You know things are bad when...

[Gob]

Camden Closing Library System
Updated: Friday, 06 Aug 2010, 12:11 PM EDT


CAMDEN, N.J. - New Jersey's most impoverished city will close all three branches of its public library at year's end unless a rescue can be pulled off.

Camden's library board says the libraries won't be able to afford to stay open past Dec. 31 because of budget cuts from the city government. The city had its subsidy from the state cut.

The library board president says the library system, which opened in 1904, is preparing to donate, sell or destroy its collections, including 187,000 books.

Board president Martin McKernan says keeping the books around would pose a fire hazard.

Camden's library system is not the only one having financial problems. Fourteen libraries in Queens cut weekend services earlier this year.

As people looked for ways to weather the tough economic storm, many have found relief at their local library.

Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library, said he started noticing a large increase in library attendance when the stock market went into its steep decline. And that attendance has continued to build. "We've got more people visiting us now than we've had in half a century," he said.

New York library customer Elle Byram said she's trying to avoid coffee shops where she'll end up spending money. She said the library "is spacious, it has free internet access. You meet cool people, but it's not really supposed to be a social place."

"What the down economy is doing is reminding people that these libraries are there for them," LeClerc said. "Lots of folks have been going around, I think naively in the past, saying 'do we still need libraries?' Well the proof in the pudding is now 'yes.' Libraries are as essential, if not more essential, now than they have been in the last fifty years."

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_n ... 100806-apx

Libraries gave us power
Then work came and made us free
What price now for a shallow piece of dignity

I wish I had a bottle
Right here in my dirty face to wear the scars
To show from where I came

We don't talk about love we only want to get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end

A design for life
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life

(I'm beginning to sound like Steve!)

[Gob]

Yep, I'm definitely channeling Stevie!

Some might call it blackmail. The governor of Wyoming calls it desperation.

Governor Dave Freudenthal is threatening to sell off a chunk of one of America's most beautiful national parks unless the Obama administration comes up with more money to pay for education in the financially beleaguered state.

He says he will auction land valued at $125m (£80m) in the Grand Teton national park, one of the country's most stunning wildernesses. Part of the park was donated by John Rockefeller Jr.

Other parts belong to the state government including two parcels of land of about 550 hectares (1,360 acres) designated as school trust lands to be "managed for maximum profit" to generate funds for education in Wyoming.

At present Wyoming raises only about $3,000 a year from the land by leasing it to a cattle rancher. Officials have menacingly suggested that the property might make a nice site for a ski lodge.

Freudenthal recently wrote to the interior department asking the federal government to trade the park land for mineral royalties. "If the federal government won't dance with us, we will go look for another partner," said Freudenthal. "The purpose is to force the federal government to come to the table."

Washington says it is negotiating, but Freudenthal says the issue has dragged on for a decade. "The way the federal government has treated us to date is that we are like the people who own the land, but they figure there isn't anything else they can do with it," he said.

Previous negotiations led Washington to offer 800,000 acres of federal land in a swap but state officials rejected it as "trash land" not worth nearly as much as their "prime, in-park real estate".

"I admit we aren't as bright as those boys on the Potomac," said Freudenthal. "But this ain't our first county fair."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/au ... ional-park

Grand Tetons? Big Tits!!

[Crackpot]

Wyoming doesn't even have a sales tax!

[rubato]

...

Grand Tetons? Big Tits!!

Yes, lot of things were named by early explorers and on the whole those were lonely men. Very, very lonely men.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Wyoming doesn't even have a sales tax!

Wyoming wants to pretend to sturdy self-reliance and suck on uncle Sam's tit hard like the other conservative states do.

yrs,
rubato

[dales]

...

Grand Tetons? Big Tits!!

Yes, lot of things were named by early explorers and on the whole those were lonely men. Very, very lonely men.

yrs,
rubato

Why do I see a Brokeback Mountain remake in the offing?

[Sue U]

Camden Closing Library System
Updated: Friday, 06 Aug 2010, 12:11 PM EDT

CAMDEN, N.J. - New Jersey's most impoverished city will close all three branches of its public library at year's end unless a rescue can be pulled off.

This is my home town, and it's just another blow to the poor people of a poor city. We have lost funding for so many municipal services this year -- due in large part to the new Governor -- and there is so little in the way of tax ratables, I seriously wonder if the city will survive. If a city could go out of business, this one would be the leading candidate to do so.

[Guinevere]

Don't get me started on how poorly libraries are doing these days. I'm an elected trustee of my town's public library -- and have spent the good part of the last 18 months fighting to keep the doors open. Part of it is horrible past decisions by the town leaders, part of it is the overall state budget cuts -- we get the vast majority of our money from the municipal budget which receives 40% of its funding from the state, and part of it is the greedy f*&Kers in other departments (especially police and fire -- who continue to get paid more and more and more, when so many can't even find jobs, much less expect raises) who won't dare take on a little bit of pain to make sure the library is open and running well. The priorities are all wrong. The first thing that should be funded in any city or town is the library. They are the hearts of the communities, they provide more free services (like access to internet and newspapers and documents) that are becoming increasingly important especially in cities with serious economic problems. They provide safe space for latch-key kids to study and do their homework. And oh yes, they provide FREE BOOKS to anyone who wants them, regardless of age, race, gender, income, national origin, handicap (we have audiobooks, braile books, and we can find you a reader if you like) or any other trait.

KEEP THE LIBRARIES OPEN AND DON'T CUT THEIR FUNDING. SAVE OUR PUBLIC LIBRARIES!!!

[Gob]

Free public libraries are one of the cornerstones of a democratic society.

[Crackpot]

Our millages all passed by wide margins.

[Gob]

Sorry C-P, I don't get that?

[Crackpot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax
On our ballots there's usually question for
"(X amount) of millage for (X amount) years for continued (or new or additional) funding for (schools, fire dept., police, libraries, etc..)

[Gob]

Thanks for that mate. Interesting. The UK version, or at least one of them, "the poll tax" was part of the downfall of Thatcher. We never got to vote on allocation though.

It seems you buggers over there must be constantly voting!

[Guinevere]

And our town refused to pay for a tax increase for schools/library/police/fire. But this is a town that truly deeply distrusts its leadership. Of course that's also why they re-elect them, too. Sigh.

Gob, in Massachusetts local government is by town or city. We have an annual "town meeting" (which can last multiple days) where residents get to make the final decisions about allocation of funds. However, localities are required to have a balanced budget under Massachusetts law (and cannot borrow to do so), so any time you move something around, you have to have a source for the new funding. There is also a statutory limit on how much property taxes can be raised each year, without a vote of the town.

So along with the town meeting and the voting there, there is an annual town election for the leadership posts (most seats are for a three-year term). These are in the spring. Then there are the state and national elections. In Massachusetts, our governor is on a different cycle than the presidential cycle, so in the "mid-term" cycle for the national executive, we are having our own race for governor.

The federal legislative elections are on the same cycle. House members only have a 2-year term, so they have to run every cycle. Senators are a 6-year term, so two out of every three election cycles there is a senate race.

And all of that gets tossed out of the window if there is a vacancy in any elected position (although how that is treated depends on the state).

All of which is to say, yes, we vote. That's the entire point -- we didn't want to leave it up to you damned tea-drinking, snuff sniffing aristocrats to make decisions for us.

[Gob]

Don't you also vote for police chiefs and other officials?

[Guinevere]

I don't think I've ever voted for Police Chief, and I've voted in Maryland, DC, New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

But yes, lets see. In our town, we vote for the various folks listed here for town government:

http://www.town.hull.ma.us/Public_Docum ... BComm/eoff

Plus there can be ballot questions for any town -- typically, tax increase.

We vote for state senator, state representative (these are to the state legislature), district attorney (county), Sheriff, Governor's council. These are all state positions, but for a local area. For state-wide office there is: Governor/Lt Gov., Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Auditor, Clerk of Court, Register of Deeds, and County Commissioner.

Then of course there is U.S. senator, U.S. representative, and President/Vice president.

We don't vote for state or local court judges in Massachusetts, but some states do. All federal judges are appointed.

[Gob]

We employ local politicians to do all that for us.

[Gob]

Things are looking up for male teachers though...

MADISON, Wis. – With the district in a financial crisis and hundreds of its members facing layoffs, the Milwaukee teachers union is taking a peculiar stand: fighting to get its taxpayer-funded Viagra back.

The union has asked a judge to order the school board to again include Pfizer Inc.'s erectile dysfunction drug and similar pills in its health insurance plans.

The filing is the latest in a two-year legal campaign in which the union has argued, so far unsuccessfully, that the board's policy of excluding erectile dysfunction drugs discriminates against male employees. The union says Viagra, Cialis, Levitra and others are necessary treatment for "an exclusively gender-related condition."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100806/ap_ ... ers_viagra

[Gob]

Sorry to do three in a row, but rereading the OP, reminded me of another tune by the band whose lyrics I quoted in the OP.

The future teaches you to be alone
The present to be afraid and cold
So if I can shoot rabbits
Then I can shoot fascists

Bullets for your brain today
But we'll forget it all again
Monuments put from pen to paper
Turns me into a gutless wonder

And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Will be next

[Lord Jim]

We employ local politicians to do all that for us

Would that be the same local politicians that are putting unemployed Somali refugees into three million dollar houses?