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Public [Dis]service Message: Regular People Use the Library for Internet Access EVERY DAY!

la public libraries are closed on sundays andn mondays. this is beverly hills public library on a monday
Beverly Hills Public Library is open seven days a week. Some spaces are exclusively for public internet use. No books on these shelves. | Photo by Andy Sternberg/LAist

LA Public Libraries are closed on Sundays and Mondays due to unruly budget cuts. This includes the historic Central Library – a downtown landmark and one of the largest libraries in the country – in addition to all 70 LAPL branches. Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Burbank patrons can access their library’s resources 7 days a week.

How do we fix this? LA City Council President Eric Garcetti told me last month (in a Twitter reply) that the library cuts signify about $10 million in savings for the city “…and I am working to see if this 15% cut can be mitigated as soon as economy/receipts pick up.”

This is an issue that should irritate everyone who feels part of the community as it affects education, jobs, and the digital divide, not to mention the amount of waste contributed to people who are forced to buy new books because the library is closed on their day off.

As long as our elected officials are corrupting our tax dollars for personal and professional gain, we should not allow them to take away our communities’ most precious resources (a far more valuable allocation of taxes, dontcha think?). This shouldn’t require a costly amendment that, if passed, would add a $39 parcel tax to our plate.

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Photos and More From CitizenGulf LA – August 25 2010

You’ll see more and more content here as the night goes on. And come on down — it’s going to be fun and it’s going late — here are the details.

Unable to attend a CitizenGulf Benefit tonight? You can still donate directly by clicking the icon below. Tag your tweets and photos #CitizenGulf so we can see them here. Thanks for your support.

donate to CitizenGulf

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Help Raise $$ and Rock Out with Big Moves, Le Switch, Hiram Rimmer, Stranger Danger DJs + more at #CitizenGulf LA Weds. 8/25 in Santa Monica

I’ve already blogged about this but if you’re reading this then you can very easily help spread the word! It will be a great time for a good cause. Thanks!

The main DEETS:

The Central Social Aid & Pleasure Club — 1348 14th Street, Santa Monica (former 14 Below space, now fully revamped and reopened)

An 18-minute Katrina documentary will be screened at 8pm, introduced by the (Venice-based) filmmakers.

3 bands will perform! Le Switch, Big Moves, and Hiram Rimmer. Stranger Danger DJ duo will bookend the night’s music to keep us dancing until bar close at 2. Bar opens at 5 for happy hour. Event start is 7:30.

There will be an entire room of art inspired by and depicting the Gulf Coast from Katrina in August 2005 to the present day Oil Spill disaster. Some will be available for a charity auction.

HOW MUCH: Just $10 toward a fund set up specifically for this CitizenGulf National Day of Action. Citizen Effect and Catholic Charities of New Orleans will put forth all of the proceeds from these 20 events toward extending an after school program that was started in New Orleans after Katrina into coastal parishes and provide fifty children with a safe environment that will give participants access to interactive learning opportunities, self-esteem building workshops, therapeutic art activities and other activities and services needed by the children affected by the spill.

There will also be a food truck in The Central’s private lot — Dante Food Truck

All the main details and RSVP at http://citizengulfla.eventbrite.com (shorturl: http://bit.ly/CitGulfLA)
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Facebook Causes’ Disruptive Wall Threat is Just an Annoying, UX-Inhibiting Lie

It’s really just another lesson in why you should never but an exact public date on a launch. Of course in this case it’s the date for a “disappearance” or removal, but as I predicted last month and as has occurred in the past, Facebook is once again guilty of writing threats on innocent people’s walls and then neither following up on them, nor cleaning up. 

Without meaning to be too critical — I’m just sayin’. And, as long as I can have this badge on my wall it would be nice if my friends could still use it to click through and learn more about the, uh, Cause!

Posted via email from Andy Sternberg’s posterous

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Now in its 6th Year, RadioLab is Still the Greatest Podcast on Air

radiolab wnycIn February of 2005, WNYC – New York City’s main NPR station, launched its first episode of Radiolab with Jad Abumrad. OK, actually the first episode was months earlier. Abumrod had actually produced numerous Radiolab-like segments since joining NPR in 2002, many on Kurt Andersen’s amazing, long-running Studio 360 program.

The most recent episode is titled “Words“:

Radiolab - August 10, 2010 - Words Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Radiolab is a workshop in the aural experience – it is, at its core, a program that explores the essence of radio, from story arc to research to interview to post-production and mixdown. Any given episode will surprise you in its clarity, weirdness, and attention to detail. My first reaction to listening — I became a regular listener to the podcast (you can subscribe here for RSS, xml, or iTunes) in 2005 — was amazement at how much effort, creativity, and likely attempts at perfectionism went into the editing and remixing of the audio. An hourlong Radiolab is without fail a stimulating and thought provoking experience, rooted in the great voices, delivery, and smartypants adeptness of hosts Jad Abumrod and Robert Krulwitch.

My love affair with this program is capped by how well it uses the latest technology – since the early days of podcasting, Radiolab has been made available in multiple formats for download and streaming as well as across many NPR member stations nationwide. We’ve come to expect this from NPR programming since the grand ol’ days of RealAudio streams. But this show stands apart in that it takes the story and the sound and the experience to extreme levels, show after show.

I don’t have a TV nor do I care to watch one. I listen to programs like this. Stock up your music-playing receptacle with multiple episodes from the archives before your next road trip and you will not be disappointed. Even P Diddy listens to Radiolab twice.

One of my all-time favorites is “Numbers” (mp3:

Other faves include Memory and Forgetting (mp3). Listen to the segment below on amnesia and Musicophilia with Oliver Sacks:

Finally, music… Musical Language (mp3) just reading the first graf of the show notes is mesmerizing as it is:

What is music? How does it work? Why does it move us? Why are some people better at it than others? In this hour, we examine the line between language and music, how the brain processes sound, and we meet a composer who uses computers to capture the musical DNA of dead composers in order to create new work. We also re-imagine the disastrous 1913 debut of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring…through the lens of modern neurology.

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