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Katherine Kersten: A character-killer is lurking in your neighborhood
Star Tribune ^ | 2/1/07 | Katherine Kersten

Posted on 02/02/2007 9:25:32 AM PST by Johnny Gage

There's a childhood epidemic sweeping Minnesota and the nation. Its warning signs aren't fever or skin rashes. The symptoms are behavioral -- and unmistakable.

Consider a recent, particularly virulent outbreak of the affliction in Maplewood, N.J., as reported by the New York Times. In the last few years, out-of-control kids from the middle school have overrun the town's library after school. They routinely mouth off to librarians, disrupt common areas, leave restrooms a shambles and race about, sometimes almost knocking over elderly patrons

(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: barbarians; eminem; hiphopinfluence; katherinekersten; libraries; lousyparenting; publiclibraries; rapinfluence; sayno
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Wow. Never thought a highly liberal writer would actually write something like this. She hits this dead on. In my city, we're having the same problems at our local Hennepin Library.
1 posted on 02/02/2007 9:25:35 AM PST by Johnny Gage
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To: MplsSteve

Ping, if you would ping all the MN freepers.


2 posted on 02/02/2007 9:26:10 AM PST by Johnny Gage (911 Dispatchers get to tell cops where to go.)
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To: Johnny Gage

Not liberal. She is the Stribs token conservative.


3 posted on 02/02/2007 9:27:24 AM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo (Carry Daily. Apply Sparingly.)
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To: Johnny Gage

Our city just started a curfew for unattended teens at the malls. They have to be gone every evening by 6:00 (I think) unless they have an adult with them. I don't know what happens if they disregard the rule - maybe someone tazers them. It's an idea that my wife is happy with and she's started shopping at the mall a lot more than she did before.


4 posted on 02/02/2007 9:29:38 AM PST by Jaysun (I've never paid for sex in my life. And that's really pissed off a lot of prostitutes.)
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To: Johnny Gage

Something probably happened to her at the library.


5 posted on 02/02/2007 9:30:38 AM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: Johnny Gage

Katherine Kersten...highly liberal? Not hardly.


6 posted on 02/02/2007 9:32:09 AM PST by Valin (History takes time. It is not an instant thing.)
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To: Johnny Gage

Part of the problem is the increasing use of public libraries for after-school day care. Parents send their kids "to the library" -- hey, it even sounds like a good thing. Kids as young as 5 or 6, left unattended, or watched by their older siblings.

It's free, it's "educational", and it passes off the problems to the state. Librarians are loathe to take action, because "where else do the kids have to go"?

There are a LOT of kids growing up without parents. Well, they have parents, but they see very little of them. It's almost like "Lord of the Flies", but as a day-trip.


7 posted on 02/02/2007 9:32:24 AM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

It's happening in our library in Springfield, too, which is about five miles from Maplewood. The librarians claim the problem is that working parents refuse to allow their children to return home after school for fear they will destroy their houses. Thus, they must go the library, in droves, where there is no real "staff" to handle them. As a result the libraries are over-run with teens and pre-teens until closing time. They are hungry, they don't have food, they are bored, and they can be violent. Solution: shut down the libraries, no one takes out books anyway.


8 posted on 02/02/2007 9:34:02 AM PST by scotus
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To: Valin

Really? Ok.. maybe I'm wrong on that point. LOL

I just assumed that anyone who writes for the Red Star is "highly liberal".


9 posted on 02/02/2007 9:36:17 AM PST by Johnny Gage (911 Dispatchers get to tell cops where to go.)
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To: Johnny Gage

Katherine Kersten is not "a highly Liberal writer".

She's the 'other' conservative at the Star Tibune (Lileks is the other one).

Katherine is a key member of the conservative think-tank Center for the American Experiment, based in Minneapolis.


10 posted on 02/02/2007 9:38:03 AM PST by AIM-54
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To: scotus

I went to my local county library branch recently to surf the web on my laptop in peace and quiet...

My, how times have changed.

I packed up after 15 minutes and left. I found it much quieter at the coffee shop.


11 posted on 02/02/2007 9:38:20 AM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo (Carry Daily. Apply Sparingly.)
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To: Johnny Gage

"...But without rules and limits, kids become self-absorbed, disrespectful and unable to delay gratification, says Walsh. And without challenge and disappointment, they fail to develop the "psychological muscles" -- resilience, resourcefulness and determination -- that they will need to cope with life's inevitable adversity."

Substitute "kids" with "leftists," and you pretty much hit a bigger nail on the head.


12 posted on 02/02/2007 9:40:02 AM PST by Harrius Magnus (Pucker up Mo, and your dhimmi Leftist freaks, here comes your Jizya!)
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To: scotus

Years ago in Chester, NJ it became clear that the library was being used as a day care center. Saturday morning the parents would drop the little miscreants off and the parents would then spend their time shopping without having to keep their children with them.


13 posted on 02/02/2007 9:42:28 AM PST by OldFriend (Swiftboating - Sinking a politician's Ship of Fools by Torpedoes of Truth)
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To: Johnny Gage

But there's actually nothing "conservative" about her perspective. It is in fact quite liberal. She draws upon our typical "excuse culture" and calls the behavior of the children a marked sign of what appears to be a psychiatric disorder the result of parental non-discipline. She comes close to "diagnosing" their behavior as ADD, the biggest psychiatric scam of our time. The behavior of the children has little to do with mental disease. To be charitable to the little ninnies, I think the problem is that they do not understand what libraries are. They do not understand that people go to libraries to read books. They do not understand why they must be quiet. In our library, which contains thousands of books, there are virtually no patrons and absolutely no reason for "silence."


14 posted on 02/02/2007 9:46:29 AM PST by scotus
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To: CharlesWayneCT

Where else do they have to go? I tell you what: lower the drinking age and let them go to bars. They couldn't behave any worse, and if they drink enough they will pass out, thus cutting down on the time they have to annoy the rest of us. Get this, Librarians: libraries are not holding tanks for miserable kids. If that is all they are being used for, then shut them down.


15 posted on 02/02/2007 9:48:51 AM PST by twonie (Just because there are fewer of us don't mean we are wrong.)
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To: Johnny Gage

This should be daily required reading for all parents, teachers and other people interested in a healthy society. Seasoned and unseasoned. Its so easy to forget and to give in to the prevailing culture.

Thanks for posting it, even from a source as surprising as this.


16 posted on 02/02/2007 9:50:58 AM PST by pollyannaish
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo
Not liberal. She is the Stribs token conservative.

Darn. I would be more hopeful if the liberals were actually starting to get a clue about this.

17 posted on 02/02/2007 9:51:47 AM PST by pollyannaish
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To: Johnny Gage

They should try evicting misbehaving kids. If they refuse to leave, or come back, throw their butts in juvie for criminal trespass.
Most parents we know disapprove of the way we handle our kids, but they like the results. We make them do chores, tell them "no", and basically raise them the way we were raised as military brats.
Our kids are hard workers, polite, respectful, and we can take them anywhere.


18 posted on 02/02/2007 9:52:45 AM PST by Scotsman will be Free (11C - Indirect fire, infantry - High angle hell - We will bring you, FIRE)
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To: twonie

No need to shut them down. Keep them open, sell off the books, which they will never read anyway, and turn them into "juvenile study centers." I cannot see any need for public libraries in our day and age. Do I "really" need a taxpayer funded institution, for god's sakes, to go and check out a battered up dog-eared copy of East of Eden?


19 posted on 02/02/2007 9:53:48 AM PST by scotus
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To: pollyannaish

People who subscribe to the "diagnosis" of ADD are virtually always liberals. They subscribe to the reigning orthodoxy. Been seeing it for years and years in my practice as a shrink. Oh well.


20 posted on 02/02/2007 9:53:49 AM PST by scotus
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