Via PLG and KYW

Judge Heidi fox has ruled in favor of library advocates. Mayor Nutter
cannot close 11 branches without first getting Philadelphia city council
approval.The end result, all of the branches slated to be permanently
closed as of New Years Eve will remain open. Library advocates have
maintained through this two days hearing that library branches are
essential to the fabric of the community; for the children, their
homework and hobbies and staying out of trouble (see previous stories).

For many single adults libraries help people with job applications and
resumes. And for older adults, just to keep busy, because after all,
they point out, fifty percent of Philadelphians don’t have computers in
their homes.Throughout these two days, the Nutter administration, said
it had to close these library branches because of an overall cutback
because of a worsening budget situation, and because of a state law,
City Hall must balance its budget in a current five-year plan which
projects a one billion dollar deficit.
The judge focused her entire case on an ordinance from 1988, a section
in an ordinance, section 16-43, that says any city owned building cannot
be abandoned or closed without city council approval.

http://www.kyw1060.com/For-Now–All-Phila–Library-Branches-to-Stay-Open/3577021

From the CHE via Kathleen de la Peña McCook

November 30, 2008

The University of California will set aside money from its own budget to continue a labor-research program on its Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated from the state budget in September, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Mark G. Yudof, president of the university system, agreed to use $4- million in university funds to keep the Miguel Contreras Labor Program operating through this fiscal year, which ends on June 30, the newspaper said. The university is also asking the state to finance the program next year.

The program, whose budget the governor also has proposed cutting in previous years, has produced policy research and educated students on labor and employment issues for eight years. Portions of the program´s work, including training for union leaders, have often sparked controversy among politicians in the state.

After the governor´s veto of money for the program this fall, more than 400 faculty and staff members at California colleges sent Mr.

Schwarzenegger a letter of protest in which they called the elimination of the program an “unwarranted political interference in the academic activities of the University of California.”

Aides to the governor have said that the cut was not political, but that the state´s budget deficit had forced him to eliminate money for several state programs.

The $4-million the university will spend on the program is $1.4- million shy of the amount that was cut from the state budget. That $1.4-million would have been used to pay for small grants and other funds for campuses other than those in Berkeley and Los Angeles to conduct labor and employment research, the San Francisco newspaper said. -Sara Hebel

Via The American Prospect

Michelle and her daughter M.J. sit in a coffee shop in a Wyoming strip mall, just over the border from their small town in Colorado. M.J., an eighth-grader, shyly sips her iced mocha and speaks with the “likes” endemic to junior-high hallways. Michelle talks with a calm and slightly tired maternal presence. She and M.J. take turns explaining how they learned to remake the boundaries of their own hometown.

M.J. was born a boy, Michelle explains, but as M.J. grew up, she made it clear to Michelle that she didn’t feel like one. “I knew something was going on at age two,” Michelle says. “But I couldn’t accept it at the time. So I put a lot of time into changing her or suppressing her.” But M.J. didn’t change, and she continued to insist on wearing skirts and dresses and play with “girl typical” toys. In sixth grade, the school counselor called Michelle to tell her that the other kids were teasing M.J. and that it was only getting worse. “They were concerned because she was being open about who she was. The way she acted, the way she dressed,” Michelle explains. That’s when she knew that it wasn’t a phase, and it wasn’t a “problem.” This was who M.J. was.

In Loveland, Colorado — population 61,000, 92 percent white and heavily evangelical Christian — Michelle didn’t know what to expect when she began to work with the school to facilitate her daughter’s transition from a boy to a girl. more»

Via Hatewatch (thanks Gabe!)

Two years after glorifying the border vigilante movement in Minutemen: Battle to Secure America’s Borders, a book he co-authored with Minuteman Project leader Jim Gilchrist, right-wing propagandist and conspiracy hound Jerome Corsi found himself being deported—from Kenya.

Immigration agents in Nairobi detained Corsi earlier today because, as one official told the New York Times, “His immigration forms were not in order.” Corsi was on his way to a press conference when he was taken into custody and forced to surrender his passport.

It wasn’t the first time in recent months that Corsi’s attempts to generate publicity have gone awry. In mid-August, just as Corsi was in the midst of a blitz of media appearances to promote his latest bestseller, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, Hatewatch revealed that Corsi had recently been a guest on the Political Cesspool, an overtly anti-Semitic and white supremacist radio show, and that he was scheduled to appear on the show again. (Corsi subsequently backed out of the second Cesspool appearance). more»

These tee-shirts are being sold by the Denver Police Union.

Every officer is given one for free, but you can buy one for only $10!

Via BoingBoing, via The Denver Channel

Day three of the RNC and what has gone on during the convention is neither surprising or unusual, but intensely disappointing none-the-less. Perhaps saddest of all is the case of the St. Paul 8, a group of people who have been “arrested and charged with second-degree furtherance of terrorism, conspiracy to riot, conspiracy to commit civil disorder and conspiracy to damage property.” Those arrested include members of the RNC Welcoming Committee and are being held on$75,000 bail each. “If convicted, each faces up to five years in jail, a $10,000 fine, or both.” Items gathered in the search at the time of their detainment include gas masks, protective padding, homemade shields, locks and slingshots–sounds to me like they were trying to protect themselves.
You can read their press release here

You can donate to help here

For more info go here, here, here, and here 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 2008

ST. PAUL, MN
Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here. Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the RepublicanNational Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.Ramsey County Sherrif Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul. Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amenmdent rights of these journalists. During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt tointimidate journalists from the nation’s leading independent news outlet.Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.
Contact:
Dennis Moynihan
Mike Burke

Some of you may know that I am at a conference in Quebec- IFLA ,to present a paper with Melisssa Morrone from BPL. I had heard tell of this but was forwarded this article tonight, I’ll post it in full. Needless to say this is outrageous and sad and frankly, embarassing.

“Twenty-seven librarians ran into difficulty trying to get visas for an international conference in Quebec City and 13 of them were refused, the president of the International Federation of Library Associations said yesterday.

“We had very few refused when we had our conference in Boston in 2001,” said president Claudia Lux. “This is really very strange and I can’t understand it at all. This is a very high number.”

Those refused included Dr. Fariborz Khosrav, the deputy director of the National Library of Iran, five Colombians, two each from Egypt and Nepal and one each from Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa. The 13th person’s name was unknown, she said.

The status of another was still undermined. They included six Iranians, two Nigerians and one each from Kenya, Mauritius and Turkey.

Victoria Okojie, president of the Nigerian Library Association, received an email from Citizenship and Immigration Canada yesterday inviting her to reapply, with no guarantees. The conference ends next Thursday but Okojie said she would give it another shot.

She was refused, said CIC spokesperson Danielle Norris, because she failed to supply banking statements, proof of income or evidence of strong family and financial ties to Nigeria.The decision, said Norris, is entirely based on providing exactly what the website asks for.

With 3,500 participants at the conference, 13 outright rejections means “they did very well,” she said.”

A library worker in Alamance County has been arrested & charged with 4 federal felonies. Marxavi Angel Martinez is a long time resident of the town, a former honor student and mother who was brought to the United States as a toddler. The State Bureau of Investigation has been investigating cases of fraud, and may have examined confidential medical records in order to find and deport those illegally in the country, like Martinez.

“Alamance County commissioners recently passed a resolution that the health department offer only emergency services to illegal immigrants. The resolution is largely symbolic: State and federal laws override it.

County Commissioner Bill Lashley, who proposed the resolution and is a member of the health board, said he hopes to drive out illegal immigrants by denying them health care. He said he wants all patients to prove legal status, a measure Hoke said would be illegal.

“If they can’t prove they’re here legal,” Lashley said, “ship ‘em back to Mexico.”

The charges stem, authorities have announced, from using the Social Security number of a deceased citizen & if found guilty there will be prison time before deportation.  Since her arrest, her husband, father, mother and sibling have been deported. It is not known what the fate of her 2 year old son, who is a U.S. citizen, will be.

Via Kathleen de la Pena McCook

The New Observer Online

Sean Tevis is running for State Representative in Kansas against the super effed up Arlen Siegfried. He’s an Information Architect who seems to have some reasonably progressive views that don’t seem too abhorrent. He is looking for just 3000 people to donate $8.34 each. The current representative is an anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-censorship fool, and Kansas could use our support, since they have been getting the raw end of the deal for quite a while now.

Donate!

Thank goodness, both the ACLU and the EFF have filed suit in reaction to the passing of the overreaching and illegal wiretapping FISA bill.

More here, here and here.

Extra bummer? Obama voted for the bill. . Think Rosa Clemente would have supported it?

Thank you as always, BoingBoing

Today congress is set to pass the FISA Amendments act of 2008 bill, which will make it legal to wiretap anyone in America without a warrant. This includes your e-mails &  telephone conversations (landlines and cell) but also includes other kinds of tapping. BoingBoing posted a great video called “What Every American Needs To Know (and do) About FISA Before Wed., July 9th” with Daniel Ellsberg. I recently had the good fortune to see Daniel Ellsberg speak at the Annual ALA conference in Anaheim at the Alexander Street Press Breakfast. Ellsberg worked for the Rand Corp, The Pentagon and then for The State Department and in 1971 he leaked The Pentagon Papers to the press to illustrate that the government was committing a massive fraud against the public by stating among many other things that victory in Vietnam was possible and eminent. He wrote a book about it that sounds pretty interesting.

It’s not to late to do something. Watch The video, then visit the EFF’s Action Page to get info on contacting your representative.

Links:

to one of the BoingBoing articles, and another & to an excellent Slate article, and to the bill.

Google has been ordered by a US court to divulge their information regarding what we watch on YouTube, the “viewing log, which will be handed to Viacom, contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details.” Twelve terabytes of data are being handed over to Viacom, who believes that YouTube is guilty of some serious copyright infringement. This has far reaching implications in regards to privacy, copyright, information retrival and our rights as consumers, but the potential embarassment for all those viewing puppies chasing kids or that awful Tina girl is also pretty strong.

Via BBC

I don’t know how I missed this, but this week, after 52 years of operation The Donnell Library in NYC is closing. It doesn’t sound like the librarians and library workers knew too much about it either..
“I cried,” said Esther Hauzwig, 77, who works two days a week at the information desk at Donnell, recalling her reaction to the news last November that the library would close for several years. “I’ve been working here for 25 years.” When asked if she would miss the current building, she replied: “You bet your sweet bippy! I am not disappointed. I am furious!”(NYT City Room Blog)

The building is being torn down to make room for a hotel, which (oddly) will house a new “branch” of the Donnell in the basement.

Said a long time patron, Mr. Rabadi “A library is like a laboratory for culture…We’ve lost the fabric of life. The whole place has become a shopping mall.”He found no consolation in the fact that part of the new hotel will house a library. “They will offer us a grave in the basement,” he said. “Maybe this is a reflection on the value of culture. Capitalism has no mercy for culture. So culture becomes subversive — like reading in a bomb shelter.”

Confusion abounds though as to what that will mean–NYPL details where the collections, including the much loved Winnie -the-Pooh & friends doll collection, will be moved– here. This branch was well loved and well used in the community given it’s location (W 53rd, across from the Museum Of Modern Art) and will be missed. Read more from the NYT here.

The “Golden Voice of The Great Southwest” Utah Phillips, died in Nevada of congestive heart failure this weekend. Phillips was an archivist, Wobbly, musician, hobo and radio producer, and influenced the likes of Tom Waits, Waylon Jennings and Emmylou Harris, who all performed his songs. Phillips influenced me as a radio producer and I am sad to see him go.

Listen to Democracy Now’s Interview and tribute to him here. And you can read The Sierra Sun article here.

The family requests memorial donations to Hospitality House, P.O. Box 3223, Grass Valley, Calif. 95945, (530) 271-7144 or www.hospitalityhouseshelter.org.

Found via NOTCOT

A random timeline of when things will cease to exist. Libraries will disappear in 2019 but coins will last until 2032? No way. Also, according to this, both innocence and hope went extinct in 2001 and real hankerchiefs will go the same way in 2018? Again, no way.

click here to view it bigger.

I realize that there are many more important things than books, (clean water, food, shelter, health care..) but you can donate to the Chinese America Library Association (CALA) to help rebuild the estimated 21 libraries decimated  by the recent disasterous earthquake in Sichuan Province.

To make a donation please go to http://www.cala-web.org/forms/earthquakedonation.htm

Michael Dowling
Director- International Relations Office
Chapter Relations Office
American Library Association
50 East Huron Street
Chicago, IL 60611
mdowling@ala.org
ph +1 312-280-3200
fax +1 312-280-4392
www.ala.org

(via Librarian Activist)

My colleague and friend Char Booth and I wrote an article for Library Journal which is online now- My mother said she doesn’t know what it’s about exactly, but it sounds “very forward thinking” this is Southern code for “is this going to get you in trouble at work?” So far I haven’t heard any negative response, and I haven’t been called on to the carpet at work–but we’d love to know what you think. You can tell us here.

wtf is moxie?

From NYT Online

A West Village restaurant where a woman said she was asked to leave the women’s restroom, and then the premises, because she looked too much like a man will pay her $35,000 and has agreed to change its workplace practices.

The woman, Khadijah Farmer of Hell’s Kitchen, who describes herself as “not the most feminine,” went to the restaurant, the Caliente Cab Company, with her partner, Joelle Evans, after the Gay Pride Parade on June 24 last year.

While she was in the women’s bathroom, a male bouncer burst in and told her that she had to leave. Although Ms. Farmer showed him her state nondriver photo identification card, which identified her as a woman, the bouncer insisted that she leave the bathroom, and subsequently her entire group was ejected from the restaurant.

The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund filed suit in October in State Supreme Court in Manhattan against Caliente Cab, asserting that she was the victim of gender discrimination.

While Ms. Farmer has always identified herself as a woman, the defense fund took up the case because it touched upon many issues that transgender people commonly face and could set an interesting legal precedent, representatives of the group said. more»

Yesterday I heard Brewster Kahle on NPR’s On The Media talking about the National Security Letter that was served to his organization The Internet Archive by the FBI back in November. When they were served he was then automatically gagged from discussing the NSL with anyone other than his lawyers. “The NSL program, expanded when Congress passed the… Patriot Act shortly after… Sept. 11, 2001… allows the FBI and other U.S. government agencies to issue administrative subpoenas to U.S. businesses for customer and other personal information.” When Kahle refused to comply with the order- which asked for personal information about a user of the IA, their address and activity logs, he, the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit against the FBI on constitutional grounds (in Kahle’s words “Push back”).

Long story short, the FBI withdrew the NSL (as they have each time they have been challenged..3 out of some 200,000 between 2003 and 2006) the gag order was lifted, and freedom prevailed.

In the On The Media piece (transcript up later today), Bob Garfield asks a question along the lines of ‘Do you think they didn’t realize that they were serving a NSL to a library?’  Who wouldn’t consider the collection of everything ever online EVER, a library? Um, our government, that’s who.