I curl up with one every night and I don't have to turn on a light and disturb Mrs. Dawgg to read.
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.
Main point granted, but B&N is a privately owned store, not a library.
That is sad - since you work there what recourse is available? Can the local law enforcement ask them to leave the property?
any library I have ever been to, and I have been to plenty were funded by taxpayer dollars AND private funding to cover extra services and buy more books. I contribute myself. I don't live in a large metro area,and have never seen vagrants there, but I see plenty of teens, kids, and the elderly using the facilities to learn, study, research, use the internet, and yes, goof off. (there are worse places to goof off)
Libraries are probably one of the best investments of taxpayer dollars there are. Funding has been cut or not increased (a cut in liberal terms) the last couple years, and I don't object to that necessarily, my local library had actually built branches in the rural areas (and still kept bookmobile)which tells me they were getting a bit much. I would rather see libraries than PBS any day of the week. I think privatization, would simply make them inaccessible to people who need them.
Only problem with that is that you can't crawl into bed and read from your computer screen. LOL!
Absolutely right, and of course I am aware of that. Granted a sloppy connection to the overt act by a politician and his party over private enterprise. God Forbid they have total control.
How about private charity, for those who can't pay what would probably be a fairly nominal library fee? For example, the private library could say, "We're going to charge you, comfortably-well-off Mrs. Tax-chick, $50 a year subscription fee. This is twice the per-member cost. We will use the $25 extra to issue a card to a person off our "scholarship" list."
Plenty of other ways to make the service available to those who can't afford it - book sales, "adopt-a-reader," you name it, be creative.
Anyway, if we're honest, almost everyone could afford a moderate library fee, if they cared about reading. The elderly are one of the wealthiest demographic groups in the nation. If they want to economize by using a library for books (as I do) or for computer use, that's fine, but let's not pretend most of them couldn't afford to pay a user fee. Even the "poor" manage to afford designer clothes, televisions, and other electronics ... most could pay a library fee.
Exactly ... and you certainly can't take your computer into the bathtub, or read from it while you're standing in line at the Post Office.
Michigan: Library puzzled why gay Web site named library bathroom as place to meet for sex
Beverly library director accused of showing porn to teen boy
Man Admits to Public Indecency at Library
Porn at the Library (Cultural Cesspool Alert)
Former library official honored by the ACLU (For opposing porn filters)
125 million dollar Seattle Library/Homeless shelter? Not this time say the Liberals
Marple Library (Pa.) Moves 'The Joy Of Gay Sex' To Reference Desk
I curl up with one every night and I don't have to turn on a light and disturb Mrs. Dawgg to read.
Wrong again Space Cadet.
Then I would happily donate to defray the cost of their library cards :-).
If that's what you want instead of a book, more power to you.
And I am not a Space Cadet, I am a ditzy middle-aged lady.
However, you can print it out, which I've done. When I get a laptop, I'll try that, as well.
I have to admit, though, sometimes I'll start reading something on-line and, even if I print it out, I need to get it as a book to really be able to finish it.... I never could get through James Branch Cabell's Jurgen, until I actually bought it in book form. The Prisoner of Zenda, however, I read as a print-out.
Did you go blind reading this?
It is a computer, the type is adjustable to all kinds of fonts and the colors can be changed to be more eye friendly than even FR.
Are you telling me it is not a book?
With more books available on-line, I'd think there would be a market for a low-cost, temporary bookbinding service, so you don't have to print out hundreds of one-side pages and carry them around. I sometimes print out an article from FR to read, and usually someone spills a drink on the pages, colors them, or make a paper airplane before I get through it!
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