Yes it can save as .RTF. Is there one I can try for you?
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
Sent: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 10:38 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Growing the arsenal of revolutionary literature.
Is one of those formats RTF? I think that is what would be needed to get it on
Bookshare in the way I have in mind. Maurice says that he and his team are
converting the files to ePub anyway.
Carl Sagan
“Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No, no scientist enjoys
it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection for his or her ideas and
findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics, Wait a minute; this is a really
good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s done you no harm; please leave it alone.
Instead, the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don’t work, you must throw
them away.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
On 12/2/2020 10:22 PM, Frank Ventura wrote:
There is a great program called Docuscanplus that can open a .pdf and save it
in a number of formats including .MP3 or epub.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
Sent: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 8:47 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Growing the arsenal of revolutionary
literature.
If it wasn't the convenient OCR I don't know what it is, but I do think Open
Book should be able to handle a book size PDF and I am thinking about taking
a look to see if maybe I can teach myself to use it for that. But here is the
problem with PDF and me. Like I said, I am a self taught computer user and a
lot of that self teaching was through trial and error. PDF seems to have been
responsible for a lot of the error.
Back when I was doing most of that learning I was using whatever version of
JAWS was the latest in about 2003. That was a lot less versatile than the
versions now. I remember doing Google searches and results popped up with
links labeled PDF. I had no idea what the letters stood for and I had no idea
what a PDF was. So I clicked the link to see what would happen. Every time I
did that my computer would apparently lock up. All speech stopped and no
matter which key I pressed nothing happened as far as I could tell. The only
thing I could do was to turn off the computer by cutting the power and then
rebooting it. I now know that what was probably happening was that the PDF
was downloading and JAWS was not telling me that. To me it just seemed like
everything was freezing up.
So I developed the idea that PDF stood for something like powerful damned
fuckup and I learned to avoid clicking any link, button or anything else with
the label PDF. As things progressed I began to learn a little bit more about
what they were, but that PDF aversion stuck with me and, besides, it seemed
to me that they had no use for a blind person anyway. So to this day I have
never learned how to do anything with a PDF. On numerous occasions I thought
about it being time that I finally got around to learning how to handle them,
but I never did. For right now let's see where this discussion about
Pathfinder books in PDF format goes. I think I might be able to make those
books accessible if I just figured out how to do it, but as of right now I
haven't.
Carl Sagan
“Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No, no scientist
enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection for his or her ideas
and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics, Wait a minute; this is a
really good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s done you no harm; please leave it
alone. Instead, the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don’t work, you
must throw them away.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
On 12/2/2020 3:58 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Roger,
No, I wasn't talking about that convenient OCR. I know it's there, but I
don't know how to use it. What I meant was that I'd go to something that
said it was in pdf format, something longer, and press enter, and the thing
would say that it was converting and then I'd get this whole thing that I
could listen to. And if I remember correctly, I could go to a menu and
convert it to a word document, if I wanted to. But then there were other
things that said they were in pdf format, and if I pressed enter on that
kind of pdf, jaws would say, "empty document". In other words, for some
reason, it wasn't convertible.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 3:43 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Growing the arsenal of revolutionary
literature.
Miriam, I think you are talking about the convenient OCR that is built into
JAWS. That is exactly what I was suggesting to Maurice, but the one in JAWS
would not be any good for converting an entire book. It is more of a
convenient way to recognize short items as you come across it.
However, I think my Open Book software just might be up to the task. I just
don't know how. But Kurzweil would probably be a better choice anyway.
Carl Sagan
“Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No, no scientist
enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection for his or her
ideas and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics, Wait a minute; this
is a really good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s done you no harm; please
leave it alone. Instead, the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don’t
work, you must throw them away.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the
Dark
On 12/2/2020 3:22 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Roger, Maurice,
From a technology ignoramus who can't do anything, I used to encounter
two different kinds of PDF files on my computer. Jaws would convert one of
them to something or other and I could read it. There was another kind that
Jaws could not convert and read. I don't know why. I haven't even
attempted any PDF stuff lately. But possibly, Maurice knows.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 3:11 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Growing the arsenal of revolutionary
literature.
Maurice, I just sent a reply to Miriam in which I said that I would make a
suggestion to you in a separate email. So this the separate email. I just
thought of this while I was typing my reply to Miriam. First, let me say
that I am a technological ignoramus despite the fact that I have taught
myself to use so much of it, but I do have some understandings about this
stuff much of which may be entirely wrong understandings. I am fully
prepared to have you tell me that I don't know what I am talking about. As
a Bookshare volunteer I scan books using the Open Book software. I
understand that Kurzweil is better, but I did not know that when I bought
Open Book and since this stuff is so expensive I kind of got stuck with
Open Book. But as I understand how it works it takes a photograph of the
page and then an Optical character recognition program that is built into
it converts it to computer text. Bookshare requires that volunteers make
all submissions in RTF format and that means that after I scan the book I
convert it into that format. Now, as I understand the PDF format it is
actually a picture of the text itself. I have had no experience with PDF,
so this is really only an understanding that I have surmised from reading
banter on email lists. But I was thinking that it might be possible to run
these PDF files through an OCR recognition system and thereby have it in a
format that could be converted to a format that Bookshare found acceptable
for publisher quality submissions. Or, if that won't work here is another
idea. maybe you or a comrade could register with Bookshare as a volunteer
and then run these PDF files through an OCR and then convert them to RTF
format.
Then the registered volunteer could upload them to the checkout list where
the volunteer proofreaders get submitted books to proofread and then
various proofreaders could then download them for proofreading and then
upload them for a Bookshare administrator to approve and add to the
collection. Now, it occurs to me that I just admitted that I have a
software with a built in OCR that you could send them to me to recognize
and convert. The trouble with that is that, like I said, I have no
experience with PDF files and so I don't know how to do that. That's
another reason that I admitted that I may well not know what I am talking
about. But if it is feasible and I can be taught I might very well be
willing to do that.
___
Carl Sagan
“Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No, no scientist
enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection for his or her
ideas and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics, Wait a minute;
this is a really good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s done you no harm;
please leave it alone. Instead, the hard but just rule is that if the ideas
don’t work, you must throw them away.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the
Dark
On 12/2/2020 2:23 PM, Maurice Peret wrote:
Greetings Miriam et al,
Yes, I am definitely aware and am a subscriber to BookShare. Most
of the Pathfinder titles at present are in PDF format which
BookShare currently does not accept for conversion. Nonetheless,
there is a strong group of supporters who are hard at work at
creating EPUB3 file versions to make them as broadly available as
possible. There is also a governmental agency in Canada which
offers to assess any files sent to them for accessibility and
provide suggestions on how to make them so. Roger has done a
tremendous deed in scanning several Pathfinder titles, somewhere in
the neighborhood of 25, which are already available on BookShare.
One of the initial books that is being reformatted is entitled "Are They
Rich Because They're Smart?"
by Jack Barnes which explains the emergence over the past several
decades of an increasingly diverse and elitist meritocracy, as the
title suggests.
The commitment of supporters of Pathfinder to make these
revolutionary books more broadly available is in direct response to
what we have seen as a growing interest in reading and studying the
lessons that connect us with our historic line of march as the only
class capable of seizing power from the capitalists and building a
new society based not upon private profits but on human solidarity.
I welcome anyone to join me in becoming part of this worthy project.
Thanks for your suggestion.
Regards,
Maurice
On 12/2/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, Carl, I know the writer. This is Maurice. He is a new
subscriber to this list and is a member of the Socialist Workers Party.
Carl Sagan
“Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No, no
scientist enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection
for his or her ideas and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to
critics, Wait a minute; this is a really good idea; I’m very fond
of it; it’s done you no harm; please leave it alone. Instead, the
hard but just rule is that if the ideas don’t work, you must throw them
away.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the
Dark
On 12/2/2020 11:03 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
On 12/2/20, Maurice Peret <mauriceperet@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear List Members:A strong, clear and concise presentation.
For those of us who are blind or otherwise print disabled, the
greatest obstacle that remains is access to information and
infrastructure. Amidst a rapidly declining capitalist system and
worldwide pandemic, our access to public facilities,
transportation, quality education and employment, material and
intellectual resources, and access to print and digital content
remain obstacles that require much of our effort and attention
to overcome. I submit that we are not alone in having been
traumatically disconnected and detached from our rich history
and ideals. It is well worth further examination of the parallel
developments of the disability rights movement and the embattled
tradition of revolutionary resistance to state and corporate repression.
In the wake of massive uprisings around the country and indeed
around the world to routinized racist and state sanctioned
murderous assaults on working people, disproportionately of
oppressed nationalities, there has been a rigorous distraction
from revolutionary class-conscious politics packaged in
guilt-baiting identity politics in the name of race, politics,
history, and institutionally responsible historical revisionism.
The past several years has inspired me to reconnect with a
revolutionary continuity that is every bit as much a part of our
national fabric as anything, useless or otherwise, not taught to
us in academia.
I must credit the early years of my political training for
inspiring in me a passion and commitment to master Braille as my
primary medium.
It instilled in me a discipline of study and reading to absorb
the lessons of how progress was achieved in an otherwise
repressive society. I will not expound here upon the mountains
of evidence of such repression but instead focus my energy and
hopefully your interest in engaging in a project to make
available revolutionary literature for which there is a growing hunger.
I will begin by describing my motivation to engage in this project.
The Teamster series is a book compilation of four volumes that
chronicle the over-the-road organizing campaign and union strike
actions which became national in scope beginning in 1934. This
occurred in a fascinating historic period in our nation in the
depths of a worldwide economic depression, the recent 1917
victorious Bolshevik revolution in Russia that instilled terror
in the capitalist classes, and enormous class struggle battles
in Europe which gave way to rising fascist movements. The series
begins with a book entitled “Teamster Rebellion,” the second is
“Teamster Power,” the third in the series is called “Teamster
Politics,” and finally, the fourth is titled “Teamster
Bureaucracy.” This occurred during a time of powerful
working-class organizations inspired by international revolutionary
developments.
AT the very center of these powerful union battles, in fact, was
an incredibly strong cadre of revolutionary socialists who
worked, organized, and struggled shoulder to shoulder with
workers in skilled trades and specialized crafts, unskilled laborers,
and even those among the vast army of the unemployed.
It is often said that history is written from the point of view
of the victors. History is not stagnant but dynamic. The Victors
in the case of the US capitalists, their government, and their
media have indisputably written many of the past few chapters
but we are by no means at the end of the story, which brings me to the
point.
The Teamsters series is only a small portion of the catalog of
international and multilingual literature that documents the
continuity of resistance in the United States and around the
world from the French to the Russian revolution, to the combined
international strength of South African freedom fighters and
their Cuban allies, and to anticolonial and revolutionary
struggles from Vietnam to Burkina Faso in Africa.
Among these powerful books include
Three books to be read as one...
...about building the only kind of party worthy of the name
“revolutionary”
in the imperialist epoch.
• A party that’s working class in program, composition, and action.
• A party that recognizes, in word and deed, the most
revolutionary fact of our time:
That working people—those the bosses and privileged layers who
serve them fear as “deplorables,” “criminals,” or just plain
“trash”—have the power to create a different world as we
organize and act together to defend our own interests, not those
of the class that grows rich off exploiting our labor. That as
we advance along that revolutionary course, we’ll transform
ourselves and awaken to our capacities—to our own worth.
Three books about building such a party in the US and worldwide.
Distributors of revolutionary books such as these along with a
newspaper that has been in circulation since 1928 called “The
Militant; a Socialist newspaper published in the interest of
working people” cannot keep their shelves adequately stocked.
When I was among these revolutionaries years ago, it was a
painstaking effort for me to find ways to get these books
recorded but with a renewed interest and with technology
providing the possibility for digital access to these books, I
have re-engaged in the revolutionary workers movement. I am
working with a group of supporters of Pathfinder Press whose
main project is to produce, digitize and keep books like these
in circulation. Blind and otherwise print disabled people should
have access to these books, as well. If there is sufficient
interest among us, then collectively we can help by sharing our
knowledge and skills to guide the means to make it available.
Please contact me off list to discuss in more detail at
MauricePeret@xxxxxxxxx.
In Solidarity,
--
Maurice Peret
MOBILE/TEXT: 804.928.4015
I'm wondering if Roger knows the writer?
Carl Jarvis
