I love being a Teen Librarian.

Survey responses indicate that librarians learn about ebooks in a variety of ways, but that actions by publishers and book vendors are very important in the process. Book vendors and inclusion in content packages were most frequently marked as very significant methods for learning about ebooks. However, these methods were also frequently marked as significant or very significant: request from patron (54), colleagues (57), reference in the research literature (56), inclusion in content package (74), book vendor (77), and publisher marketing material (68).

Users discover ebooks through the library catalog and through Internet search engines

Monday — March 8th, 2010

   First of all, I have to tell you that all the snow has finally melted with the exception of a small mound of icy snow here and there. The sun was absolutely glorious today, it wasn’t just shining … it was actually warm! :)

     I loved waking up to warm sunshine and birds singing today. It just makes you feel so good after the miserable winter we had. I don’t ever remember getting so much snow or losing power so often in all my nineteen year. From the moment I noted the prettiness of the day, I had plans of crashing on the floor at the foot of my bed when I got home and soaking up the amazing sunshine. I couldn’t wait to throw my double windows wide open and let the sunshine warm me from head to toe.

     Mom hadn’t been feeling good last night, so I offered to be her substitute teacher for the day while she rested. Dad drove me to town for my chiropractor appointment and then took me to school so I could take over Mom’s class.

    5 minutes into class, Daniel looks up at me as I hand him some school work. “Brittany, can I get a drink of water from the water fountain?”

     I look at him, thankful that determining a real need for water is no longer hard. One quickly notes the difference between dying of thirst and an awful good excuse to get up and get out of work.

      “No, you have to finish this page first.” I say with a smile, pushing a pencil across the table for him. He shakes his head with a sigh. “Man, I thought you was nice to kids.”

      Insert smothered laughter, and hidden smiles HERE! :)

      More peace and quiet as they worked diligently. I was thrilled beyond words that they were so focused this morning. I should have known it wasn’t going to last for long … “Here Emma, you forgot some problems on this page.”

      “What?!” Leaning over the page, she makes a face. “They’re not done?”

      I smile, just one of those things you can’t help. “Do you see an answer under the problem?”

       “Uh … well no.”

       “Okay then, there’s your answer.” I’m not mean, just firm — even though I was smiling. She knew it wasn’t done, but I wanted so bad to ask if she thought her teacher was blind!

         “But that’s a lot of problems! I don’t think I can do all those by myself.”

         “Big people have problems too.” I explained, spinning the book around the table so she could finish the required work. “You’re smart, you’ll have them done in no time.”

          I’m not sure why they whine and complain about the work, it doesn’t take them any great amount of time and it isn’t as if I have to twist their arm to make them. Maybe it just makes them feel better? :)

       “Brittany, you’re my favorite teacher.” Daniel pipes up while coloring his worksheet an hour or so later. He comes around the table to give me a hug, his little blue eyes sparkling.

        “Aw, thanks buddy! I’m glad you’re having a fun day.”

        “No, Dan!” Emma drops her pencil on the table. “She’s MY favorite teacher. Not yours.”

         All the while, Josh had been coloring quietly. Until now … “Guys, she’s MY sister. That’s all. Okay?”

         Oh good grief! They’re fighting over a substitute teacher? No worries, Mrs. Morris would soon be back and they’d fight over their real teacher.

          Lunch and nap finally rolled around, not that I was even counting down. The morning had gone extremely well, if nothing else my face hurt from smiling so much. :)

           So then we came home, and the sun was shining bright. The warmth of the sun through my window gave me a boost of energy and a thousand amazing songs fluttered through my head. I ended up taking the kids to the library. We got an armful of books, which the boys carried all by themselves to the van. They were my big strong men and I was so happy that everybody stuck together and didn’t get lost!

      It’s slightly nerve wracking when I’ve got all the little guys out of the house, but it’s good practice and we love going to the library. AND they were super great, everybody listened just like they would if Mom and Dad were with us. Mckenna had supper and Lemon Bars ready when we got home from the library. Supper was amazing as always, and while Lemon Bars aren’t really my thing, the kids really loved them!

      As we washed the dishes, we talked about everything under the sun just like always. We somehow got to talking about my Best Friend and something funny we once did together. Mckenna covered her mouth, pretending to be sick. “Oooh, please. I’m gonna be sick! Seriously.”

      I laughed, flicking some water from my hands into her face. “Yeah, Ahuh. I bet you are.”

      She leaned close. “Really, I am. I think I need some Activia!” She leaned close, in a sing songy voice, just like a clip off the commercial.

     “You doofus, that’s not what it’s for!” I managed to exclaim before cracking up and losing it. We laughed, Elaina stood there watching us like we were crazy.

      “Ya’ll settle down in there.” Dad hollers from the living room as he attempts to read something on the couch. Innocent Elaina leans around the bar and answers back. “Yes Sir.”

      Kenna and I pause momentarily, then crack up again at the look on Lana’s face. She’s leaning against the counter, sipping on her Iced Tea with a contemplating look.

      “You know, I find all this kind of funny.” She finally says solemnly. “I get lumped in with you trouble makers just because I happen to be in the kitchen at the same time.”

      The 3 of us somehow thought this was rather comical and we spent the next 3 minutes laughing and flicking soapy water at one another. :)

       After all the fun in the kitchen calmed down, I went in Mom and Dad’s room to see if Mom needed me to take her to the doctor tomorrow. She shook her head — yeah, her stubbornness must be genetic where doctors are concerned. Haha! — and told me she wasn’t sure yet. Another one of those famous stupid moments hit me just then and I broke out into song to the tune of Chapel of Love — you know, the one that goes … oh we’re going to the Chapel & we’re gonna get married! — “But don’t ya know if you’re going to the doctor, he’s gonna make you better?!”

     Mom laughed in a whispery sort of way due to losing her voice, and dad shook his head with a smirk and one of those low laughs. “Like Grandmother, like mother, like daughter. Man!”

      Ah yes, poor old dad. Living in a houseful of ladies all alike, with the exception of two little boys who don’t quite know enough to be bothered by our quirkiness.

During the month of March, the Friends of the Bristol Public Library’s continuing  lobby book sale will feature great nonfiction titles on various subjects such as parenting, cooking, history, self-help, etc.  So, if you’re looking for a copy of The World is Flat or need a slow cooker cookbook shaped like a crockpot, please check out this sale!

Books are available for purchase during normal library hours:
Mon – Thurs: 8:30 – 8
Fri: 8:30 – 5

Don’t forget, the Friends’ bookstore is open Mondays 1 – 3 and Thursdays 5 – 7.  Just take the stairs or elevator to the basement and turn left.

My Home is My Castle….

Was die Blutenburg mit meiner gemeinsam hat ? In der einen wie der anderen begegnet man Märchen. Und werden derer neue fein  gesponnen. Sprichwörtlich, was mich erheitert, dieser feine gewirkte Hintersinn, seit ich seit gestern frühmorgens an anderen Arbeiten von Spinnrädern zu tun habe. Wie dem auch sei, man begegnet hier wie dort innerhalb der Burgmauern eigentümlich koinzident Märchen. In jener zwischen Seiten, Blättern und Buchrücken, in denen Gross und Klein blättern mag. Und in den Köpfchen und Köpfen, in denen nach und bei dem Lesen so manches Luft-, Traum- und Märchenschloss gebaut, erobert und neu ersonnen wird.

Wer leise frühmorgens oder nachts durch meine Burg geistert, wäre überrascht, dass ihm in dieser dasselbe widerfahren kann. Das eine oder andere davon – ganz ohne cineastisches Hightech. Niemand ist überraschter davon, als ich.  Und noch mehr davon, welcher unerwartete klitzekleine Funke als Saatkorn ausgestreut hie und da des Weges solches Spriessen von Ideen und sich fast von selber bestrickenden, gewirkten, in Spitzen gezauberten Fäden rankt.

Psssst. Mehr kann ich noch nicht verraten. Ausser vielleicht:  Skizzenbögen füllen sich, die Zeichenstifte tanzen über Papier und anstelle der Schreibmaschinen-Letter früher in meinem Turmstübchen sind es die leiseren Tasten für die Texte dazu. Jetzt heisst es acht geben, sie rechtzeitig in die Schatz- und Nähkästchen zu bringen, bevor schelmische Kobolde sie vor der Zeit entdecken. Und Unfug treiben – während des Ausritts von der Burg weg. Denn:  Food-und Fototermine gehen vor. Inzwischen kann ich nur hoffen, dass die Kobolde sich von Süßem und Herzhaftem becircen und bestechen lassen, nicht allzu weit herumzustöbern …. falls doch: an der schweren Eichentüre zur Kemenate und der Turmschreiberstube hängt ein Bogen geschöpften Papiers. Mit der Skizze des kleinen Kobolds der letzten Nacht. Magische Methode, um sie mit erheiterntem Lachen schwach zu machen. Wenn das nicht hilft, muss ich mir was anderes einfallen lassen. Zaubertrank. Zaubernüsschen. Oder so.

Tuesday Night Trauma:

I just had the front light stolen off my bicycle.

Just had a piece of me taken unexpectedly, cruelly.

I want to scream:
Leave my shit alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

… my mind starts reeling, thinking how I opted out of going for a swim after work since I stayed an extra half hour, so getting to the pool and fitting in a swim would’ve been rushed and after all the overtime I’ve done the last thing I want is to feel rushed.

So, instead, I cycle up the hill, all the way up the hill, to the top of East Hastings, to visit the public library.
I have some DVD’s to return, and I got a message saying a couple holds have arrived for me.
Joyous.

I love the library. I love that it is a safe haven for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, what gender you are, culture you are, anything. The public library exists for the public.
I love that when I walk into the library, there are just a lot of people quietly going about their business. It is a rare sight in a city to see a variety of people quietly reading, or writing on computers, or scanning the shelves for subjects of interest. It is a peaceful place. It is a rejuvenating place.
I love all of these people because they know the library is a wonderfully special place.

Then I leave the library and hate the people outside it.
Because I just had the front light stolen off my bicycle.

Why shouldn’t I be able to lock my bike for a few minutes while I grab a few things at the library? Why must one of the only pieces not glued to the bike frame be scraped off by some random person? I feel like I’ve been insulted.
Sure it’s just a bike light. Sure it only costs 30-some bucks. But damn it, leave my shit alone!
By molesting my bike, you’ve caused me to sink into a state of universal distrust. As I rode home, I saw every single person I passed as a greedy, self-serving, distrustful, horrible human being.
I don’t want to feel this way.
I know that isn’t true.
It’s just a bike light but it was attached to my transportation and you took it while my back was turned.
Personal property deserves to be respected.
But respect seems nearly extinct in our world, a once-powerful creature now dying a slow death.

Tonight I mourn for Respect.

This is a introduction to what I’ve learned in my journey to discover truth over the past 12 years, and that I am still undertaking. It might seem arrogant or funny to stand here and say I was looking for “the truth” and I found it. I really didn’t know what I was looking for when I took my first step but I knew that there must be something more than what I was taught by my parents and what I learned of the world in school. As I grew older I had many friends who lived such different lives. Even the ones who claimed to be of the same faith, creed, or affiliation; had different ways of doing things, for better or for worse. All of us here tonight also come from different backgrounds and have different understandings, I do not expect you to agree with what I say. You have your own experiences that have meaning to you. But I do hope you listen; Think about it, and look into it on your own. If you just take me at my word for it, then you aren’t looking for truth. You are just looking for an answer, any answer will do.
Why is it that so many people come to such different conclusions?

In an old parable from India,3 blind men were ask to touch an elephant without knowledge of what the animal was. The first blind man grabbed the tail and declared it to be rope. The second blind man felt the feet and claimed them to be mighty pillars. The third man felt the trunk and declared it to be a snake. Each man had his own perspective. Each man was correct based on his own abilities and limited perception. Each of the elements of an elephant. The Rope, Pillars, and Snake all make up symbolic representations of the actual Elephant.

If they would have had more time to converse or someone who had the gift of sight could describe how these aspects are related. Then the blind men would have understood why they had come to such different conclusions. That is why it is said “In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king”

and even students today are referred to as “pupils” because their eyes are the windows to their perception.

In the Norse and Egyptian mythologies both Oden and Ra sacrificed an eye to obtain wisdom. Real Wisdom comes with great sacrifices. These sacrifices scare a lot of people. Because it means taking on responsibility to yourself. This was the inner light that compelled men to seek for understanding. Be true to thine self. Those that allowed themselves to be lead by others were called the dead: meaning those who were in the dark because they did not think for themselves. The blind leading the blind.

This is the allegory of Plato’s cave. Men who were raised in the back of a cave in the darkness, restrained and unable to move. The only light that reached their eyes was a fire behind them that would cast various shadows on the wall. They would see these shadows and created elaborate stories as to there origins. The shadows were just as real to them as the objects that created them. but one man was able to break free and climb out toward the mouth of the cave. He had sacrificed his familiar and safe surroundings. At first the light he turn towards burned his eyes and he was afraid to move. He was then seized and drug from the cave. It was painful and he scorned the ones who violently moved him from his place. Because he had spent his entire life in darkness he was only able to look and move in the shadows. Then as his eyes became stronger he was able to look toward the reflections and then finally on the world itself and what had really been casting the shadows in his world. When he tried to return to his fellow men and explain what he had seen. They became frightened and angry like he had once been. They declared that he had gone mad. In complete desperation he tried to drag one of them to the surface. Overcome with fear they killed him rather than face the unknown.

This man who had dared to escape his own darkness looked toward the light of the sun for truth the natural light. What can we say about what we perceive today when light can be manufactured at the click of a button.

The ancient Greeks knew that through tricks of light ones perception can be drastically changed.

In this painting by Hans Holbein (1533AD) of the The Ambassadors.

We see the artist is asking the question “from who’s perspective are we viewing this?” If we take the painting and view it from another angle we see things in a NEW LIGHT.

These techniques of perception were kept amongst the ancient builders of society. Most people when they look at a building just see the outside or the facade. It is the builder that looks beyond

what is placed in front of him. He see’s the foundation and finds order in the paths of pipe, wire, and wood. And of all the ancient builders the most renown were those of great Egyptian Empire who embodied their ideal society with a large symbol made of eternal stone, by building the perfected mountain, a pyramid.

“Order out of Chaos”

This message is reflected on the back of the dollar bill where the great pyramid is pictured wrapped in the Latin “Aunnuit Ceaptis”"Novus Ordo Seclorum” Look with favor on our bold enterprise. The new order of the ages.”It is the idea of a utopia a perfect society, but as history has shown us in such utopias: All our equal, but some are more equal than others.

Franklin D Roosevelt said: They Who seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers. Call this a New Order. It is not new and it is not order.

With every crisis it does seem to be collapsing into disorder. “Change” is the art of the dialectic. You create the problem, You get a reaction, You control the result.

“We make war so that we may have peace.” said, Aristotle.

So.. War is to create change:

In 1998 William Clinton said in his state of the union address. “Rarely have Americans lived through so much change, in so many ways, in so short a time. Quietly, but with gathering force, the ground has shifted beneath our feet as we have moved into an Information Age, a global economy, a truly new world.”

Today everything is under attack. To build or create a new. you must tear down the old.

In order to create a new foundation you must first breakdown the old and mix up the new. As you pour the agitated concrete, you give it a shape, you pour it into it’s mold, you inform it. This is the true war, and it is a war for your mind. Today we have drug wars, obesity wars, environmental wars, crisis upon crisis.

You have to scare the herd to get them moving. Everyone must work towards change; either by temptation

or by force,

By “HOOK or by CROOK” goes the old saying. This is how societies are guided; on one hand you have all the power and riches of the world to tempt you. On the other, There is “The ROD” aka “THE LAW”,

to gently guide you in the right direction. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Being alive means that you think for yourself.

If you stand against law; right or wrong, You become a convict, for having your own CONVICTions. If you stand against the ways of the world you have chosen to walk the strait and narrow path. You’ve chosen to turn away from the glitz and glamor of “The Broadway.”

When I finally woke up I took a look around. I saw city halls, courthouses, houses of parliament, churches, schools, and universities by the hundreds and thousands. I saw systems, systems for managing the land, the air, and the water; systems for managing human behavior; systems for managing religion; systems for managing learning; systems for managing food, shelter, clothing; systems for managing love and procreation; a vast complex of carefully engineered systems. I saw millions of people working, not for themselves, but for someone else. I saw millions of people doing, not what they themselves want to do, but what someone else wants them to do. I saw the depressing evidence of a people who have externalized and institutionalized–in fact, have tried to standardize—the very nature of humanity. I saw a whole people who’ve lost the way of life and in its place have built a technological monster which does most of their hard work, carries their water, delivers their food, raises their kids, makes their decisions, says their prayers, transports them, “informs” them, entertains them, and controls the people it serves, absolutely. I also say that the monster, seemingly unable to manage itself, was running wild, totally out of visible control, ripping the land to pieces, spreading poisons, filling the air with filth, dumping garbage and shit in the rivers and lakes and oceans. I saw all that, and I saw the people, millions of them, crowded together in cities, living side by side in towns, villages, rural areas, But I didn’t see a single community. Is someone doing all this on purpose? Yes! ~Willfred Pelletier and Ted Poole

We are taught that these systems maintain our liberty.

You see; Liberty comes from Libra,

it is the scales by which all things are measured.

Liberty wasn’t freedom to do as you wish. Liberty was to be given out in allowance. You have to get a permit so you can do just about anything today. Thank you daddy for your permision! The ancient symbol of this control is called the “labyrs”

a double headed axe also known as the fasces.

It is a bundle of sticks tied around an axe representing strength in numbers. One can easily break a single axe handle. But a handle wrapped in sticks is harder to break in one blow. The fasci is at least 4,000 years old. A symbol passed down through the ages signifying the strength of the system and unbroken power.

US Court House

National Emblem of France

US Senate

Inside Washington Monument

Lincoln Memorial

Madrid Spain

This was the trick of Darwin’s origin of the species, to make you think that we just evolved this way by random chance to arrive at the great civilizations we have today. Yet there are signs of mans immense planing all around us. Not just anyone is allow to contribute. We need thousands of experts to plan our lives. Darwin called these experts “favored races.” This was the rational that the strong must rule over the weak.

They are the natural selection after all. Plato makes this clear thousands of year before Darwin. He states: “Our ideal society is like a beehive. Above the workers we have drones.”

We are given this reality from birth guided by thousands of faceless experts and institutions. We are taught in schools to beehive(behave), to repeat after me.

We are taught to parrot our teachers and then as adults to parrot the media who sells us a culture. If someone offered you a free sandwich on the street chances are you wouldn’t take it, but you have no problem buying food from the stranger behind the counter at McDonald’s.

If you can sell it to the public, they accept it without question. The media are the middle men who control the flow of information from the state to the people.

Thomas Jefferson said: “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves, and if we think them not “enlightened” enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”

In other words “Give the power to the people but guide it’s direction through manipulation.”This is what is known as the noble lie. You can’t tell the unenlightened, the ones in the dark, what your doing, they just wouldn’t understand. They aren’t educated enough.

Hitler said in his attempt to establish a world order: “The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies.”

This is the mind of a psychopath.

All of my means are rational, only my ends are insane; exclaimed the mad “Captain Ahab” his mind seized with vengeance.

The ugly truth of these fascist socialist utopias was exposed in the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, and later China. This was only one side of the agenda. A far more insidious plan was waiting with open arms to greet the war weary public. A plan for world peace was declared and the United Nations was born.

This was planning on an global scale. It was the Fabian Socialist of England who laid the ground work many years before the historical meeting of the UN. The Fabians favored change through incramentalism. Their stained glass windows depicting men hammering the world into shape on an anvil. Perfecting it?

H.G. wells was a prominent member and wrote many non-fiction works including his book “The New World Order.”

Where do you think Hitler got his ideas?

Wells states: “… when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people … will hate the new world order … and will die protesting against it.

In 1902 a man by the name of Cecil Rhodes died and left his massive fortune for the purpose of re-educating the people of the world and bring them back under one empire. This is where the Rhodes scholarship comes from. To select those who would lead us to this new world.

The task of setting up these institutions was left to a Lord Alfred Millner who set up “The Royal Institute of International Affairs” in England in 1920, also known as Chatham House. They are a non-governmental body of “experts” who meet to discuss world affairs. A year later in 1921 “The Council on Foreign Relations” was established in America. They couldn’t call the American branch “The Royal Institute” that wouldn’t sit to well with us Americans.

This complex history is detailed in Georgetown University Professor Carroll Quigley’s book Tragedy and Hope. In which he was the chief historian of the CFR.

He sums it up nicely: “The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds’ central banks which were themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups.”

These masters of culture are very close now to their big idea. It is now a global economy and a global economic crisis, crisis to precipitate change.

The Washington Post reports: A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF Changes Suggest Shift in How Global Economy Is Run By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, April 20, 2009 Inside a cavernous assembly hall in downtown Washington, dignitaries gather twice a year for routine meetings of the International Monetary Fund. Before long, though, the room could take center stage in the IMF’s transformation into a veritable United Nations for the global economy. Surrounded by blond wood paneling and a digital screen the size of a cinema’s, central bankers and finance ministers would meet to convene a financial security council of sorts. Serving almost as ambassadors to the IMF, they would debate ways to put out the world’s economic fires and stifle reckless policies before they ignite new ones.

Bowing to a new economic world order, the IMF would grant fresh powers to the likes of China, India and Brazil. It would have vastly expanded authority to act as a global banker to governments rich and poor. And with more flexibility to effectively print its own money, it would have the ability to inject liquidity into global markets in a way once limited to major central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve.That image of a radically transformed IMF — whose role in the global economy had turned largely advisory in recent years — is now coming together through internal IMF documents, interviews and think-tank reports. Finance ministers from major nations will begin grappling with the formidable details of the IMF’s makeover this weekend when they converge in Washington for the fund’s biannual assembly. The changes, broadly outlined by President Obama and other leaders of the Group of 20 nations in London earlier this month, could take months, even years to take shape. But the IMF is all but certain to take a central role in managing the world economy. As a result, Washington is poised to become the power center for global financial policy, much as the United Nations has long made New York the world center for diplomacy.The IMF’s mission is expanding so broadly that its managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said in an interview that the organization — which underwent deep cuts last year before the financial crisis swept the globe — may boost staffing in coming months, potentially creating dozens of high-paying jobs in the District.”The IMF is changing, and with it, there will be a sea change in the way the world economy is run,” said C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Their role will dramatically shift. You’re talking about monitoring fiscal stimulus, moving toward tighter regulations for financial institutions. You’re talking about global economic management in a way we have never seen.”

Already, the economic crisis is triggering a profound cultural shift, with the IMF moving away from its long-held mission to spread the gospel of capitalism around the globe.

Really, is it a religion?

Founded at the end of World War II to maintain stability in global currency markets, it later became known as the lender of last resort for nations in crisis, particularly as financial fires raced across Asia and Latin America in the 1990s.

Didn’t they just say: They would “stifle reckless policies before they ignite new ones.”

Its bailouts, however, were the bane of many poor countries; they often came with demands for fiscal austerity and free-market reform as the cures for developing nations — even if that meant nations had to cut back on programs for health care and schools.The IMF, Strauss-Kahn suggested, will become less ideological. Critics maintain the fund is still attaching too many restrictions to its longer-term bailouts for poor countries. But the IMF has signed off in recent weeks on no-strings-attached credit lines for countries with solid economic track records, offering $47 billion to Mexico an $20.5 billion to Poland.

I wonder if they read the fine print? because they continue to say…

“If the fund is considering a country and is technically convinced that privatization of any enterprise is needed to fix the country today, let’s privatize. But if it’s a general idea of privatization that has nothing to do with the problem, let’s forget it,”

These are the professional problem finders. If they want to privitize it (meaning giving it to their buddies) they will find a way.

Strauss-Kahn said. “At the same time, if nationalization will help, let’s do it.” Developing nations — including some that were once down-and-out clients of the fund — are now coming to the IMF’s rescue

Well I wonder why? They do have a lot of back bills to pay to the IMF.

as part of the pledge made by leaders in London to beef up the organization’s war chest to $1 trillion. In exchange for better representation on the governing board, China, which has fewer voting rights than Belgium, is set to give more than $40 billion. Brazil, which received a massive IMF bailout in the late 1990s, is pledging $4.5 billion.

Well, You must pay to play.

There is even talk that the next managing director — traditionally a European, while an American ran its sister organization, the World Bank — may come from the developing world. “Why not?” Strauss-Kahn said.For an organization long demonized by the developing world, such changes were once unthinkable. “I spent 20 years of my life carrying posters that said ‘IMF out,’ ” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former union leader, said last week in Rio de Janeiro. “Now the minister of finance says we are going to lend money to the IMF.” The IMF is also moving toward taking the lead role as the global economic watchdog. An intense debate, however, remains over the scope of the edicts it may issue as well as the power it will be granted to enforce them. Along with the Switzerland-based Financial Stability Board, the IMF is set to develop benchmarks for financial governance, from guidelines on executive pay to methods to prevent the spread of toxic assets through global banks. But no one is talking seriously about allowing the IMF to impose sanctions to force compliance as the United Nations does. There is even a strong reluctance to grant the IMF powers such as those held by the World Trade Organization in Geneva, which issues binding rulings on violations of global trade law.Instead, the IMF is likely to wield what Strauss-Kahn called “the strength of truth telling.”

ha ha ha jokes on us.

Put another way, the organization’s public pronouncements would carry the force of the nations seated at its table, including the world’s most powerful industrialized and developing economies.

Because they are all in debt to the IMF.

Some critics, however, say that may not be enough. A case in point: An internal IMF document recently called for Eastern European nations to adopt the euro as their currency to stabilize their economies, even without the approval of euro-zone nations. But stiff opposition from Western Europe has thus far prevented that document from being made public.

Why is that?

Additionally, some smaller European and low-income nations remain skeptical about the creation of a financial security council, arguing they would not be well represented. Even within the IMF, there is a debate over the council’s purview and makeup. Some see the council turning into a venue to hash out major economic disputes, such as U.S. and European charges that China is keeping its currency artificially weak.

Could that be happening to us is the U.S.?

Others say it should steer away from country-specific rulings. Another camp argues the fund should not exist at all. Even Strauss-Kahn has sought to dispel the notion of too grand a role for the IMF, saying its primary mission should remain monitoring and surveillance rather than enforcement. “The fund is supposed to take on a more regulatory role, holding accountable even wealthy countries,” said Moshin Khan, the IMF’s former Middle East and Central Asia director. “But I will have to see that happen to believe it. Whenever I’ve seen them going after the bigger countries, if the countries don’t like what the fund has to say, the fund doesn’t say it.”

There ya have it. They legally have to tell you what they are doing. If you vote for it and didn’t understand exactly what they meant, then to bad. If you are silent? Then you consent to it. A majority of the world leaders either belong to or have affiliations with the CFR, Trilateral Commission, World Bank, or the IMF. They have successfully set up the European Union and are in Fabian fashion setting up the Asian Union and North American Union. Hence the name, trilateral commission. Always in the name of closer ties with one another. How close do you have to get before your in bed together? Power seeking absolute control is nothing new in history. The technology to achieve their goals is a new development. The former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said about this future “technetronic” society:

“Technological developments make it certain that modern society will require more and more planning. Deliberate management of the American future will become widespread, with the planner eventually displacing the lawyer as the key social legislator and manipulator. This will put a greater emphasis on defining goals and, by the same token, on a more selfconscious preoccupation with social ends. How to combine social planning with personal freedom is already emerging as the key dilemma of technetronic America,…”

It is at odds with personal freedoms because this thing called civilization has always been about planning. In our lives it hard to think about planing more than just our lifetime. That is why there are great institutions that have existed for hundreds and thousands of years. They kept the information hidden from the public. In the entire scope of history it wasn’t till recent the public could even read. The Vatican has 55 miles of ARC-HIVES in caves under vatican city.

You have to get permission to even look into these archives and you have to know the name of the document you are looking for. The Grand French Lodge of Freemasonry has over 2,000 volumes of Egyptian history that has never been open, while we the unenlightened public get LIBRAry’s.

The information is given out in allowance. We grasp and feel at the elephant in the room, always guessing as to what it may be. Those that see and understand the plan, don’t need to fool each other. They just need to fool you. World Government is just one agenda going on in the world today. This is an introduction and my friends and I hope to give you more information about this, and how to exercise your personal freedoms within the law. We can’t change our past. But we can change our perceptions about it and thus change how we proceed into the future.
Thank you for reading…

The New York Times and dozens of other sources reported yesterday that the University of Texas acquired David Foster Wallace’s papers, including his personal library. The Harry Ransom Center at UT already has lots of Wallace’s stuff up at their site and it’s frankly astounding. There are handwritten pages from Infinite Jest, images from annotated copies of some of Wallace’s novels, including Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree and Don DeLillo’s Players, and pictures of Wallace’s dictionary with words circled like neroli, cete, and suint. Begin exploring Wallace’s archive here.

First page of a handwritten draft of Infinite Jest

DFW's dictionary

Inside cover of David Foster Wallace's annotated copy of Players by Don DeLillo.

Inside cover of David Foster Wallace's annotated copy of Suttree by Cormac McCarthy.

Obviously we do this all the time – with careers as our focus, we tend to define people by their job when we want to present their stories and expertise to students. But when we created an online careers resource for diversity and equal opps and it seemed the first point of interest to users would be the disability/disadvantage/difference – let’s stick with the site’s term “barrier” – that they had to overcome, which suggested classifying and arranging this material by that barrier. Of course that would mean emphasising the barrier over the achievement, defining the person by their barrier not by their work as we do for everyone else, and therein lies the problem.

Blind man or politician?

Putting the barrier first feels so contrary to not only diversity sensitivities, but also the whole message of the site. We want to say that you can move beyond your barriers, that they shouldn’t restrict and determine your career. We want to say that you can choose and build your own identity, that David Blunkett is not “a blind man from a poor background who has done well”, rather that he is a politician first and foremost whose work defines him in just the same way as everyone else.

Our solution so far has been to kind of mix the two together – creating a list of stories with long headings like “Mature Student becomes City Solicitor” so both aspects, barrier and career, are represented. It is not a good solution. It is okay while we still only have a few stories – it is possible to skim the list for words of interest – but it is not very friendly for dyslexic or ADHD users to have to trawl through disorganised long titles, and it will only get rapidly worse.

Another mixed option would be to use tags/keywords and just put a tag cloud on the page so users can select ‘blind’ or ‘politician’ and bring related stories. The trouble is, last time we based retrieval around a tag cloud alone we discovered many users were unfamiliar with this and needed help. We really need this diversity site to be intuitive and easy to use above all, and hierarchical classifications and lists are more familiar.

I wondered what our contributors would think – would they feel irritated at being put in a box labelled ‘deaf’ over everything else, or would they feel ‘being deaf is a key part of my identity and I want to help other deaf students’ so barrier first is fine? I am reading a book About Face at the moment, and it gives descriptions of the experiences of blind people in communicating. The contrast between those born blind, and those who experience it later in life is marked. In particular, those born blind seem more comfortable with blindness as an identity, whereas those who experience it later feel it more as an impairment and loss. In which case, different contributors will have different opinions about what should come first.

Why worry so much about what contributors will think? Surely it is down to the students – what will they expect to use? If we were talking about books or links, it would be a different matter, but in trying to classify people’s stories and lives the designation is much more significant. More than making some political point about overcoming barriers, it feels like a point of respect – if we are going to offer up people’s lives, we should do so in ways that are consistent with their outlooks.

Then, of course, in thinking about what students would want to use, I realised my assumption that they would seek information on their own barrier first may false. For a blind student wanting to go into law, let’s assume their first choice would be an identical match of circumstances, but for their second preference would they go for a story about a blind person in accountancy or a deaf person in law? Not a clear answer, maybe both?

So I feel left in a situation with neither a clear idea of what users would prefer, nor what would be truest to the contributors.There seems a strong case for classifying twice – put in two lists, one by barrier, one by career – and link to the same stories from both. But again, is that unfamiliar organisation confusing for users, with stories appearing twice over? I’m confused. People just don’t classify well do they?