—Candide, by Voltaire
It was still a raw nerve that had been touched, an underwater nerve that I’ll never entirely be rid of I’m sure. And as I went walking out to the jetty on my own that night I remember sighing deeply at the truth that no matter how far out you go, no matter how many miles from the scenes of your distress, even if you settle at the other end of the earth the ghosts that trouble you will always be there. Like the moon and stars in the sky.
Meanwhile, James Comey posted in his usual sanctimonious style and was thoroughly owned:
Why Pretty Much Everything You Know About Depression Is Wrong
A new book takes issue with the widespread medicalization of depression.
Dear New York Times: Um, Here’s What An Actual Sensitivity Reader Does
Leadership is the hard task of getting communities to make progress on difficult problems requiring adaptive change. It is not to be confused with authority. Beware of the call for a “strong leader”. Continue reading
Here Are The Top E-Books For 2017 On Apple’s Bookstore
Topping the fiction chart was John Grisham’s Camino Island, followed by The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Grisham had three books among the top 20 selling fiction books in the year, withThe Rooster Bar landing at #16 and The Whistler at #18.
Publisher Of ‘Fire And Fury’ Talks About Fighting Trump’s Cease-And-Desist Letter
Macmillan CEO John Sargent: “The person who told me said, ‘Are you sitting down?’ and I said yes, and they said, ‘We have just received a cease-and-desist letter from the president of the United States.’ The reason I was stunned is that it is actually hard to conceive that a sitting president of the United States would issue a cease-and-desist order, because it is extraordinarily unconstitutional.”
Did Wikileaks Violate Copyright By Tweeting A Link To Download Of “Fire and Fury”?
The hardcover book that costs $18 on Amazon was suddenly free for anyone via WikiLeaks’s Twitter page. The tweet, which includes a link to a PDF file saved on Google Drive, raised questions about possible copyright infringement — and whether those who click on the link and download the free file could face legal troubles.
The USA is a complex place with its vices, virtues and differences. Despite its noble ideals and democratic institutions, it has a long history of aggression and of overthrowing democracies in the pursuit of American commercial or strategic interests. It does not have the moral high ground and its lectures to other countries can be counter-productive. It does not observe the rules it demands from others.. This does not make it any worse than other countries but no better either. Australia should judge it by the same standards that we apply to other counties. We cannot trust Chinese and Russian propaganda and intelligence but nor can we trust the Americans. It is very dangerous to put all our strategic eggs in the one basket especially when we don’t know what the threat will be and when the US has a president as unpredictable as Donald Trump. Let us be friends but not a client state. Continue reading
Our perception of color cannot be reduced to physics or to psychology. It’s neither external or internal, but somehow in between The gaps
The British writer Ann Quin wrote novels that took aim at aesthetic orthodoxy. They didn’t catch on in the 1960s, but has their time arrived? Queen
We’re awash in life-hacking tips and self-optimization. Do yourself a favor: Put away the self-help guides Read Cold River
59 and seven 7 months
As of today, no US airlines operate the mighty Boeing 747 ars technica. We love 747sAnd you know something is happening
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
—from “Ballad of a Thin Man,” Bob Dylan
New Poetry Awards Funded By Art-World Superstars
“Each award was endowed by visual artists like Ellsworth Kelly and his partner, Jack Shear, as well as the foundations of Cy Twombly and Roy Lichtenstein.” The first round of winners are Lisa Robertson, Anne Boyer, and Fred Moten.
An idea to kick off 2018 – think of each librarian (this includes all relevant job titles) to be in essence, a living breathing library. The wide ranging expertise of each librarian engages and employs skills that include communications, marketing, research, technology innovations, teaching, training, knowledge discovery, building communities (including those of best practice), ensuring access to increasingly siloed information and resources that even a decade ago were freely accessible (but have since been warehoused, are otherwise off limits to direct use or even discarded). If considered in this light, the regular predictions of the demise of libraries (which have been spoken and written since at least 1990), take on a different hue. Moving forward, let us share the critical value of our profession and our services, and the critical value of books, on a regular basis, with all the communities, large and small, for whom we work, and whom we serve. Stepping off tiny soap box and on to: The Extinction of Libraries: Why the Predictions aren’t Coming True