Kevin M. Kruse has an Op-Ed in today’s New York Times: The Real Loser: Truth. It is about how American politics may have turned a new corner thanks to the … Read more On the Romney Campaign’s Disdain for Facts
Some of my colleagues in the Progressive Librarians Guild used to complain that Banned Books Week was an unfortunate distraction from the greater problem of a propagandistic media system. I … Read more My problem with Banned Books Week
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is coming to the defense of biologist Charles Monnett, who is being hounded by the Interior Department because of a 2006 publication that communicated alarming … Read more Suppression of science has continued, despite Obama’s Scientific Integrity Initiative
Recently, the Department of Justice (DOJ) decided to not bring criminal charges against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for the destruction of federal records: videotapes of the torture of detainees … Read more Petition to support NARA’s investigation into CIA destruction of records pertaining to torture sites
I was discussing the free press with a Russian friend once, and she told me that the main difference between Soviet Russia and the contemporary USA was that Russians knew … Read more Terrorists meeting at the Capitol Building today? Government information and alternative media
This article feels like another nail in the coffin of what we thought we knew of the past: Modern art was CIA ‘weapon’. Or a ramping-ing up of the general … Read more Modern art was CIA ‘weapon’
I don’t read a lot of blogs so I don’t know, but I would guess this story is being blogged like crazy: Yesterday the Washington Post reported a Bloomberg National … Read more Americans largely mistaken about Obama’s record… librarians included?
As the more civic-minded among us have observed, the American Right has mostly rejected rational discourse in favor of strategic communication. There is a reason for it that has to … Read more The underlying reason that the American Right will always be irrational, and a couple of ideas as to why the problem is presently so acute
Recently I have rubbed some people the wrong way by speaking frankly about the problem of ignorance in civic life and people’s lack of concern and lack of shame regarding … Read more Christine O’Donnell is just what I’ve been talking about
Sometimes people on the left respond to the “war on terror” by saying words to the effect that “war is terrorism,” to point out that killing innocent people is killing … Read more October 6th, 1976
I am not going to spend a lot of time on this, but I want to point out an inaccuracy in an article on the Adbuster’s website (and maybe in … Read more Inaccuracy in Adbusters article
John Allen Paulos is a mathematician who writes books about numeracy for a popular audience. The New York Times Magazine published a brief but insightful essay by him about the … Read more “Metric Mania”
There’s a book idea we’ve been kicking around here at Litwin Books, and we need an author. I don’t want to completely disclose the idea for this book, but I … Read more Seeking an author with strengths in statistics and skepticism
Yes, I know I’m supposed to be user-centered and all that, but I think the great wave of populism we’re seeing now is going to lead to bad things. Some … Read more “Most People”
Just a brief note on a topic I will return to later… I find that librarians think of change in one of two ways: Change is happening to the profession; … Read more Professionalism and attitudes toward change
Attempted Censorship by U.S. Attorney — A Book to Watch! By Ann Sparanese On June 16, the paperback edition of Triple Cross: How Bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, … Read more Attempted Censorship by U.S. Attorney
Since the second half of last year I’ve been reading a lot of financial news, where the major theme of the financial crisis is the “crisis of trust” – banks … Read more The Other Crisis of Trust (and a question about what it means for Info Lit)
If you’re like me, you’re a librarian in part because you have a passion for the right to information, and by information I mean truth rather than lies. One of … Read more The 2008 Falsies Awards
Minerva Research Initiative: Searching for the Truth or Denying the Iraqis the Rights to Know the Truth? by Saad Eskander, Iraq National Library and Archives “What has prompted me to … Read more The Minerva Controversy (Saad Eskander, Iraq National Library)
MediaLens is a UK organization dedicated to raising awareness of the way the media system distorts reality as a result of the forces of free-market capitalism. Their analysis of things … Read more MediaLens on journalism’s filtering system in action