Tag Archives: News!

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Let’s Do This.

Question: What Are You Doing Today?

Answer: Unless you took part in Massachusetts’ Early Voting Opportunity, I sincerely hope that “Voting” makes up at least part of your answer.

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After 19 months of campaign speeches and television commercials and pop-up ads and debates and late-breaking news announcements, it’s finally, finally time when we, the people, get to do something, to have a say in who makes our laws, and what those laws are.

I think it’s easy, in a time when your opinion is solicited from so many places, whether it’s the comment cards at a restaurant or a feedback response request from an online vendor, a telephone survey from the cable repair service or an online form from the car dealer, that we forget what a rare and precious and incredible thing an election really is.

So get out there and vote, ok?

If you need information about where to vote, you can find it right here: Google’s voting map

If you need a refresher on the Ballot Questions in Massachusetts, check out the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Website here.

If you encounter any problems at the polls, remember: first, address the officers monitoring the polls.  Then call 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

And remember, in the words of Franklin Roosevelt, a pretty good president himself:

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.

 

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Yay Cubs!

Dear Cubs Fans (and baseball fans…and people in desperate need of a happy ending…),

Congratulations!  The Cubs won their first World Series since 1908!

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People and commentators have been throwing around facts to put that length of time in perspective: the last time the Cubs won the World Series, Teddy Roosevelt was President, women couldn’t vote, the First World War was still 6 years away, the Model T Ford was months old, the first fully animated film was created that summer…

But those are all big events, that are kind of difficult to take in.  None of us knew Teddy Roosevelt, and we’ve all see animated films in some form or another, so imagining their loss is really just theoretical.  So let’s think about the small scale….

In 1908, the Peabody Institute Library was 46 years old, having been dedicated on September 29, 1854.  It opened it’s doors on October 18.  It looked a little different, as well:

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Courtesy of the Peabody Archives

There was no Children’s Room in the Library–and wouldn’t be for 19 years.  When the Children’s Room was opened,  Miss Esther Johnson served as the first Children’s Librarian from 1927 until her retirement in 1977.*

It would be 53 years before any branch libraries were built.  The original West Branch was built in 1961, and the South Branch was opened in 1967, 59 years after the Cubs won the World Series.*

In 1908, Peabody itself was a town, and wouldn’t become a city for another eight years.

And what of the books?  If you were a patron to the Library way back in 1908, what would be some of the new books you could look forward to checking out?   Here’s what a Five Book Friday in 1908 might have looked like:

1517110A Room With A View
A perennial favorite, and one of Merchant-Ivory’s most wonderful adaptations, E.M. Forster’s novel is at once a beautiful romance and a sharp social commentary on the strictures of British society.  When Lucy Honeychurch and her strict cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett arrive at the “The Pension Bertolini”, they are dismayed to find that the rooms they have been promised–rooms with a view of the Arno River–are instead rooms facing the interior courtyard of the hotel.  But Mr. Emerson, another British gentleman, traveling with his son George, offer to switch rooms with the ladies, setting in motion a trail of unexpected meetings, revelations, and wonderfully impetuous choices that make for engaging reading even today.

1537357The Wind in the Willows: In 1908, Kenneth Grahame retired from his job with the Bank of England to the English countryside.  There, he began expanding the bedtime tales he had told his son Alistair about a Toad, a Mole, a Rat, and a Badger, into a manuscript.  Though it took him some time to get the work published–and some help from Teddy Roosevelt, who loved the stories–the public loved the charming, utterly madcap, stories of Grahame’s animals, from Toad’s obsession with motor-cars to his escape from prison, and Rat and Mole’s adventures together.  Since its publication,the book has been reprinted and illustrated extensively, and was adapted by Disney into both an animated film (which, as mentioned was first presented as an art form to the public in 1908) and an attraction.

1270772Anne of Green Gables: Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel has been translated into over 20 languages, and savored by readers of all ages all over the world, but it was in 1908 when the 11-year-old Anne Shirley was mistakenly sent to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a middle-aged brother and sister who had intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in Prince Edward Island.  Montgomery based a good deal of the story on her own childhood experiences on Price Edward Island, and crafted the characters, including the long-beloved Gilbert Blythe, on her friends and neighbors.  Her honesty, willingness to confront the real tragedies of life, along with the joys, has made this book one that speaks to readers across generations and language, and has made P.E.I. into a site of literary pilgrimage to this day.

2427520The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck: Beatrix Potter had already written eight other stories for children before composing this book about Jemima, an Aylesbury duck who strikes out on her own, but this book was an overwhelming success, remaining one of Potter’s most famous and beloved.  A retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood”, Potter’s story is of a duck who sets out to find a place to lay her eggs without human interference–and instead finds herself at the mercy of a sly, cunning, and hungry fox.  Potter based the farm on which Jemima lives on Hill Top, a working farm in England’s Lake District which she bought in 1905, and based many of the characters on the workers on the farm, as well as her dog, Kep, who ends up being the hero of this tale.  Graham Greene read, and commented, on this book while writing The Wind and the Willows, and by 1910, a plush version of Jemima was already being sold to children, complete with shawl and bonnet.

220px-scouting_for_boys_1_1908Scouting for Boys: Robert Baden-Powell served in the Second South African War, fought between the British and Dutch settlers in South Africa, and their allied African tribes.  It was a bitter, bloody, and drawn-out war (what was supposed to be a single battle lasted over three years), and convinced a large number of Britons to worry that their control over the world was slipping.  Upon returning home, Baden-Powell. inspired by seeing young boys, aged 12-15, assist the British Army, rewrote an earlier work on  scouting that was meant to organize and train young boys to be self-sufficient, strong outdoorsmen.  Though Powell’s work wasn’t specifically entitled to encourage boys to enter the military when they grew up, the sixth section of the book notes that “Play the game: don’t look on, The British Empire wants your help, Fall of the Roman Empire was due to bad citizenship, Bad citizenship is becoming apparent in this country to-day”.  The book became one of the best-selling books in history, and became the foundation for the Boy Scouts.  In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was founded by Baden-Powell as well.

And thus we conclude our tour of 1908, and return to the present with nothing but happiness for the Cubs and their fans, and relief that their long wait is finally over.  Hooray!

*Many of these fact came from a perusal of our Archives.  Check out their resources here, and their timeline of the Library here!

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Five Book Friday!

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downloadThat’s right….As if the Library wasn’t a great enough place already, this year, the West Branch is an official polling place for early voting in Massachusetts!  Those who choose to take advantage of this new option can check out the schedule of polling locations and places by clicking on this link, which will take you to the website for the Secretary of the Commonwealth.  The application for an Early Voter Ballot can be found by clicking here, as well.  We hope this process will make it a little easier for you to fulfill your civic duty by voting when you are able to do so…and also, hopefully, minimize the stress of these elections by allowing you do avoid any nonsense that may occur on Election Day itself.  You can also visit the Torigian Life Center and City Hall to cast an Early Ballot.

See? Libraries are good for All Things.
See? Libraries are good for All Things.

If you have any problems, especially on Election Day, you can feel free to talk to one of the wardens (police officers) at the polling place, or call the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Elections Division at 617-727-2828 or 1-800-462-8683. Additionally, the national Election Protection Hotline is 1-866-OUR-VOTE or 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (en Español).

And just a friendly reminder, pursuant to General laws chapter 56, section 25, it is against the law to allow the marking of his ballot to be seen by any person for any purpose. This includes a voter photographing their own ballot after marking it.  So party like it’s 1992 while at the polling places, ok?

Ok.  Now that all that Adulting has been done and dusted, let’s get to the books….This week is a survey of histories of many different kinds.  We hope you enjoy!

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3757073The Terranauts: Ostensibly, T.C. Boyle’s newest novel is science fiction; it’s set in a version of 1994, in the deserts of Arizona.  With global warming an ever-growing threat, eight ‘Terranaunts’ are preparing to enter a three-acre biodome where they will live completely sealed off from humanity in preparation for an off-earth colony.  Yet while Boyle’s book has plenty of interesting scientific details, and his alternative America is a fascinating place, this book is really about the lives, loves, and choices of the Terranauts themselves–those who enter the dome, and those who are left outside.  By switching narratives, he allows the reader to full experience life through these characters eyes, making this a much more personal, searching, and therefore, realistic story than might otherwise be expected.  Many are calling this book Boyle’s masterpiece (or one of them, at least!), with Publisher’s Weekly proclaiming it “A sprawling tale of achievement, yearning, pride, and human weakness…a multilayered work that recalls the tragicomic realism of Saul Bellow and John Updike.”

3757027Napoleon’s Last Island: When Thomas Keneally was visiting Melbourne, he learned the story of the Balcombe family, who lived on the island of St. Helena.  Mr. Balcombe worked for the British East India Company, and was responsible for provisioning ships bound for the Cape Colonies.  The family also played host to St. Helena’s most famous inhabitant–Napoleon Bonaparte, who was sent to live there in exile following his defeat at Waterloo.  Taken with the Balcombe’s story, and, most specifically with the experiences of their thirteen-year-old daughter Betsy, he crafted this novel, a fascinating blend of fact and fiction that explores not only the relationships on the tiny St. Helena, but also its place in the wider world of the French Revolution and Terror.  At the heart of it all, however, is Betsy, and her remarkable, heartbreaking, horrible, and vivid memories.  The New York Times Review of Books was particularly taken with Keneally’s “Insightful and nimble prose. . .[Keneally] seamlessly unites fiction and the ‘truth,’ which means in this case that its armature of fact supports its layers of fictional invention as thought they were weightless.  The delight Keneally took in pulling off this trick shows on every page.”

3783601The Authentic William James: From the imagined past to the reconstructed past to an historical mystery we go.  Stephen Gallagher’s fin-de-siecle investigator Sebastian Becker has seen some of the worst that Britain has to offer.  Now an agent for the Crown, Becker is once again called upon to use his familiarity with madness and the human soul to evaluate the sanity of a confessed arsonist known as “Wild West Showman, The Authentic William James”.  The quest will take Becker to the wild world of Hollywood, where his hunt into James’ psyche will force him to reconsider his own duty–to his country, and the man he pursues.  Stephen Gallagher clearly delights in delving into shadowy, nearly-forgotten corners of history for his tales, and this book is no different, offering readers a very unique view of his subject, through the eyes of a increasingly interesting protagonist.  Publisher’s Weekly agrees, giving this book a starred review and saying “Gallagher gives Sebastian Becker another puzzle worthy of his quirky sleuth’s acumen in his outstanding third pre-WWI mystery…[He] makes the most of his unusual concept in the service of a twisty but logical plot line.”

3817995A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in the Trash: A bit of actual (and recent) history here:  In 2001, 148 tattered and mould-covered notebooks were discovered lying among broken bricks in a dumpster on a building site in Cambridge, England.  Filled with dense handwriting, the books were the partial record of a life, spanning fifty years from 1952 until weeks before they were discarded.  This book is biographer Alexander Masters’ five-year journey to discover the author of the diaries, and piece that person’s life back together, with results that are as surprising as they are touching.  Masters’ is a talented biographer, and this real-life detective novel is also about putting the titular ‘discarded life’ in a much broader context, making these diaries the center of a considerably larger, and deeply emotional, and undeniably odd tale.  This book got rave reviews in England, where it was first published, with The Spectator hailing it as “Playful, unsettling and altogether compelling … pin-sharp and generously open to eccentricity … an ingenious new twist on the concept of a ghostwritten biography, in which the ghost turns out to be the kind of person who usually disappears between the cracks of society without leaving a trace behind…brilliantly fleshed out and brought back to life.”

3789541Truevine: And finally, another true, and nearly forgotten story to round our our survey, this one opening in 1899, on a tobacco farm in Truevine, Virginia.  As the story goes, one sweltering summer day, a man approached two young boys, George and Willie Muse, who worked as sharecroppers on the farm, and lured them away with candy.  Albino black children, the boys were captured into a circus that performed all around the world, and they became celebrities, performing as “Ambassadors from Mars”,  among other far more derogatory titles.  Back in Truevine, their mother frantically searched for her missing children, leaving a scar on the family that lingers to this day.  In this haunting and meticulously researched story, journalist Beth Macy followed not only the Muse brother’s experiences in the circus, but also the effects their disappearance had on those left back home.  What she discovered was a tale much more twisted, challenging, and morally complex than she ever suspected, and the book, as a result, is a fascinating, moving, and occasionally chilling tale about race and family and memory that is already being nominated for non-fiction awards, include the Kirkus Prize.  Kirkus said in its review, “The story draws on years of diligent, investigative research and personal investment on the author’s behalf, and it features numerous interviews with immediate family, neighbors, distant relatives, Truevine townsfolk, and associated friends, most notably Nancy Saunders, Willie’s fiercely outspoken primary caregiver. Macy absorbed their own individual (and often conflicting) interpretations of the Muse kidnappings, condensing and skillfully braiding them into a sturdy, passionate, and penetrating narrative.”

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!

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Paul Beatty Wins the 2016 Man Booker Prize!

On Tuesday, at 4:50pm Eastern Standard Time, Paul Beatty, a California-born author, became the first American to win the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout.  

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In awarding the most prestigious award for fiction in the UK, the judges of the Man Booker chose a very specifically American novel.  Beatty himself has made a career for himself by observing the beauty and horror of American life, and capturing it in his stories in a manner that is both deeply troubling and shockingly funny–and The Sellout is no exception.  The book itself opens as our narrator, Bonbon, stands in front of the Supreme Court.  A black man from a forgotten town near Los Angeles, Bonbon grew up with his father, a controversial sociologist, who used Bonbon as a subject in his racially-charged psychological studies.  Bonbon has spent his life believing that his father’s long-promised memoir will justify all their struggles–but when his father is killed in a drive-by shooting, it is revealed that there is, and never was, a memoir.  Lost, in despair, and determined to right what wrongs he can, Bonbon decides to find a way to put his tiny town on the map.  The way he does this?  By attempting to reinstate slavery and to segregate the local high school–the act that ultimately lands him in front of the Supreme Court.

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A man who has built his career on challenging stereotypes, and questioning our inability to overcome the effects of history, The Sellout is Beatty’s fourth novel.  His debut novel, The White Boy Shuffle, about a black surfer in Los Angeles, came out in 1996.  He published two more novels, Tuff in 2000, and Slumberland in 2008, and edited an anthology of African-American comic writing.  The Sellout met with rave reviews when it was released; the Wall Street Journal called it ““Swiftian satire of the highest order. Like someone shouting fire in a crowded theatre, Mr Beatty has whispered ‘Racism’ in a postracial world”.  But it didn’t cause an enormous stir, perhaps, as The Guardian points out, because it is so different from the standard fare, and it’s humor is so risky.  And even though the book won the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award, it still has flown under a lot of readers’ radars–until now, of course.

6662b17b-f86d-479d-b280-4512d6cf6eb5-1020x612Amanda Foreman, the Chair of the Judges’ Panel, said that Beatty’s victory was a unanimous decision, in part because of his willingness to write a book that challenges so many, and on so many levels.  In her speech during the award ceremony, she noted, “It plunges into the heart of contemporary American society with absolutely savage wit of the kind I haven’t seen since Swift or Twain…It manages to eviscerate every social nuance, every sacred cow, while making us laugh and also making us wince … It is really a novel for our times.”  As to the language (and delicate subject matter) in the book, Foreman noted “Paul Beatty has said being offended is not an emotion. That’s his answer to the reader”, emphasizing the critical role of satire to comment on modern-day issues.

The win is also a coup for Oneworld, Beatty’s publisher, who also published last year’s Man Booker Prize winner, Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings.

If you’d like to hear Beatty’s talk after his award about race and America and stories, check out the video below–and be sure to check out The Sellout soon!

http://youtu.be/U6ycBUNBFnU

 

 

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Breaking News: Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize for Literature!

Bob Dylan becomes the 108th Nobel Prize Winner in Literature!

You can watch the announcement here live:

(The announcement itself is in Swedish, but the crowd’s reaction at around :50 is rather priceless)

bob-dylan-2016This is actually a pretty radical decision for the Nobel Prize people—the award has, rather famously, not gone to American authors, traditionally speaking (the last American to win was Toni Morrison in 1993), and  Bob Dylan is not strictly a novelist, or a poet, or a short-story writer, which are typically the kind of writers that the Nobel favors.  Instead, they recognized his radical additions to American song-writing and poetry, comparing Dylan to Homer or Sappho, whose works were composed to be performed orally.  In giving the award to Dylan, whose birth name is Robert Allen Zimmerman, the Nobel also seems to be attempting to bridge a theoretically and cultural gap between “high literature” and “commercial literature”; in other words, they want this award to mean something to everyone, a goal in which they certainly succeeded by choosing a man whose music has meant so much to so many for the past forty years.  As the Academy noted: “Since the late 1980s, Bob Dylan has toured persistently, an undertaking called the ‘Never-Ending Tour.’ Dylan has the status of an icon. His influence on contemporary music is profound, and he is the object of a steady stream of secondary literature.”

Mr. Dylan’s other awards include Grammy, Academy and Golden Globe awards, as well as an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

When asked to recommend a work to introduce new listeners to Bob Dylan’s work, Sara Danius, the Swedish Academy’s permanent secretary and a professor in literature at Stockholm University, recommended his 1966 album “Blonde on Blonde,” saying it contained “many examples of his brilliant way of rhyming and putting together refrains and his pictorial thinking.”

We couldn’t agree more, but feel free to come into the Library and check out some other selections from America’s newest Nobel Prize Winner!

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All The Nobel Prizes!

In a world that currently bears a god resemblance to a little child preparing to hold its face until it turns blue or gets a cookie, it’s nice to remember that there are some really impressive, inspiring, and creative things going on out there.  And this week, we got to see some of the most impressive, inspiring, and creative things in the form of the Nobel Prize Awards.

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From their wonderfully informative website, “Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been honoring men and women from all corners of the globe for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and for work in peace. The foundations for the prize were laid in 1895 when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth to the establishment of the Nobel Prize.”  Alfred Nobel himself was born in Stockholm in 1833 into a family of engineers.   After enduring bankruptcy, Alfred’s father moved the family to St. Petersburg where he started a mechanical workshop for the manufacture of land mines.  Alfred was drawn to chemistry from a young age (in addition to conversant in five languages),and was able to mix and mingle with some of of the smartest brains in the western world.

alfred1Unfortunately for his family, the end Crimean War in 1856 meant that Europe didn’t need a great deal of war materiel, and the family company went bankrupt again.   Alfred’s parents and younger siblings moved back to Sweden, while Alfred and his older brothers remained in St. Petersburg and began trying to put their business affairs back into order.  It was at this time that one of Alfred’s tutors reminded him of the enormous potential of nitroglycerine, which had been discovered (developed?) in 1847; according to historic legend, the tutor by pouring a few drops of nitroglycerine on an anvil, striking it with a hammer, and producing a loud bang. But only the liquid that came into contact with the hammer exploded. The rest of the liquid was not affected.  Alfred decided to take the potential of this new substance and run with it, conducting a number of highly dangerous experiments that ended with him finding a way to combine nitroglycerine and gunpowder in a single device that kept the two separate until they were ignited, resulting in….dynamite.

For a family that made its fortune (several times over) on weaponry and tools of destruction, Alfred’s invention proved lucrative indeed, and he never looked back, even after a major explosion at the Nobel factory in Stockholm in September 1864 claimed the lives of Alfred’s brother Emil and four other people.  He continued to work on his dynamite, perfecting the weapon, and developing new forms of gelatin-based explosives.

However, Nobel was also something of a philosopher, and his writings reveal a man who truly believed that the study of science should lead mankind to better itself, and the world around it.  He had long considered the idea of giving his considerable fortunes away on his death, but in 1888, his brother Ludvig passed away.  Several French newspapers (Nobel was living in France at this point) published obituaries naming Alfred in error.  One particularly note-worthy headline read “Le marchand de la mort est mort” (“The merchant of death is dead”).  Alfred was deeply troubled by the headline and its implications, and even moreso by the rest of the article, which read, in part: “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”  And so, in a effort to put his legacy to rights, Nobel decided that, upon his death, his money would be used to to establish a prize that would be awarded without consideration of nationality to those who used science, literature, and action to better the world, and prevent conflict.  While the endowment he left was considerable (1.6 billion British Pounds in 1895), good management means that the Noble Prize currently has a capital of around $472 million or 337 million Euros.

Though there are plenty of reasons to see the Nobel Award as a kind of historical eraser to the damage that Nobel’s inventions did and continues to do  on the world and its population, it is also important to realize the enormous impact that its winners have had on the world, and the influence it extends to those who make a difference.  So let’s take a moment today to celebrate the good stuff, and congratulate this years’ Nobel Prize Winners, listed below:

*Note: The Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday.  This post will be updated to reflect that award on announcement, so watch this space!

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016

David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz

“for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”

1431974Essentially (to my very non-mathematically oriented brain), these three gentlemen used quantum physics to make predictions and insight into matter that is so thin as to be considered two dimensional, as well as material at absolute zero (when molecular movement ceases).  Ultimately, these calculations will be useful for new generations of electronics and superconductors, or in future quantum computers.  To learn more, you can read this publication by the Nobel Society, or check out Edward Abbott’s Flatland, an 1884 novel that Abbott wrote for his students to teach them about dimensionality and geometry.  It’s surprisingly funny, fascinatingly insightful, and actually provided the impetus for these three Nobel Prize winners to begin their study.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016

Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa

“for the design and synthesis of molecular machines”

2615212Though the mechanical engine has been around for roughly two centuries, humans really haven’t evolved the device beyond its initial configuration.  Not only have these three chemists made huge leaps towards making tiny, tiny, tiny engines (thousands of times smaller than a human hair!), they also bring the mechanical engine closer to a living, or at least organic thing that can perform controlled tasks (rather than running themselves until they break down like a car engine).  These findings could lead to new kinds of batteries, as well as tinier and tinier computers.  To learn more, you can check out this information provided by the Nobel Committee, or check out the writings of Richard Feynman.  Himself a Nobel Prize winner, Feynman first introduced the idea of evolving the engine into smaller and more productive forms, and give this years’ winners the inspiration.  

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016

Yoshinori Ohsumi

“for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy”

2755516The word autophagy originates from the Greek words auto-, meaning “self”, and phagein, meaning “to eat”. Thus,autophagy denotes “self eating”…but not like cannibalism.  Instead, Dr. Ohsumi radically evolved our understanding of how the cell recycles its content.  Though studying yeast cells, Ohsumi realized that there was a cellular process that promotes cellular degradation and regeneration, making healthier, stronger yeast.  The same process is present in humans, (visible when you have an infection, and the body breaks down its infected cells and makes new, healthy, potentially immunized ones, or when fat cells are broken down during exercise and muscles develop).  Though we have known about this process, Dr. Ohsumi’s research has provided insight onto how we might learn to recognize and regulate this process to potentially help treat conditions like diabetes and Parkinson’s Disease.  For more information, you can read this publication from the good Nobel People, as well as Rebecca Skloot’s incredible The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which gives an unforgettably human face to the history of human cellular research. 

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature has not been awarded yet. It will be announced on Thursday 13 October, 1:00 p.m. CET at the earliest.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2016

Juan Manuel Santos

“for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end”

3104018As the President of Columbia, Juan Manuel Santos has worked to find a peaceful end to his country’s 52-year civil war, reaching a peace agreement with the Farc rebel group last month, which has since been rejected by voters in a referendum.  Nevertheless, a definitive ceasefire has been negotiated with Farc, originally established as an armed wing of the international Communist party, which has been maintained during continued negotiations.  On Twitter, Farc leader Timochenko said: “I congratulate President Juan Manuel Santos, Cuba and Norway, who sponsored the process, and Venezuela and Chile, who assisted it, without them, peace would be impossible.”  Santos announced that he will be donating all of the $1 million prize to conflict victims.  To read more about Columbia’s half-century of violence, check out The FARC: The Longest Insurgency, by Garry Leech, and try the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez if you are itching for a little armchair wandering through literary Columbia.  

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1176 hours left….

Politics, under any circumstances, is a touchy subject for most people.  This year, frankly, seems to have reached a pitch that puts House of Cards to shame but, whether you are a self-professed political-science geek like our West Branch correspondent, or are more akin to wanting to run and hide from it all, I wanted to bring something to your attention:

In 1,176 hours, election season will have ended.

I think we can all agree it's time for something new?
I think we can all agree it’s time for something new?

You can check my math, but that should translate into seven weeks from today.  In the grand scheme of things, that really isn’t that long a time at all, but it is also just the right amount of time to become a Good Voter.

And just what is a Good Voter, you might be heard to ask?  Well, a Good Voter, first and foremost, is one who is registered to vote.  In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you have until October 19, 2016 to register to vote.  The links in this paragraph will take you to the webpage for the Secretary of Commonwealth, which will guide you through the registration process (which is not very difficult at all, I promise).

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Secondly, a Good Voter knows about the things that will be on the ballot, and has considered the pros and cons of their voting decisions.  This is a really important part.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth and Alice Paul and James Orange didn’t put their lives on the line so that we could all just fill in arrows willy-nilly, but so that we could all take an active, educated, and intentional part in the democratic process.  And that takes a little bit of work beforehand.

downloadIn order to help you, Library Journal put out a great article (linked here) entitled “Free Resources for an Informed Electorate” which provides links to websites, video content, infographics, maps, and charts to help you make up your mind about national issues in advance of Election Day.  In Massachusetts, there are also four Questions on the Ballot for you to consider.  MassLive has provided a short, sweet, and non-biased overview of each question, and what a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would mean for each question (linked here).

So take some time and have look through the issues and the people and questions, and then count down with us the 70,560 hours left to go before we can all find something else to talk about….