|
|
Thursday, June 06, 2002
|
|
| |
[Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "itemTitle" hasn't been defined.]
On Internet speech, librarians to the rescue
Steve Chapman Published June 6, 2002
The people who have advanced the cause of free speech have often been wild, radical or dangerous types--communists, anti-Semites, pornographers, war resisters, flag-burners, and the like. Today, storming the barricades of censorship and rejecting the demands of conformity, we have a different group
of firebrands: America's librarians.
Your image of a librarian may be a prim spinster whose idea of proper communication is to put a finger to her lips and say,"Shhhh!" This time, though, the librarians' message to the federal government is: "Don't you dare shush my patrons!" The battle is over government regulation of access to cyberspace. The Children's Internet Protection Act of 2001 requires all federally funded libraries and schools to install computer filters to block sites offering child pornography, obscenity or anything "harmful to minors." Noting that the
Internet offers a lot of images and text that would make Hugh Hefner blush, our elected representatives decreed that libraries should prevent patrons from seeing such material, inadvertently or by choice.
From Chicago Tribune (registration required)
9:49:52 PM  comment []
|
|
[Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "itemTitle" hasn't been defined.]
Review: 'Ground Zero' a dramatic, important book
June 5, 2002 Posted: 10:54 AM EDT (1454 GMT) By L.D. Meagher CNN
(CNN) -- "A plane crash in the World Trade Center? What firefighter would miss that job ...?"
The answer to that question, posed in Dennis Smith's book "Report from Ground Zero," is obvious. The attacks of September 11 were precisely the type of "job" New York City firefighters are trained to do. Each would feel an immediate and overwhelming impulse to get to the scene as quickly as humanly possible. Hundreds of those who raced into the World Trade Center that day never came out.
If you'd like to request the book, just follow this link to the SWAN Database and choose the "request" box at the top of the page. The La Grange Park Library's copy is still on order, but you can request it from any library in the Suburban Library System.
8:44:13 PM comment []
|
|
[Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "itemTitle" hasn't been defined.]
Don't forget Saturday, June 8, is the 41st Annual Rose Show. It will be at St. Michael's Lutheran Church from 2-5 pm. Stop by and smell the roses.
St. Michael's is at 500 East 31st Street.
6:55:17 PM comment []
|
|
[Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "itemTitle" hasn't been defined.]
Heroes.
Navajo Code Talkers Break 60 Years of Silence
"Their tale begins in 1942. After discovering that U.S. military codes were routinely deciphered by the Japanese, Philip Johnston, a World War I veteran and son of missionaries to Navajo country, suggested devising a system from the ancient language that few Navajos had ever bothered to write down.
When tests showed that messages that had once taken 30 minutes to code and decode were relayed in 20 seconds by the Navajos, recruitment went into overdrive on the southwestern reservation that ranges across New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Colorado.
Some 400 code talkers eventually were assigned to every major Marine division, battalion and parachute unit, usually working in teams — one to speak, the other to write — on bulky portable telephones and radios. Despite their value, many also fought as infantry soldiers; a dozen died in the field....
And the irony? The U.S. government's efforts to assimilate Navajos in the early 20th century included banning their language. Transgressors had their mouths washed out with soap, or worse." [USA Today]
This article also includes an interesting sidebar that illustrates how the Navajo code worked. A fascinating subject, and hopefully the movie will be an adequate testament to these men.
Links for further information about the Navajo code:
[The Shifted Librarian]
6:34:51 PM comment []
|
|
|
|
© Copyright
2002
Kate Zdenek.
Last update:
06/06/2002; 6:34:52 PM.
|
|
|
