Kamis, 27 Januari 2011

Bad News for Texas Libraries

The following notice was posted by the Texas Library Association at http://www.txla.org/texline-265

I. Proposed Budget Demolishes Statewide Library Programs

The first draft of the State’s budget proposal for 2012-13 affects every statewide library program. The proposal:


  • Eliminates Loan Star Libraries (direct aid grants to public libraries)

  • Eliminates all state funding for TexShare databases (replaces state funding for databases with increased fees to member libraries)

  • Eliminates the K-12 Database program

  • Eliminates the Library System Negotiated Grants Program (the new competitive grant program started last session for systems)

  • Eliminates state funding for consulting services to libraries (program/staff based at the agency)

  • Eliminates state funding for state depository program and TRAIL program

  • Eliminates state funding for records management (replaces state funding with increased fees)

  • Assumes an overall loss of over $8 million in IMLS funds (Note: federal funding is the source of funding for the regional library systems, the TANG program, and interlibrary loan.)

  • Eliminates the Technology Allotment at TEA.

  • Eliminates funding for the State Law Library (updated item: 1/20/11)




This budget shows a 99% decrease in state funding for statewide local library aid programs and a 93% state cut to library resource sharing programs at the State Library. Overall, the agency cuts amount to about a 70% cut in state funds and an all funds reduction about a third of the agency’s budget.

From the perspective of investing in communities, helping kids learn, spurring job placement, and maintaining a dynamic infrastructure for research and digital literacy through our libraries, this budget completely fails the people of Texas. For libraries, these recommendations not only potentially destroy almost every facet of critical statewide library services; they speak to a philosophy dismissive of supporting individuals and communities.

While this budget is just the starting point for deliberations, it is a frightening portent of the potential implosion of our state’s infrastructure for learning and economic development.

We must not let this stand. It is not just our funding over the next two years that is in danger -- it is the vital understanding of libraries and their role in offering education, providing meaningful and proven support to our economy and institutions of learning, and speaking to a state of vitality.

We need everyone to speak out for libraries. We need every library supporter to inundate their state representative and senator, the Governor, and the Lt. Governor with letters expressing the incredible damage these cuts would cause. We have a long and hard fight ahead of us, but it is one we must undertake.

II. What You Can Do

Here is what you can do…

  1. Call your state representative and senator and tell them not to cut library funding. Be prepared to make the case for your library and the impact it has on your community and students. For more information on library programs, see Issues and Taking Action [4].

  2. Develop an awareness campaign within you community. See the “What My Library Means to Me Campaign [5].” Start marshaling your resources and get your army of supporters mobilized for action.

  3. Inform people around you -- administrators, community powerbrokers, student groups, PTAs. Show them how they can save state funding for libraries. Ask them to speak and write to elected officials.

  4. Participate in Legislative Day [6]. (There is still time to get a hotel room through tomorrow!)

  5. Write letters to the editor; contact your local media about library funding.

  6. Above all: show up for duty! This is a cause for each and every one of us, regardless of political affiliation. We all want the same thing – a strong Texas with strong libraries. If there was ever a time we needed library supporters to be proactive and aggressive in their support for libraries, THE TIME IS NOW.


Fight for our libraries.

Let’s not undo a generation of progress!

Links mentioned above:


  1. http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http://www.txla.org/texline-265&linkname=Texline 265: Proposed Budget Demolishes Statewide Library Programs

  2. http://www.txla.org/texline-265#one

  3. http://www.txla.org/texline-265#What you can do

  4. http://www.txla.org/take-action

  5. http://www.txla.org/what-my-library-means-to-me

  6. http://www.txla.org/../../../../../../../../legislative-day


My thanks to Susie Perkins for telling me about this issue.

Across My Desk: 26 Jan 2011

DearREADERS,
Some days are so perfect, you just have to sit back and enjoy what others have written. Here are a few of today's highlights:
  • A nostalgic look at her childhood home, Elizabeth Powell Crowe describes her father's super-high quality electrical system, and we get a glimpse of his personality. Glad to see the Crowe's Nest blog is back! What would we daughters be without the influence of our fathers?
  • Via Facebook, Bill West let me know that Walmart has abandoned efforts to build a the Wilderness battleground. Glad to hear this as the project was utterly distasteful to my sense of humanity, not to mention my sense of history.
  • Great to hear the younger set is getting involved in FamilySearch Indexing! Note fellow geneablogger A. C. Ivory's post Give Them Food and They Will Index. This isn't a one shot deal. This group is holding indexing parties 'Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings and during Sunday School' throughout the coming year. Can you say as much for your local genealogy society?

AND ANOTHER THING...
Last night during our Second Life chat at Just Genealogy, my avatar Clarise Beaumont pointed to the availability of the archived FamilySearch 2011 January Bloginar. Someone asked 'What's a bloginar?' I thought it was a word coined by FamilySearch combining the term 'webinar' with the term 'bloggers', the latter being those invited to participate in the webinar. Since then I've looked to see if Wikipedia has 'bloginar' listed. (It doesn't.) A Google search for the word returned 54,000 hits including a definition from the Urban Dictionary which reads:
A bloginar is a webinar hosted specifically for bloggers, and may include promotion of specific social media tools designed for bloggers, such as online graphics, widgets, or online video. Bloginars provide a way for bloggers to get accurate, credible information to write blogs about current topics of interest. (CDC)
Hey man, [what's] a bloginar? It's what the rest of the world calls a webinar, or web chat.

Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt :)
DearMYRTLE,
Your friend in genealogy.

Goat Town: Solid Bistro Food, Hold The Excitement

From Serious Eats: New York






VIEW SLIDESHOW: Goat Town: Solid Bistro Food, Hold The Excitement





[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]




Goat Town


511 East 5th Street, New York NY 10009 (b/n Avenues A and B; map); 212-687-3641; goattownnyc.com

Service: Refreshingly friendly, if unevenly paced

Setting: Oyster bar meets barn meets subway platform; small and modern-funky

Compare It To: General Greene, Marlowe & Sons, Walter Foods

Must-Haves: Burger, sauteed squid

Cost: $8-13 apps, $18-24 mains

Grade: B



There are any number of reasons to go to Goat Town, the new East Village restaurant from the folks behind Brooklyn's General Greene—if you're in the neighborhood.



It's be a nice spot for a date, or a long chatty dinner with a friend, or few oysters and a drink. For an unusual cocktail (lacking a liquor license, the Goat Town's are crafted entirely of wines, beers, and wine-based aperitifs and digestifs) or a very drinkable glass of the $7 house Cotes du Rhone. Come summer, it's easy to imagine the back garden-to-be will be an exceedingly pleasant place for a beer.



And the food, for the most part, is quite enjoyable. A meal of bread crumb-topped sauteed squid and crisp-skinned roast chicken, or a shared plate of chicken liver mousse followed up with a burger, with maybe a scoop of salted caramel ice cream for dessert are meals I'd eat again. I just don't know that there's any reason to go to Goat Town to get them.



In many locations in the city, Goat Town would be a real find: a reliable, friendly neighborhood restaurant serving some French, some American bistro fare. But in a corner of Manhattan with such a vibrant and ecclectic restaurant scene, Goat Town doesn't do all that much to stand out; and the entree prices—$18-24—just don't seem justified. There are plenty of good meals in the East Village for under $20. A thirty-dollar dinner needs to be a great one.


The space is designed from mostly reclaimed materials by Evan and Oliver Haslegrave, whose look you might recognize from Motorino, Paulie Gee's, and Elsa. They've got that modern-vintage Brooklyn look down; reclaimed furniture, rough wood, funky touches. Here, we don't quite know what to call it: oyster bar meets '50s subway meets ranch? It's an attractive joint, though the booths—made of strange tiled benches so deeply curved that your bottom sinks lower than your legs—aren't exactly what one would call comfortable.



20110126-goat-town-01.jpg



'The Goat Town.'



Even in the absence of hard liquor, 'The Goat Town' ($9)—Cardamaro and Carpano Antica vermouth, plus lemon, Muscadet, and red wine—was quite impressive, more complex than you might guess given the lack of hard liquor. Sweet but balanced by bitter elements, it was something like a winter sangria, though the wine didn't figure quite as prominently.



20110126-goat-town-02.jpg



Sauteed squid.



We'd stop back in for that and a plate of sauteed squid ($12); the slim rings and tentacles maintain a tender bite, enlivened by lemon and parsley. It's a pretty expected combination and was served a little cool, but made a bit more exciting by crunchy mustard bread crumbs.



Other apps worth having? The Kale Waldorf ($9) is better than any traditional celery-based Waldorf salad, with crisp apples, well-distributed walnuts and raisins, and a dressing that's admittedly mayonnaise-y but not too heavily applied. One part American indulgence, one part happy locavore. And the chicken liver mousse , served with cornichons, grainy mustard, and (not quite enough) sourdough toast, is very well done: boozy and a little sweet, but with a pronounced liver taste.



Unfortunately, some of their more promising-sounding counterparts didn't fare quite as well. Goat meatballs ($11), the only instance of the namesake animal on the menu, were dramatically underseasoned; they tasted of goat for the first moment in the mouth, but as you kept chewing, the flavor fell flat. The paired sauces didn't do much to add interest. A steak tartar ($12) similarly needed salt and acid—more capers and pickles would've helped. (It also had bits of connective tissue in it, as if the beef weren't quite trimmed properly.)



20110126-goat-town-09.jpg



Burger.



True to its modern bistro leanings, Goat Town has a burger on the menu, and it's a great one ($14). Made with ground beef from Creekstone Farms, it was cooked a good bit past the requested medium rare, but was still plenty juicy and flavorful, amply seasoned and improved by a fully melted blanket of white cheddar (blue and Gruyere are also available). We didn't think it needed the 'house sauce,' a vinegary mayo, served on the side. The skin-on fries are well-salted and have a good potato taste, but they were a bit limp and a bit cool by the time they got to the table.



Timing and heat seemed like an issue elsewhere, too; like the squid appetizer, the roast vegetables ($6; tasty, if unremarkable) weren't all heated through.



Of the other entrees, the best-executed was a pan-roasted baby chicken ($18)—super-crisp, well-seasoned skin, moist meat both white and dark—though we'd expect a nearly twenty-dollar plate of poultry to be either larger or more original or both. Served over the same roasted vegetables, it's the dish that best represented our overall impression of the restaurant: solidly executed, but somewhat staid. The kind of dish you'd be proud to make at home on a weeknight, but seems a bit underwhelming at a restaurant. A Grilled Berkshire pork chop ($24) was similarly enjoyable, but not remarkable—a bit drier than it should have been. The sauteed arctic char ($22) was a better bet, sporting a fantastic crisp skin smothered in a nicely pungent rouille that flavored the fennel, potato, and leeks beneath; that said, given the softness of the fatty fish, a bit more textural contrast wouldn't have hurt.



Desserts followed a similar spread of homey, tasty, and slightly puzzling. A chocolate torte ($9) was appealingly dense and packed a chocolate punch; the crème fraiche with it seemed an odd pairing (We don't like super-sweet whipped cream, either, but this strayed too far into sour territory). A cookie plate ($9) featured excellent pecan sandies, nicely salty chocolate chip cookies, and an enormous, unwieldy lavender-scented meringue. Though the pineapple sorbet in the pineapple knickerbocker glory ($10) was tart and refreshing, the promised burnt honey ice cream was nowhere to be found—or just so overwhelmed by the pineapple thatwe couldn't find it. A house-made salted caramel ice cream ($6), if not quite as tongue-coatingly rich as ice cream can be, had just the right sweet-salty balance; it was the first dish to go.



The General Greene, the Goat Town owners' other restaurant, offers a few clues as to where there's room for improvement. There, entrees are a bit more original, with a slight but not pronounced Southern bent; prices are lower across the board; desserts are large, homey, and irresistible.



There are no real misses on this menu, though some plates could certainly be improved; there are quite a few dishes we enjoyed to the last bite; and service is friendly, casual, and eager to please—not always the case in this sort of young restaurant. The strength of the drinks and that burger might have us come back. But otherwise, we were left a bit wanting.



At Goat Town the menu reads like the greatest hits of bistro food. One of each type of major protein—chicken, steak, pork chop, salmon—in this case char—a burger, tartare, calamari. Dishes that, like the LP's spinning on the soundtrack and the reclaimed decor are good, reliable, but unmistakably old. It left us asking, where's the spark?









Master Password Plus

Master Password Plus: "

Trying this out now. If nothing else I will be glad to get rid of the multiple prompts.


” Firefox only: If you’re not using Firefox’s Master Password to lock down your saved passwords, that’s a mistake. Then again, the Master Password itself could be more secure and less annoying. The Master Password+ extension fixes its subject on both those fronts… “



Jan 5, 2011


http://lifehacker.com/5725385/master-password%252B-vastly-improves-firefoxs-password-security

"

The List of Cities and Details for Kevin Smith’s “Red State USA Tour”


Kevin Smith is going to make back the money his own way for his newest film Red State. Part of that involves taking the film out on the road and making that profit off of willing audiences, city by city. Smith will be there for post-film Q&As at each location, and he’ll be bringing lead actor Michael Parks along with him. Sounds good, right? The price, however, may be higher than you’ll be willing to pay.


For all the details of Smith’s “Red State USA Tour,” including which cities it will visit, just hit the jump.


The Red State USA Tour sounds like a fun time, but it’ll cost a pretty penny. According to Smith, you are probably going to pay “probably 6, 7, maybe 10 times” what you normally pay to see a film at a multiplex. Smith also promises that “we’re going to give you some cool shit,” although it’s not clear if this is separate from the Q&A with Parks and Smith himself (my guess is no). It’s worth noting that while this price initially sounds outrageous, it isn’t too much more than a regular Smith Q&A and, to my knowledge, he usually doesn’t even screen movies at those things.


Here is the full list of dates and locations:


March 5th – Radio City Music Hall

March 6th – Wilbur Theater in Boston

March 8th – Harris Theater in Chicago

March 9th – State Theater in Minneapolis

March 10th – Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor

March 11th – Indianapolis, IN

March 12th - Midland Theater, Kansas City

March 14th – Springfield, OH

March 22nd – Paramount Theater, Denver

March 26th - McCalister theater, New Orleans

March 28th – Paramount Theater, Austin

March 29th – Cobb Energy Center, Atlanta

April 4th – McCaw Hall in Seattle


If the tour does well, Smith will reopen the tour later on. But either way, he hopes to pay back the entire $4 million budget of the film by the time it opens in October 2011. See all the details here.


Discuss: What do you guys think? Would you pay $50-100 to see Red State early and the ensuing Kevin Smith Q&A?


Oscar nominations 2011: the full list

The full list of nominees in each category for the 83rd Academy awards

Best motion picture of the year

Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Javier Bardem (Biutiful)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Christian Bale (The Fighter)
John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

Achievement in directing

Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
David O Russell (The Fighter)
Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (True Grit)

Adapted screenplay

127 Hours - Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network - Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 - Michael Arndt (screenplay); John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich (story)
True Grit - Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone - Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Original screenplay

Another Year - Mike Leigh
The Fighter - Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (screenplay); Keith Dorrington, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson (story)
Inception - Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right - Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg
The King's Speech - David Seidler

Best animated feature film of the year

How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Best foreign language film of the year

Biutiful (Mexico)
Dogtooth (Greece)
In a Better World (Denmark)
Incendies (Canada)
Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi) (Algeria)

Art direction

Alice in Wonderland - Robert Stromberg (production design), Karen O'Hara (set decoration)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 - Stuart Craig (production design), Stephenie McMillan (set decoration)
Inception - Guy Hendrix Dyas (production design), Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (set decoration)
The King's Speech - Eve Stewart (production design), Judy Farr (set decoration)
True Grit - Jess Gonchor (production design), Nancy Haigh (set decoration)

Achievement in cinematography

Matthew Libatique (Black Swan)
Wally Pfister (Inception)
Danny Cohen (The King's Speech)
Jeff Cronenweth (The Social Network)
Roger Deakins (True Grit)

Achievement in costume design

Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland)
Antonella Cannarozzi (I Am Love)
Jenny Beavan (The King's Speech)
Sandy Powell (The Tempest)
Mary Zophres (True Grit)

Best documentary feature

Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz)
Gasland (Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic)
Inside Job (Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs)
Restrepo (Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger)
Waste Land (Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley)

Best documentary short subject

Killing in the Name (Nominees to be determined)
Poster Girl (Nominees to be determined)
Strangers No More (Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon)
Sun Come Up (Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger)
The Warriors of Qiugang (Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon)

Achievement in film editing

Andrew Weisblum (Black Swan)
Pamela Martin (The Fighter)
Tariq Anwar (The King's Speech)
Jon Harris (127 Hours)
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter (The Social Network)

Achievement in makeup

Adrien Morot (Barney's Version)
Edouard F Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng (The Way Back)
Rick Baker and Dave Elsey (The Wolfman)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (original score)

John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon)
Hans Zimmer (Inception)
Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech)
AR Rahman (127 Hours)
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (original song)

Coming Home (from Country Strong, music and lyrics by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey)
I See the Light (from Tangled, music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Glenn Slater)
If I Rise (from 127 Hours, music by AR Rahman, lyrics by Dido and Rollo Armstrong)
We Belong Together (from Toy Story 3, music and lyrics by Randy Newman)

Best animated short film

Day & Night (Teddy Newton)
The Gruffalo (Jakob Schuh and Max Lang)
Let's Pollute (Geefwee Boedoe)
The Lost Thing (Nick Batzias, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann)
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary) (Bastien Dubois)

Best live action short film

The Confession (Tanel Toom)
The Crush (Michael Creagh)
God of Love (Luke Matheny)
Na Wewe (Ivan Goldschmidt)
Wish 143 (Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite)

Achievement in sound editing

Inception (Richard King)
Toy Story 3 (Tom Myers and Michael Silvers)
Tron: Legacy (Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague)
True Grit (Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey)
Unstoppable (Mark P Stoeckinger)

Achievement in sound mixing

Inception (Lora Hirschberg, Gary A Rizzo and Ed Novick)
The King's Speech (Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley)
Salt (Jeffrey J Haboush, Greg P Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin)
The Social Network (Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten)
True Grit (Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F Kurland)

Achievement in visual effects

Alice in Wonderland (Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi)
Hereafter (Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell)
Inception (Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb)
Iron Man 2 (Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick)


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All the major nominees and winners for the 2010 film awards season

The King's Speech swept away with 12 Oscar nominations today, but who are the other winners and nominees of the 2010 film season?
Get the data

The Oscar nominations have been announced and The King's Speech looks set to reign as the favourite of the film season.

Nominated for 12 awards,The King's Speech looks to dominate at the 83rd Academy Awards. In an echo of last week's Bafta nominations Colin Firth has been nominated for best actor.

Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush along with director Tom Hooper have also received nominations today. It seems America has truly been enamoured with the British tale of King George VI.

Black Swan, The Kids Are All Right and The Social Network once again make an appearance in the list as they also have done recently in the upcoming Bafta, Screen Actors Guild and London Film Critic Awards.

Here at the Datablog we've tracked film award nominations and winners in all the main categories, including best actor and actress, director, film and screenplay (see last years results). Those categories that have been left out such as newcomer, short film and editing have been ignored because they aren't presented in sufficient award ceremonies to warrant a comparison.

The Oscars data comes from the Academy Awards official site - full links are on our spreadsheet.

Last week we suggested that the nominations so far in the film awards would provide an idea of those up for the Oscar nominations and from the names cropping up it would seem they have been a good indicator

Other recurring winners such as Melissa Leo, The Social Network director David Fincher and Toy Story 3 are set for more possible success with further nominations in upcoming awards.

Check the tables below to see this season's big winners in some of the top categories, or download the spreadsheet for the full list of nominees and winners.What do you think? Can you do anything with the data?

Data summary

Download the data

DATA: download the full spreadsheet

More data

Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian

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Development and aid data

Search the world's global development data with our gateway

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• Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk

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