talk about a canary in the mine!

[donsu]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/04/MNGC7N6Q3M1.DTL


Largest library closure in U.S. looms

Federal funding dries up, leaving 15 branches in Oregon county on brink
--------------


Pat Hardy hefted two book bags stuffed with "cozy murder mysteries" through the snow to Ella Fitzsimmons' front door at the Blue Spruce Mobile Estates trailer park.

"I brought you extra, because this will be your last delivery," said Hardy, who has been bringing the bloodless whodunits to the homebound 78-year-old every month for the last several years.

Fitzsimmons' literary lifeline will be cut April 7, when Jackson County in southern Oregon shuts down its entire public library system.

The 15 libraries serving this rural forest community lost $7 million in federal funding this year -- nearly 80 percent of the system's budget.

-snip-

"Libraries are so much more than just libraries in rural areas. This is where all the town meetings are held, where all the kids come after school, where everything -- everything -- happens," he said. Indeed, today;s libraries have evolved from merely loaning out books to providing Internet access, reading hour for babies, community meeting centers and art galleries.

Last fall, Congress failed to reauthorize a $400 million annual subsidy to 41 states to help rural counties prop up their local economies. Oregon took the biggest hit -- $150 million. Jackson County lost $23 million and had to slash everywhere, from reducing jail beds to cutting search and rescue teams.

-snip-

"Some people come into the library and cry when they find out; others yell at us," said Luke Kralik, who just earned his master's degree in library science so he could work in the new Medford Central Library.

-snip-

At the Ruch Branch, a 30-minute drive east of Medford, artist Marvin Rosenberg lovingly pointed out the ceramic pieces of the library's mural. Residents of all ages made the pieces and pressed them into a cement backing: There were black bears, covered wagons, Canada geese, salmon, lumberjacks, even Bigfoot peeking from behind a tree. The fire chief had pressed his badge into the mural.


"This place is our home. This is our community center. This is where we problem-solve. They can't take this away," Rosenberg said.
--------------------------


the canaries are dead and so is america

[FormerDittoHead]

1. Seriously, what do you need LIBRARIES for? Didn't you hear about Britney Spears?

Let's not get bogged down with all that THINKING, now!

The important thing is that we keep up our military spending on billion dollar planes that we're not going to (need to) use!

[FoxNewsSucks]

6. No kidding

Why waste money on libraries, when the rural people can just turn on their Murdoch-owned DirecTV, and watch Fox "News". They'll get told all they need to know. As a bonus, drug-addled gasbag Tubs Limpbough and Shrill Hannity are on the air coast to coast. Why go to the library to find something out, just listen to the radio while doing chores.

[Gman]

2. That's $400 million more to go to Iraq

in one big lump.

[woodsprite]

3. And *co just cackles all the way to the bank with their hands in

our treasury and pockets. The squatter doesn't give a sh1t about anybody but himself. I feel soooooo sad that America has come to what it is now and is turning into.

[acmavm]

4. This really just fries me. This is absolutely incredible. This makes

me think that soon these bastards will have an ingnorant populace on their hands too stupid to do anything but obey orders from the predator class.

Everytime I hear of some community being shortchanged I think of the two bush** bimbos and how easy they've had it all their lives. And how absolutely worthless they are. And how we are footing the bill for them to whore all over the planet with how many body guards?

I could just scream.

[Forkboy]

5. DING DING DING....Next stop;The Dark Ages

[leftchick]

7. hey does the ex-Librarian and literacy advocate Pickles know about this?

not that she would give a fuck.

[iconoclastic cat]

8. Laura: "Braaaaaaaaains..." nt

[FormerDittoHead]

9. Oh, let's not forget - those librarians, with their fancy college "DEE-GREES" are LIBERALS!

What are librarians known for?

Not keeping book checkout records for tracking TERRORISTS AND CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS!
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0407-03.htm

Stocking books that don't praise the Lord!

Stocking books which teach the communist evolution conspiracy!

[EST]

13. Comically referred to by humorless republicans

as "intelligentsia,"

[Benhurst]

10. Good. Libraries are a threat to the nation-state. Besides, reading

rots the mind.

The World's Only Superpower, winning hearts and minds one bullet at a time.

:patriot:

[all.of.me]

11. well, then, we can't have a bush library either. n/t

[EST]

12. The republican behemoth, sure beyond question that

everyone in all of creation is trying to cheat them and utterly convinced that privatization will fix everything, strikes again. My fondest hope (well, one of them) is that a goodly portion of the population in those rural areas is republican. It hurts when it happens to you.

Normally I wish that the entire population of Oregon were liberal/progressive democrat but I know that's too much to ask.

I lived in and near Portland for a while in the late seventies. They got one more mostly liberal, pot smoking character when I arrived and lost one when I left.

One of my cutest memories, while there, since I was already offended by outstaters' pronouncing the state's name as O-ruh-gawn, was seeing a license plate add-on with the correct pronunciation: Or-e-gun!

The threadbare policy of the rabid right wing is making itself felt everywhere. A thin chance may exist to reverse the idiocy.

[malaise]

14. How a dumb fugg

lead a country. This sickens my stomach.