I appreciate all the terrific technological knowledge and experience
shared here. AS there is a strong group of people working diligently
on this project, I expect there will be room and need for your
collaboration and I sincerely hope for a few of you willing to oblige.
Cheers,
Maurice
On 12/4/20, Frank Ventura <frank.ventura@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You can get it at:
http://docuscanplus.com
There is a free trial. I think you can try it for 2 weeks before you
decide.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2020 9:44 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Growing the arsenal of revolutionary
literature.
Well, ask Maurice about that. I don't have any PDF files to convert. My
idea, though, is that if I could convert those Pathfinder books into RTF I
could use my volunteer account on Bookshare to submit them to Bookshare like
I would submit one of my own scans. But I think I can do that with Open Book
if I figure out how. I expect that I would have to add page breaks and I am
not sure that RTF is the best format to do that in, but for future reference
where does one get this software?
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 12/3/2020 3:59 AM, Frank Ventura wrote:
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
