Check Your Friends' Book Sale Shelves for this 'Special Value'

$2,000??!!

Link to August 30 New York Times Books of the Times, "Preppily Perplexed? A New Guidebook".

Excerpt: In 1980 “The Official Preppy Handbook” arrived as a field guide to the habits of the cotillion-hopping, madras-wearing, loafer-shod upper crust. Was it a valentine, a joke or a prophecy? This much is clear: It began life as a $4.95 paperback and stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for more than a year. Copies were plentiful, yet asking prices for used ones today can easily top $100 and sometimes exceed $1,000. Somebody must think it contains useful information.

As LINKcat indicates, perhaps lightning doesn't strike twice.

Related article:
The Official Preppy Handbook:  Unable to leave well enough alone.  (4/4/2010)

The New Orange County California

LINK

(Still Surfin' U.S.A.?)

Link to August 30 New York Times article, "Orange County is No Longer Nixon Country".

Excerpt:   Orange County has been a national symbol of conservatism for more than 50 years: birthplace of President Richard M. Nixon and home to John Wayne, a bastion for the John Birch Society, a land of orange groves and affluence, the region of California where Republican presidential candidates could always count on a friendly audience.

But this iconic county of 3.1 million people passed something of a milestone in June. The percentage of registered Republican voters dropped to 43 percent, the lowest level in 70 years.

It was the latest sign of the demographic, ethnic and political changes that are transforming the county and challenging long-held views of a region whose colorful — its detractors might suggest zany — reputation extends well beyond the borders of this state.

At the end of 2009, nearly 45 percent of the county’s residents spoke a language other than English at home, according to county officials. Whites now make up only 45 percent of the population; this county is teeming with Hispanics, as well as Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese families. Its percentage of foreign-born residents jumped to 30 percent in 2008 from 6 percent in 1970, and visits to some of its corners can feel like a trip to a foreign land.


Retiring Guy can't help but wonder if this is what politicians of a particular persuasion are thinking about when they exhort us to "take our country back".

LINK

                                                                 (books, books)

Residents Eager for Dallas Branch Library to be Built

Rendering of White Rock Hill branch library

Dallas Public Library

Link to August 30 Dallas Morning News article, "Construction of Far East Dallas library moving forward".

Excerpt:  When Thelma Mims moved into the Buckner Park Apartments, it was a lovely place with swimming pools and play areas. But 25 years later, the complex is pretty grim. She said the pools are closed, the courtyards are barren and young people "gang up" with nothing to do.

Residents say a new city branch library to be built across the street can't open soon enough. Rose Long, who has lived at the apartments for 11 years, already raised her hand as a volunteer.

Construction plans for the $4.2 million White Rock Hills library in Far East Dallas are moving forward, even while city leaders debate cutting library funds for staff and materials to help trim the city budget. That's because the project is funded with voter-approved bond money, said David Darnell, an administrator who oversees library construction.