check out this awesome website featuring really old and famous books from the British Library http://ping.fm/MRrf3

Documentation of Culture

Websites such as ibiblio and the Internet Archive have a positive impact on the sharing of information and knowledge creation. It allows for the organic documentation of culture. The preservation and cataloging of information on the internet by a mutlitude of users including professionals and amateurs is an on-going experiment that shows many positive potentials. Previously history was written by the winner and the dominating society often destroyed information of the people they conquered. Allowing anyone with internet access an opportunity to document and index anything could result in the creation of a repository reflective of humanity and not just the privileged few. Downfalls of such a movement include the confusion generated from shear amounts of information along with issues related to validity and origins. Considerations of the quality of infrastructure and maintenance of such archives is important. Nonetheless just as cultural artifacts and products of folklore provide informal insight into civilizaition, public libraries and archives provide valuable content. These types of depositories offer an egalitarian approach to the preservation of knowledge in a way not previously achievable.

Happy World Ocean Day! Don't forget to clip your plastic rings! http://ping.fm/czJMt

HA! Sounds like me.

So I'm folding clothes and listening to an episode of This American Life entitled, "Classifieds." They are describing the estate sale of a woman who had amassed many years worth of personal information through letters and greeting cards; saving and organizing them all in plastic bags. I think to myself wow that's a neat idea sounds like something I would do. Then Ira Glass goes on to say, "as a librarian she..." I'm like of course! Its a nice feeling when you know your on the right track.

June 7th Sunday Morning Review

Missed the opening credits because I hit the snooze button. Thankfully my mother called me at 9:06 to tell me it was going to be a good show and I should get up. I rise and turn the T.V. on to see them interviewing the CEO of Tim Horton's! Ya! I love Tim Horton's I was just saying how I missed their convenient food and deliciously cheap mochas. Tim Horton was apparently a hockey player who started a doughnut/sandwich/coffee shop. The Morning Show (TMS) described how crazy popular Tim Horton's is in Canada. Its a defining landmark in which it seems you could find one in every small town of all ten provinces and three territories. I found the difference between Tim Horton's representative and Dunkin' Donuts to be amusing. Of course the Canadian is just happy-go-lucky, non-assuming, and humble about his success. The DD guy comes off like a used car salesman talking about how they are going to double the 6,000 store locations in ten years.

Next TMS highlighted Norman Lear and all his dedicated work over the years to his job and various causes. This guy has done amazing things from having influential hit television shows (All in the Family) to supporting music education in the third world! I especially like his campaigns encouraging civic engagement like People for the American Way and Declare Yourself. He even owns one of the original copy's of the Constitution of the United States, 1 of 23 in existence for 1.8 million dollars! He's all about urging people to get involved regardless of their political affiliations because that's what makes democracy work.

One final segment to mention here regarded this really smart, ahead-of-his-time scientist named Buckminster Fuller. He strove to build cost and energy efficient vehicles and homes that could with stand anything nature threw at them. He was most well known for his geodesic dome Believing scientific breakthroughs could be discovered through a focus on natural sciences Fuller created innovative solutions to problems of expensive and low quality housing.

The nature scene showed the beautiful waterfalls of a natural area in New Mexico.

Photo courtesy of SamuraiCatJB

The Source

Last night enjoyed a film documenting the source of the beatnik generation. The focus was of course upon Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. All created influential literature challenging the mainstream way of being. Considering what was going on in the world around its not surprising a counter-culture would develop. America was so white washed and battered from years of war and depression. Capitalistic conformity offered a nice heat lamp to the cold and insecure world they had been existing in for sometime. As the second world war ended and the U.S. was coming to fully appreciate the military industrial complex, a subset of youth took up the opportunity to consider difference in their vanilla surroundings. Their writings are profound, edgy and full of wanderlust. No doubt much of it influenced by their sphere expanding adventures with chemicals and "grass." Thankfully youth are in a middling stage of life granting them the opportunity to consider alternatives and not have the full pressure of survival on your back. These guys just wanted to be themselves and experience life as they so desired rather than having to bend and mold to a factory manufactured life ordered out of the Sears Roebuck catalog. Kerouac and the others were not afraid to have not, and balked at picket fences. They preferred instability and did not judge their worth on traditional successes. The Beatnik generation were catalyst for change in society; doing the prep work for the hippie generation to follow. While segments of society pushing for change exist always; at times they are more pronounced than others. We can identify other sources of change in the years after the Beats through understanding influential artist and authors of the time. Ha here's an idea maybe its more about the drug of choice for the time...for the 80's cocaine was energizing a generation of stock traders and money makers. The 90's crack rock led to violence and sickened an ethnic segment of the population. The 2000's are being marked for its variety of drug choices including ones made of chemicals to be found in every day items. This generation is marked by its diversity, an inability to focus, and an abundance of information. When Howl and Naked Lunch were written the flow of information was more singular and predefined. Nowadays the provocative flow of information spews from multi-faceted networks continuously and without discretion. Counter-cultures thrive in this environment and whitewashing is so taboo that RGB-washing could not be used to describe the political correctness justified prominence of ethnicity in all areas of society. The Source now comes from a multitude of information formats and distribution mechanisms. Still I am romanticized by the idea that I could be apart of such a group willing to do without traditional milestones of American Life and live as the moment allows according to your own worldly ideals of right and wrong.

"There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth...not going all the way, and not starting.” Buddha. Happy to be here!