring this up on a library-related blog? One thing in the public library setting that it may be prudent to prepare for is questions about how we elect Presidents. US citizens do not vote directly for a President or Vice President. That is the job of the Electoral College on December 15th. While electors are normally pledged to their respective candidate there does exist the chance for them to make their own decisions. An example of this is the 2004 election when John Edwards, then only a candidate for Vice President, somehow got a single electoral vote for the office of President.
I remain skeptical that this will be conclusively wrapped up in two weeks. With as much as the Obama-Biden campaign has recently blanketed the airwaves of Las Vegas about early voting, I wouldn't be surprised if the country gets pretty close to that 50% mark of ballots not counted until after Election Night. Proceedings similar to the circus atmosphere of 2000 may well arise.
In a potential situation like this, there may well be a need to be nimble in creating displays and preparing for potential information needs of patrons.
Submitted by Bibliofuture on October 12, 2008 - 6:22pm
Gov. Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired, an investigation by the Alaska Legislature has concluded. The inquiry found, however, that she was within her right to dismiss her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, who was the trooper’s boss.
Library Journal decided to ask a veteran Alaska librarian about some of the issues raised (libraries procedure for banning books) when Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain's running mate. Charlotte Glover is the children's librarian at the Ketchikan Public Library, and the state Chapter Councilor for the American Library Association. She’s been publicly critical of Palin, but, as the interview shows, she thinks collection decisions should be local.
LJ : "Do you think Wasilla will accept the donated copies of Heather and Daddy's Roommate?"
Glover: "I don't know the current Wasilla library director (K. J. Martin). It would be nice to see that library make a big splash to the media about having these controversial titles, but I don't think that will happen, nor should it necessarily. Wasilla is still the bible belt of Alaska. The vast majority of the library patrons there really might be THAT conservative, so what is the librarian to do then? It's a fine art to read a community, and expand their minds, without getting thrown out of town!"
Not ready to deal with all those weighty tomes about the Presidential candidates? Maybe you should check out the two super-contenders in comic book form:
Both books have been published by IDW. The company claims to be "pleased to present a unique venture in the history of comics publishing: a pair of graphic biographies featuring the presumptive Presidential candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties."
This is an unusual time with so many national elections occurring within roughly the same time span. Within the Anglosphere, the following elections are coming up in next several weeks:
Submitted by Bibliofuture on October 5, 2008 - 5:49pm
Palin is in Omaha giving a speech as I write this. I did not attend the speech but I did go over to see the circus outside the civic center. There were several thousand people in line to see the speech. Across the street there were around a dozen Obama supporters with signs. I thought they would have a more robust showing but in the big picture there was not much point to being there at all. Anybody in line at a Palin event is unlikely to be swayed by someone across the street with a sign. One sign read "Welcome to Obamaha". Another read "I wear lipstick but I will never vote for you".
Not yet in print, but already journalist Gwen Ifill is getting trouble for her forthcoming book about black American politicians.
In mid-August, shortly after the Commission on Presidential Debates named Gwen Ifill of PBS as a moderator of the coming vice-presidential event, she wrote an essay in Time magazine that identified her as the author of a coming book, “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.”
A couple of weeks later, an article in The Washington Post about her moderating duties described the book as focusing on “the Democratic nominee and such up-and-coming black politicians as Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.”
But on the eve of the debate, Ms. Ifill and her book became the fresh object of outrage on conservative talk radio, blogs and cable news after a right-leaning Web site, WND.com, posted an article late Tuesday with the headline, “VP debate moderator Ifill releasing pro-Obama book.”
Isn't it possible for a responsible and professional journalist to remain neutral in a situation such as this? One would certainly hope so. Do we really think that Walter Cronkite or Tim Russert or Anna Quindlen never had a leaning in one direction or another? NYTimes reports.
Submitted by StephenK on September 30, 2008 - 7:51pm
American Public Media released a widget called "Select a Candidate" to give an informal look at where one's own beliefs stack up against the candidates seeking the US presidency. The poll is not scientific but it is a way to open the engagement process. The widget is available for embedding in web pages such as any online pathfinders libraries might make regarding the election.
An embedded copy of the widget can be seen by clicking "Read more" below.
Submitted by birdie on September 28, 2008 - 7:23pm
From Guardian UK:The London home of the UK publisher of a controversial new novel "The Jewel of Medina" that gives a fictionalised account of the Prophet Muhammad's relationship with his child bride, Aisha, was firebombed yesterday, hours after police had warned the man that he could be a target for fanatics. A petrol bomb is believed to have been thrown through the door of Martin Rynja's £2.5m town house in Islington's Lonsdale Square, which also doubles as the headquarters of his publishing company, Gibson Square. Three men were arrested.
The book was originally to be published in the US by Random House, who later withdrew it's offer to author Sherry Jones. It will be published next month in the US by Beaufort Books, a small press that also published "If I Did It".
Rynja commented, :"I was completely bowled over by the novel and the moving love story it portrays,' he said earlier this month. 'I was struck by the careful research of Sherry Jones, who is a journalist with almost 30 years of experience, and her passion for the novel's characters. I immediately felt that it was imperative to publish it. In an open society there has to be open access to literary works, regardless of fear."
From San Francisco, a person self-described as someone who files Freedom of Information requests for a living <A HREF="http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2008/09/23/local_news/doc48d8990632b66401661827.txt">donated two books to the library in Wasilla</A> relative to the homosexual lifestyle. Such was timed concurrently with Banned Books Weeks and was done in light of the recent news about supposed book banning attempts by Sarah Palin in 1996.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction yesterday ordering Vice President Cheney and the National Archives to preserve all of his official records.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's order came in response to a lawsuit filed this month by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The group, joined by several historians and open-government advocates, warned that Cheney might destroy or withhold important documents as the Bush administration winds down if he interprets the Presidential Records Act of 1978 as applying to only some of his official papers.
If you're obsessed with Sarah Palin you'll want to bookmark/follow Library Journal's Sarah Palin and Libraries page. Norman Oder and LJ Staff are following the story and updating the page regularly.
Submitted by effinglibrarian on September 18, 2008 - 9:28am
So what secrets did "anonymous" expose by hacking into Sarah Palin's email? From what I saw, nothing damning. Only some questionable messages and this recipe:
Sarah's Polar Bear Fondue
One polar bear, cleaned
10 pounds flour
4 dozen eggs
50 pounds Gruyere
50 pounds Emmental
corn starch
6 bottles dry white wine
1 pound garlic, peeled, crushed
serve with Triscuits, yummers!
or with optional baby seal paté (recipe to be sent in follow-up email)
Submitted by Bibliofuture on September 17, 2008 - 11:56am
Washington Post article looking at four political books:
1) THE PREDATOR STATE
2) RED STATE, BLUE STATE, RICH STATE, POOR STATE
3) GOD AND RACE IN AMERICAN POLITICS
4) WHY WE HATE US
Harper Collins answers your questions with their new title...
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