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
