Posted on 05/22/2005 8:19:11 AM PDT by SmithL
Why do we need Mother's Day anyway?
Just kidding!
I'm staying away from controversial topics for a while. For starters, I don't have time to read all the responses.
In my last column, I questioned the need for taxpayer-funded libraries, considering that books are readily available at low prices from private sources such as Amazon.com.
You could say the column did not receive overwhelming approval. In fact, for the next 2½ weeks, my computer continually flashed at me: "You have mail!"
It might as well have said: "Another angry librarian!"
Many of the replies were long and detailed. I almost expected to see footnotes. They came from not only the South Suburbs, but also distant lands such as Michigan, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Montana.
One woman was not content to send e-mail. She had to call me at home on that Sunday afternoon. After two minutes of her impassioned, nonstop berating, I started to say gently, "Hey, do I get to say anything here?" But she had hung up.
Here at The Star, I was stopped in the hallway by the able woman who types in letters to the editor and verifies their authenticity. I don't remember the exact words, but the essence of her message was: "Do you think you could find some safer topics? My fingers are getting tired."
Even my fellow conservatives were unimpressed. A thread on my column at FreeRepublic.com attracted 2,286 views and 198 comments, nearly all negative. If you'd like to read it, dial up the Web site and search for "why have libraries." Scroll down two or three screens.
Then there was my dad, a retired special education administrator. He had just five words for me, spoken gravely, slowly, with equal shares of disappointment and morbid curiosity:
"Why did you write that?"
It was as if he were asking: "Why did you get a second mortgage and buy 80,000 lottery tickets?"
(By the way, in case any of you know my family, please be assured they are not right-wing nuts like me. They are good North Side Democrats. I don't know where I went wrong.)
So, in sum, dear dissenters, even if you did not write or call The Star, you can be assured that I got your message.
Some of the replies were amusing. "Amazmanian" wanted to know: "Can we expect a future column on book-burning?"
Several people seized on my reference to the value of the book "An Incomplete Education." Obviously, they said, I need it. Can't complain — I left myself wide open for that one.
Another writer picked up on my reference to "Citizen Kane." I said that after reading "Incomplete Education," I know all I need to know: Rosebud is a sled.
The writer made the point that if I were to visit the library, I could, like, you know, actually watch the movie? Now, there's a concept.
Now, I have written controversial columns before. For example, if you want to make people mad, a good place to start is to question the circumstances under which John Kerry got all those medals in Vietnam. I did this in May 2004 and got a good spanking from Kerry supporters.
Then, if you want to make people madder still, quote some of the Bush-hating nonsense at DemocraticUnderground.com and suggest the writers are "little Ceausescus," as I did this past March 13. I figured I'd get away with that because I didn't think anybody remembered who Ceausescu was. I was wrong. They do.
But now, I know that if you want to make people really, really, really mad, then suggest that their local public library is not a vital necessity.
Who knew people liked their libraries so much?
A large part of my problem was self-inflicted. I didn't really mean to say that all libraries should simply be shut down. I think they should just be privatized. This, I thought, was implicit in the second sentence of that offending column:
"Why do we even need taxpayer-funded libraries?"
The key word there: "taxpayer-funded."
However, I inadvertently negated my own valid point in the last paragraph of the column, when I wrote: "So, a memo to Orland Park: Dump the bookmobile. And maybe dump the whole library too."
Ouch. That was sloppy writing that came back to bite me in the rear.
So please allow me to make a point in my defense. Many people told me access to good books is vital to the mental fitness of the citizenry. Well, true enough.
But then, by that logic, why do we not also have taxpayer-supported gyms?
Juvenalis, the ancient Roman poet, said the human ideal is "mens sana in corpore sano." That's Latin for "sound mind in a sound body."
If I should pay taxes to help you keep your mind sound, then why shouldn't you pay taxes to help me keep my body sound?
I have to pay $312 a year to belong to the Bally's gym across the street. Come on, library supporters, help me defray this cost. Please line up outside The Star at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday with cash or a checkbook.
Once you do, I promise to retract my column from April 24.
Meanwhile, as I said at the start, I am sticking to safe topics from now on. In my next column, I will suggest that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed a holy book down a toilet. Who could get upset about that? Michael Bowers is a copy editor and paginator for The Star. Send e-mail to mbowers@starnewspapers.com.
Just turn it on, it recharges fine while on. (I do it all the time with mine)
"There are 20,000 or so I can download for free off the Internet. E-books are competing with that as well."
Those 20K books will transfer over to your PDA with a touch of the button.
"Here's the thing, though: I just checked Amazon.com. The least expensive PDA I saw -- and granted I just scanned quickly -- was $80. That's a pretty heavy buy-in. (And does the bookmarking and note-writing add more to the cost?) Get the PDAs down to $20-$30 -- which shouldn't be all that long -- and we'll see."
Yeah $80.00 is probably mid range price for entry level PDA You can get them cheaper. Mine was $125.00 and I got a cheap version free with it that I gave to my daughter (her's doesn't have as much memory or built in rechargeable battery) Also the note-writing feature and bookmarking came in my free software I downloaded from Palm Media.
"I'm not sure that a klutz like me is going to relax that much with their entire lit collection dependent on coordination."
Heheh your free books store easily on any form of storage media you wish to use CD, DVD, etc. And all the books I have purchased from the online sellers are stored in my account for download anytime I wish. Try and get that deal from your local bookstore! "Sir I ruined my book and I want another copy for free... Hehe yeah that is gonna happen, but with ebooks you just log into your account and download it again or do like I do and store them on media I keep in my fire safe.
BTW my PDA is fairly tough I have spilled water on it and it still works fine.
Like I said, get the entry price down to the level of a hardback and we may see it start replacing books.... Until then, the buy-in is too steep for most.
No problem ... when you get to it. Interesting topic!
Batteries in a PDA are rechargable.
I would say 99.9% of Americans have access to a power source for those that don't they can write books on treebark while living in their Ted Kozinski shacks.
Oy! Lotta work looking through everything in the universe and deciding what to save, indexing, et al. I'm not saying it's out of the question, but ... whew!
I know just from my own kids that subjects come up that we want to look into, that have never crossed my mind. Actual academic subjects :-). If we'd had to subscribe to "All you ever wanted to now about Ancient Greek neurosurgery," we'd have missed it!
My husband dropped his. Might as well have set fire to $125.
They are down to that levelof two books now. And too steep for most? People spend 5 bucks on a fricking cup of coffee.
BTW PDAs are a hot selling item right now so "most" is way ahead of you.
Dropped mine and to put a new case on it cost me 12 bucks.
Tell hubby to buy a palm next time.
Jeez. His was splintered. Must have been bad luck. (I have a magnetic aura or something that wrecks car engines for no visible reason ... much more expensive :-).
$80 is two books? College texts, maybe.
E.books will do fine, but I've a feeling that dead-tree will continue to be around for a while, as well. After all, for all we carry credit cards, cash and checks haven't exactly gone out of style.
I wasn't planning on paying a fee for everyone. Personally, I like the library system the way it is. There are just some things that are best kept free to the public. I don't mind paying taxes for schools or public libraries.
Go ahead, flame away.
Right now I am keeping the laptop as back up. I will let you know if I decide to get rid of it.
Thank you very much, luv.
I do. Should I be forced at the point of a gun to do so? If so, by what right?
Citizen Kane -- despite Orson Welles' malicious mistelling of the life story of William Randolph Hearst -- is called one of the great movies of all time for good reason. Even if you know what "Rosebud" is before seeing it (as I did -- Lucy Van Pelt spoiled it for Linus as well as the rest of us who read Peanuts), that doesn't come close to settling all the matters of the movie, and if you have only seen it once and think you get it, you're probably wrong.
Because we need education in this country. Education is the only way that we are going to have a strong economy. Good education. We can't have good education for everyone without public schools. We also need public libraries so that those who can't afford to buy books and don't have computers can have access to them through the public libraries for learning purposes. In this great country of ours every citizen should have an equal opportunity for a good education. Then we will not be a country that is a welfare state.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I believe education should be entirely private as well as libraries. Both entirely because we are a great country.
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