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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Fables Of The Reconstruction / Libraries Are A Luxury, Citizen

Libraries Are A Luxury, Citizen

by Zandar|  June 30, 20123:12 pm| 149 Comments

This post is in: Fables Of The Reconstruction, Free Markets Solve Everything, Fuck The Middle-Class, Fuck The Poor, Republican Venality, Bring On The Meteor, Decline and Fall

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And while we’re on the subjects of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal being an asshole and Cole being at the library and the community functions that libraries serve, let’s have another round of applause for what massive GOP revenue elimination at the state level brings: a government that dies off in bits and pieces.

Citing budget concerns, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed a $25-billion budget that eliminates almost $900,000 in state funding for its libraries. In a statement, the governor’s chief budget aide, Paul Rainwater, said, “In tight budget times, we prioritized funding for healthcare and education. Operations such as local libraries can be supported with local, not state dollars.”

Sorry, rural parts of Louisiana like Concordia Parish.  Libraries are a luxury and a drain on our precious job creators.  Fund them your gorram selves.  That would of course means raising local taxes, which is prohibited and will only assure that the Tea Party eliminates you from public office.  You will make do, citizen.  All hail the job creators.

“There’s no longer a food stamp office; there’s no longer a social security office. In our rural parish, a lot of our people have low literacy skills and very few computer skills. They come to the library because all of that has to be done online. There are some offices in some bigger areas but there’s no mass transportation and a lot of our people do not have transportation to a place that’s two hours away. A lot of our people have children in the military and they come to email their children that are all over the world on these bases. And almost all of the companies require you to do a job application online, even if it’s just for a truck driver who doesn’t need to be great at computer skills, so it is very important that we offer this service.”

Concordia formerly got $12,000 per year from the state, which it used to “keep up all of the maintenance [on its 52 PCs], buy new software, and to buy new equipment as needed.”

With that money gone, Concordia plans not to buy anything new, and hopes all its old equipment keeps working. Maintenance costs will have to come out of the materials budget. In the meantime, Taylor is already working on getting the funding restored. “We are already talking to our legislators about the next budget,” she said. “We are going to work really hard to make the legislators understand how important it is in these rural areas because citizens depend on the public library. We’re going to hope for the Legislature to open their eyes to what we do every day.”

The Legislature works for the job creators, citizen.  If you want a job, you’ll fill out an application online.  If you can’t find a way to do that, you clearly don’t want the job badly enough. The job creators will not be inconvenienced with taxes and regulatory burdens to pay for you freeloaders “reading books” and “using computers”.  If you want to have libraries and access to the internet, you would get a job and buy it yourself.  The job creators are sick and tired of your whining.  Convince someone with money to fund it.  We have better things to do with tax money, like giving it to the job creators.

If you’re reading this right now, you have access to the internet.  So why are you complaining, citizen?

All hail the job creators.  Now get back to work.

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Reader Interactions

149Comments

  1. 1.

    mapaghimagsik

    June 30, 2012 at 3:14 pm

    The beatings will continue until morale improves. Thank you.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    June 30, 2012 at 3:18 pm

    Sorry, rural parts of Louisiana like Concordia Parish.

    a/k/a solid red GOP strongholds.

  3. 3.

    c u n d gulag

    June 30, 2012 at 3:20 pm

    @Baud:
    Yes, and not having libraries, or limiting access to them, will keep it that way for generations!

    Coincidence?
    I think not.

  4. 4.

    schrodinger's cat

    June 30, 2012 at 3:20 pm

    Well you get the government you vote for.

  5. 5.

    quannlace

    June 30, 2012 at 3:23 pm

    So cutting this from the budget so they can pay for health care? And Jindal is also going to refuse accepting expanded Medicare from the government?

    Gumbo for brains!

  6. 6.

    shortstop

    June 30, 2012 at 3:24 pm

    What recourse do citizens of states like Louisiana have if governors like Jindal simply refuse to implement the exchanges? First he refused to do it before the SCOTUS ruling. Now he declines to do it before November and is making noises about refusing to do it anytime, period.

  7. 7.

    The Dangerman

    June 30, 2012 at 3:24 pm

    @c u n d gulag:

    Yes, and not having libraries, or limiting access to them, will keep it that way for generations!

    Well, not sure about keeping them GOP, but it will at least act to keep them from educating themselves…

    …oh, I see your point.

    Was fun to listen to people like Palin (or Tina Fey mocking her) and point and laugh, but this Plain White Tea Shit stuff is getting serious.

  8. 8.

    BGinCHI

    June 30, 2012 at 3:24 pm

    How long until the Chinese move their factories to the American rural south? The labor is cheap and plentiful because there isn’t anything else to do for work. The people aren’t able to do anything else due to lack of education.

    Maybe we could trade it to them for all that money we owe.

  9. 9.

    PaulW

    June 30, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    As a librarian, I have witnessed the slow budgetary cutting of public libraries, even as such places are the only facilities left for self-education, filing for government aid, and/or youth needs.

    Libraries are meant to be a sign of civilization. When a library dies – either by fire or by decay – it’s meant to be a tragic thing.

  10. 10.

    MikeJ

    June 30, 2012 at 3:29 pm

    @Baud:

    Sorry, rural parts of Louisiana like Concordia Parish.
    __
    a/k/a solid red GOP strongholds.

    This of course will be viewed as more proof that government doesn’t work, therefore more reason to vote for republicans who want to destroy government.

  11. 11.

    cathyx

    June 30, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    Thank goodness for the internet.

  12. 12.

    Rommie

    June 30, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    Well duh, Libraries are just a liberal plot to educate the masses. It’s far more important to give tax breaks to businesses so they can pocket the extra $$$ create moar jerbs. What do you think the government exists for?

  13. 13.

    Downpuppy

    June 30, 2012 at 3:32 pm

    $900,000 out of $25,000,000,000?

    Jeebus.

  14. 14.

    Elisabeth

    June 30, 2012 at 3:34 pm

    @shortstop: Greg Sargent says that states have three paths to exchanges because federal law requires all states have them: 1) do it themselves; 2) work with the federal government; or 3) let the feds do it themselves.

    Either way, unless Jindal wants to be in violation of federal law, LA will have exchanges.

  15. 15.

    dmsilev

    June 30, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    @shortstop: The way the law is set up, if states don’t/refuse to set up an exchange, at some point the feds come in and do it for them. If Obama is re-elected, that will probably be done in a way that Jindal doesn’t like.

    So, basically, he’s going all-in on a bet that Romney will win the Presidency and enable a gutting of the law. Because otherwise, he’ll essentially lose control of a good-sized swath of the framework for insurance in his state.

  16. 16.

    squirrelhugger

    June 30, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    No need for libraries when everyone’s got a Bible.

  17. 17.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 3:43 pm

    @dmsilev:

    am I wrong in thinking that if this is the case with a lot of Republican governed states, once the exchanges come into line, the AG’s will once again try to declare that unconstitutional (not the mandate, now the exchanges)? Because these assholes never give up?

  18. 18.

    gnomedad

    June 30, 2012 at 3:44 pm

    War on Women, War on Health Care, War on Libraries. Keep digging, please.

  19. 19.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    June 30, 2012 at 3:44 pm

    So what’s the end game in all of this; Everyone not on the dole or living off those in the dole in Concordia Parish starves to death or moves out of state? Hmm, kind of like Pittsburgh.

    Doubtless sooner or later there will be some fucktards from Concordia in my little patch of California, here for the jobs and whining how we West Coasters are a bunch of incompetent liberals and nothing like back home.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    June 30, 2012 at 3:47 pm

    @Valdivia:

    once the exchanges come into line

    Once that happens, people will actually have health insurance in hand, and it’s game over for the GOP.

  21. 21.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 3:48 pm

    @Baud:

    thanks the FSM for that. I am sure they will be screaming take your government hands off my exchange-care? :)

  22. 22.

    sparky

    June 30, 2012 at 3:50 pm

    @PaulW: yes.

    but it happens just as much in blueville as in redtown:

    Yet in what has become an annual struggle, New York’s executive budget for 2013 proposes a 31% cut in public funding of libraries citywide. For the Queens system, which operates independently from the New York and Brooklyn Public Libraries, such a cut would likely mean closing 18 branches while 30 others would be shuttered most of the week.

    NY Daily News, April 2012.

  23. 23.

    jeffreyw

    June 30, 2012 at 3:54 pm

    @Baud: Nonsense. The GOP line will then be: “We’ll keep those DemocRats from cutting your health care like they did to your Medicare in ’08. Vote GOP – Always Looking Out For You”

  24. 24.

    Anoniminous

    June 30, 2012 at 3:54 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    How long until the Chinese move their factories to the American rural south?

    Never.

    The wage rates are too high compared with prisoners (free) or Chinese peasants ($303/month) for unskilled work and Southerners are illiterate and innumerate so factories requiring skilled workers won’t move there either.

  25. 25.

    gnomedad

    June 30, 2012 at 3:55 pm

    Libraries are for freeloaders. He probably used socialist “roads” to get there, too.

  26. 26.

    MikeJ

    June 30, 2012 at 3:55 pm

    @sparky: The people in rural Louisiana don’t have the same options regarding closed libraries that city dwellers do.

  27. 27.

    El Cid

    June 30, 2012 at 3:56 pm

    __

    Operations such as local libraries can be supported with local, not state dollars.

    This is 100% correct.

    They didn’t say which local areas could do so, and they didn’t say that they would be supported with local, not state dollars.

    But hypothetically, there could exist some local area in which local dollars could support libraries.

    Equal opportunities, not equal outcomes!

    And that’s good enough for our people.

  28. 28.

    kd bart

    June 30, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    “We don’t reckon for any of that fancy book learning”

  29. 29.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 4:01 pm

    @jeffreyw:

    Experience with a better system will trump fear of the unknown.

    Just a a couple of years experience with a rapidly improving system will lock the program as securely as Social Security.

    In the last thread I posted some links to Uwe Reinhardt’s work on the US health care system (which is written, for an econ prof, in unacceptably plain English)

    First step is to get people access. Second step is to institute prolicies to stop self destruction of health insurance market and eliminate 1) outrageous prices for service due to insurere and provider market power, and 2) lower administrative costs.

    People will have access and should see more service that costs less to patients. Then, no turning back.

    Edit: correction, experience will lock in better health care system MORE securely than Social Security.

  30. 30.

    WereBear

    June 30, 2012 at 4:02 pm

    This massively sucks. Where is Andrew Carnegie when you need him? Now that was a Robber Baron who tried to buy his way into heaven! We need more like them.

    This kind of institutional/public use is what Google is thinking of for the Chromebook; if all you need it for is to go online, a wireless-only Chromebook, fastened to the table, handles its own updates & virus checks without costing a penny over its purchase price; and they start at no more than a netbook.

  31. 31.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 4:03 pm

    @jl:

    I saw that link in the previous thread and wanted to thank you for it, and the other one too. great stuff.

  32. 32.

    Svensker

    June 30, 2012 at 4:05 pm

    Toronto’s conservative mayor wanted to balance the budget by cutting library hours, too, especially in my neighborhood which has the highest population of street people as well as the highest library usage. He didn’t plan to cut libraries where the rich folks lived, of course. Fortunately, people like Margaret Atwood (“who?” said the mayor, IKYN) got people all riled up and stopped him.

    So what the mayor did instead was to replace all the bus shelters (which were perfectly fine) with brand new shiny ones. Oddly enough the contractor was connected with some folks in the gummint. New bus shelters built by a crony don’t cost money that makes job creators cry, though, unlike libraries.

  33. 33.

    Xboxershorts

    June 30, 2012 at 4:07 pm

    PA has a population of 12,742,886 (2011 est)
    LA has a population of 4,574,836 (2011 est)

    PA just passed a $27.7 Billion dollar budget.
    LA’s budget of $25 Billion seems out of whack here.

    Why so high a budget for 1/3 the population? Or, conversely, why would PA’s budget be so alarmingly low for a population 3 times that size?

    NY State, with a population of 19 million has a $132 Billion dollar budget this coming year.

    PA’s budget seems totally out of whack compared to NY though.

  34. 34.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    @Valdivia:

    Keep Reinhardt’s page in mind. He is first person to read for informed analsys of US health care, written in plain English. He is an expert in macroeconomics, finance, and health economics, so he catches stuff other health economists miss.

    And, some of the papers he posts on his homepage are pranks.

    Hey Cole! Hey! See if you can get Reinhardt to blog here, he might feel at home.

  35. 35.

    El Cid

    June 30, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    @kd bart: The only book I need is the Bible / All I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten

  36. 36.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 4:09 pm

    @jl:

    are you saying he trolls his readers?

  37. 37.

    PeakVT

    June 30, 2012 at 4:11 pm

    @Baud: Concordia is still blue at the local level.

  38. 38.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 4:13 pm

    @Valdivia:

    No, he trolls other economists.

    Edit: trolls other economists in a good way, should they have ears to hear. Unlike many economists Reinhardt does not like swallowing camels and choking on gnats.

    He visits my (mental?) institution periodically, and from what I have seen in person, he has an extremely robust sense of the absurd. He is abnormal for an economist. Maybe his way of dealing with the resulting cognitive dissonance.

  39. 39.

    elftx

    June 30, 2012 at 4:14 pm

    Norquist and his terrorists win…little by little

  40. 40.

    PeakVT

    June 30, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    @Xboxershorts: That’s the LA county budget, not city. LA County has about 9.9 million people.

  41. 41.

    Baud

    June 30, 2012 at 4:17 pm

    @PeakVT:

    Doesn’t surprise me actually. Remnants of the old “solid South” remain at the local level in a lot of places.

  42. 42.

    Haydnseek

    June 30, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    @shortstop: What recourse do citizens have? Why, they’ll simply vote for him again, of course.

  43. 43.

    Haydnseek

    June 30, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    @squirrelhugger: Thank you. I wish I had said that. (But not to worry, I will at some point.)

  44. 44.

    Linda Featheringill

    June 30, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    To elected officials and your overlords who serve to prevent poor people from becoming educated and aware: Fuck you.

    And I don’t care if these poor sheep vote for you time after time and they are getting the government they deserve. Fuck you.

    Never mind the rusty farm implement. Go ahead and use the lighted torch.

  45. 45.

    ET

    June 30, 2012 at 4:24 pm

    LAs race to the bottom continues. Soon the state will not look to much different than it during Reconstruction. Maybe that is the point.

  46. 46.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 4:25 pm

    @jl:

    ha ha ha your (mental) institution. sounds like the one I used to work at.

    trolling other economists is a good thing.

  47. 47.

    Zifnab

    June 30, 2012 at 4:25 pm

    @dmsilev:

    The way the law is set up, if states don’t/refuse to set up an exchange, at some point the feds come in and do it for them. If Obama is re-elected, that will probably be done in a way that Jindal doesn’t like.

    Red State governors love taking credit for Federal Money without acknowledging where it comes from. Case in point: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/07/21/51962/jindal-stimulus-check/

    Jindal takes credit for stimulus, presents constituents with jumbo-sized stimulus check.

    He’s a parasite.

  48. 48.

    The Thin Black Duke

    June 30, 2012 at 4:26 pm

    @Haydnseek: Exactly.

    I’m tired of giving “low-information” voters the benefit of the doubt. Especially when it fucks the rest of us.

    Corny as it sounds, elections have consequences.

    And until hateful assholes like Jindal are punished for their crimes, why should we expect him to stop?

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    June 30, 2012 at 4:26 pm

    @PeakVT:

    LA = Louisiana.

  50. 50.

    Percysowner

    June 30, 2012 at 4:27 pm

    The sad thing is that when given a choice people tend to support libraries. I was taught in Library School that when voting on levies, levies for libraries pass more than any other. In fact, for a while the rule of thumb was, if you needed a school levy to pass, you tacked it onto a library levy. The tacking on doesn’t work any more, and library levies aren’t as sure a thing as they used to be, but here in Ohio on election night you see school levy after school levy fail and separate library levies either squeak through or pass easily. People like libraries and they actually appreciate them. I’m so sorry for the folks in Louisiana.

  51. 51.

    PeakVT

    June 30, 2012 at 4:28 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone): Ah, my bad.

  52. 52.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 4:32 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    just wondering how you’re doing with the power outage, the heat, etc. hope you found some refuge or that you got your power back.

  53. 53.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    June 30, 2012 at 4:34 pm

    I loved how the good citizens of Troy, Michigan threw thetax revolt meme right back at tea party, I wish this would work in Louisiana, but yes we are talking about the South here. Somewhere in the afterlife, William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams are doing face palms.

  54. 54.

    Trakker

    June 30, 2012 at 4:38 pm

    Ya’ know, I’m really having trouble feeling sympathy for people who let the people in power crush them like this.

    In the South I blame it on religion. Those in power have learned to profusely praise Jesus in every political speech and assure the voters that they are doing God’s will in every bill they write, and the religious rubes just soak it up because a good Christian would never screw another Christian, would they?

  55. 55.

    MikeBoyScout

    June 30, 2012 at 4:40 pm

    You know who did not hate public libraries? Andrew Carnegie.

    Let there be light, indeed.

  56. 56.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    June 30, 2012 at 4:41 pm

    @Valdivia:

    Reported in earlier. Safely embedded at brother’s house with sighthounds, cold beer and Brazilian women (brother’s partner’s friends). Can’t complain. You have power?

  57. 57.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 4:41 pm

    @Mr Stagger Lee:

    why had I not heard about this? it’s fucking brilliant. why why why are more dems not doing this to the tea party every-time they yell tax?

    @Steeplejack (phone): I missed that. Glad to hear it. Yep have power and am taking power-outage refugees. I, alas, can’t offer them brazilian women. Just libations and books. :)

  58. 58.

    katie5

    June 30, 2012 at 4:42 pm

    @WereBear: I’m sure that Jindal expects Microsoft to step in. The private sector always comes to the rescue ;-)

  59. 59.

    katie5

    June 30, 2012 at 4:42 pm

    @WereBear: I’m sure that Jindal expects Microsoft to step in. The private sector always comes to the rescue ;-)

  60. 60.

    Suezboo

    June 30, 2012 at 4:43 pm

    Oh, can I relate to this library-essential-in-poor-rural-area story.
    I run a small internet cafe in a rural area. Until last year, we were very much needed around here. Schoolkids’ assignments, job applications, college applications etc etc.Then, at long last, our local library got a couple of PCs – free computer or Internet access.That side of the business has gone down the tubes – and the invention of Internet access on your mobile phone didn’t help much.
    Now, our main occupation is typing up CVs for the illiterate and computer illiterate – of whom there are way too many.Our training in Computer Basics is also real popular now.

    People need this service and ,IMO, have a right to expect it.

  61. 61.

    Chris

    June 30, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    No dice. The problem with the South is that it’s cheap by First World standards, but it’s still overpriced and filled with fairly entitled and bitchy citizens compared to the actual third world. Which is why migrants from further south can undercut the local wage market in the same way they once undercut the North.

  62. 62.

    Basilisc

    June 30, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    David Koch makes $900,000 during the length of an average sh-t.

  63. 63.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    June 30, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    @Valdivia:

    The Brazilians are refugees too. My brother and partner are at Rehoboth Beach, where it is 10 degrees cooler–and the beach!

    Looking forward to an evening of Globo.

  64. 64.

    jacy

    June 30, 2012 at 4:53 pm

    As someone trapped in the fine state of Louisiana due to the fact that my significant other can’t cut the cord, trust me when I say that Bobby “Gilligan” Jindal won’t be happy until he and his friends can ride down the avenue in a float pointing and laughing at the uneducated poor dying in the streets. If you don’t think Louisiana is a third world country, wait another six months.

  65. 65.

    El Cid

    June 30, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    @Mr Stagger Lee: I would feel good about that successful effort, but we shouldn’t do things like that because some hypothetical nice Republican somewhere might feel bad if they think we’re saying they’re not awesome.

  66. 66.

    kindness

    June 30, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    Ya know, the last election that brought Jindal a new term (2011) had a turn out of only 31.4% in Louisiana.

    I’m in a difficult spot. With only 31.4% voting, that’s the full 27% wingnut vote and only another 5% above that.

    I feel bad for them but they ain’t helping themselves. If Jindal’s form of government doesn’t kick them in the ass so they turn out to vote come 11/12, I won’t be able to help the unfortunate folks there. My biggest sad is the Senators and Congresscritters from there I will have to put up with. And I can’t do anything about that till the locals get out and vote. Paradox.

  67. 67.

    Chris

    June 30, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    @Anoniminous:

    You’re right, I forgot the education factor. Duly amended. The Southern wage market is overpriced, and too poorly educated to be worth it. They’re basically charging a First World rate (albeit a reduced one) for a third world labor pool.

  68. 68.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 5:03 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    It sounds like a really fun evening. :)

  69. 69.

    Amir Khalid

    June 30, 2012 at 5:06 pm

    @jacy:

    If you don’t think Louisiana is a third world country, wait another six months.

    There is a sharp irony in this. Governor Jindal’s parents were immigrants from the Third World.

  70. 70.

    JoyfulA

    June 30, 2012 at 5:07 pm

    @PeakVT: I see Campbell Brown is a native of Concordia Parish. I wonder if she’ll have an op-ed on the topic.

  71. 71.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    June 30, 2012 at 5:09 pm

    @Valdivia:

    Well, Xuxa was on earlier, so that was all right. And all the Portuguese in the house is kind of soothing.

  72. 72.

    Randy P

    June 30, 2012 at 5:11 pm

    Libraries are already begging for donor money. I support three that are personally meaningful to me and whose facilities I use: New York, Philadelphia, and my local system in suburban Philly. It sucks that libraries should go from government-funded public resources to private charities. But if that’s what they are, I’m going to support them.

  73. 73.

    Southern Beale

    June 30, 2012 at 5:11 pm

    I’m shocked that all of those tax cuts Jindal initiated haven’t created massive influx of revenue into the state coffers as supply-side economics tells us.

    Truly shocking.

    /sarcasm

  74. 74.

    Yutsano

    June 30, 2012 at 5:12 pm

    @Amir Khalid: And IIRC were not poor folks coming here either. Piyush is not an Alger story.

  75. 75.

    Keith

    June 30, 2012 at 5:13 pm

    “Job producers” in Louisiana apparently refers to The Discovery Channel these days.

  76. 76.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 5:14 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    Xuxa! oh boy. Now you are taking me back. Other memories: A Escrava Isaura (the 70s version with Sonia Braga). I find Brazilian soaps fascinating because a lot of them are historical and focus on the period when the Portuguese King had his court in Brazil.

    Also, too. The sound of Portuguese is actually very nice.

  77. 77.

    rikyrah

    June 30, 2012 at 5:16 pm

    so utterly wrong. fuck that Indian slave catcher

  78. 78.

    Yutsano

    June 30, 2012 at 5:16 pm

    @Valdivia:

    The sound of Portuguese is actually very nice.

    You just flagged a huge batsignal for TattooSydney.

  79. 79.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    June 30, 2012 at 5:17 pm

    Where have you gone Huey Pierce Long?
    the Bayou cast it’s lonley eyes to you ooh ooh ooh
    What did you say Mrs. Robinson
    The Kingfish has left and gone away.
    hey hey hey, hey hey hey

  80. 80.

    Linda

    June 30, 2012 at 5:20 pm

    @PaulW: But in the olden days, libraries died because foreign conquerors swept in and burned them down. Now we grow our own barbarians to destroy them.

  81. 81.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 5:22 pm

    @Yutsano:

    I did? How is TattooSydney btw?
    And you? Your back?

  82. 82.

    Ash Can

    June 30, 2012 at 5:27 pm

    And in other news related to right-wing assholishness, Joe Williams, the Politico reporter who (obviously correctly) pointed out that Mitt Romney was most comfortable when he was around people like himself, and that those people tended to be white among other things — and for which remarks he was suspended by Politico following an outcry led by a Breitbart reporter who has said that teachers who take kids to protests without parental permission “should be murdered” — is leaving Politico.

    (Yeah, it’s a long sentence. Bite me.)

    (And the link goes to LGF; no way am I linking to that Politico trash dump.)

    ETA: There is a link in the words “is leaving Politico,” even though it doesn’t show up in blue. And if anyone can tell me what the fuckety-fuck happened to the editing buttons for this site on Firefox, I’ll be eternally grateful.

  83. 83.

    TenguPhule

    June 30, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    What recourse do citizens of states like Louisiana have if governors like Jindal simply refuse to implement the exchanges? First he refused to do it before the SCOTUS ruling. Now he declines to do it before November and is making noises about refusing to do it anytime, period.

    They have their guns the NRA gave to them right? /snark

  84. 84.

    TenguPhule

    June 30, 2012 at 5:34 pm

    When a library dies – either by fire or by decay – it’s meant to be a tragic thing.

    In America, 27% celebrate and pile more wood on the corpse to set it on fire.

  85. 85.

    Phil Perspective

    June 30, 2012 at 5:35 pm

    @PeakVT: Which if you notice their votes at Presidential level, means they are all Blue Dogs/Dixiecrats.

  86. 86.

    shortstop

    June 30, 2012 at 5:36 pm

    @Elisabeth: @dmsilev: That’s what I thought — thank you much for confirming!

    @efgoldman: Heh, indeedy.

  87. 87.

    Spike

    June 30, 2012 at 5:36 pm

    @Trakker:

    …a good Christian would never screw another Christian, would they?

    Only on days ending in ‘y’.

  88. 88.

    Amir Khalid

    June 30, 2012 at 5:38 pm

    @Yutsano:
    I’m aware that your chances to emigrate to America go up if you’re already among the educated or talented elite in your home country. So the Jindals would have to be among the 1%ers (or some far smaller percentage) in India to stand a better chance of coming to America. Sad that, by starving state and local government services, their son is doing his best to add to the woes of the 99% in their new land.

  89. 89.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    June 30, 2012 at 5:59 pm

    @Valdivia:

    Oh, yeah, it will be telenovela city tonight, or else one of those Don Somebody variety shows.

    Also, just got baked doing a 15-minute run to the grocery. Bastante hot out there. Upside: champagne for dinner, plus Dove ice cream and dark chocolate bars for dessert.

  90. 90.

    Comrade Mary

    June 30, 2012 at 5:59 pm

    @Svensker: Also, too: the National Post (yes, the far right money-loser that still embraces its founder Conrad Black) ran a feature recently on a “businessman” who resigned from the Toronto library board because he thought it wasn’t running according to best business practices. Surprisingly, the NatPost hung him out to dry by quoting him at length, and then showing succinct and lethal responses from a very polite city councillor. What follows is only part of it:

    Stephen Dulmage: I am a business person and I hate to see waste. Once I got there (on the board), I saw that there was a lot of waste going around. For example, we have about 98 branches in total, we could lose 20 of them. Not to mention there are three times more branches south of St. Clair as there are north of St. Clair. It should be geographically spaced out.
    __
    Councillor Paul Ainslie: You have to look at population density, obviously in the downtown core (south of St. Clair) there are a lot more people. You can say that we have too many libraries, but they are all highly used. In fact we have the highest per capita library usage in North America
    __
    Dulmage: Currently we are stuck on this old business model where they load all these branches with millions of books. People these days go online to search for books and then order them to be picked up at their branch. We could pull 80% of the books and move them to a central warehouse. This way rather than having 80 copies of the same book, we could go down to 20.
    __
    Ainslie: You have to think of the cost of getting the book from a central warehouse to a branch and back. Not to mention if you have a warehouse you have to pay for it. This idea flies in the face of having a library as an open and accessible place. …

  91. 91.

    mclaren

    June 30, 2012 at 6:02 pm

    As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, we’re headed back into the Dark Ages. Books? Chained to the walls of a select few establishments (called monasteries in the middle ages; today, called “rich peoples’ private libraries.”) Literacy? GTFO. Schools? What a laugh. Internet? They didn’t have that in the Dark Ages, get rid of it.

    I look forward to the first GOP bill banning the wheel.

  92. 92.

    Yutsano

    June 30, 2012 at 6:03 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Sad that, by starving state and local government services, their son is doing his best to add to the woes of the 99% in their new land

    Or he’s just making it more like home to his parents. With them being in the top caste of course.

  93. 93.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 6:04 pm

    @mclaren:

    I look forward to the first GOP bill banning the wheel weal.

  94. 94.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 6:05 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    Yum. Nothing like a good bubbly on a really hot day.
    Anything seems better with it, even telenovelas.

    btw, loving The Moviegoer.

  95. 95.

    robertdsc-PowerBook

    June 30, 2012 at 6:06 pm

    What recourse do citizens of states like Louisiana have if governors like Jindal simply refuse to implement the exchanges? First he refused to do it before the SCOTUS ruling. Now he declines to do it before November and is making noises about refusing to do it anytime, period.

    Then the Feds will step in and do it for him. That’s part of the law.

  96. 96.

    JWL

    June 30, 2012 at 6:15 pm

    California is democratic state for one reason, and one reason only: its republican party is batshit insane.

  97. 97.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 6:26 pm

    @JWL:
    Hiram Johnson
    Goodwin Knight
    Earl Warren
    George Deukmejian
    Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham
    Ahnohld
    Darrel Issa
    Hunter/Rohrabacher/McCarthy/Lundgren

    Evolution!

    We even have a Jerry Lewis, though not as funny.

  98. 98.

    Steeplejack

    June 30, 2012 at 6:27 pm

    @Valdivia:

    I am breathing easier about The Moviegoer after getting a few chapters into it. I was worried that it had been so long since I read it that it would not hold up. But I am liking it a lot.

    It really evokes New Orleans (and the Gulf Coast) for me in a way that no other book does. (Next closest would be A Confederacy of Dunces.) In the ’70s I used to go to a small movie house in Elysian Fields that showed foreign movies. And it served beer and wine. Decadence! Like something right out of the book.

  99. 99.

    scav

    June 30, 2012 at 6:34 pm

    @jl:

    I look forward to the first GOP bill banning the wheel weal.

    well, dh-uh, if it’s a public weal, it’s commie! Abolish it along with all travesties such as the commonwealth! That’s YOUR money they’re giving to commoners!

  100. 100.

    Raven

    June 30, 2012 at 6:34 pm

    Hottest home game in Braves history and people are sitting in the sun!

  101. 101.

    Linnaeus

    June 30, 2012 at 6:39 pm

    @Mr Stagger Lee:

    I loved how the good citizens of Troy, Michigan threw thetax revolt meme right back at tea party, I wish this would work in Louisiana, but yes we are talking about the South here. Somewhere in the afterlife, William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams are doing face palms.

    I grew up in Troy and spent many, many hours in that library. When I heard that the city was going to close it due to lack of funds and that the teabaggers might succeed in getting the tax voted down, I couldn’t believe it. Just before the vote last year, I called my father (who still lives in Troy) and made sure as best as I could from 2200 miles away that he would vote yes.

    I didn’t know about this campaign until after the vote had taken place. Gave me a little more confidence that sometimes the good guys do win on these issues.

  102. 102.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 6:43 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    big big grin. Decadence indeed!

    As a fresh encounter for me it’s been a very enticing read, really pulled me in.

    We do have quite a few people already reading or ready to join along so we should figure out when we are all on a common thread how to coordinate it all.

    The other day I thought of a book that, since you read Spanish, I think you would really enjoy. But it’s something you won’t find anywhere in this country, I would have to fish it out of a box, but would be happy to do so. It’s kind of a bit in this vibe.

  103. 103.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 6:47 pm

    @Valdivia:

    think I mentioned it before in a thread. But you might find it interesting. I remember reading Borges’ Book of Imaginary Animals in English, and some of the stories were so funny I wanted to read them in Spanish (back in the day when I could actually do such a thing).

    Turns out Borges wrote them special for the English edition. The Spanish versions didn’t exist.

    Funny stuff happens in that Spanish literature.

  104. 104.

    Steeplejack

    June 30, 2012 at 6:51 pm

    @Raven:

    At least they have beer! I went to the 19-inning, six-hour game against the Mets on July 4, 1985. At Braves games they quit serving beer after the seventh inning, so we had 12 glorious innings of tie ball with no liquor–or food, for that matter. And the game ended so late–after 3:00 a.m.–that they canceled the fireworks. Bastards!

  105. 105.

    Poopyman

    June 30, 2012 at 6:52 pm

    OT here, but I’m sitting in a Carrabba’s Italian Grill, and for a dessert they have a “John Cole”… “Vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and roasted cinnamon rum pecans.”

    You don’t think ….

  106. 106.

    Yutsano

    June 30, 2012 at 6:53 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    At Braves games they quit serving beer after the seventh inning

    Small wonder their seasons are miserable. They dare to offend the gods of baseball!

  107. 107.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 6:53 pm

    @jl:

    I hadn’t seen that comment so I’m glad you brought it up again. Borges was an AngloPhile of the first degree and learned English quite young and in fact wrote a few things in English instead of Spanish. He is probably one of the only Argentine writers whose inspiration came from the UK instead of France or Spain, which was much more common. It makes him deliciously unique, like his Ficciones! :)

  108. 108.

    Steeplejack

    June 30, 2012 at 6:56 pm

    @Yutsano:

    I think they cut it off at all ball parks, but I’ve only ever been to Braves and Falcons games.

    Actually, I’ve been to a few Nationals games here, but I don’t remember the policy. Probably didn’t need a beer that bad.

  109. 109.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 6:57 pm

    @Valdivia:

    upsidownquestinomarkhere Donde es (oops, esta, I think) El Squonk en Espanol? Que Lastima!

    (probably bad Spanish, but I forgot it all, except for food, of course)

  110. 110.

    scav

    June 30, 2012 at 6:57 pm

    @Poopyman: Well Gild My Lily.
    Want.

  111. 111.

    Steeplejack

    June 30, 2012 at 6:58 pm

    @Valdivia:

    I would love to check it out. But, remember, when I said I read Spanish the key word was “laboriously.”

    . . . Ah, time for dinner with the Brazileñas! (Don’t know if that’s a word.)

  112. 112.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 7:02 pm

    @jl:

    you did alright there sir! :)

    @Steeplejack:

    we’ll figure out a way to get it to you. I really think you will enjoy it. :)

    enjoy la cena y las brazileñas (it is a word).

  113. 113.

    Keith

    June 30, 2012 at 7:06 pm

    @Poopyman: It needs to be doused in amaretto or schnapps.

  114. 114.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 7:09 pm

    Since there are multilinguals here, how difficult is Portuguese. If I wanted to larn it good, harder or easier than Spanish? Brazilain or Portuguese?

    Is a fun language, like Spanish, or a fricken drag like (ganz censored to avoid offense).

  115. 115.

    PurpleGirl

    June 30, 2012 at 7:09 pm

    @Valdivia: I like the sound of more academic and formal Spanish. When the History Channel 2 was International History and had a show narrated in Spanish every morning I enjoyed watching and hearing it. I couldn’t understand it but I liked listening to it.

  116. 116.

    Southern Beale

    June 30, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    Free enterprise fail: 232 Amtrak passengers have been stranded in rural West Virginia when storms forced the New York – Chicago train to stop travel. It seems the tracks are owned and operated by CSX and they haven’t cleared downed trees from the tracks yet.

    But let’s blame Obama.

  117. 117.

    jeffreyw

    June 30, 2012 at 7:11 pm

    Thread needs moar pizza.

  118. 118.

    Maude

    June 30, 2012 at 7:12 pm

    The Camden NJ library is gone. Gov. Christie has been cutting funding from libraries since he came in.
    He line item vetoed the tax cut for the working poor this year. Also took the word quarterly out of the halfway hour being looked at on a regular basis.

  119. 119.

    Southern Beale

    June 30, 2012 at 7:14 pm

    @jeffreyw:

    Ha ha. Husband just left to get our pizza for dinner.

  120. 120.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 7:18 pm

    @PurpleGirl:
    Spanish accents are so different. Cubans speak something that is supposed to be Spanish but so fast and clipped, I had no idea what they are saying, even when I could understand Mexican DJs on the rrrrrrrrrrrrradio.

    Most of the Spanish speakers where I grew up were from Northen Mexico, so that sing song lilt stays with me. I love the sound, and even when I could speak it sort of OK, I probably sounded like a hick from Sonora. Imagine an accent whre it always sounds like you are singing La Cucuracha.

    Grew up in area with lots of PortuhgEEz, as the we white (probably should say Anglos here, but I will let my gaffe stand) said it, were from the Azores. Man, their language sounds nothing like other Portuguese I have heard.

    Edit: I love that sing song lilting sound of Spanish from Northern Mexico, whenever I here it takes me back to farm as a kid. Though I can’t follow it very well anymore).

  121. 121.

    catclub

    June 30, 2012 at 7:19 pm

    @shortstop: “What recourse do citizens of states like Louisiana have?”

    The recourse is that hospital companies are chomping at the bit to get that sweet new medicaid money. It creates _new_ jobs.
    Very few states will end up turning that down.

  122. 122.

    jeffreyw

    June 30, 2012 at 7:21 pm

    Thread needs moar kitteh.

  123. 123.

    PurpleGirl

    June 30, 2012 at 7:26 pm

    @jeffreyw: Smart kitteh — in shade and near water. Very cute.

  124. 124.

    jeffreyw

    June 30, 2012 at 7:31 pm

    @PurpleGirl: We lost track of him a bit later and were worried because of the heat but he came running when we called and flopped down on the cool floor, panting.

  125. 125.

    PurpleGirl

    June 30, 2012 at 7:35 pm

    @jeffreyw: LOL. It’s good to hear he is okay. As hard on humans as this heat is, I know it’s bad for animals too.

  126. 126.

    shortstop

    June 30, 2012 at 8:05 pm

    @Steeplejack: They do the same at Wrigley. Once the third baseman was at a game with a bunch of people from work, and they had a four-hour rain delay starting at the bottom of the 6th. Beer sales continued. By the time play was resumed, 40,000 people were loaded and someone in the left-field bleachers had removed all his clothing, dropped over the basket to the field (not an easy feat) and done a belly slide across the tarp.

    I really regret not having seen that. TTB informs me that the dude did a serpentine run around the field–to the ecstatic cheers of the crowd–while security tried to catch his slippery form. Because I am perennially in seventh grade, I would have found that hilarious.

  127. 127.

    kindness

    June 30, 2012 at 8:12 pm

    @JWL:

    California is democratic state for one reason, and one reason only: its republican party is batshit insane.

    Well, out here most people recognize that the Republican party here is run by the crazies. That’s the only reason we put up so many Democrats. If Republicans would nominate real moderates they’d win most the time I’m sorry to say.

  128. 128.

    Steeplejack

    June 30, 2012 at 8:22 pm

    @jl:

    I think Portuguese would be harder than Spanish. Pronunciation and spelling are tightly linked (and relatively simple) in Spanish, Portuguese is WTF?! “João.” I don’t care how you think you should pronounce it, a Brazilian will laugh at you. And that’s basically “Joe.” It gets worse from there.

    I would go with Brazilian Portuguese rather than Portuguese Portuguese, but that’s because I’m surrounded by Brazilians. Also, there are more Brazilians than Portuguese.

  129. 129.

    Steeplejack

    June 30, 2012 at 8:32 pm

    And we’re on to Globo after dinner. Cheias de Charme is the telenovela playing now–“Full of Charm.”

  130. 130.

    John Weiss

    June 30, 2012 at 8:55 pm

    So? Bobby J is an asshole. So what else is new?

  131. 131.

    Darkrose

    June 30, 2012 at 8:58 pm

    @Steeplejack: I know they do that at AT&T. No one wants a repeat of the 10-cent Beer Night debacle.

  132. 132.

    Steeplejack

    June 30, 2012 at 9:03 pm

    @Darkrose:

    With what they charge for beers at the stadium now, I would think that only the Galtian job creators could afford to get wasted. And they’re safely ensconced in the luxury boxes, so they can’t really mix it up with the peons.

    Actually, I’d like to see a riot of one-percenters. Hmm . . .

  133. 133.

    shortstop

    June 30, 2012 at 9:07 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    And that’s basically “Joe.”

    John, actually.

  134. 134.

    shortstop

    June 30, 2012 at 9:08 pm

    @Darkrose:

    No one wants a repeat of the 10-cent Beer Night debacle.

    I feel like that should be a tag.

  135. 135.

    jl

    June 30, 2012 at 9:13 pm

    @shortstop:

    ‘ And that’s basically “Joe.”

    John, actually. ‘

    I’m getting discouraged already.

  136. 136.

    Felanius Kootea

    June 30, 2012 at 9:16 pm

    @Mr Stagger Lee: Brilliant!

  137. 137.

    Valdivia

    June 30, 2012 at 9:21 pm

    @PurpleGirl:
    @jl:

    I love the sound of Spaniards speaking spanish. It’s I guess similar to how Americans feel when they hear the Brits.

    In Lat Am the accents vary widely. Argentinians sound mostly like Italians. The caribbeans have their own singing. Mexicans sound like they are doing a corrido. For a native it is fairly easy to tell between them but it makes it hard to discern for non native speakers.

    @Steeplejack:

    there are a couple of courses out there for spanish speakers. if you have spanish going to Portuguese is not so difficult though as you point out their words are spelled and pronounced in an utterly different way. But they do sound wonderful when they speak. There’s a delight in their words, very unique, like for example saudade. One of my favorite words.

  138. 138.

    Svensker

    June 30, 2012 at 9:31 pm

    @Comrade Mary:

    Oy. Also, too, grrrrr.

    What an idiot.

    One of the first things we noticed when we moved to Toronto is how GREAT the libraries are. Really, really good. And how MANY people use them. They’re mobbed all the time.

  139. 139.

    Librarian

    June 30, 2012 at 10:51 pm

    “Oh, God.” -Chris Matthews

  140. 140.

    Thatgaljill

    June 30, 2012 at 11:45 pm

    On this one, it’s not just the GOP/Tehadists eliminating library funds. In California, that bastian of elitism, our library system has had to fight for the last three budget years to maintain any library spending at all. But we also have a trigger that if a tax proposition doesn’t pass in November will shorten the school year by 3 weeks.

  141. 141.

    Joey Maloney

    July 1, 2012 at 12:10 am

    @Anoniminous: Not to mention, it’s not just the cheap labor supply that makes China work, it’s the superabundance of highly educated professionals to design the things the factories make – and to design the factories themselves. This point got made in an interview with Steve Jobs about why Apple’s manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back to the USA. You have a shiny new widget you want to make, and you need a few thousand engineers to read the specs and design all the components. In the USA it’ll take you months and a national search to staff up to that level. In China you can find that many living next door to your facility in a couple of weeks.

  142. 142.

    Jay in Oregon

    July 1, 2012 at 1:21 am

    @jeffreyw:

    Nonsense. The GOP line will then be: “We’ll keep those DemocRats from cutting your health care like they did to your Medicare in ‘08. Vote GOP – Always Looking Out For You”

    I’ve been saying for a couple of days that we’re about 10-15 years away from the GOP taking credit for the PPACA.

    “It’s based on a plan that the GOP leadership introduced in the Clinton administration!”
    “President Obama said that he was inspired by the vastly popular health care plan that Republican Governor Romney implemented in the state of Massachusetts!”

    Remember this is the Party of Lincoln!

  143. 143.

    Xboxershorts

    July 1, 2012 at 8:08 am

    @PeakVT: No, that’s the Louisiana State Budget.

  144. 144.

    Palli

    July 1, 2012 at 8:25 am

    Late to this conversation but…
    Libraries are an American invention so I think the Democratic party & all Democratic candidates and representatives should tithe from their political funds to the Library association in their states and require the Libraries to place banners and signs on the door saying: “the Democratic Party Supports American Libraries for the welfare and education of the all Americans”.

  145. 145.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    July 1, 2012 at 9:12 am

    @Palli:

    Libraries are an American invention

    Wait, what?

    This will come as an awful shock to the Sumerians…

  146. 146.

    Jeremy

    July 1, 2012 at 10:33 am

    And if there’s any state that’s in desperate need of MORE libraries, it’s Louisiana.

  147. 147.

    Professor

    July 1, 2012 at 10:56 am

    @Valdivia: The Brits refer to the Argentinians as Italians who think of themselves as Spanish!

  148. 148.

    Academic Patriot

    July 1, 2012 at 6:46 pm

    I took a job teaching mathematics at one of the biggest universities in Mississippi. The first decade that I was there, I thought I was doing missionay work – bringing education to a region that lagged behind the rest of the country. Eventually, I realized that not only where most of the citizens relatively uneducated, but that they feared rather than appreciated the education that their children received. Other than as providers of business skills, basketball, football, and, occasionally, very applied science skills, universities were viewed largely as corrupters of the virtuous youth. After all, universities promote critical thinking, which includes the questioning of both Biblically literalist religion and absolute plutocratic authority. During a time of budget crises (wch included no book purchases for a year by the university library), the state commission for higher education devoted a meeting to re-emphasizing its opposition to coed dorms, even if they were sex-segregated by floor or tower. University presidents stood or fell, not by their ability to bring scholars and technology to campus, but by their ability to please the athletic booster associations, led by the wealthy donors. It is not that the politicians sneak proposals such as library killing past the uninformed voters of states such as Louisiana or Mississippi; rather, the voters actually support such policies. After fifteen years, I realized how much the citizens of Mississippi opposed my efforts to educate their children. I left my tenured full-professorship, and left the South.

  149. 149.

    Lex

    July 2, 2012 at 1:17 pm

    Killing libraries? Bobby Jindal had best watch out. Zombie Benjamin Franklin is going to come bitchslap him.

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