The Independent Librarians Who Defy Communist Tyranny

Neither IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) nor the ALA have helped the brave independent librarians who have defied the hell of Castro's tyrannical regime by providing Cubans with uncensored materials. Gisela Delgado Sablon, Director of theIndependent Libraries of Cuba Project, made comments on January 18th that the excellent Freadom blog reproduced on January 21st. Please use the link to that blog, on this page, to read her entire statement.

I also know that Bob Kent (a reference librarian at the New York Public Library), who is a leader of the wonderful Friends of Cuban Libraries organization, and who is so-often villified by certain ultra-leftist Castro-admirers within the profession, will continue his vital support for Cuba's independent librarians.

Gloria Deal Peterson

I've been divorced for a long time. Gloria Deal Peterson was one of the first women I dated after I somewhat recovered from that trauma. I guess it was a year after the divorce.

Gloria was great. She was kind (she was such a devoted mother to her daughter, Blair), intelligent, a fascinating conversationalist, and altogether beautiful. And she very much recognized the importance of libraries.

Gloria was the widow of Clyde Deal, a former U.S. Coast Guard officer and adventurer who, in the early 1950's sailed on a tiny boat, with just his dog for company, from the Canary Islands to New York City...a perilous voyage, which made headlines at the time. Over the course of many years, Clyde Deal amassed a large collection of books on nautical topics. Some time ago, Gloria, his then young widow, who maintained residences in both Manhattan and Southampton, generously donated the entire collection to the library of Long Island University's Southampton College. The Clyde Deal Maritime Collection remains an important part of that library.

I just learned that Gloria died suddenly on February 6, 2005, at the still-young age of fifty-five. We had lost contact and I didn't know. A death notice I found on the internet remarked that: "She will be deeply missed." That is for sure!

Jack Engelhard on Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen)

The media has almost totally ignored the very recent call of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) for all Palestinians to commit violence against Israelis. A Holocaust denier, with who unlike Arafat, shaves and wears stylish suits, Abbas is all-too-often, quite erroneously referred to as a "moderate" by the media. Novelist Jack Engelhardt (author of Indecent Proposal, among other works) has gotten it 100% correct in his description of the real Abbas, which was published on the Arutz 7 (Israel National News) website of January 19th:

Abbas, The Good Terrorist Made in Hollywoodby Jack EngelhardJan 19, '07 / 29 Tevet 5767

"You won't find Mahmoud Abbas toting a gun and prancing about unshaven. He's our hero and heroes must be made presentable.We know he's a murderer and a thug, but we need a good guy for this performance, the Road Map gig, and since no one else has come along, he'll do. Gentlemen, he's all we've got. We know that deep inside he's Arafat all over again, but these days, it's all about the package. Clint, of course, would have been our first choice, and some wise guy in the meeting mentioned Mel.

Come on, this is serious. We've sent him—our boy Abbas—to the makeup department, gave him a shave, a haircut, a smile and a shine. We've sent him to Costume, gave him a suit and a tie. We've coached him in Acting 101. He's picked up that warm, cuddly, neighborly Chamber of Commerce handshake.Perfect. He's always ready for his close-up. We gave him all the right lines—like "peace" and all that—and it's been working, only we wish he'd shut up once in a while. Please, stick to the script. Just the other day, addressing the dispute between Fatah and Hamas, this is what he said:"We should put our internal fighting aside and raise our rifles only against the Israeli occupation."Will somebody tell this guy we've got writers! He can't just mouth off like that. Fortunately we've got the mainstream news media boys on our side so the worst part of what he said never got out, about shooting Israelis. They never quote him when he talks about killing Jews, and that's simply our good luck.

The deal is this: We're giving him all that money—another $100 million in tax revenues—on the pretense of fighting Hamas.Why single out Hamas when we know that Hamas and Fatah (that's Abbas's baby) are absolutely the same? Because somebody has to play the good guy against the bad guy. That's how it works, otherwise we've got no plot. We can't have two bad guys. That spoils the story and is simply bad writing and bad marketing. We've ordered the Israelis to give Abbas even more money and even more guns and what's this? They're resisting?That's good. That thickens the plot. The Israelis always resist. This makes good headlines, like, "Israel Defies America."Then, of course, the Israelis cave in. They always do. We say jump. They say how high. We say Road Map, they say Road Map. We say Abbas is your 'partner in peace,' they say Amen. They stick to the script, these Israelis. They're easy.

The Israelis themselves know that all that money and all those guns will be turned against their own people. You heard him. Abbas said so himself! But they stay on page. Who trained these Israelis so well? Why do we keep pressing the Israelis to make concessions? Here it is: We do it to please all the other nations. That's our audience.Why do we keep feeding Fatah all that money? This came up at the meeting after someone suggested that all it does is subsidize terror.Guys, we don't need that kind of talk. But okay, let's put it like this; there are bad terrorists and there are good terrorists. Mahmoud Abbas is a good terrorist. Or let's put it like this: Mahmoud Abbas is our terrorist."

Update: Maplewood Public Library

Meeting yesterday about how to solve the problem of the rowdy behavior of middle school students, the Board of Trustees has reversed itself: the two branches of the Maplewood Public Library will not close betweeen 2:45 and 5:00PM on weekdays. Numerous citizens in this town of 23,000 complained about the closings, which were to have begun this week. Mayor Fred R. Profeta, Jr. has decided to provide security guards for the branches and community groups will be organizing increased recreational services for the youths in various facilities.

I like the comment of Marianna S. Noto, president of the Board of Trustees. She said: "The squeaky wheel gets the grease. We squeaked a lot and got the grease."

Librarians and other library workers are entitled to a safe environment, as are library patrons. But closing the branches on weekday afternoons was not the right solution.

Carter, Dershowitz, Brandeis

Jimmy Carter, the anti-Semitic former president, has agreed to lecture at Brandeis, where he will not be sharing the podium with anyone. The event is tentaively scheduled for January 23rd and people not affiliated with Brandeis will be barred from attending it. Carter will lecture for fifteen minutes and field questions from the audience for forty-five minutes.

Alan Dershowitz has vowed to attend. Brandeis officials have said that an exception will be made on the ban of outsiders in Dershowitz's case and that he will he will be allowed in. "I will be the first person to have my hand up to ask him a question." he said.

Professor Dershowitz is especially eager to ask Carter why the former president has accepted money from Saudi Arabia and why the Carter Center has been critical of Israel while not looking into "... extensive human rights abuses" in Saudi Arabia.

Dershowitz said: "This will be the debate, whether he wants it or not. He will get the first word and the last word, but he will not get the only word. This will be the toughest encounter he has ever had in his professional career. This marks the end of his softball outings with the media."

I wish I could be there to personally see what ensues.

Resignations At The Carter Center

Fourteen advisory board members of the Carter Center, at Emory University, have just submitted their resignations, in protest against Jimmy Carter's recently-published, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic book, Palestine: Peace Not apartheid. That brings the total of resignations to fifteen, as Kenneth Stein, who had advised Jimmy Carter for many years, resigned from the Carter Center in December. Good! I only wish the rest of the board would also quit.

But why on Earth is Brandeis University kowtowing to Jimmy Carter by reinviting him to lecture about the book, minus a debate about it with Alan Dershowitz (Carter had refused to share the podium with Dershowitz) or anyone else?

Politically Correct Censorship At Pace

This autumn, there were two disgraceful, racist incidents at Pace University in which copies of the Koran were desecrated. Hopefully, the perpertrator(s) will still be caught and punished. But those crimes should not be used as an excuse to censor the films that Pace University students are permitted to view on campus.

When Hillel, the Pace Jewish student organization, announced plans to show Obsession: Islam's War Against The West, an award-winning documentary, Pace officials threatened that such an event would immediately place Hillel members on the list of suspects with regard to the two hate crimes. And, according to Michael Abdurakhmanov, president of the Pace Hillel, the administration also threatened that if the video was shown, the police would be called in. The program, which had been scheduled for last November, during Judaism Awareness Week, was cancelled, but it has only been during the last day that this sordid story (assuming that the reports of what happened are accurate) has been publicized. Aburakhmanov also has charged that an assistant dean twice shoved him into a seat, during a meeting between Hillel leaders and Pace officials, that was also attended by members of the school's Moslem Students Association.
The latter group had voiced its strong opposition to the showing of the video.

Where is the ACLU?

Smiles Department: Another Overdue

I love this!

Robert Nuranen, a California-based social studies teacher, has just returned a book he borrowed from the Hancock (Michigan) Public Library, along with a check for $171.32 in late fees. The book was forty-seven years overdue! He found the volume (which he never finished reading) in a box in the attic of his house. "I figured I'd better get it in before we waited another 10 years. Fifty-seven years would be embarrassing."

The book was stamped with a due date of June 2, 1960, and all library records about it had disappeared a long time ago. Librarian, Sue Zubiena said: "I'm going to use it as an example.
It's never too late to return your books."

The Wrong Way To Solve A Library Problem

"The Maplewood Library Board of Trustees voted to shut the library from 2:45 to 5 by unanimous vote this evening. "

This was the terse announcement that hit residents of Maplewood, New Jersey on December 20th (the story has been getting a lot of publicity this past week). It seems that the Baker Street Branch of the Mapleton Public Library is just a few steps away from a middle school, whose students were running so rampant that they posed a safety hazard for both patrons and library personnel. The staff are still in the buildings (there are two branches) and on the clock during the new afternoon hours.

I have deep sympathy for those who work there, and they certainly, are entitled to more protection than they have been getting. But is shuttering the buildings for several hours on weekdays the best solution? Don't those patrons who have not been acting out in the library deserve to continue to have full access to it?

Why not simply hire more guards, or bring in some local police officers to keep an eye on things?

The Blight That Is The SRRT

Librarian bloggers are writing, with increasing frequency, about the tyranny of the American Library Association's so-called Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT), and the very real harm that it does. Given the firm hold that the SRRT has over ALA policies, those of us who oppose it are fighting an uphill battle. Consequently, we need to increase our protests. In that regard, I love what the wonderful and witty Annoyed Librarian wrote in her blog yesterday: "The SRRT has always been illiberal, because the SRRT folk don't really want to give people the means to choose their own ends; no, the SRRT folk want to choose everyone's ends themselves. Their notion of 'social responsibility' consists of forcing their illiberal, confused, progressivistical politics on everyone else."

Smiles Department: Everytime We Touch

On December 29th, Conservator posted Everytime We Touch, an absolutely delightful music video that was taped in a real library (it appears to be a law library). Conservator is one of the blogs that I've linked to...you can easily access the video. It will give you a smile and probably make you laugh. Thank you, Jack Stephens (the Conservator).

Tamir And Her Textbooks Must Go

Yesterday, the Knesset Education Committee voted 8 to 2 against the use of new textbooks in Israeli schools which show only the pre-1967 borders in their maps. Minister of Education, Yuli Tamir, immediately said she will ignore the vote. Yuli Tamir needs to be replaced...the sooner the better and that goes for the rest of Olmert & Co. Israel's survival is on the line and competent leadership is very much needed!