75th Anniversary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Clingman's Dome in the Great Smokies

       2009 is the 75^th anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In the 1920s, Americans, becoming a nation of motorists, were looking for scenic areas to visit, and the media began to promote the idea of creating a national park in the Smoky Mountains. The North Carolina and Tennessee legislatures each appropriated $2 million to purchase land, since the federal government was not then authorized to buy land for national parks. Private donations added about a million dollars to this fund, and John D. Rockefeller gave another $5 million. Once the land was purchased, after many delays due to lawsuits from logging companies and protests from local farmers, Congress passed the legislation to create the park. The Civilian Conservation Corps, a federal program to give work to the unemployed during the Great Depression, built trails, campgrounds, and bridges. As soon as it opened, this 520,000-acre park became the most-visited in the national parks system, and today it attracts over 9 million visitors a year. It is known for its spectacular natural beauty, as well as for its recreational opportunities, including miles of trails for hiking and horseback riding. Other reasons for its popularity are that about one-third of U.S. residents live within a day’s drive of the park, that the weather is good for most of the year, and that it provides an inexpensive vacation.

      Celebrate the anniversary by a trip to the park, enhancing your experience by referring to the park’s website and by reading books from the library’s collection.

       The library’s many guidebooks include Hiking the Carolina Mountains by Danny Bernstein (which includes about forty pages on the park) and Lonely Planet Great Smoky Mountains & Shenandoah National Parks by Loretta Chilcoat. Also look for guidebooks on North Carolina and for books about the country’s national parks, such as The Official Guide to America’s National Parks, published by Fodor, Frommer’s National Parks with Kids and National Geographic’s Guide to the National Parks of the United States. For the park’s history, try Birth of a National Park in the Great Smoky Mountains by Carlos Clinton Campbell and My CCC Days: Civilian Conservation Corps by Frank C. Davis. Davis was an 18-year-old from Mebane when he joined the CCC. Books on various aspects of the park include Mammals of Great Smoky Mountains National Park by Donald W. Linzey, A Roadside Guide to the Geology of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park by Harry L. Moore, and Historic Buildings of the Smokies by Ed Trout.

Krugman in Greensboro; U.S. Unemployment Crosses 10% Threshold

Paul Krugman

In case you haven’t heard, economist Paul Krugman was in Greensboro last Tuesday as the latest featured speaker in Guilford College’s Bryan Lecture Series. 

Thanks to a friend, I was lucky enough to have a front row seat for Dr. Krugman’s lecture and later on (at a book-signing) tell him how much I have enjoyed his blog, especially over the last year or so as the financial crisis has gradually morphed into what folks are beginning to call “the Great Recession” (though I realize I’m not being too precise in my language here, as the recession officially started back in 2007).

Anyway, early on in his talk Dr. Krugman predicted the nation’s jobless rate would break through the 10% barrier this week, and sure enough that was what the Labor Department reported Friday, as unemployment jumped to 10.2% in October, up .4% from the previous month.  The last time unemployment topped 10% was in June, 1983. 

John Schoen, an MSNBC senior producer who has lately written a lot of gloomy articles on the job situation, notes that the broader unemployment rate — when you include part-timers and those who are still looking for work — is actually 17.5%.  This is also in line with what Dr. Krugman told us at his lecture the other night. 

Nonetheless, the speed with which the economy is losing jobs has slowed — down from approximately 700,000 per month in early 2009 to an average of less than 200,000 over the last three months, according to Schoen.  This is at least taken as a hopeful sign.

However, Dr. Krugman told us he believed recovery for employment would come slowly, and that job growth may remain tepid for years to come.  He says things will turn around eventually — perhaps with something like green industries leading the way — but, for the foreseeable future, it’s going to be rough going, and he expresses particular concern for younger folks just entering the job market.

The good news imparted by Dr. Krugman is that folks like Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (see Greensboro Public Library’s books on Bernanke here) realized what a precarious situation the financial system was in last year and took the right actions to avoid the kind of meltdown that happened in the 1930s.  And he also thinks the economic stimulus has helped, though it was not so big as it should have been.   

Notwithstanding the Professor’s mostly grim picture of the economy, it was a great lecture, and Guilford College is certainly to be applauded in their efforts to bring notables such as Dr. Krugman to Greensboro.

Greensboro Public Library has several books by Paul Krugman.  If you’re interested, follow this link.

And, as always, if you’re looking for work please keep in mind the Library’s links for job seekers.

Attention Mountain Travelers!: Chimney Rock Park’s Elevator Down for Repairs; I-40 Blocked By Slide at NC-TN Border

Chimney Rock

Just in case you’re planning a trip to Chimney Rock Park, one of western North Carolina’s most popular tourist destinations, the News and Record reports today that their elevator is shut down for repairs. 

If you’re not familiar with the Park, but still want to go and make a trek up to the monolith, the lack of an elevator means you’ll have to climb a vertiginous (a favorite word of one of my colleagues), winding set of stairs in order to reach the Rock — and, if you’re the least bit afraid of high places, you will find that walk pretty darn scary!  

Mountain travelers should also be aware of the rock slide which occurred on I-40 near the NC-Tennessee line on October 25th.  It is estimated that as many as three or four months will be needed to remove the debris.  The last open westbound exit is #20 (U.S. 276 to Maggie Valley).  Eastbound I-40 travelers are being rerouted to Asheville via I-81 and I-26.  Repairs have been delayed owing to recent heavy rains.

Of course, you can still visit our beautiful mountains, and gosh knows there are lots of things to see and do up there. 

And please, anytime you plan travel to western North Carolina or, for that matter, almost any other destination, keep in mind that Greensboro Public Library has plenty of guidebooks and other travel writing which may help you to plan your journey. 

For instance, visitors to our mountains can find recent titles in our collection such as High Vistas:  An Anthology of Nature Writing from Western North Carolina & the Great Smoky Mountains, edited by George Ellison; 100 classic Hikes in North Carolina:   Coastal Carolina/Piedmont/Blue Ridge Parkway/Pisgah National Forest/Great Smoky Mountains; Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains:  A Guidebook by Georgann Eubanks; and North Carolina’s Best Wildflower Hikes:  The Mountains by Kevin Adams.

Some Election Day FAQs for Greensboro City Voters by Frank Barefoot

1)      What time will the polls open on election day? 

6:30 a. m.

2)      What time will the polls close on election day? 

7:30 p. m. 

3)      What is the phone number of the Guilford County Board of Elections?

641-3836

4)      Can I register to vote AND vote on Election Day, November 3?

No.

5)      My next-door neighbor told me we’re in a different Greensboro City Council district.  What’s going on? 

Between the 2007 Greensboro city election and this one, Greensboro annexed a large amount of land and a large number of people on the west side of the city.  So, the city council districts had to be redrawn to satisfy a number of legal requirements.  You are one of the 42,000 voters in the new city limits whose precinct was moved from one district to another as a result of this district boundary redrawing. 

6)      Who are the Democratic and Republican Party candidates in this election? 

The Greensboro city election is non-partisan, and that means that candidates do not run with party labels.

7)      Can I vote for a write-in candidate?  

Yes.

8)      I live outside of Greensboro.  Why can’t I vote today? 

This election is only for Greensboro City Council candidates, and you can’t vote for them unless you live inside the Greensboro city limits.

9)      I’ve got to go and vote this afternoon, but I don’t know who the people are I’m supposed to choose from.   How can I find out? 

If you have a computer with Internet access, you can go to www.guilfordelections.org, the website of the Guilford County Board of Elections.  Then follow these steps:

Click on Voter Information Lookup and Sample Ballot (a link on the lefthand side).

Click on My Election Information

Put in your first name, last name, and birth date, and choose your county.

Click on My Districts.

Under City, you’ll see your ward (city council district).

Then, use your back arrow twice and X out of the Voter Information Lookup screen.  Click on 2009 Municipal Election Composite Sample Ballot.  Each voter will be voting for mayor, 3 at-large city council members, 1 district city council member, and Yes or No on some Natural Science Center bonds.

Greensboro Public Library Book Sale Coming Up Nov. 7th

If you’re a book hound like me, you will not want to miss Greensboro Public Library’s Fall Used Book Sale, to be held at Central Library, Saturday, November 7th, 9AM-2PM.

At the sale, you’ll find all kinds of great deals on fiction, non-fiction, children’s literature, and much, much more.

Prices for most hardbacks and trade paperbacks will be $2.  Mass market paperbacks are .50 ea. 

There will be a bag sale from 2:30-3:30PM.  The price will be $4 per bag.

Central Library is located at 219 North Church St.  Parking is free.

Be there or be square!

More on the Great Recession: Foreclosures, Jobs & Financial Reform

I’m one of those lucky people who is still employed and just bought a condo, taking advantage of the up to $8,000 tax credit that was part of the stimulus legislation crafted by the Obama Administration and Congress earlier this year.

So, I’ve just been through a move from my old apartment — of fifteen years — where most of the residents are college students, with perhaps a few little old ladies here and there, as well as a sprinkling of grisly hermits like myself who have always been content to avoid the responsibilities of home ownership.

But anyway, as I was moving I took notice of something unusual at my apartment complex — the appearance of a family of four in one of the units across the street.  I don’t think I’d seen that once in all my fifteen years at the apartments.

I never spoke with them in order to ascertain whether they were victims of the foreclosure crisis, but when I saw a pile of toys in the yard behind their unit, I thought they sure looked like they belonged in the backyard of a single family home.

Though I suppose people aren’t losing their homes around here at the same pace they are elsewhere — such as Florida or out west — I’d be willing to bet this scenario is something being repeated quite a lot around Greensboro these days.  In fact, just since I’ve moved into my condo (less than a month), I’ve seen a unit foreclosed.               

If you’re in trouble, Greensboro Public Library has some books which can help you with foreclosure, including The Foreclosure Survival Guide:  Keep Your House or Walk Away with Money in Your Pocket by Stephen Elias, and Stop Foreclosure Now:  The Complete Guide to Saving Your Home and Your Credit by Lloyd Segal.

Of course, some families aren’t so lucky as to be able to afford an apartment when they lose their homes.  This past week, one of my colleagues at another branch sent me a link to a New York Times article on how foreclosures are forcing families into homeless shelters — on average, it’s estimated that 10% of homeless families receiving help from social service agencies are folks who have lost their homes.

In other late economic news, the Employment Security Commission released county unemployment data on Friday, and things are looking a tad better, as Guilford County’s rate for September dropped .4% from the previous month to 11.0%.

We’re still in a world of hurt on the jobs front though, for this article by MSNBC’s John Schoen suggests the “real” unemployment rate nationally — when you throw in discouraged workers and part-timers who want full-time jobs — may actually be as high as 20%, or around double the official rate (currently 9.8%). 

If we extrapolate Guilford’s “real” rate in the same way, then we also would be at around 20%.

As we’ve said many times in our posts, the Library has plenty of resources for job seekers.  Check out our Job and Career Information page. 

We’ve also seen reports of some movement on financial reform in the last week or so, though it seems unlikely that Congress will have the stomach for bold action. 

One of the most troubling areas continues to be “too big to fail” — i.e., the likelihood of government bailouts for huge financial institutions like AIG or Citigroup in the event of future crises.  

On Friday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress it “must set up a mechanism . . . to safely wind down big financial firms whose failure could endanger the entire financial system,” suggesting an assessment collected from the financial industry — rather than taxpayer dollars — could be used for this purpose.

If you’re interested in some of the Library’s most recent titles on the financial crisis, take a look at the reading list here.

More Halloween Season Goodies: Bats, Bram Stoker, Telescopes & Poe

Bram Stoker

Stephanie Meyer and the Twilight series may well be more popular these days, but check this out:  the great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker (1874-1912), author of Dracula, the greatest vampire novel of them all, has come out with a sequel to his famous ancestor’s book.

Titled Dracula:  The Un-dead, and written by Canadian Dacre Stoker in collaboration with a New York screenwriter named Ian Holt, the plot of the new novel involves a hunt for a murderous vampire, set against late Edwardian Europe.  Interestingly, Bram Stoker is actually a character in the new book.    

Greensboro Public Library has copies on order, so I imagine we’ll have Dacre Stoker’s new novel soon.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in Bram Stoker, we do have a couple of recent titles, including Bram Stoker’s Dracula:  A Documentary Journey into Vampire Country and the Dracula Phenomenon, edited by Elizabeth Miller, and The New Annotated Dracula.   

We’ve also plenty of other books on vampires.  Just a few of our 2009 titles make a long list:  Blood Promise:  A Vampire Academy Novel by Richelle Mead; The Vampire Archives, edited by Otto Penzler (on order); City of Glass by Cassandra Clare; Night Pleasures by Sherrilyn Kenyon; Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs; The Thirteenth by L.A. Banks; Must Love Hellhounds by Charlaine Harris; Dark Road Rising by P.N. Elrod; and Club Dead by Charlaine Harris.  Search the library’s catalog here for many, many more.

A Vampire Bat

Speaking of vampires, it’s well-known that they occasionally transmogrify into bats.  And, if you’re like me and fascinated by bats (I love to watch them flit around at dusk, and one of my favorite books is Randall Jarrell’s The Bat Poet), you won’t want to miss our program on bats at the Kathleen Clay Edwards Family Branch on Monday night, October 19th, at 6:30 PM.

This program will also include a telescope viewing, provided skies are clear, and, though there’s no connection to our Kathleen Clay program, it’s nonetheless a fact that our master weaver of the horror tale, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), was also an astronomy enthusiast.  As a boy, Poe enjoyed using a telescope to study the stars and planets, and one of the last books he published before his tragic death was Eureka (1848), in which he attempted to explain the origins of the universe.

Edgar A. Poe

Lastly, thoughts of Poe and the Fall season always remind me of my favorite of his poems, Ulalume, which begins: 

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere -
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year.

The library, of course, has books on bats, astronomy, and Edgar A. Poe.  Let us know if we can help you find something.

North Carolina’s Jobless Rate Holds Steady at 10.8%

There was no increase in North Carolina’s month-to-month unemployment rate in September, the News and Record reported today.  The article also points out some “hopeful signs,” such as a slight decline in initial filings for unemployment insurance.

On the national scene, economist Paul Krugman also sounded “a smidgen of optimism” on his blog today, siting a steep rise in industrial production — a good sign for GDP during the 3rd quarter and hopes that the recession may finally be coming to an end.

As always, if you’re in the job hunt, please check out Greensboro Public Library’s Job and Career Information page.

Newly Discovered Amphitheatre at Roman Port City Described as “Mini Coliseum”

Marble Head Discovered at Portus

Do you remember the scene from the movie Gladiator when Maximus and his fellow gladiatori enter Rome and first lay eyes upon the Coliseum?  “Have you ever seen anything like that before?,” says one.  “I didn’t know men could build such things,” says another.

Well, apparently archaeologists working on the University of Southampton’s dig at the site of the former Roman city of Portus are similarly awestruck by remains they have uncovered this summer – which include those of an amphitheatre they are describing as a sort of miniature Coliseum.

Portus was the chief port of imperial Rome.  Besides the amphitheatre, findings have also included a remarkable marble head, thought possibly to be a representation of Ulysses, and the ruins of an imperial palace.  Ground penetrating radar and other technologies have been used to probe the site and produce a “virtual reconstruction.”

You can read more details on the excavations at the University of Southampton’s Portus Project webpage, and you’ll find additional links which may be of interest here and here. 

If you’d like to read more about the ancient Romans, try some of these titles from Greensboro Public Library:  Cleopatra and Antony:  Power, Love, and Politics in the Ancient World by Diana Preston; A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome by Alberto Angela; Working IX to V:  Orgy Planners, Funeral Clowns, and Other Prized Professions of the Ancient World by Vicki Leon; Rome and Jerusalem:  The Clash of Ancient Civilizations by Martin Goodman; Greece and Rome at War by Peter Connolly; The Assassination of Julius Caesar:  A People’s History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti; The Romans:  From Village to Empire by Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, and Richard J.A. Talbert; The Gladiator:  The Secret History of Rome’s Warrior Slaves by Alan Baker; Ancient Rome by Timothy R. Roberts; Ghosts of Vesuvius:  A New Look at the Last Days of Pompeii, How Towers Fall, and Other Strange Connections by Charles Pellegrino; Pompeii:  The Living City by Alex Butterworth and Ray Laurence; and The Visible Past:  Greek and Roman History from Archaeology, 1960-1990 by Michael Grant.

Things to Do for Halloween in Greensboro

Well, it’s ghosts and goblins time here in Greensboro, and lots of folks will be looking for something special to do — especially for the kids.

Here are some local Halloween activities I found during a quick web search:  

• The Greensboro Children’s Museum Spooktacular Halloween:  spooky stories, a puppet show & a costume parade 
• The Woods of Terror on Church Street
• Haunted houses in the Greensboro Area/North Carolina
• Horror films at the Carousel Cinemas
• Ghost stories & a Halloween Night Tour at Blandwood 
• The Children’s Halloween Parade at Center City Park
• The Wizard of Oz Trail at Castle McCulloch

Greensboro Public Library has some programs on Halloween too, including tales from master story teller Terry Bane.  Join us if you can.

There must be plenty I have missed.  If you know of any other Halloween events which should be added to the list, please comment.