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November 28, 2005
Village halls in the 21st century
I'm staying in rural Hampshire, in a village called Northington, with my oldest friend who was telling about the recent restoration of the village hall. There's a great deal going on here, to deal with the problem of what are called "commuter villages, as you can see from this article and its links: UK rural enterprise programs.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:35 PM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2005
Domesticity at work
I bake for the office. This is not CEOish behavior, I know, but I grew up as the oldest child in a large hungry family, and I cooked my first meal at eight (I still have the handwritten recipe card--aptly, for a meatball dish called "Poor Boy's Supper"). I cooked on a commune when I was 14, and had cooking jobs all through my teens and into my early twenties. I still double recipes without thinking, and the result, especially now that Tom is away at college, is that I am grateful to have other people to take an extra loaf too. And it's a way for someone whose personal style is not overtly nurturing to do something to care for the team that means so much to her. (This week's Maple Pecan Bread, perfect for Thanksgiving, was popular with coffee at work, too. Feel free to write me for the recipe.)
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:11 AM | Comments (0)
November 25, 2005
Browsing on the run
Here's a weird idea--weird, that is, till you think about it and then it seems obvious that someone would try. Computers in the gym instead of televisions, so people can browse the Internet while they sweat. Even, according to "Web surfing while working out," using a flexible, sweat-resistant keyboard to write email. I don't know about you, but TV or reading is all I can handle when my heart's anywhere close to that magic fat-burning rate--which I don't get to nearly often enough these days. Here's where sports and human-computer interaction hit the track together, though, and that's intriguing.
Colleges are doing this, by the way, to get students into the gym. In a related news story, here's what happens when students have wireless laptops in the classroom: they play games and IM their friends.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:29 AM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2005
What we're thankful for
In the United States, it's Thanksgiving Day, a day that unites us more clearly than any other holiday. What a simple ritual--turkey and football, and maybe a parade--unconnected with any particular religion or ethnic tradition. What's not to love? Even vegetarians seem to cope, because apart from turkey there are a score of other dishes that turn up on our tables as part of this harvest festival. There's two inches of snow on the ground here in Massachusetts, and I can't imagine the original settlers actually waited until the end of November to celebrate their harvest. But we're used to the timing now, and it provides a reflective pause before the onslaught of Christmas commercialism.
I should have asked everyone yesterday at staff meeting what they were thankful for, but I think I can guess at some of the things we all appreciate about the work we do:
* The freelance editors, compositors, and proofreaders, many of whom we have never met, who have become so much a part of our team;
* The scholars around the world, many of whom we've now worked with for years, who share their research, suggestions, and contacts with us so generously, and who share in our commitment to providing fresh, global perspectives;
* The librarians we work with, because they and their patrons are responding with such enthusiasm to the Heart of the Community: The Libraries We Love. We love libraries, and we are deeply grateful for the people who make them the heart of their communities; and
* The chance to develop a growing range of exciting publications and media projects, even though we're based in a small and remote New England town (thanks be to the gods of the Internet).
And David and I are especially thankful for the small team that has grown up with us, through the difficult transition into independent publishing, and for all the colleagues who have encouraged and advised us.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:25 AM | Comments (0)
November 22, 2005
Du Bois signs okayed
I guess we have to give 'em credit for admitting they were wrong (something that cannot, yet, be granted to the president of the United States, even though staunch supporters of the Iraq War are changing sides faster than I can count). The selectboard and School Committee of Great Barrington used to be opposed to honoring W.E.B. Du Bois, and as you'll perhaps remember, we have a new school called "Muddy Brook" as a result.
But in May, to considerable surprise it seemed, townspeople voted 850-431 to approve signs at the entrances to the town, Du Bois's birthplace, stating this fact. Last night the selectboard praised the design of the signs and approved their being ordered. (The signs, incidentally, also bear the town seal so as not to confuse people who might otherwise believe that the sign by the side of the road marks the precise spot at which Du Bois was born. This view ranks up there with the selectman who thought traffic signs saying "Slow Children" would lower the self-esteem of the kids in the neighborhood.)
And Du Bois is now "the father of the civil rights movement in America," according to the Berkshire Eagle, not the Communist locals have loved to loathe since the first attempts to honor him in the late 1960s.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:56 AM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2005
Join a global mentoring project
Here's a wonderful idea that we're going to be circulating widely. Please consider pledging that "I will mentor a minimum of two people in the developing world in the area of my skills base and expertise (media, communications, broadcasting, democratic media building, participatory media, community video). I will do this for free for a minimum of six months (in my free time). The mentoring will be in person or via email/skype." Global Mentoring pledge from Lucy Hooberman.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:19 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2005
No apologies
The "McLibel" film last night opened with actors reading the apologies to McDonald's (I had the punctuation wrong yesterday--sorry!) made by British television statements and newspapers. Now the British do apologize beautifully, and as a result I've taught my children that profuse apologies can diffuse a situation quite remarkably. (I sometimes think I've taught this far too well.) But the apologies to the burger giant were cringing and sickening. What the film didn't convey well enough was that those who apologied did not do so without having had a very heavy hand descend. McDonald's UK made it clear that money was no object: they would spend as much as it took. (They spent over £10 million on the trial.)
Two things undid McDonald's. First, they went after, finally, two people with nothing to lose from a seven-year libel case. They were unemployed but educated and articulate--a group that existed then in Britain quite happily, on the dole and busy with theatre or activism or whatever--and they had no careers at stake. And they were wonderful, as the film shows so well. Decent, humorous, and committed. And daring, too: Dave and Helen secretly taped a private meeting with McDonald's executives at which they were offered a settlement.
Second, the Internet came along. Once McSpotlight launched, there was no way McDonald's could quash free speech in Britain, because details of the trial were immediately broadcast around the world. This is a case where information really did, I think, want to be free.
I've pulled out my McDonald's file, with the original leaflet and the lawyers' letters. Fortunately, they left me alone and did not continue to demand an apology in court; if they had, I might not be here today, at Berkshire Publishing.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2005
McDonalds and the McLibel trial
"McLibel" the film is coming to Main Street! I got heart palpitations when I read about this, because I was one of the many environmental and labor (whoops, labour) activists who were victims of McDonalds litigation in Britain. I think I am the only American to have been caught up in that drama, in fact. The fact that a film about the McLibel trial, the longest and most expensive trial in British history, is showing at the Mahaiwe Cinema in Great Barrington, where I moved from London in 1992, is very exciting. For background on this landmark case, visit McSpotlight. My story is also on the site: Home Ecology under attack.
What that piece doesn't explain is that McDonalds wrote to all the bookshop chains in Britain to say that my book was under threat of litigation. The chains, where the book had been selling strongly (it was reprinted twice before its publication date thanks to being selected one of Britain's Top 20 Green Books by the London Observer newspaper with serialization in the Daily Express), returned every copy of the book to the publisher. We never regained momentum, so although McDonalds did not pursue legal action, they did my small publisher, and me (then a single mother), considerable damage. And I guess that was the point!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:30 AM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2005
Coming full circle with community and libraries
On Saturday night I went to Stockbridge for an a capella concert at the Congregational Church, one of the most beautiful buildings in the area, at the prodding of my new friend David McCarthy, who was MC of the event. It was an evening when many of the things I care most about came together, in one of those providential circles that life seems to be springing on me these days.
It was a community event, the kind that are essential to sustaining social capital, and which I seldom participate in during these busy days of building a new business. I think I may have been to more evening events in London this year than at home in Great Barrington. Chagrined to admit this, I have resolved to do more to put my principles into practice!
It was a library event, a fundraiser for the Stockbridge Library, and of course libraries are the key and cornerstone for us, especially as we put together our book about America’s beloved community libraries.
And it took place in a church (though the concert itself wasn’t religious in any way). At Berkshire Publishing, we are very much occupied with religion these days--talking about American Christian fundamentalism, discussing the variety of religious experience and belief--and I’ve gone back to work on an article, too, about apocalyptic theology and politics. This will require a great deal of conversation with believers, and my first interviews and early research have already shown me how complicated American Christianity is: it’s not all fiery fundamentalism, and fundamentalism itself takes many forms. So I caught my breath on Saturday night when I looked up and saw right in front of me a marble plaque saying that the famous American preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards had been the minister at the Stockbridge Congregational Church in the 18th century, then a “humble parish in the wilderness.”
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:57 PM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2005
See if your library's been nominated with our interactive map
Trevor Young, our IT maven, and Carrie Owens have created a wonderful map of the USA and Canada that shows all the libraries nominated so far. Check your state here.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:54 AM | Comments (0)
Preparing for snow and ice
November is the only time when the weather in Great Barrington reminds me of England . . . in both places, November is a lull before winter, a time of low gray skies, when fallen leaves have blown up against walls and into corners where they soften and fade. But in New England winter looms much larger in our minds, and getting ready is much more important because once the temperature drops and snow falls, it can be difficult, even impossibl, to do certain things.
Oddly enough, it's during this quiet period that we have started a whole range of new projects. There's a springtime feeling in the office that at first had me puzzled. Why were we so suddenly energetized about starting new book series and even a film project? Some of it has to do with my recent travels, with particular synchronicity of people and ideas, and of course with long-term business strategy. But I think we're also inspired to get things going now that will require lots of sustained, shared work through the winter.
Carrie Owens joined us recently as a developmental editor, and in addition to managing Heart of the Community: The Libraries We Love nominations process, she's working with David and me on trade publishing projects. Some of these we'll publish under the Berkshire imprint but some will be packaged with trade houses. Carrie used to work in film animation and special effects, and one of the things she brings from that industry is an appreciation of humor. I have a sign over my desk that says, "It's the content, stupid," and I think I'm going to add one Carrie says they had in the film studio, "Funny is money." Not that our encyclopedias are going to become comical--though we have added what a Choice reviewer referred to as "whimsical illustrations"--but we are having fun with these smaller books, which will take our work on comparative religion, world cultures, and global perspectives to a wider audience. And maybe David will finally have a chance to do something with the jokes from around the world he's so fond of.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:15 AM | Comments (0)
November 8, 2005
Title search
I had lunch with Margaux today and we talked about how she wanted to travel from the time she was only 10 or so. Matt, her husband, also had the travel bug from early in life. It's funny that some people get bitten so early, and without any particular context. My parents had never traveled, and yet I knew from the time I was small that I wanted to travel to far away places.
Faraway places with strange customs. And that doesn't nececessarily mean countries with inadequate power supplies or uneducated citizens. England provides plenty in the way of strange customs, it seems to me. I just had an email from my dear friend Emma, whom I've known since we lodged together in the Eaton Square house where a famous murder had fairly recently taken place (do a search on "Lord Lucan" if you're curious). It was an email from one of the people on the Parish Council, which she is, to my surprise, a member of. Pretentious, she said, and quite right; the person said he might not make the meeting as there was a chance he'd be flying to the States to meet with President Bush (is this, these days, something to boast about?).
One of the other people cced in the original message was Lord Something, and I remembered how awed I was by titles when I first went to England. My family certainly never moved in those circles--even though my father's name was Earl--but somehow I found myself that first year at an Oxford student supper party where the guests were a Lord and Lady.
Eventually I learned that there were many types of Lord and Lady. Emma's mother was a Lady, but when we first met she was a Viscountess, and only after her father-in-law died did she become the Countess of Strafford (and, surprisingly, the illustrator of my first book). I was terribly nervous the first time, and as it happens the last time, I addressed Emma's step-grandfather as Lord Strafford. Over time, I've become quite accustomed to the idea of titles, as just one of the many differences in English life and culture.
Much more important is knowing the rules about, and meaning of, whether you put the milk in first and then pour the tea, or whether you add the milk after pouring the tea. (Emma never, ever puts the milk in first. But I do. In rebellion, and on the authority of the Tea Council.)
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:27 PM | Comments (0)
November 4, 2005
Water, not wi-fi
Online companies, and maybe the rest of us high-tech types, are starting to sound like Marie Antoinette, the queen of France who was beheaded. “Let them eat cake,” she reputedly said, when told that the poor were rioting because they had no bread.
"Let them go online," say Google and Amazon and Microsoft and a host of other companies, and countries.
In Peru, farmers have been protesting the launch of a new wi-fi service, funded by a mining company in exchange for much sought after rights to the copper in the southern Andes. "We're peasants, many of us cannot read or write ... we don't believe the Internt will help us as much as an irrigation channel will." Give us irrigation
People are rioting in Argentina and France and Iraq, so the conflict strikes me as important and global. More on this, and the new Amazon scanning plans, shortly. I'm in Florida in the midst of a family wedding. Blogging is not considered a legitimate reason for escaping the demands of the occasion, I'm afraid. (Yes, it does sound like I am a member of the technorati crowd I'm complaining about.)
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:25 AM | Comments (0)
November 3, 2005
Email signatures as a sign of the times
HCI (human-computer interaction) is a subject that engrosses us, and one that never fails to throw up new ways to look at our times. I've been doing a lot of online research this week (doesn't "research" sound better than "surfing"?) and came across this collection of people's email signatures. I'd never thought about email signatures--especially the kind that only work in plain text messages, where characters are used to make shapes and pictures--as a form of self-expression, but they are, and they're really quite interesting . . . and something new because of computers.
Here's one:
I miss many posts so please e-mail if you want me to answer.
B'tsedek tishpot amitecho. Lev 19:15 via Mishna Avos
You shall judge your neighbor favourably.
I think my all-time favorite was the one that said, "I don't answer email any more."
Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:24 AM | Comments (0)
November 1, 2005
No hyphens please: naming conventions round the world
There was a kid in my neighborhood named Donald Duck. Really.
That wouldn’t have been allowed in Germany. Mom Duck and Dad Duck would have had to choose a name that would not have subjected Donald to endless teasing at school--and who knows what kind of reaction in his professional life.
When you study global perspectives, as we do, the big issues tend to dominate. Trade agreements, invasions and coups, terrorist attacks, that kind of stuff. But there are many other fascinating and important differences between the way we do things around the world, and something as basic as naming babies can tell us a great deal about social ties and expectations, and also the crucial balance between individual rights and community values (in the U.S., this balance has been debated in recent years by "communitarians" led by Amatai Etzioni, a contributor to Berkshire's Encyclopedia of Community).
Here's a little from the recent Wall Street Journal article on the subject of names in Germany (the article is available in full to subscribers):
"Young Leonhard Matthias Grunkin-Paul has a problem: His name is illegal.
"The German boy's divorced parents want Leonhard to be known by their combined last names, an increasingly common practice elsewhere. But authorities in Germany, citing a law against hyphens, have refused to allow it. So Leonhard, born in 1998, officially has no last name at all.
"His passport reads: "Leonhard Matthias, son of Stefan Grunkin and Dorothee Paul." Says his mother: "I don't know how he can go through life like that."
"Many Germans have long chafed under their country's rigid naming rules. But a European Union court may shortly deal the rules a blow for at least some of them. A preliminary ruling from the court has found that Leonhard, a German citizen born and named in Denmark, is entitled to his hyphen as a citizen of the EU.
"In a society that values order and tradition, the rules are meant to prevent German children from being the victims of ridicule or confusion. A forename must indicate a person's gender, for example; if it doesn't, a second name should be given that clarifies the matter." From the Wall Street Journal, 12 October 2005.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:27 PM | Comments (0)
World news, from the BBC and John Simpson
David Levinson and I are temperamentally almost complete opposites, but one thing we share entirely is a fascination with the world and an absorbing concern about global perspectives. This brought us together and led to our starting Berkshire. He's the one who reads the newspapers religiously, while I tend to look for books that will expand my still far too limited knowledge of the world. Neither of us watches much TV (except of course sports), and because we walk only five minutes down the hill to work we don't end up listening to all the NPR our driving friends seem to manage.
But now that I've become a huge fan of BBC World's John Simpson, through his books, I've asked Rachel to see if her TIVO machine can record the BBC World News and the show "Simpson's World." Here's a little from Simpson's News From No Man's Land: Reporting the World:
"...the most arrogant approach is to say that all people can understand is news about crime and traffic and consumer affairs and the weather and show business, so that’s all they’ll get. The world is a difficult, dangerous, highly complex place, and unless we help people understand it to the best of our ability, we are failing them in the most shameful manner. And--as happened with American audiences after 11 September--they will turn on us angrily and demand to know why we let them down.”
He's talking about the media, but we have the same job as publishers.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:05 AM | Comments (0)
Halloween in New England
I've called the blog category on Main Street, but we live in the country, really, and here's a photo from the farm owned by Rachel Fletcher, a friend and colleague of David's. New England has a wonderful tradition of Halloween graveyard displays, and this is one of the best I've ever seen.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:58 AM | Comments (0)