Connie Regan-Blake,
with her cousin, Barbara Freeman, inspired me to quit my library job to
become an itinerant storyteller. They had quit theirs, and were
traveling around the country in a truck-camper as The Folktellers. I
went home, bought a Dodge van and hit the road. Connie is still telling,
and I am still on her mailing list. She just sent this quote she got
from Peggy Seeger:
“(life) includes a free trip around the sun every year.” I didn’t
notice when our ship passed the Fall equinox this year, but it is really
Fall now. The peaches and nectarines at the farmers’ market aren’t that
good any more, and we have persimmons lined up to ripen on the
windowsill above the sink.
Actually,
after I met Connie and Barbara I went home and talked my then partner,
Carole Leita, into hitting the road with me. You’ve seen her photographs
illustrating my blog from time to time. The Librarian's Index to the Internet grew
out of Carole’s bookmarks back when she was an early adopter of the
internet for library reference work. It’s a good source of reliable
sites. She went on to teach hundreds of librarians effective internet
use. Now she’s retired and taking a lot of photographs.
My faithful reader Ted Warmbrand wanted to know more about that folk music collection I heard about on the WPA walk. Here’s what I found.
"A
multi-format ethnographic field collection that includes sound
recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a
variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities
in Northern California," collected by the WPA California Folk Music
Project from 1938 through 1940. Includes profile of Project director
Sidney Robertson Cowell. Searchable by keyword; browsable by performer,
musical instrument, and audio title. From the American Memory Project of
the Library of Congress.
Topics: California Regions, California: Arts and Humanities, California: Photograph Collections, Music, Musical Genres
Last updated Mar 23, 2005
And I found it on the Librarian’s Index to the Internet.
ARMS SUPPLIER TO THE WORLD: THAT’S US!
Recently, the Times Pentagon correspondent Thom Shanker wrote
a piece...which appeared inside the paper on a quiet Labor Day.
"Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows" was the headline.
Perhaps Shanker, too, felt uncomfortable with his subject, because he
included the following generic description: "In the highly competitive
global arms market, nations vie for both profit and political influence
through weapons sales, in particular to developing nations..." The
figures he cited from a new congressional study of that "highly
competitive" market told a different story: The U.S., with $37.8 billion
in arms sales (up $12.4 billion from 2007), controlled 68.4% of the
global arms market in 2008. Highly competitively speaking, Italy came "a
distant second" with $3.7 billion. In sales to "developing nations,"
the U.S. inked $29.6 billion in weapons agreements or 70.1% of the
market. Russia was a vanishingly distant second at $3.3 billion or 7.8%
of the market. In other words, with 70% of the market, the U.S. actually
has what, in any other field, would qualify as a monopoly position --
in this case, in things that go boom in the night. With the American car
industry in a ditch, it seems that this (along with Hollywood films
that go boom in the night) is what we now do best, as befits a war, if
not warrior, state. Is that an American accomplishment you're
comfortable with?
It makes me itch all over.
©2009 by Nancy Schimmel
1 Comment 
carole leita
i
think we talked each other into the trip as i wanted to hit the road to
organize women library workers. we certainly had some fine times on our
storytelling/organizing trip.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 02:59 PM
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
FALL COLORS: PERSIMMON AND GRAPE
