upcoming craigslist documentary

the upcoming documentary about craiglist looks intriguing.

what are stories?

"Stories, over the centuries, have been the most important way of
 keeping our collective wisdom.  They were and still are a sort of
 universal brain where we can retrieve what we have forgotten and what
 we still do not know.  If you will allow me to use such a metaphor, a
 library is the best possible imitation, by human beings, of a divine
 mind, where the whole universe is viewed and understood at the same
 time.  A person able to store in his or her mind the information
 provided by a great library would emulate in some way the mind of
 God.  In other words, we have invented libraries because we know that
 we do not have divine powers, but we try to do our best to imitate
 them."

 - Umberto Eco, Vegetal and Mineral Memory: the Future of Books," a
   lecture at the newly opened Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
   [http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/665/bo3.htm]

cat stevens cover songs

you can listen here to my covers of cat stevens songs.

talented poet

my literacy colleague homraj acharya is a talented poet.

finding inspiration

i find inspiration in the work of rev. joyce brooks, of "hope manna," in northeast washington dc.

here is a video clip of rev. brooks speaking about what her organization does for the community.

this quicktime movie is 4 megabytes in file size and 4 minutes in duration. it was shot, edited and put on the web during a free "web video advocacy for literacy organizations" workshop i taught in the fall of 2002 in room 315 of MLK library in downtown DC.

desiré grogan, from the DC Public Libraries, was immensely helpful to me in setting up that workshop.

protecting our people from email scams

protecting our people from email scams.

unchained

unchained melody video clip (quicktime progressive download)

unchained melody - zipped download from my idisk. (this version of the file might work best for windows users with dial-up. the file transfers completely before playing. you may need to unzip it before viewing. the file name is citiwidesummer1.mov)

this video clip is 6.8 megabytes in file size and 3 minutes in duration. edited in imovie.

to view this video clip requires quicktime 6, a free download from the link at the top right section of the page at apple computer's quicktime download page. (if you use a computer less than one year old, you may already have quicktime 6 installed on the computer.)

the transfer time for this video clip is about 40 minutes via 56k dial-up modem connection. dial-up users may want to try downloading the video overnight.

this video clip plays in real-time when viewed via dsl, cable modem, T1 or other
high-speed internet connection.

note - this video clip is best viewed with speakers attached to your computer.

background info: the 5th-grade student playing guitar in this video clip had never played guitar before. she declared she wanted to try playing guitar for the first time in this video. this video clip was shot in august, 2003, in the mount pleasant neighborhood of washington dc.

in favor of a rosa parks national day

rosa parks may be the greatest american who ever lived. she is deserving of a national day. not a holiday (courage doesn't need a holiday), but a holy-day. a solemn day to reflect on the nature of courage, dignity and humility. she taught us so much, and yet we learned so little from her.