Son of Bag O'Links: News Stories that Caught Doug's Eye

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Thursday, 16 July 2009

(09:59:37 CDT)

Son of Bag O'Links: News Stories that Caught Doug's Eye

Currently listening to Burning Babylon's "Knives to the Treble" via Magnatune stream. It's free to stream at the link, if you want to do the same. Reggae/Dub. Not quite as creative as some of the minimalist "noise" versions of the same thing that I have heard, but different. Definitely different. If nothing else, check out track #2. Ooo, and track #7. Like all of Magnatune's stuff, you can stream it on the website or download the streaming playlist if you prefer.

Library Conference Secret Twitter Proves Librarians Sexy, Stern (Washington CityPaper). Librarians embrace technology to get all sexy and hookup with other librarians at the ALA national conference. Sort of. A fair number appear to be Tweets with some degree of confusion about where all the sexy librarianism was. Have I told you that some librarians got into the field due to fetishism? Expect more confused bibliophiles in the future. That, or expect a future of sexbrarians. (wouldn't you love to see the code of ethics on that group? I: If it's sexy, do it! II: Are you doing it? III: Oh, yeah...)

Just so you do not get the idea that ALA was all about sexbrarianship, here is a more formal write-up of the conference: ALA Annual Conference focuses on economy's impact on libraries, intellectual freedom, privacy (ALA). The gist: libraries are broke, people are still trying to find a way to get around privacy, and PR is more important than ever.

Ill. Officials Want Tougher Cemetery Regulations (NPR Morning Edition, download mp3 at linked site or play in NPR playlist). A historically black Chicago cemetery illicitly shipped out some amount of human remains, and people are unsure the extent of the problem. Records are extremely shabby, with one official saying that a lot of the records were stored on index cards, unsorted, tossed in a draw, and allowed to mildew and congeal into a clump of unreadable mess. Some with loved ones are unsure where the bodies even are anyhow, due to poor markings on the graves, which only complicates everything. Something of a salvation and fix is underway, but the prognosis is grim.

A bonus NPR Morning Edition story on a whole other topic is about the eating of nopalitos, aka prickly pear cactus. I grew up in an area with lots of the things, I am definitely curious.

Not so much news, as a book, Tor's blog has an entry on the book The Sun and the Moon. A 19th century hoaxster convinced folk that he had seen life on the moon, and while I'm sure some people were doubtful, a good number fell for it. The book seems really interesting. I've ordered a bargain copy through Amazon.com and I'll review it after reading it.

I guess that about wraps up the things that caught my attention this morning. Oh, by the way, it says something about how "liberal" my news sources are when NPR is the first place I hear discussion about how illegal immigrants are contributing to California's economic collapse. It was an interesting report that shows how complex the issue is when trying to figure things like costs, especially when you factor in taxes and stuff they contribute (for some reason, in most screeds against illegal immigrants, people at least pretend to have no idea that everyone pays taxes in some form or another...which is shocking, because it really is that same crowd who get all frothy at the mouth during those Tea Party events and actively call themselves, strangely, tea-baggers...which might be an accurate description of their Saturday nights for all I know: sweet tea and sweaty tea-bagging). You can read the written version of the report here: California Ballot Measure Targets Illegal Immigrants.

Si Vales, Valeo

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