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RAIN 04/17: Ellis Island records, Nicholson Baker (again!) and govt data
AllAfrica.com 4/15/01
Auditor-General arrested over state documents
http://allafrica.com/stories/200104150079.html
Panafrican News Agency (Dakar)
Accra, Ghana
Police said Sunday that Ghana's Auditor-General, Osei Tutu Prempeh, was
detained at the weekend for keeping some classified State documents in his
house in contravention of official regulations.
A release from the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) said a team of BNI
operatives conducted a search at Prempeh's house in the Airport Residential
Area, Accra Friday.
New York Times 4/16/01
Arts Online: Artists share their files and lives on the Web
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/16/arts/16ARTS.html?searchpv=nytToday
by Matthew Mirapaul
The music files stored on a computer can reveal a lot about its owner. A hard
disk full of Eminem songs might indicate a rebellious teenager, while several
albums' worth of 'N Sync tunes might suggest a listener with a slightly more
romantic outlook.
A couple who call themselves Renato Pasopiani and Tania Copechi, young
Italian artists whose medium is the Internet, want you to know much more
about them than what can be deduced from the musical selections on their
computer. For their latest project, "Life Sharing," they are using the
Internet to offer nearly total access to their computer, which they say
represents their lives.
Grand Rapids Press 4/15/01
Both sides in GRPD suit claim internal documents prove their case
http://gr.mlive.com/news/index.ssf?/news/stories/20010415gmlgrpd021803.frm
by Ken Kolker
A Grand Rapids police officer accidentally fires a shot inside a building.
The deputy chief rear-ends a car at a red light. An officer causes four car
crashes in four years.
The Internal Affairs files at the Grand Rapids Police Department are filled
with stories of on-the-job mistakes.
But a review by The Press of the usually private files found only a few
examples of officers facing discipline for sexual harassment.
Chicago Tribune 4/1/01
A bibliophile defends the printed page
'Double Fold' suggests what a gizmo-gullible country we live in
http://chicagotribune.com/leisure/books/article/0,2669,SAV-0103310030,FF.html
by Michael Upchurch
Anyone who ever spent hours squinting into a library microfilm viewfinder
knows it's a less-than-ideal reading experience. And while computers
undeniably have their uses, what sane book lover would want to down whole
volumes in digitized format on a video monitor?
Certain influential librarians of the last half-century, however, have
claimed these are our only viable long-term options. Paper, they say,
crumbles. Books, they insist, turn to dust. Only microfilm or digital storage
can save worthy texts for posterity. And if the technical demands of filming
or scanning mean destroying our master copies, that's simply a necessary
sacrifice, made for the sake of keeping our cultural heritage intact.
Sydney Morning Herald 4/17/01
Crown Casino tender papers locked away for two years
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0104/17/national/national5.html
by Adrian Rollins
The Victorian Government has banned public access to documents relating to
the Crown Casino tender process while it negotiates with failed bidders for
their release.
The Arts Minister, Ms Mary Delahunty, has ordered the records, including
submissions for the casino licence and files of research associated with the
licence process, to be withheld from public access for the next two years.
The Age 4/17/01
Access to casino papers denied
http://www.theage.com.au/news/2001/04/17/FFXYSLX3LLC.html
by Adrian Rollins
The Victorian Government has banned public access to documents relating to
the Crown Casino tender process while it negotiates with failed bidders for
their release.
Arts Minister Mary Delahunty has ordered the records, including submissions
for the casino licence and files of research associated with the process, to
be withheld from public access for the next two years.
DM News 4/16/01
Law unclear on Third-Party DNC list requests
http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=14544
by Scott Hovanyetz
Vague federal regulations have left some telemarketers wondering what to do
when they receive requests from third parties to place consumers on their
do-not-call lists.
Telemarketers say they frequently receive do-not-call requests from people
and organizations claiming to represent entire groups of consumers. Such
groups often offer to place consumers on the do-not-call lists of hundreds of
telemarketers for a fee.
Bergen Record 4/16/01
DYFS case records are called slipshod
http://www.bergen.com/news/dyfsnp200104162.htm
by Nancy Parello
The 17-year-old mother had a heavy history: suicide attempts, prostitution,
and drug abuse.
But the social service agency hired to help her received no information about
her troubled past. She arrived as a charge of the state Division of Youth and
Family Services with no records, no information, and no evaluations.
Within a couple of days, the girl was on the street, turning tricks. She was
kicked out of the residential program a few months later, after trying to
poison other girls in the house by putting disinfectant in an orange juice
container.
NewsFactor 4/17/01
Ellis Island data arrives online
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/8989.html
by Rebecca Sausner
Finding ancestors who arrived in the U.S. by way of Ellis Island will become
as easy on Tuesday as any other Internet search, when the Statue of
Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation launches its Internet database of the more
than 22 million people who arrived in the U.S. during the peak period of
European immigration.
More than 40 percent of Americans have at least one relative who arrived in
the U.S. via a ship that stopped first at the immigration center in New York
City, which documented immigrants between 1892 and 1924, Peg Zitko, a
spokeswoman for the foundation told NewsFactor Network.
The Standard 4/09/01
Double Fold
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,23469,00.html
by Rob Walker
By now we are all familiar with the destructive power of technology. We are
especially familiar with the havoc it can wreak on the distribution of
information. And finally, we are all familiar with luddites.
It's tempting to stop right there in assessing Nicholson Baker's Double Fold.
Here's a man who is worried about the fate of yellowed copies of the Laramie,
Wyo., Republic and Boomerang. A man whose distrust of technology begins with
microfilm. Here's a man, you could say, who is stuck in the past. Who cares
what he has to say about information's future?
The Standard 4/06/01
The Lessons of Shredded Paper
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,23440,00.html
by Luke Mitchell
In a Q&A, author Nicholson Baker gives his take on libraries and institutions
that have been destroying printed publications.
In 1994, novelist Nicholson Baker wrote an epic essay for the New Yorker on,
of all things, the merits of card catalogs. The now-famous article offered
not only a staunch defense of the giant boxes and their scribbled-upon,
dog-eared records, but a surprisingly convincing attack on the computerized
tracking systems that were replacing them. Though far from being a
technophobe, the author of Vox and The Fermata since then has become somewhat
of a spokesman for forgotten media.
The Independent 3/22/01
Treasured collection of composers' letters may go to overseas buyer
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/news/story.jsp?story=62108
by David Lister
Media and Culture Editor
A letter from a dying Beethoven promising a 10th symphony sits alongside one
from a young Edward Elgar begging for recognition.
They are part of a treasury of letters and original scores written by the
great composers that have lain in the archives of the Royal Philharmonic
Society in London but which may now leave the country unless £1m can be found
to keep them here.
The RPS archive chronicles the history of classical music over two centuries.
The RPS is selling its collection to bring in money to commission new music
and set up an education programme.
Los Angeles Times 4/15/01
It's history in the playing
http://www.latimes.com/news/asection/20010415/t000031852.html
by John Henken
Say "player piano" and you are probably thinking of a pizza parlor and the
tinny plinka-plinka of mechanical ragtime. Say "reproducing piano" and the
response is probably, "What's that?"
Yet the reproducing piano was the high-tech, high-fidelity wonder of
early-20th century music recording. Electronic phonograph recording was in
its infancy, limited in time and sonic dimensions, while reproducing piano
mechanisms faithfully captured the styles of artists ranging from Victor
Herbert and George Gershwin to Claude Debussy, Enrique Granados, Gustav
Mahler and Richard Strauss.
Associated Press 4/16/01
Report: Online privacy not protected
http://www.nando.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500473969-500727152-504111916-0,00.
html
Nancy Zuckerbrod
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (April 16, 2001 7:48 p.m. EDT) - Investigators say that people who
log onto dozens of federal government Web sites may be tracked unknowingly
despite a privacy policy forbidding it.
In one case, a government contractor was even given ownership of all the
information collected from a Web site, said the congressional report released
Monday.
The scope of the problem hasn't been nailed down. For example, the report
said NASA hasn't determined how many Web sites it operates so officials don't
know how many might be gathering the information.
News & Observer 4/16/01
Bill allows registered voters to keep addresses confidential
http://www.newsobserver.com/ncwire/news/Story/422685p-417683c.html
Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A House committee on Monday passed a bill allowing
citizens to request in some circumstances that the addresses on their voter
registration forms not be made public.
A voter's address could be hidden from public inspection if he or she signs a
statement saying the safety of the voter or someone at the address could be
jeopardized by its release.
The bill sponsor, Rep. Martha Alexander, D-Mecklenburg, said she's heard
concerns about a stalker finding a person's address through county voter
registration books, which are public record. At least three counties also
have Web sites that provide an individual's registration information.
Computer User 4/13/01
Scrap over anti-Ameritech Web site may be over
http://www.computeruser.com/news/01/04/13/news4.html
by Dick Kelsey
A Michigan hacker who posted Ameritech customer billing records on the
Internet, and was slapped with a court order to shut down his Web site, said
he and the company may settle the matter out of court.
The Web site, http://www.ameritechcable.com, has not been accessible since
earlier this week, after a federal judge in Grand Rapids, Mich., ordered
owner Keith Kimmel to shut it down.
A temporary restraining order, issued Monday by U.S. District Court Judge
Richard A. Enslen, directed Kimmel to stop using the Ameritechcable.com
trademark, halt publication of customer data, and cease posting instructions
on how to break into the Ameritech online customer database.
Newsday 4/16/01
History in the Balance
Israel keeps a lid on papers that may shed light on Palestinians' exit
http://www.newsday.com/news/daily/isra416.htm
by Ben Lynfield
Special Correspondent
Jerusalem -- As Ariel Sharon intensifies Israel's battle against the
Palestinian uprising, his approach is rooted in this conviction: that Israel
has justice unequivocally on its side in the century-old conflict over the
land both peoples claim.
Sharon wants all young Israelis to feel the same way. He and his aides lament
what they often call "a weakening of the roots" -- a loss of faith among
Israeli youth in the Zionist ethos of redeeming the Land of Israel as
territory that inherently belongs to the Jewish people.
The Portland Phoenix 11/09/00
Old News
Fighting to save a historic newspaper collection, author Nicholson Baker
makes his stand on the banks of the Salmon Falls River
http://www.portlandphoenix.com/archive/features/00/11/10/PAPER.html
by Doug Hubley
Last year author Nicholson Baker bought some old newspapers. Well, more than
some; actually, he bought about four tractor-trailers' worth, enough
newspapers to fill 60 pallets, each stacked four feet high and wrapped in
plastic. How many individual papers he bought is impossible to say, but most
are bound into volumes, and there are about 11,000 of those, each about the
size of a modest gravestone. The oldest were printed in 1866; the newest in
the 1970s.
Los Angeles Times 4/15/01
Passing through, they left a mark
http://www.latimes.com/living/20010415/t000032186.html
by Robert Strauss
Special to the Times
ELLIS ISLAND, N.Y.--The massive Great Hall teems with people now, all brought
here by boat for a short stay. That is just as it was for dozens of years
from 1892 to 1954.
The difference, to be sure, is that in the former years, the people who came
to Ellis Island were both expectant and scared, here to be processed as newly
minted immigrants. Most had been brought to the island by barge from carrier
ships, docked in New York Harbor, on which they had sailed primarily from
Europe.
Shawnee News-Star 4/14/01
ONG affiliates appeal ruling
http://www.news-star.com/stories/041401/bus_ong.shtml
Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Two affiliates of Oklahoma Natural Gas don't want the
Oklahoma Corporation Commission to see records of their sales to other
utilities and companies.
The affiliates have asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to bar the commission
from these records.
Los Angeles Times 4/15/01
Sometimes, secrecy kills
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/20010415/t000031892.html
Here's the question: Should consumers be told of product defects uncovered in
the course of litigation? A no-brainer, right? Not to the companies that for
years have fought to keep such information secret as the price of settling
with consumers who bring lawsuits.
Texas, Florida and more than a dozen other states already require that court
records involving product defects be open to the public. Bills that would do
the same in California are now before the Legislature, and after years of
failed efforts they may have enough momentum to succeed.
The Age 4/13/01
Cuts to archive act of vandalism: ABC staff
http://www.theage.com.au/news/2001/04/13/FFXPZP6EFLC.html
by Peter Wilmoth
Media reporter
The axing of up to 38 jobs in archives and library services at the ABC in
Sydney was "an act of vandalism" by a management with a lack of commitment to
making programs in-house, a senior ABC union figure has claimed.
ABC news and current affairs staff believe the move could jeopardise the
ABC's reputation as an accurate deliverer of news.
"This will destroy the ability of ABC program makers to make strong and
well-researched programs," said Graeme Thomson, ABC section secretary of the
Community and Public Service Union. "This material is not just the property
of the ABC, it's the heritage of all Australians."
Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
Richmond, Va
pakurilecz@aol.com
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