Long Time No Speak

After many moons of inactivity, I'm back. I'd rather be in Philadelphia and in fact, I am! Arrived in January of 06 and I'm loving it. There is so much live music I almost feel like I could burst! Tonight I will hear Little Feat, have tickets for James Taylor in June, Moody Blues in April and on and on. Phila is a very manageable city, I can get most anywhere is 20-30 minutes. Public transportation is excellent.



One of the most remarkable things is this huge honking park, the largest urban park system in the world, Fairmount Park. I live across the street from it and my dogs and I flush deer and racoons when we walk. The sky is dark and I can see the constellations on a clear night because the park diffuses the surface light. I love where I live, it smells good. My neighborhood was rural until the late 1800's and there are lots of gardens. Spring and fall are longer here than in Buffalo. I see bushes blooming in October and pansies may still be in flower in November. There are a couple of multiple acre properties with horses within 2 blocks of my apartment.



The local food coop has been around since the 70's and that's when I joined my coop. Just like Ithaca, there is a core of old time hippies who look like me in an adjacent neighborhood. The coop is at the center, there is a lovely independent bookstore and a great neighborhood cafe in the same block.



Doggability is very high in the area. The dog people are friendly and tend to congregate at a small pocket park. The pups and I may encounter 2-20 dogs at any given time, they arrive in waves. A local inn/restaurant is featuring Doggy Happy Hour on Tuesdays from 5-9. There is an area for the pups and for their people to visit.



I am a very happy camper. I'll tell you more about my work another day

Happy Post Equinox, Welcome Spring

I bunnies in my yard and deer browsing and snoozing, especially young ones. Saw two woodchucks along the Thruway today, probably Chuck and Charlotte. Hawks in migration honkers landing at the pond nearby. Next will be bugs!

Thinking about the Gender, Identity article. What is described as an evolution seems pretty revolutionary to me. I wonder how things will be different for the kids coming up the pike just behind mine (who are 18 and 20 soon). Maybe generation gaps will become bleeps every 2 or 3 years. The current middle schoolers are growing up in a very different social environment than my kids did.

I wonder if emoticons may be used more commonly by boys because words escape them. Some of my mom friends tell me that boys move into a phase in adolescence in which they stop communicating, at least with their moms. Emoticons are pleasantly ambiguous so a kid may feel freer to use them because it's not like SAYING I love you, for instance. They are more suggestive instead of committing to a particular meaning.

Also wonder if the evenness of gender distribution is indicative of the profile of kids who blog rather than the population at large. In other words if you are a kid who is somewhat out-going and somewhat self-confident and you blog then the same things apply to both boys and girls. This may not be indicative of the population at large. Also, I wonder if the generalizations sound awfully WHITE to other people and what the socio-economic ramifications are?

The self-centeredness of girls as expressed by their greater likihood to have personal web pages, which is to say 'it's all about me' doesn't surprise me. Girls used to try out different presentations of who they are with or without make-up, hair color, clothes, blogs are another medium to try. Each of these are ways to see how they are perceived and how they feel. I wondered how many people had more than one blog?

As a librarian one of the current hot topics is information literacy. With such an overwhelming amount of information available, kids need to be taught how to find and evaluate information. What's credible, what's reliable, what has value and how do you tell the difference. Kids think they know more than they do. Not everything can be Googled (although it's amazing what can be, have you googled yourself lately, someone else may have!) They mistake their technological abiliity to use the hardware with the judgment they need to develop, when to use a database instead of a search engine, popular instead of peer-reviewed journals, etc. I have taught Information Literacy classes at a local college and it's very interesting to see WHAT STUDENTS DON'T KNOW THAT THEY DON'T KNOW!!!!!

With the way adolescence is revolving (revolution + evolving?) what 's next in 3 years or 5?

Where have I been

Back form out in the ozone! Actually I'm taking classes and looking for applying for jobs. My head gets pretty difuse sometimes. Heard a very interesting comment on the CBS Sunday morning show. David Gergen, who is affiliated with the JFK School of Govt at Harvard and he is also Editor-at -Large for US News and World Report, was saying that the new political blogs have a huge impact, especially on younger voters. He credits them with bringing down Trent Lott and making Howard Dean the Democratic Party Chairman. He pointed out that this is a main conduit for news and that more young epople get ttheir news electronically than read a daily newspaper. Hmmmm.

Last week someone mentioned the blog that one of the TV news stations has set up to discuss the Erie County budget. I would hate to see venting and editorializing take over what we think of as news. Point of view is not always transparent. Now it becoems so easy for anyone to have an audience. I don't doubt that this will fuel at least some folks on the outermost fringe and they my be hard to differentiate. All in all I can appreciate that this is a good thing. It has huge potential and impact and democratizes the voice of the people. Maybe I can develop a Bozo alert that you can download, I have always wanted to develop a system to use while driving for instance that alerts you to Bozos on the road. (Is there an 'e' before the 's' in Bozos?)

just past groundhog day

today i signed up for Cornell's cybertower. i have known about it for a while and VC motivated me to sign up. it may be a Cornell tinted blackboard (like ubleans) with many features we are familiar with, but alumni might not be. it is not limited to alums, i am not for instance. there are classes and forums with streaming video and interactive discussion groups and links and resources on specialized topics. the URL is http://cybertower.cornell.edu/lobby/ if you are interested. i have joined a bunch of listserves in the past year including the Library and Information Studies department list, ALA Instruction Section list, Women's Studies Section list, and several others.

i also joined stumpers which is used by librarians and other curious folks around the world. i had joined this list previously and was fascinated by the range of jeopardy type questions and the reach it has. answers came from all over the world. includes a lot of obscure, random stuff. if you would like more info http://domin.dom.edu/depts/gslis/stumpers/.

a librarymonkey's blog

thinking about howard rheingold's virtual communities. there is something distinctly romantic and utopian about the language and ideas. i feel right at home. we must be about the same age. i am delighted to have lived in the second half of the 20th century. a time full of riches. i visited the haight in 1969 and considered transferring to Berkeley. transferred to Ub instead, the Berkeley of the east as it was known. if any of you have seen the current UB magazine with the story about the riots, i was there, on the peace patrol, experienced tear gas, the police lines were in front of my apartment on main street. i saw/heard all the music rheingold mentions, jefferson airplane, quicksilver messenger service, big brother and the holding company with janis joplin. rheingold mentions michel foucault. did you know he taught at UB in the early 70's. i would not have missed this ride for anything.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

community: being held by all in common.Common character; quality in common; commonness, agreement, identity. The body of those having common or equal rights or rank.A body of nations acknowledging unity of purpose or common interests. A body of persons living together, and practising, more or less, community of goods.

communicate: to make common to many, share, impart, divide. To put oneself into familiar relations; to hold or have intercourse or converse. o convey one's thoughts, feelings, etc., successfully; to gain understanding or sympathy.To open into each other by a common channel or aperture whereby the whole becomes as one space, etc.; to have communication or continuity of passage. Also said of the connecting channel or passage.

society: Association with one's fellow men, esp. in a friendly or intimate manner; companionship or fellowship. Association or intercourse with or between persons. The state or condition of living in association, company, or intercourse with others of the same species; the system or mode of life adopted by a body of individuals for the purpose of harmonious co-existence or for mutual benefit, defence. The aggregate of persons living together in a more or less ordered community. The fact or condition of taking part with others or another in some thing or action; participation. A sharing or use in common. The fact or condition of being connected or related; connexion, relationship; union or alliance; affinity. Co-operation; assistance.