Citizen Reader

Tuesday Article: The real problem with the economy.

I really enjoy reading the Christian Science Monitor online, although it's typically depressing as hell.

I found this article (written by Robert Reich) on one of the biggest problems in our economy echoed what I've been thinking for years but could never verbalize so well. If you don't have time to read the whole article, here's one of my favorite paragraphs out of it:

"The crisis of American capitalism marks the triumph of consumers and investors over workers and citizens. And since most of us occupy all four roles – even though the lion’s share of consuming and investing is done by the wealthy – the real crisis centers on the increasing efficiency by which all of us as consumers and investors can get great deals, and our declining capacity to be heard as workers and citizens."

Incidentally, speaking of deals (or things that are not deals), someone posted yesterday on my post from a million years ago about Melissa & Doug products being crap. I share the comment here in its entirety because I will not rest, people, until all of you stop buying Melissa & Doug products. Thank you.

"Heh! I submitted a one-star review of a dreadful M&D product we were given -- a $35 set of dollar-store craft supplies with 'washable' paint that permanently trashed an easel, table, a bit of the floor, and so much clothing I have difficulty thinking about it, before I realised 'washable' was not 'washable.' The review was never posted. I got an e-mail from "Lisa" thanking me for my "e-mail" with an invitation to call her during [rather restricted times]. I wrote back to say I appreciated the response, but was extremely pressed for time and was not going to have time to make a phone call anytime soon; could she please address this in e-mail? Of course I didn't hear back, and of course my review simply didn't make it on the site. melissaanddoug.com is littered with enthusiastic four and five star reviews; I haven't been able to find any poor ratings or reviews. Apparently they are all simply trashed as mine was, perhaps with a half-hearted attempt at contact from "Lisa." At least the paint disaster was bad enough for me to be rude enough to finally ask the person who had been buying us all the M&D stuff to please stop..."

Thanks for the comment, K.

Why write a book when you can just copy and paste and sell someone else's?

If you've got a spare moment, you might find this article* about rampant plagiarism going on under the heading of "self-publishing" at Amazon interesting. Sad, but interesting.

This is my favorite line, personally: "Perhaps, though, Amazon doesn't care if it sells plagiarized works; it benefits from the sale whether it holds back an author's royalties or not."

Hm. Perhaps.

*Via Bookslut.

Thursday Article: Matt Taibbi on Steve Jobs

Yes, yes, I know we haven't had a "Tuesday Article" for a long time, and yes, yes, I know it's Thursday. Be that all as it may:

You have got to read Matt Taibbi's take on Steve Jobs. That sums up how I feel about Steve Jobs, but perfectly. Good old Matt Taibbi. As Georgia would say in the Louise Rennison Confessions of Georgia Nicolson YA novels, I LUURVVE him.

Tuesday Article: Still more Diana Athill.

I WILL NOT rest until each and every last one of you has read something, anything by Diana Athill.

Check out this interview with her if you wonder why I'm in love with her. Then join me in the delicious anticipation of a collection of her letters being published next year; I absolutely cannot wait.

Tuesday Article: Humans and books--messy

I have been bummed lately, feeling like machines and algorithms are taking over the world. I'd be less bummed if I thought they were doing a very good job.*

So I wasn't all that titillated to hear that Goodreads, the social reading/cataloging site, is now offering a book recommendation service based on an algorithm they bought from another company. But I was glad to read this article about it in the New Yorker, where the author concludes that books, and humans, are messy, and algorithms don't always do well with messy. For some reason that cheered me up.

*I swear, now that CRjr's pediatrician's office is on computerized record-keeping, our visits take twice as long. How is that possible?

Tuesday Article: A different take on 9/11.

Who could avoid articles on 9/11 last week? No one, that's who.

I only read one that made any sense to me, and that was Steve Almond's* The Decade of Magical Thinking, at the Rumpus. Do consider reading it.

*Actually, I really like a lot of stuff Steve Almond writes.

Tuesday Articles: The bells continue to toll for Borders.

I'm ashamed to admit that I rarely visited my local Borders bookstore--I never felt like I could spend the money and once CRjr arrived it just seemed like too much to do to bundle him up in the winter and go out--but now that it's gone I find myself missing it. (I liked it better than Barnes and Noble, and most of the few indie bookstores in my city are downtown and not so easy for me to just drop in on.)

So I have been reading a number of articles about the end of the Borders era, written by former Borders employees:

Dispatch from a Dying Borders

The Day Borders Got the Wobblies

Those are two of the most interesting I've seen, and I found them both via Bookslut. Has anyone else seen any "memories of Borders" blog posts or articles around?

Tuesday Articles: Viva nonfiction!

I just noticed that Kim over at Sophisticated Dorkiness has started, along with a few cohorts, something called BAND--the Bloggers' Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees. It's a neat idea--kind of an Algonquin Round Table with various questions about nonfiction, and it's open to everyone!

I particularly enjoyed the last question about how people got started as nonfiction readers (posed by Amy Reads). And I really enjoyed Savvy Working Gal's answer.* It's so nice to see nonfiction getting a little love.

*I too got into nonfiction when I got tired of starting and not liking novel after novel after novel.

Tuesday Article: Life at Borders

On offer today is a really interesting, and really sad, article about Borders bookstore...from the inside. (Via Bookslut.)

Also, can someone explain to me what the hell is going on in London? Not to mention Milwaukee?

Tuesday Article: Royal Canada!

I'm linking to this as much for the awesome views of Canada* as I am for the royals. Enjoy!

*I want to move north and become Canadian but Mr. CR is resisting.

Tuesday Article: Anna Nicole Smith

For my money, New York magazine is producing some of the finest print journalism out there right now. Consider a recent article on Anna Nicole Smith:

Paw Paw and Lady Love

They took what could have been (was) a sensationalized story and made it into an article that read like the very best (and of course, saddest) Greek tragedy. It's worth a read. (And, for good measure, here's the latest on the court case discussed in the article.)

Tuesday articles: Reviewing the reviewers

The Tuesday articles are a day late this week, as I wanted to post Joanna Kavenna's email answers together.

Cindy Orr over at the Reader's Advisor Online blog recently had the great idea to compare and contrast how many books are given "starred" reviews in librarian-ish review publications (Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers' Weekly, Kirkus) vs. how many of those same titles ended up on the year's "best of" lists. It was really kind of an interesting project, and she draws some interesting conclusions:

Reviewing the Reviews: Part 1

and, Reviewing the Reviews, Part 2

I wrote an article for the series about, what else?, nonfiction. Here it is: Reviewing the Reviews, Part 3.

Tuesday Articles: Diana Athill is the best.

We interrupt Women in Finance (Books) Week for a literary Tuesday Article post.

Last week's big literary story was author V.S. Naipaul stating that no women writers are his literary match.

But my favorite part of the story was longtime Naipaul editor Diana Athill's response to his remarks. My favorite line there is at the end: "And Athill has previously said that when she needed cheering up, 'I used to tell myself, At least I'm not married to Vidia.'" Ha.*

Full disclosure: I love Diana Athill.

Tuesday Article: The Injectable Vasectomy

Evidently Mr. CR is well-versed in my "why isn't there a male equivalent of the birth control pill" gripe, because over the weekend he said to me, "Hey, there's an article in Wired magazine about male birth control." And so there is:

The Injectable Vasectomy

Well, it's about time, I say. I've always wondered why feminists were so happy with birth control methods that so often carry serious side effects for women, rather than agitating for more methods for men to take care of that on (pun intended) their end.

Tuesday Article: Twitter making us twits.

Many thanks to the Lesbrarian for pointing me to this article in the New York Times:

The Twitter Trap

Now, keep in mind, I never use Twitter because I can't figure it out. AT ALL. How dumb does that make me?

I'll say this: ever since I deleted my Facebook account a few weeks back (I was primarily on it for work reasons, and due to some of my work changing, I no longer have to be), my life really has been better. Take that, Mark Zuckerberg.

Tuesday Article: What you get on the Internet.

Something to watch today, rather than something to read:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s

That link takes you to a really interesting talk by Eli Pariser at TED 2011 about what the Internet really shows us. It's about nine minutes long, and it's totally worth it. And it'll give you more food for thought about Mark Zuckerberg, who I personally believe is a ginormous tool. But I am not a fan of Facebook, so maybe that's just me.

Tuesday Article: David Foster Wallace

Not so much an article today as David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College.

I read this in book form for the first time this past winter and now I think of it every time I go grocery shopping. I think of it when I see kids and college students and feel badly that they have a lot of adult experiences in front of them. I think of it when I'm annoyed in my day and I need to get a better attitude. In short, I think of it a lot. Seems like a good time to post it, as graduation time approaches.

Friday articles: Delicious, delicious.

Yes, yes, eventually I'll get back to reviewing actual nonfiction books. But these articles are too delicious NOT to post.

First, there's the one explaining yesterday's big server/cloud computing kerfuffle at Amazon. The library catalog at my local library is now using Amazon cloud computing, so they were down all day. Unfortunate timing, as they just put their new catalog up this past Monday. My sympathies to all library public service staff trying to explain that one. Even if you just skim the article, read the last line. It's my favorite. Priceless.

And then, at Bookslut, there's this:

"Laura Miller is arguing that Greg Mortenson's lies about the schools he's building, his casually racist claim that he was kidnapped by the Taliban, his swindling money from his own nonprofit, and grandiose claims of being the white knight of Afghanistan and Pakistan don't matter.

Oh, it's so wrong headed I can barely even think about it. Does it matter that he didn't stumble into the village weary from a failed mountain expedition? No. I mean, it's a stupid fairy tale, but not really. Does it matter that this guy has set himself up as the Great White Hope for these poor backwards mountain people, who are all five seconds away from becoming dangerous terrorists? Yes. Yes, absolutely."

Amen, sister. And a happy hoppy holiday weekend to you all.

Tuesday Articles: Vindicated!

If you'll remember, I hated Greg Mortenson's book Three Cups of Tea.

So this news was completely intoxicating.* It shouldn't make me chuckle when a noted philanthropist turns out to be a person who treats a charity like "his own personal ATM," but it does. I'm a bad person. What's really fascinating about the whole kerfuffle is how many angry, pro-Mortenson comments there are at the CBS 60 Minutes site. People really want to love this guy. Fascinating!

*Who knows, maybe this is a big kerfuffle and Mortenson really is a saint in a man's clothing. And maybe he just hates the media. But it never looks good when you run out the back door to get away from TV interviewers.

Tuesday Article: Really, people?

If this is what people think NPR has to do a better job of advertising how much money they really get:

Americans Wrongly Estimate $178 Billion In Federal Budget Goes to Public Broadcasting

I suppose those same people also think a whole 5% goes to the military. Ha!