Food Safety on the web

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recalled peanut butter and products containing peanut butter from several companies within the last two weeks because of concerns over Salmonella outbreaks. Some of the recalls include products made by Wal-Mart, Meijer, Trader Joe’s, and more.

You can search for Peanut Butter Product Recalls at their website to make sure your kitchen doesn't contain the suspected products. The list is updated almost daily. You can also check for other product-related health alerts.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the case count is now 488 in 43 states with the latest reported illness beginning on January 8, 2009. You can access a map of the outbreak via the CDC’s Investigation Update. See also the CDC and FDA recommendations for consumers. The American Peanut Council provides a list of peanut butter brands NOT affected by the FDA recall. The Indiana State Health Department also keeps a list of Recalls and Advisories. More information on Salmonella can be found at the USDA Food Safety & Inspection website.

Email hoax spotting 101

Every now and then some caring person in my email network, trying only to save her friends from certain doom, spreads around an email hoax.

A hoax is anything designed to trick someone into believing or accepting as genuine something false.

A lot of these are rather clever, but I like to think I have a pretty good success rate at sniffing them out, so I thought I would share my tips and tricks at hoax spotting:

1. Does the email overly excite or threaten you in some way?
After reading the email do you get a little tingling feeling in the pit of your stomach, or feel the hairs rise on your arms or the back of your neck? These are primal responses to fear. Even in the age of Internet, they serve you well.

The email could be threatening you with annoying calls from telemarketers on your beloved cell phone (with the additional threat that you may have to pay for these unwanted calls) or with the loss of value of your cash cards for store merchandise at the Christmas season, but these threats are just that: promises of potential harm to you or things you value. Hoaxers and spammers have also gotten smart, using devices such as politics and primal urges to get you to click on their unexpected emails.

2. Does the email prompt you to immediate action?
Are there clear consequences for your failure to act at once? Is there a deadline? Is there a clearly defined path of easy action for you to take in your fearful or excited mood?

3. Does it seem in any way incredulous?
Do you read the email and think to yourself, Why haven't I heard of this before? How could this have been a big secret? How could this have happened? This isn't fair!

4. Are you wondering how did I get this email?
Most email has an easily defined purpose:
Friends or co-workers communicating directly with you.
Jokes and inspirational notes from friends to make you smile, laugh or ponder.
Information or offers from businesses you know for services you signed up for.
Spam -- email you did not ask for about services you did not ask for from people you don't know

Hoaxes blur the borders between these classes. They are usually email you did not ask for about services you did not ask for from people you know.

If your email meets any of those criteria, it should be enough to send you to the Internet to search.

Usually just doing a random search for the subject of your email (google or your favorite search engine) will get you a recent post or two on the subject. The Internet is pretty small these days. If you've heard about your email, chances are pretty good someone else has too.

If that hasn't given you enough information to decide, you can always try the Urban Legends Reference Pages at snopes.com. The folks there have been testing and debunking Internet myths since 1995, so they have a lot of records to compare to. It's amazing how often the same hoaxes come around dressed in different clothes.

Sometimes the email is not a hoax at all, but has been sent to you so you will open it, read something, and click on a link (or download a video player) to see more, allowing the hidden programs at the other end of the link to infect your computer.

Sometimes the email is not even a hoax. There was one last summer about a ship being launched made of scrap steel from the World Trade Center. It met the first of the criteria, overly exciting, and the third, why didn't I hear about this before? but not the other two. Enough to prompt a dive for snopes, and to a page which said, "Rumor... True."

So not all news is bad news, but it never hurts to be critical, or optimistically skeptical, as I call it.

Nine things you are looking forward to in 2009

It's the end of another year, and while it is tempting for many of us to close the door quickly on this particular one and not look back, it might be better to think of the opportunities that always lie ahead.

I'll challenge each of you to come up with nine things you are looking forward to in 2009. If you can come up with three, keep pushing. The other six are out there.

Better still, take a piece of notebook paper or a journal page and hand-write them all on there with your new year's resolutions. If you have a facebook or a blog, share it with your family and friends.

Sometimes just the act of writing it down makes it more real. Or maybe you like to say them out loud to a friend. Whatever it takes to make 2009 the best year it can be.

I'll include a few quotes here from a website I've stumbled across. BrainyQuote.com is a great resource for that perfect bit of inspiration to add to an email (or a blog post ;) from people who said it perfectly.

So goodbye to 2008:
"It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours."
-- Harry S. Truman

"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space."
-- Johnny Cash

And hello to 2009:
"Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be."
-- Jose Ortega y Gasset

Here's hoping you a bright and wonderful 2009

A picture worth a thousand words

If you have been to the Rensselaer Library this fall, you might have noticed the display of large artworks and photos throughout the library. These images were provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of a project to make important images of our history available for the public. The Picturing America program is also available online and gives details about the images and their meaning to us as a nation.

On Dec. 2, CNN had an interesting story that ties in to this collection. Katherine McIntosh of Modesto, Calif. turns 77 this week. She is one of two young children, faces turned from the camera, pictured with their mother in an iconic photograph depicting the Great Depression.

McIntosh, who remembers the hard lessons she learned as a migrant child living in a tent with her mother and siblings, says the photograph brought both shame and determination to her family and is still talked about the family today.

These photos and paintings are part of our national story. We really hope you take the time to check them out and see what stories they inspire in you.

Books and Movies - a reason to be thankful

On Friday night at Fountain Stone Theater, several JCPL'ers (and their suffering spouses) were part of the group of adoring fans who attended the opening night of the Twilight movie.

Today the buzz at work is still "what did you think?" If you look anywhere on the web, you will find mixed reactions to the movie, and certainly you'll find them here, but the last time we have seen such a reaction to a book-turned-movie had to be each installment of the Harry Potter movies.

For those of us who read Stephanie Meyer's series -- and at current count it's over half the staff here at JCPL -- we STILL can't get enough.

There are a lot of good movies out right now, or coming soon, based on excellent books. Sue Monk Kidd's beloved The Secret Life of Bees is still in theaters. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas opened in select communities earlier this month.

A movie that is sure to delight holiday viewers is Marley and Me, the tale of a family and their neurotic but lovable dog, which opens on Christmas Day.

For those movies, and many others, we at the library give thanks that they bring really good stories to viewers who might otherwise miss them. We also are thankful every time they introduce a non-reader to the magical world of reading, or inspire a so-so reader to go after a book to find more information about the characters they loved on screen.

For those parents, boyfriends, friends and fathers who watched Twilight this weekend and wondered what it was that captured the hearts and minds of so many fans, all I can offer is this: read the book and find out.

Honoring our Veterans

Nov. 11 is Veterans' Day and while many businesses will close for this Federal holiday, the Jasper County Libraries will be open to serve you during normal hours. Additionally, for the entire month of November, the DeMotte Library staff has decorated with a theme honoring our local veterans.

There are donated displays of a footlocker, uniform, and battlefield items. Come and browse hundreds of stars with the names of local veterans around the library, soldier flags made by the residents of Oak Grove Christian Retirement Village, and see the yellow-ribbon decked Heroes Tree, part of a national movement, organized locally through Purdue University's Military Family Research Institute, to recognize those serving in the military at the holidays.

Also, library staff have selected information about the various wars the United States has been involved in dating back to the Spanish-American War, and you can find the information on display at the library tables to read. Through the US Department of Veterans’ Affairs, there are also resource kits teachers and parents can download online to use on this important holiday.

Originally a tribute to the end of World War I, Veterans' Day is a federal holiday observed on November 11 honoring all wartime American servicemen and women. First called Armistice Day when it began in 1919, the day was renamed Veterans' Day in 1954 to pay tribute to the soldiers who fought in World War II and Korea.

For those wanting to send holiday wishes to those currently serving, check out Lt. Governor Becky Skillman’s "Hoosier Cheer for Our Heroes" letter-writing campaign. This program collects letters and cards which must be received at the Lt. Governor’s office by November 17th.

For more on Indiana's role in World War I, check out the Indiana War Memorial online, and the Indiana State Library's WWI Resource List. The Indiana Department of Veterans’ Affairs website also provides information about the many services available to veterans in the state of Indiana.

President of the United States - Do you qualify?

If you have ever wondered just what it takes to be President of the United States, here is your chance to find out. Just in time for the election, Ferguson's Career Guidance Center -- one of the exclusive online resources available to JCPL patrons -- has added this job description to their database of thousands of career options.

The quick facts for this job paint a less than hopeful picture for most candidates, however. Consider the following: there are no formal education requirements, but you do have to be a natural-born U.S. citizen, at least 35 years of age, having lived in the United States for at least 14 years. The salary is $400,000 per year, but the competition is fierce for this position, since it can only be held by one person at a time.

Advancement prospects are also poor, because the president is the top political office in the country. After you have been president, you can pretty much expect to retire from politics.

To learn more about this career option -- or to look at resume and interviewing skills, college options and career planning -- you can access Ferguson's Career Guidance Center at any computer at your local library through our Research Resources collection. You can also access it at home from our website using your JCPL library card number and the same four-digit PIN you use to check your account from home. Don't have a PIN? Call your local library and we can set one up for you.

These resources can be reached from the main page of our website at http://www.myjcpl.org. In the Main Menu on the left side, look for the option to Search our Electronic Databases.

Tuesday, Nov. 4 is Election Day. We also hope you get out to vote for your candidates. The library will be open regular hours for this day.

For information about where to vote, and for a list of candidates in your area, check out the following links provided by the Indiana State Library:

Indiana Statewide Voter Registration System, part of the office of the Indiana Secretary of State.

National Voter Guide, hosted by e.thePeople, featuring candidate questionnaires sponsored by CBS television and the Indianapolis Star.