[gweekly] CORRECTED! PT1 Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter
Michael Hart
hart at pglaf.org
Wed Aug 10 10:04:49 PDT 2005
Weekly_August_10.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, Auguest 10, 2005 PT1
******eBooks Readable By Both Humans And Computers Since July 4, 1971******
One new book added at the last moment!!! And the new Sumanaru Poem.
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Please note that we are still in the process of correcting our statistical
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duplicate count situation, but either that correction didn't stick or some
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consideration of some attention as to possibly being off by a few eBooks.
Please note that PT2 of this Newsletter is currently in flux, as we shift
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Search for "*eBook" or "*Intro". . .to jump to that section, etc.]
*eBook Milestones
*Introduction
*Hot Requests, New Sites and Announcements
*Continuing Requests and Announcements
*Progress Report
*Distributed Proofreaders Collection Report
*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
*Permanent Requests For Assistance:
*Donation Information
*Access To The Project Gutenberg Collections
*Mirror Site Information
*Instant Access To Our Latest eBooks
*Have We Given Away A Trillion Yet?
*Flashback
*Weekly eBook update:
This is now in PT2 of the Weekly Newsletter
Also collected in the Monthly Newsletter
Corrections in separate section
1 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
84 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
*Headline News from Edupage, etc.
*Information About the Project Gutenberg Mailing Lists
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*eBook Milestones
16,927 eBooks As Of Today!!!
13,865 New eBooks Since The Start Of 2001
That's 250+ eBooks per Month for 55 Months
We Have Produced 1970 eBooks in 2005
3,073 to go to 20,000!!!
We have now averaged ~495 eBooks per year since July 4th, 1971
We Averaged About 339 eBooks Per Month In 2004
We Are Averaging About 272 books Per Month This Year
We Are Averaging About 64 eBooks Per Week This Year
85 This Week
It took ~32 years, from 1971 to 2003 to do our 1st 10,000 eBooks
It took ~32 months, from 2002 to 2005 for our last 10,000 eBooks
It took ~10 years from 1993 to 2003 to grow from 100 eBooks to 10,100
It took ~1.25 years from Oct. 2003 to Jan. 2005 from 10,000 to 15,000
*
***Introduction
[The Newsletter is now being sent in two sections, so you can directly
go to the portions you find most interesting: 1. Founder's Comments,
News, Notes & Queries, and 2. Weekly eBook Update Listing.]
[Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 2 parts may undergo a
few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us:
hart at pobox.com and gbnewby at pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.]
This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
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***Continuing Requests New Sites and Announcements
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We have been invited to peruse the various eBook collections
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***Progress Report, including Distributed Proofreaders
In the first 07.25 months of this year, we produced 1971 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to Nov 1999 to produce our first 1971 eBooks!
That's 31 WEEKS as Compared to ~28+ Years!!!
85 New eBooks This Week
59 New eBooks Last Week
04 New eBooks This Month [Aug]
~272 Average Per Month in 2005
336 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
1971 New eBooks in 2005
4049 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
13865 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 55.25 Months!
Over 250 books per month!
16,926 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
13,484 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
3,442 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
467 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
[This does NOT include PGAu eBooks posted
at the U.S. site: www.gutenberg.org ]
*
PROJECT GUTENBERG DISTRIBUTED PROOFREADERS UPDATE:
Since starting production in October 2000,
Distributed Proofreaders has contributed
7,297 eBooks to Project Gutenberg.
For more complete DP statistics, visit:
http://www.pgdp.net/c/stats/stats_central.php
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Check out our website at www.gutenberg.org, and see below to learn how
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*Project Gutenberg Consortia Center Report
Please note the addition of the Internet Archive
marked with <<< below.
PGCC's current eBook and eDocument Collections listings
of 18 collections. . .with this week's listing as:
Alex-Wire Tap Collection, 2,036 HTML eBook Files
Black Mask Collection, 12,000 HTML eBook Files
The Coradella Bookshelf Collection, 141 eBook Files
DjVu Collection, 272 PDF and DJVU eBook Files
eBooks at Adelaide Collection, 27,709 eBook Files
Himalayan Academy, 3,400 HTML eBook Files
Internet Archive ~30,000 eBook Files [In Progress] <<<
Literal Systems Collection, 68 MP3 eBook Files
Logos Group Collection, ~34,000 TXT eBook Files
Poet's Corner Poetry Collection, 6,700 Poetry Files
Project Gutenberg Collection, 15,035 eBook Files
PGCC Chinese eBook Collection ~300 eBook files <<< Note Name Change
Renaisscance Editions Collection, 561 HTML eBook Files
Swami Center Collection, 78 HTML eBook Files
Tony Kline Collection, 223 HTML eBook Files
Widger Library, 2,600 HTML eBook Files
CIA's Electronic Reading Room, 2,019 Reference Files
=======Grand Total Files=========~137,142 Total Files=====
Average Size of the Collections 8,067.18 Total Files
These eBooks are catalogued as per the instructions of
their donors: some are one file per book; some have a
file for each chapter; and some even have a file for a
single page or poem. . .or are overcounted for reasons
I have not mentioned. . .each of which could cause the
overcounting or duplication of numbers.
If we presume 2 out of 3 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
~45,714 Unique eBooks
If we presume 3 out of 4 of these files are overcounts,
that leaves a unique book total of
~34,286 Unique eBooks
***
Please also note that over 23,000 eBooks are listed via
The Online Books Page, of which over 5,300 are from PG.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
In addition: The Internet Public Library had a similar
listing which is now in limbo. If anyone knows what is
happening with the IPL, please let us know. Inquiries,
made months ago, and again recently, have not turned up
any current information.
You can try a new IPL service at:
http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum60.60.00/
It would appear that The Internet Public Library ended
its first incarnation with about 22,284 entries, which
has now been surpassed by the Online Books Page.
Still looking for more Internet Public Library info.
***
Today Is Day #217 of 2005
This Completes Week #31 and Month #07.25 [364 days this year]
147 Days/22 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
3,074 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
64 Weekly Average in 2005
78 Weekly Average in 2004
79 Weekly Average in 2003
47 Weekly Average in 2002
24 Weekly Average in 2001
41 Only 41 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list
[Used to be well over 100]
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***
Statistical Review
In the 30 weeks of this year, we have produced 1903 new eBooks.
It took us from 7/71 to 10/99 to produce our FIRST 1903 eBooks!!!
That's 30 WEEKS as Compared to ~28+ YEARS!!!
FLASHBACK!
Here's a sample of what books we were doing around eBook #1903
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" Following The eText # Indicates That This eText Is Under Copyright
[Note: books without month and year entries have been reposted]
Nov 1999 Stories by English Authors in Africa, Scribners Ed[sbeaaxxx.xxx] 1980
Contains:
The Mystery of Sasassa Valley by A. Conan Doyle
Long Odds, by H. Rider Haggard
King Memba's Point, by J. Landers
Ghamba, by W. C. Scully
Mary Musgrave, Anonymous
Gregorio, by Percy Hemingway
Nov 1999 The Perdue Chicken Cookbook, by Mitzi Perdue [mitzixxx.xxx] 1979C
Nov 1999 Buttercup Gold, et. al., by Ellen Robena Field [btrcpxxx.xxx] 1978
Nov 1999 Phaedra, by Jean Baptiste Racine [Tr.: RB Boswell][phrdrxxx.xxx] 1977
[Tr.: Robert Bruce Boswell]
Nov 1999 Peter Ruff and the Double Four, by Oppenheim[EPO8][rff44xxx.xxx] 1976
Nov 1999 The Legacy of Cain, by Wilkie Collins [Collins#22][lcainxxx.xxx] 1975
Nov 1999 Poetics, by Aristotle, Tr. SH Butcher[Aristotle#1][poetcxxx.xxx] 1974
Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities, by Andrew Lang 1973
Nov 1999 History Of The Britons, by Nennius [brtnsxxx.xxx] 1972
[Tr.: J. A. Giles]
Erewhon Revisited, by Samuel Butler 1971
[Subtitle: Twenty Years Later. Both by the Original Discoverer of the
Country and by his Son]
Nov 1999 A Poor Wise Man, by Mary Roberts Rinehart[MRR #12][pwsmnxxx.xxx] 1970
Nov 1999 Catherine: A Story, by William Thackeray[W.M.T.#9][cthrnxxx.xxx] 1969
The Human Comedy: Introductions & Appendix, by Honore de Balzac 1968
[Introduction: George Saintsbury]
The Brotherhood of Consolation, by Honore de Balzac 1967
[Tr.: Katharine Prescott Wormeley]
Nov 1999 The Path of the King, by John Buchan [Buchan #6][tpotkxxx.xxx] 1966
Nov 1999 Captain Blood, by Rafael Sabatini [R. Sabatini #3][cpbldxxx.xxx] 1965
Nov 1999 [Reserved for Pietro di Miceli] [ xxx.xxx] 1964*
Nov 1999 The Confession, by Mary Roberts Rinehart [MRR #11][cnfsnxxx.xxx] 1963
Nov 1999 A Defence of Poesie and Poems, by Philip Sidney [dfncpxxx.xxx] 1962
Nov 1999 Books and Bookmen, by Andrew Lang[Andrew Lang #16][bkbkmxxx.xxx] 1961
Nov 1999 Sight Unseen, by Mary Roberts Rinehart[Rinehart10][stnsnxxx.xxx] 1960
Nov 1999 The Crown of Thorns, by E. H. Chapin [thrnsxxx.xxx] 1959
Nov 1999 Hermann and Dorothea by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe[handdxxx.xxx] 1958
Beatrix, by Honore de Balzac [Tr.: Katharine Prescott Wormeley] 1957
Nov 1999 And Even Now, by Max Beerbohm [Max Beerbohm #7][evnowxxx.xxx] 1956
Nov 1999 The Darrow Enigma, by Melvin L. Severy [dngmaxxx.xxx] 1955
Colonel Chabert, by Honore de Balzac [Tr.: Ellen Marriage & Clara Bell] 1954
Nov 1999 The Diary of an Old Soul, by George MacDonald [#6][doaosxxx.xxx] 1953
Nov 1999 The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman2[ylwlpxxx.xxx] 1952
Nov 1999 The Coming Race, by Edward Bulwer Lytton[Lytton#5][cmgrcxxx.xxx] 1951
Nov 1999 A Woman of Thirty, by Honore de Balzac[Balzac #87][thrtyxxx.xxx] 1950
Nov 1999 On The Ruin of Britain, by Gildas Sapiens [otrobxxx.xxx] 1949
Nov 1999 The Story of a Bad Boy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich 7[soabbxxx.xxx] 1948
Nov 1999 Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini[Rafael Sabatini#2][scmshxxx.xxx] 1947
Oct 1999 On War, by Carl von Clausewitz [Volume 1] [CvC #1][1onwrxxx.xxx] 1946
Oct 1999 Egmont, by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe [Goethe #2][egmntxxx.xxx] 1945
*
Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
If our average eBook has reached just 1% of the world population of
6,459,357,434 that would be 16,927 x 64,593,574 = 1.09 Trillion !!!
With 16,927 eBooks online as of August 10, 2005 it now takes an average
of ~1% of the world gaining a nominal value of ~$.91 from each book.
1% of the world population is 64,593,574 x 16,926 x $.91 = ~$1 trillion]
[Google "world population" "popclock" to get the most current figures.]
With 16,927 eBooks online as of August 10, 2005 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.59 from each book.
This "cost" is down from about $.74 when we had 13,484 eBooks a year ago.
100 million readers is only ~1.5% of the world's population!
At 16,927 eBooks in 34 Years and 01.25 Months We Averaged
~496 Per Year
41.4 Per Month
1.36 Per Day
At 1971 eBooks Done In The 217 Days Of 2005 We Averaged
9.1 Per Day
64 Per Week
272 Per Month
If you are interested in the population of the world or of the U.S.
you might want to know that these numbers, official as they appear,
are just just estimates, and perhaps not as accurate as we hope.
Recently the U.S. Congress, pertaining to district reapportionment,
who gets to vote for which Congresspeople, decided that many of the
districts were undercounted by 5%, perhaps then later deciding that
all districts had been undercounted by 5% [can't recall details].
However, I just this moment heard a news item that made me wonder a
bit more about the accuracy of the U.S. Census. A "Special Census"
is taking place in Normal, Illinois, that is expected to count more
people, by a factor of 3,000 or 3,400, depending on which source.
45,386 was the population as per the 2000 Census, so 3,000 added to
this would be an increase of 6.6%, and 3,400 would be 7.5%, above a
possibly automatic increase of 5% as per the same terms above but I
presume this is in addition to previous adjustments.
Of course, we should consider that we would have to double figures,
perhaps to 15% from those above, if are considering the normal time
between censuses of 10 years, these are for 5 years' growth.
In previous news I heard about the U.S. Census, no mention was made
about the annexation of various nearly locations as a cause of this
normally unexpected growth, but it is mentioned at the site I found
on the subject of the current Special Census.
If annexation is the primary cause of such increases, country wide,
then we should not be expecting a huge rise in the 2010 Census, but
rather should expect something more along the norm. However, if it
is not annexation, but more actual people on the average, then this
might be an indicator that the population of the U.S. may have seen
300 million go by some time ago.
For more details, see: www.normal.org/WhatsNew/Census.htm
The production statistics are calculated based on full weeks'
production; each production-week starts/ends Wednesday noon,
starts with the first Wednesday of January. January 5th was
the first Wednesday of 2005, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2004 and began the production year of 2005 at noon.
This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.
***
*Headline News from Edupage
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
FCC DROPS TELECOM RULES ON NETWORK ACCESS
[Why do they say they can't tell if prices will change as a result?]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has dropped regulations
that forced telephone companies to lease network access at
FCC-determined rates to rival providers of broadband services. Internet
service providers will have a year to transition from the current system.
Whether the change will affect prices and availability of DSL is not known,
since phone companies can profit by leasing their lines to rivals
and benefit from all increased DSL purchases by U.S. customers.
DSL service providers are more concerned by competition for broadband
customers from cable companies, which claim 56 percent of broadband
customers versus 36.5 percent for DSL, according to data from the FCC.
San Jose Mercury News, 8 August 2005
www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/technology/12331081.htm
FBI ISSUES RFP FOR SENTINEL
[Carnivore Reincarnate?]
Following cancellation in March of the Trilogy program at the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which was meant to modernize the
agency's computer systems, the bureau has issued a request for
proposals for Sentinel, its next-generation information management
system. Submissions are due by fall, with a contract expected by the
end of the year. The FBI announced last week that it had deployed its
public key infrastructure, which is a prerequisite for Sentinel.
Federal Computer Week, 8 August 2005
http://www.fcw.com/article89836-08-08-05-Web
KANSAS SUPREME COURT TO RULE ON OWNERSHIP OF FACULTY WORK
[I suppose this would allow Kansas to censor evolution materials.]
The Kansas Supreme Court will evaluate an appellate court decision
giving public institutions in Kansas the right to claim ownership of
any faculty work, including books, with no negotiation on terms
required. The lower court treated faculty work as "work for hire" under
federal copyright law, classifying scholarly work as within the scope
of employment of a faculty member. The current policy, designed in
1998, allows faculty to keep their book rights and has a
revenue-sharing model for technology copyrights. Should the higher
court decide in favor of the board, the policy could be changed at
will. The case pits the Kansas Board of Regents against the Kansas
National Education Association.
Inside Higher Ed, 7 August 2005
http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/08/kansas
***More on Kansas this week from alternate sources***
KANSAS BOARD OKAYS EVOLUTION KNOCK
from CBS/Associated Press
The Kansas Board of Education voted 6-4 to include greater criticism of
evolution in its school science standards, but it decided to send the
standards to an outside academic for review before taking a final vote.
The Kansas school system was ridiculed around the country in 1999 when the
board deleted most references to evolution. The system later reversed
course, but the language favored by the board Tuesday comes from advocates
of intelligent design or creationism.
The belief, which many say is deeply tied to religious belief, holds that
some features of the natural world are best explained by an unspecified
intelligent cause. Evolution is a fundamental scientific theory that
species evolved over millions of years through natural selection.
http://tinyurl.com/ceuec
***
SURVEY SHOWS MIXED IMPACT OF INTERNET ON STUDENTS
A survey conducted in May 2004 by Steve Jones, professor of
communciation at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Camille
Johnson-Yale, a graduate student in communication at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, determined that 42 percent of the
professors surveyed saw a decline in the quality of student work with
the advent of the Internet, while 22 percent noted an improvement.
[One might suspect a study in which declines outweighed unchanged,
and the unchanged was never mentioned. 42% decline 34% same 22% improve,
thus the majority were either unchanged or showed improvement]
However, a majority of respondents, 67 percent, indicated that the
Internet had improved their communication with students. The nationwide
survey of 2,316 faculty elicited a concern with student plagiarism, and
74 percent of respondents said they use the Internet or other tools to
detect plagiarism. The researchers have presented some of their
findings at academic conferences and have submitted their work to a
peer-reviewed academic journal.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 August 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i49/49a03201.htm
CHINESE SEARCH ENGINE IPO TAKES OFF
[Remember the previous predictions about China?]
Chinese search engine company Baidu.com launched its initial public
offering (IPO) of shares Friday on the Nasdaq stock market. The stocks
were priced at $27, opened at $66, and rose to $122.54 by market close.
Investors in Baidu include Google and several Silicon Valley venture
capital firms. Baidu is the top search engine in China, followed by
Google, and there is speculation that Google might attempt to acquire
the company in the future.
New York Times, 7 August 2005 (registration req'd)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/technology/08baidu.html
UT TO RECEIVE $1.8 FROM BLACKBERRY
The maker of BlackBerry devices will pay the University of Texas System
$1.8 million to settle a patent-infringement case over technology that
allows users to enter text into telephone-style keypads. Under the
terms of the settlement, Research in Motion, based in Canada, will also
be granted a license to continue using the technology. Part of the
settlement will fund research at the UT Ssystem's Arlington campus,
where the technology was developed by George Kondraske, a professor of
electrical and biomedical engineering, and Adnan Shennib, who was a
graduate student when the technology was invented in 1987. The UT
System is pursuing similar charges against more than 40 other companies
for illegally using the patented technology. The university, which
earns between $11 and $14 million annually from royalties on patents it
holds, has recently hired a vice chancellor for research and technology
transfer and will soon appoint an associate vice chancellor to help
protect its patents.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 August 2005 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/08/2005080305n.htm
COURT REJECTS APPLE DEAL WITH GEORGIA SCHOOLS
A Georgia court has issued a ruling that seemingly puts an end to a
deal between Apple Computer and the Cobb County School District to
provide as many as 63,000 iBook laptops to the district's teachers and
middle and high school students. Critics of the deal argued that the
school district did not adequately inform voters that a sales tax
increase passed in 2003 would be used to fund the laptop program. The
issue was taken to court, and the judge in the case agreed with the
plaintiffs. The school board held a meeting to discuss its options,
which might include appealing the ruling. For the moment, however, the
deal appears to be over. Kathie Johnstone, president of the school
board, said that providing a laptop to all of the district's students
"is no longer an option." Because district officials had promised
teachers computers before the sales tax ballot issue, teachers might
still receive laptops.
CNET, 2 August 2005
http://news.com.com/2100-1047_3-5816034.html
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One more item from alternate sources
SCIENCE OF DNA
from The New York Times (Registration Required)
The sequence of deals, intrigue and lawsuits would not have raised an
eyebrow in the art world. But the target this time was a collection of
scientific papers from the early days of molecular biology, a set that
some scientists had hoped to buy for an archive at the Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory on Long Island.
Instead, it has been bought for several million dollars by J. Craig Venter,
the maverick biologist who forced the government to a draw in a race to
produce a draft sequence of the human genome.
The Jeremy Norman collection, as the papers are known, was put together
before the materials had any clear market value. Mr. Norman and Al Seckel,
two private collectors in California, started gathering the papers at a
time when some scientists were discarding their archives, and many
institutions had no interest in them.
http://tinyurl.com/c9etz
*HEADLINE NEWS AVOIDED BY MOST OF THE MAJOR U.S. MEDIA
When Did The News People Become The News?
Something that no one will report is that the three major TV
networks spent more time talking about ABC's Peter Jennings'
death on Monday than they did reporting the actual news, for
their evening broadcasts.
*STRANGE WORDS OF THE WEEK
Peter Jennings never completed the 10th grade.
DOUBLESPEAK OF THE WEEK
Companies that mismanage their pension funds and then as their
governments to free them from responsibility are like children
who kill their parents and then "throw themselves on the mercy
of the court" and say the court must help them because they're
now orphans.
[I have heard several versions of this, but have no idea where
it was originally said, sorry.]
*PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK
People will accept the forced change to HDTV, even though it will
cost the country a fortune [100,000,000 sets at $1,000 each would
be 100 billion dollars] but by putting more and more "fine print"
and scrollbars on the screen, the television industry is making a
significant portion of the public dissatisfied with current TVs.
*ODD STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
Allergies in the U.S. have doubled since 1970.
Asthma has doubled since 1980.
"Since 1980, the number of Americans suffering from asthma has doubled."
*
Apple's new iTunes site in Japan sold its first million singles in
just four days.
*
The error level accepted in the Chinese census is greater than the
level of the entire United States population. [In fact I think it
might be double the US population]
*
Still hoping for more statistical updates and additional entries.
"If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely
100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same,
it would look something like the following. There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth
and all 6 would be from the United States
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer
I would like to bring some of these figures more up to date,
as obviously if only 1% of 6 billion people owned a computer
then there would be only 60 million people in the world who
owned a computer, yet we hear that 3/4 + of the United States
households have computers, out of over 100 million households.
Thus obviously that is over 1% of the world population, just in
the United States.
I just called our local reference librarian and got the number
of US households from the 2004-5 U.S. Statistical Abstract at:
111,278,000 as per data from 2003 U.S Census Bureau reports.
If we presume the saturation level of U.S. computer households
is now around 6/7, or 86%, that is a total of 95.4 million,
and that's counting just one computer per household, and not
counting households with more than one, schools, businesses, etc.
I also found some figures that might challenge the literacy rate
given above, and would like some help researching these and other
such figures, if anyone is interested.
BTW, while I was doing this research, I came across a statistic
that said only 10% of the world's population is 60+ years old.
This means that basically 90% of the world's population would
never benefit from Social Security, even if the wealthy nations
offered it to them free of charge. Then I realized that the US
population has the same kind of age disparity, in which the rich
live so much longer than the poor, the whites live so much longer
than the non-whites. Thus Social Security is paid by all, but is
distributed more to the upper class whites, not just because they
can receive more per year, but because they will live more years
to receive Social Security. The average poor non-white may never
receive a dime of Social Security, no matter how much they pay in.
*
POEM OF THE WEEK
This is number one of a series of five poems from a volume named:
"Thoughts of My Exiled Self."
The motto for this poetry volume is,
"Upon this Word I shall build my life."
At the Death Of My Fish
At the death of my fish
I mourned with the seagulls on a late fall's day
When the mountains of empty shells stand still at the
shores
and the water ripples the wind plays with
turn white with foam
as if they were asked to dress up in lace for the
ceremony.
At my fish's funeral
I decided to bury them inside my heart.
Copyright 2005 by Simona Sumanaru and Michael S. Hart
Please send comments to: simona_s75 AT yahoo.com & hart AT pobox.com
***
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