There for the Taking

My local city libraries have approximately 170,000 items on their shelves. That total spans two library branches located within our city limits. i dont live in a particularly large city. however, our local libraries are well used by residents and highly valued by city planners.

I so enjoy that legendary Robin Williams film entitled "Good Will Hunting". It's main character, a rebellious genius, gets into a verbal battle with an Ivy League brat, by stating quite convincingly.... that he was able to get all the same knowledge as the ivy brat simply by paying less than 5$ a year in late fees to his local public library. i can't help but applaud. 

Now  before u think i am just some bookworm with a penchant for books....permit me to enlighten you otherwise. I am not a mere reader of books.

i read to learn. THEN i take what i have learned and try it out in the real world. I put into practice what i personally study. Through trial and error i tweak my strategies until i receive the desired outcome.

Much of what i have personally put into practice which has propelled me forward in life, has been eagerly gleaned from free or low cost high quality books. Sometimes i splurge on a high cost book and usually discover it is worth every single penny...even if the cost is over a 100 dollars. Good timely accurate information is priceless.

Some of my learning curve has stretched from written pages to dance playfully with websites, podcasts and blogs.  i have also , on more than one occasion, taken it upon myself to personally contact a well respected author with the intent of being able to ask more precise questions. 

 I pride myself on having the courage to contact well accomplished authors for the sole purpose of learning more about a vital subject of interest.

You must bet on yourself sometimes, to use the skills u already have to get u moving towards your written life goals. 

Well, i am going to be brief today. i am simply going to ask u  a question. Are u sure that u have taken full advantage of what your local public library has to offer?  Have u maxed out it's advantages for the attainment of your life goals?

It just may be possible, that somewhere, hidden in a massive library book shelf or in a stack of audio book cd's..... lies the next bite of information u have been waiting for. Don't u want to get that much closer towards the accomplishment of one of your life goals?You are passionate about your life goals aren't u ?

in peaceful productivity , 

Carla.

There's a Battle for Good Information

In my nerdier days...ok ok....I've never quite shook off that wonderfully geeky tendency of mine.
Truth be told...I love information...but only accurate information.

One would have assumed that with the net and tv and smart phones, that we would be getting bombarded with all manner of top notch quality data at our fingertips.

But it appears that good quality information is at a higher cost now than ever before.
If you want  good information from a newspaper, you need to pay for a high priced subscription, which may or may not be available for home delivery.

Why does everyone hate paper so much???
 Or is it just a conspiracy to keep good data out of the hands of the every day man or woman like me?

When I try to get good reads from CNN.com or CTV.ca  I see lots of photos and click bait.
What am I .....10 years old? I still visit these sites hoping that someday I will be able to read a thoughtful two page essay on the current state of affairs, and again and again I find myself clicking on links to view the latest pop culture crap and yet another trendy way we can lose weight in 30 days without trying.

Nope I'm ready for the real McCoy, the real news....not that I really understood the whole
"fake news" phenomenon.

Perhaps the real difference between "fake news" and "real news" is merely the price that we are willing to pay. The free websites propagate fake news because that is all they can afford to publish. They don't necessarily want to pay fact checkers to verify each story before they run it, because the news blurbs flow at lightening speed. They don't want to publish anything too shocking about the big wigs because they don't want to get sued. So they stick with beige. Beige fake news click bait. Who has time for checking facts and accuracy, when folks just want to "feel" like they are " in the know"? and few can tell the difference between a real honest story and a frilly fluffy piece of nonsense?

I must admit that we as a society are partially to blame. Perhaps we never should have cancelled our old fashioned "throw it at the front door" style of newspaper subscriptions. Maybe we never should have preferred glimpsing briefly at flashy colorful headlines with two paragraph pseudo stories.

We should have preferred the thoughtful "takes a while to learn to understand it" style of journalistic meat instead of the visual cupcake. We should have been willing to pay a higher price for the higher value now put on all things "paper".

The switch to all things digital is leaving a bigger gap between the haves and the have nots. The haves pay for the right to access good data. The rest of humanity...the "have nots" click feverishly to  access the free garbage been poured out on the free websites...and we are reaping the
mental starvation from eating this low quality mental fast food.

Maybe they should figure out how to print newspapers on bamboo pulp paper or rice paper....maybe it could become trendy again to disseminate the same data to all of our front doors ....with the same high quality, high level of thinking style journalism. And those who can't digest the real stuff, can just go watch cartoons.

Hmmmm..

Peace,
C.




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