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San Antonio Launching the First Completely Bookless Public Library

First, the bookstores die, then the libraries abandon books. Some child alive today will be a life-long avid reader who never holds a paper book.

I’m reading A Game of Thrones as an e-book. For the most part, I like e-books, especially for highlighting, note-taking, and searching. I miss knowing instantly and physically where I am in the book. 

A couple of my books are available for Kindle; most are not. peace, mjh.

San Antonio’s Launching the First Completely Bookless Public Library by Eric Limer

Books, who needs ’em? Libraries? Not anymore they don’t. The first public, bookless library is coming to San Antonio soon and, possibly, to a (dystopic?) future near you.

The new book-free library, called "BiblioTech," is intended to open in the fall and is part of a an entire bookless public library system planned for the entire county of Bexar. And it’s not "bring your own device" either. The library will actually lend out e-readers (of an unspecified brand) for two weeks at a time. There will also be computers and the like, but no books, and presumably no card catalog (!) either.

San Antonio’s Launching the First Completely Bookless Public Library

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Guns aren’t the only solution to the gun problem

Taft School Shooting: Teen Gunman Told Teacher Ryan Heber ‘I Don’t Want to Shoot You’ – ABC News

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN (@GoldmanRussell)

Jan. 11, 2013

A California teacher’sbrave conversation with a 16-year-old gunman who had opened fire on his classmates allowed 28 other students to quickly escape what could have been a massacre.

Science teacher Ryan Heber calmly confronted the teenager after he shot and critically wounded a classmate, whom he claimed to authorities had bullied him for more than year at Taft Union High School.

Taft School Shooting: Teen Gunman Told Teacher Ryan Heber ‘I Don’t Want to Shoot You’ – ABC News

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Common Sense Gun Reforms | ABQ Journal

Worth reading.

» Common Sense Gun Reforms | ABQ Journal By Patrick Davis / ProgressNow New Mexico on Fri, Jan 11, 2013

Fortunately for New Mexico, our Legislature is about to convene and the issue of public safety and responsible gun ownership must be front and center. The public is demanding action and while we wait on Congress to debate, our Legislature can act.

I call on the governor and legislators to enact these and other simple common sense reforms in the first days of the session, pass them with an emergency clause so that they may be immediately implemented, and give our children a safer and brighter future in this new year.

» Common Sense Gun Reforms | ABQ Journal

Ah, Wilderness!, photos

Sometimes you’re the predator, sometimes you’re the prey

I fed Spike, the roadrunner a mouse. He carried the mouse about 10 feet from me. Just then, a merlin swooped in to within inches of Spike. Spike dropped the mouse and ran. The merlin flew over my head. All of this happened in a second and without a sound. I lifted my jaw from the ground. The merlin landed on the telephone pole behind our house. Binocs showed the merlin didn’t have the mouse, which was still where Spike dropped it.

The next time I fed Spike, he dropped the mouse and walked away – something he has never done. He came back after a minute. He’s learned it’s a jungle out there, even in the desert.

This occurred three days after we watched a merlin take a white-winged dove around the corner from us. 

merlin kills white-winged dove at McKnight and Mock merlin kills white-winged dove at McKnight and Mock

my Flickr photos of merlins

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams