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Monday, January 30, 2012

Books

Jonathan Franzen was talking at the Hay Festival in Cartagena, Colombia.

Jonathan Franzen has spoken of his fear that the e-book will have a detrimental effect on the world – and his belief that serious readers will always prefer print editions.
..."Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book, I'm handling a specific object in a specific time and place. The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing – that's reassuring,"

"Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it's just not permanent enough."
For serious readers, Franzen said, "a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience". "Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn't change," he continued. "Will there still be readers 50 years from now who feel that way? Who have that hunger for something permanent and unalterable? I don't have a crystal ball. But I do fear that it's going to be very hard to make the world work if there's no permanence like that. That kind of radical contingency is not compatible with a system of justice or responsible self-government."
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/30/jonathan-franzen-ebooks-values

Where is that electronic revolution people talk about?!
People in Florida are still losing their homes, and not one politician can find it in the electronic revolution political will to do anything other than nothing!
Nothing of value has changed: the suffering is the same and the lack of charity and the disinterest of the political class has not mutated one iota!
We are still beset on all sides; the only difference is we have spent money on e-crap!

This is not revolution: this is destruction by the Lazy persuaded by the Greedy.
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