Over the past week people have been mocking Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s proposal for a colony on the moon. But Gingrich’s idea reflects humanity’s long-standing fascination with the idea of going to space—and possibly staying there. The first fictional treatment of space travel is the ancient Roman author Lucian’s True History, in which a group of men traveling by boat are lifted up to the moon by a giant waterspout. A little closer to our own time space travel was the subject of the early silent film La Voyage dans la lune by the legendary French filmmaker Georges Méliès:
If you would like to learn a little about the practicalities of lunar colonization, take a look at this CNN report. Opinions differ on whether a lunar colony is a good idea. Forbes’ E. D. Kain says it is. Slate’s Lawrence Krauss says it isn’t.
To learn more about the moon and lunar exploration (and see some great photographs) check out this section of the Lunar and Planetary Institute website. You could also check out season one of the documentary series The Universe.
pictured, l to r: Library Director Maria Carpenter, Thy Toeum, Jim Ventura, and Mayor Joseph Curtatone
Cup o’ Joe with Joe” is the City of Somerville’s employee recognition program to acknowledge the efforts made by those employees or departments who have gone above and beyond in their usual job responsibilities. This month’s winners are the Library’s own Jim and Thy! Congratulations guys, you earned it!
It’s a tough week for Patriots fans, waiting and waiting for the big game. But hang in there, people, Sunday’s coming. In the meantime, here’s a short list of Pats books to help you pass the time.
Why hello Somerville! I’ve been meaning to write for some time. I attempted to write last week and my post was lost before it was ever saved. Well, the headline (this headline) was saved. Does this sound like, “The dog ate my homework?”
Some of you know that I am studying leadership in a doctoral program at Simmons. Through practice and study, I think about leadership a heck of a lot. I’ve read elegant works and well designed studies about leadership theory, power theory, organizational design, human resource management, organizational culture, and financial management. I certainly have gleaned a lot from these works and their findings. However, the one guiding work that I go back to time and time again is When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron. Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist Nun who gives her readers practical tools for living including breathing and meditation techniques for dealing with stress and anxiety. Most profoundly, Pema cuts to the chase of what she believes brings people together, a better understanding and acceptance of ourselves just as we are, which enables us to have more compassion toward others. She describes this as opening up those soft spots and practicing loving kindness toward ourselves and others. When I think about how to be a good leader and public servant, I always go back to Pema because her readings help me to be a better, more compassionate, more loving human being. I believe loving kindness is at the core of leading.
If you use Gmail, YouTube, Picassa, or any other Google tools, keep reading. As of March 1, Google will be integrating your data from all of their services that you use, and you won’t be able to opt out. The company is spinning this change as positive: according to the Policies & Principles FAQ, Google users can expect “better search results, ads and other content.” One of the company’s examples? “Maybe we can tell you that you’ll be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and the local traffic conditions.”
Frankly, I don’t want a company knowing that much about me. I am also curious about the legality of this new privacy policy, given that last year Google signed an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission that requires the company to “obtain express affirmative consent” from users any time it wants expand its sharing of certain types of personal information. I haven’t read the actual text of the settlement, and not being a lawyer, I’m not qualified to interpret it.
At least some members of my own profession don’t seem to think Google’s new privacy policy is a big deal. Over at LISNews.com, one contributor has written, “The fact of the matter is, Google doesn’t appear to be doing anything worse than what companies like Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook have doing for years. It’s just that Google has taken arguably unprecedented pains to alert the public of imminent changes to its privacy policies and has made the new policy approachable enough for the average person to read it.”
Others aren’t so sanguine. Gizmodo’s Matt Honan has called the policy change “evil.” Meanwhile eight Congressmen have written an open letter to Google CEO Larry Page sharply questioning the policy change, and insisted upon getting answers no later than February 16. Ed Markey (D-MA) released a separate statement of his own saying he will ask the Federal Trade Commission whether or not this change violates the 2011 settlement I referred to above. If you want to learn more about the proposed privacy policy, you can read what Google itself has to say. And The Washington Post has a FAQ that explains the changes as clearly as anything I’ve seen.
FYI: on Wednesday, Jan. 18 you won’t be able to use Wikipedia, Wordpress or TwitPic. Nor will you be able to access Reddit or the Internet Archive. These a few of the sites that are going dark to protest the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA (that’s the name of the House bill, which has gotten the most press; PIPA is its Senate equivalent). The act is intended to stop online infringement of copyrighted material; the act would not only criminalize (for example) an amateur cover of a Jay-Z song that was put on YouTube, but (if my understanding is correct) YouTube itself would be held responsible. The proposed legislation would also call on Internet Service Providers to block access to such offending sites. In theory, if you post an image or video you don’t own to Facebook and the owner complains, Facebook could be shut down. Experts at many organizations, including Sandia National Laboratories, not only consider the bill’s provisions unworkable, but believe they would damage the functionality of the Internet itself.
If you want to know more about SOPA and PIPA, ABC News has a good summation here. CNET’s take is here. And here’s a defense of SOPA by one of its sponsors.
Somerville Reads 2012, our third annual community reads program, is coming this spring! The theme is food, and we’re asking for your help with two things: recipes and stories.
We will compile a community cookbook so we all can share some of our favorite dishes with our neighbors. A few ideas for recipes you might like to submit include: cooking for a crowd; kid favorites; local roots/ingredients; or family heritage. We’re going to print copies and sell them at our kickoff event, which will be a potluck meal. We hope that people will bring lots of the dishes featured in the cookbook. Proceeds from the sale of the books will go toward future programming at the Libraries.
Here are three ways to submit your recipe:
drop it off at any Somerville Public Library location, care of Ellen Jacobs or
e-mail it to ejacobs@minlib.net or
mail it to:
Somerville Public Library
79 Highland Avenue
Somerville, MA 02143
Attention: Ellen Jacobs
We don’t know if we’ll be able to print all of the recipes – it depends on how many submissions we get and whether there are duplicates – but we’ll use as many as we can. If you didn’t invent the recipe yourself, please make sure that you include credit where it’s due (ie: “found this recipe in my mother’s old Fanny Farmer” or “clipped this out of the Globe Sunday magazine years ago”.) The deadline for submissions is March 1st – we hope you’ll send an idea for something yummy our way!
We’re also asking you to share your stories. We’re planning an open-mike night for people to tell food-themed stories 5 to 10 minutes long. Do you have a good one – maybe a personal experience of trying an exotic dish in a foreign land, a reminiscence of learning to make a family favorite with a grandparent, or a familiar folktale you’ve always loved? Come tell the tale, and hear others tell their stories too!
More details about the kickoff, open-mike night, and other Somerville Reads programs will be coming soon.
I am reading the J.Courtney Sullivan novels! I read her recent bestseller, Maine, the story of the Kelleher clan and the deep dark secret of their matriarch Alice - the story is set in Wells, ME and the surrounding coastal towns of York, Ogunquit, and Kennebunk/Kennebunkport - fun to read about all the places I frequent, as well as totally relate to growing up as an Irish Catholic in the 50’s and 60’s - I enjoyed the book so much I moved right on to her first novel Commencement - this is the story of four women and their lives before, during, and after their graduation from Smith College. Sullivan’s writing style is packed full of detail and emotion and it draws the reader into the story making you feel like you are sitting at a table as an observer watching the story unfold.
I also finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett (I heard about it, then it fell off my radar until I saw the movie trailer and so it became a “must read.”) I loved it! This is a fascinating account of life in the South during the late 50’s early 60’s and the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on their established way of life. What is amazing is the author’s ability to capture the vernacular and highlight/explain “the system” that brought young black women into the employment of white women. Parts of the book were hilarious, parts were deeply moving in terms of the human condition.
After that, I moved on to The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson - I literally couldn’t put it down. This one has a mysterious stranger, a whirlwind romance, “Les Genevriers,” an abandoned house with an enigmatic past located in the French countryside of Provence, and a sudden realization by our main character Eve, that her husband’s first wife disappeared just a few years before without a trace! The story goes back and forth by chapters telling the story in the current time and many years in the past to build the story and correlate what happened in the house in the past (dark secrets!) and the apparitions that are starting to re-appear in the present. What is the significance of “The Lantern” you ask? You must read the novel to discover all the hidden tragedies that threaten to destroy Eve and her paramour! Il est tres bon!
As I’ve told you before, there are a lot of great free resources on the web where you can find collections of materials that are more specialized (and more interesting) than the random grab bag of sites you net in your usual Google search.
If you like historic images, you owe it to yourself to try out the Library of Congress’ Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. It’s amazing what’s here: panoramic photos of the West taken in the 1890s, photocrom prints of Old Russia, World War I posters, eighteenth-century cartoons, Civil War photographs—and that’s only a fraction of what’s available.
Or perhaps paintings and sculpture are more to your taste. In that case, check out Mark Harden’s Artchive, a virtual art gallery ranging from Ancient Egyptian to twentieth century art. It’s searchable by title, artist or keyword. Visitors can also browse by artist, period or movement. You can also buy posters or create your own custom wall calendar. The Artchive is also a great source for computer desktops displays.
Now we move from still images to moving ones. Do you like old documentaries? Do you have a fondness for old commercials, PSAs, and newsreels? If so, you need to visit the Prelinger Archive. This online film repository has historically significant items such as clips from the Kennedy-Nixon debate and footage of San Francisco just after the 1906 earthquake. The archive also provides some eerie windows into our cultural past, including the civil defense classics ‘Duck and Cover” (below) and “About Fallout,” as well as some truly cringe-worthy educational films, such as “What to Do on a Date” (1950) and “Joan Avoids a Cold” (1947). The only thing some of these films lack is an introduction by Troy McClure.
Somerville Reads 2012, our third annual community reads program, is coming this spring! The theme is food, and we’re asking for your help with two things: recipes and stories.
I am reading the J.Courtney Sullivan novels! I read her recent bestseller, 
I also finished 
After that, I moved on to 
If you like historic images, you owe it to yourself to try out the Library of Congress’ 
Entries (RSS)