NP - There is Still Journalism - It's Just Not Here

[Ian Livingston]

Yes, thank you, Rich. I add my voice to the choir: the library has
always been the safe place for me. Better than church. (My dad was the
minister.) Losing libraries terrifies me.

Still, the schools and the media are the only hope a society has of
opening the door in the ceiling for those who might otherwise never
have the opportunity to learn the pleasures and challenges of reading
and research. If the majority is to be moved, the people must first
learn that there are options to their unhappy experience, and threats
to their happiness. The media must be responsive to the needs of the
people, so David's original message fills me with rage no less because
I enjoy looking further than than what is presented to me.

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 8:36 AM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Great post, Rich.  My local library is operating on reduced hours, but it has a weekly chess club and collections of books in English, Russian, Hebrew, Chinese, Spanish and Urdu.  With the large chain bookstores on the decline (which seemed to usurp the role of community center from libraries), libraries are more important than ever.
>
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>>Sent: Dec 8, 2011 11:31 AM
>>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>Subject: Re: NP - There is Still Journalism - It's Just Not Here
>>
>> Rich, I think I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed your post.
>>On Dec 8, 2011, at 9:34 AM, rich wrote:
>>
>>> I think it boils down to the initiative on the part of any individual
>>> to stay informed; like good music or good sex it takes some sweat to
>>> find the well-informed, those perceptive enough to teach us something
>>> we didnt know before in a compelling way.
>>> Being in the library trade for a part of my career I have to say it is
>>> the last bastion of social equality (some may the the best) where
>>> anyone anywhere can find a refuge to the sickening glut of nonsense
>>> out there. an example: I grew up on Long Island in a mostly moderate
>>> Republican county. it has since become less than moderate. when i
>>> recently visited I saw firsthand the devastation of the mortgage
>>> crisis--large swathes of the main drag abandoned with weeds growing in
>>> parking lots, shops about to close, very empty restaurants at dinner
>>> time and the plethora of for sale signs on homes if they hadnt been
>>> abandoned in turn themselves, the festering racism against latinos who
>>> you usually see walking everywhere to their crappy construction jobs
>>> or back to a rented house filled with twenty-something lonely guys.
>>> Anyway, the one place during my recent visit that made my heart a
>>> little bit lighter was the local library that I used to go to--with
>>> its refurbished Jules Verne type architecture, outer wings looked like
>>> Nemo's ship, a great improvement over the bland building I used to
>>> happily enter as a kid in the 70s.
>>> Inside you saw posters of understanding, many children of many nations
>>> and colors holding hands, actors encouraging kids to read, heck even a
>>> small coffee machine. Behind the circulation desk a muslim woman (in
>>> full dress) checking out books for a small family. I was tempted to go
>>> up to her and quietly whisper to her that I was glad she was there.
>>>
>>> We lose libraries, well I doubt we'd have much of a soul left.
>>> Rich
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 10:48 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>>  It just keeps getting worse. NPR has gone the same way,  My local library is going the same way . All  its new books are crap. I wonder how many have just turned American pop news off and gone to selective browsing.  The battle of the soundbites. The distant uprisings and wars. Words like linked, tied,  took out, Lot of 1984.
>>>> On Dec 7, 2011, at 10:12 AM, David Morris wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> http://www.intothestreet.org/
>>>>>
>>>>> There is Still Journalism - It's Just Not Here
>>>>>
>>>>> The corporate news media is still serving solid, nourishing
>>>>> journalistic food to the rest of the world. Here at home, Americans
>>>>> are fed the journalistic equivalent of candy and soda pop. For proof,
>>>>> just compare the covers of three international editions of Time
>>>>> Magazine to their domestic U.S. edition for the same week. (7
>>>>> examples)
>>>>
>>
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant