What isn’t in the November C&I, 1

  • You won’t see a Perspective on LTB (Life Trumps Blogging).
  • No Copyright sections
  • No real discussion of the Online Content Alliance or Google Print.
  • No color illustrations or animations.

For the first three, it’s a lack of space and time–and for the third, I’d like to let the fat folder of source material grow a little more before putting it into perspective. OCA’s too important for a hasty comment.

For the fourth–well, business as usual.

What will you see in Cites & Insights 5:12 (November 2005)? Stay tuned. Barring earthquake or other natural or human disaster, it will appear sometime between this afternoon and Sunday evening.

Here’s a bit of blather that was cut from Bibs & Blather as part of a fairly ruthless editing process, offered up here because it will be far too stale by the time the December C&I appears:

Politics in Disguise

I find it fascinating that the house organ of ALA, decried by so many “conservatives” as a hotbed of leftists, has one and only one columnist who freely insinuates political opinion in his offerings—and that columnist is a conservative. That’s “Will’s World.”

I don’t intend to start a “Will watch,” but I was impressed by the ease with which Manley dismissed the non-Bush perspective on Social Security in the August 2005 American Libraries. He says it’s all about “the concept of trust”—those in favor of privatization “feel that American workers should be trusted to invest the money that is deducted from their paychecks for Social Security” while those who favor keeping it “completely in the hands of the government don’t think that workers can be trusted to make prudent investments with their retirement money.”

Isn’t that simple? Here you thought the argument involved tens of billions of dollars of profits for stockbrokers, keeping faith with those who have paid into Social Security, whether there should be any sort of safety net, and issues like that.

Nope: It’s all about trust, and if you think workers are competent, you must favor privatization. It’s that simple in Will’s World.

I’m not going to comment directly on the “loneliness of the conservative librarian” column or the discussions of that column in various places. I did find one early set-to bemusing and noteworthy. One ALA Councillor (his name does not begin with an R) wrote a blunt response to the commentary, posting it on the council list and on Publib. One of the first reactions on Publib made a snide comment about “your reality-based party line” in dismissing the Councillor’s reaction. What I find bemusing here is that the right-wing reaction seemed to think “reality-based party” is an insult. Maybe in some circles it is, more’s the pity.

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