It's All About Me, Man: [ItsAllAboutMeMan] Fwd: [iChat] (ralph) nader.org on libraries/sports stadiums

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] Fwd: [iChat] (ralph) nader.org on libraries/sports stadiums

I'm trying to commit intellectual "suicide by list manager" on that list. I'm bored with it. The problem isn't that the country is being run by pirates and thugs, the problem is that people refuse to mount an effective resistance to pirates and thugs, and they turn on people who have spent their entire careers "fighting the power."

Libraries are getting it about as bad as anybody anywhere, and librarians are acting just as you'd expect from the stereotypes - and library students are worse. They just want to get jobs in the field when they graduate, so they all hunker down and shut their mouths, and few ever talk about the real circumstances of the profession. I'm glad I don't have to. I feel sorry for them.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: matt love <mattlove1@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 2:49 PM
Subject: Re: [iChat] (ralph) nader.org on libraries/sports stadiums
To: ichat@u.washington.edu

This is why all the "progressives" on the political lists I'm on say that Nader is a crazy egomaniac, "worse than Bush" - even "as bad as Hitler" - because the Democratic frontrunners won't do a thing to antagonize the monied interests, and people hate to be reminded of how things really are.

How Seattle's priorities? How heavily is the public subsidizing the playthings of one of the local "information" billionaires?

I remember hearing a call-in program on KUOW where a construction worker called in to comment on the inefficiencies of the Koolhaas library, and Seattle's librarian said coldly that in the economic climate we were enjoying then (and I'm sure it's no better now) "he was lucky to have a job."

That's when I knew I didn't want to work in that library system. In fact, at that point I decided I didn't want to work in a library at all.

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 1:24 PM, Scott Dalessandro <daless@u.washington.edu> wrote:

In case you're interested, link is for the same text below.
-Scott D.

http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/1265-Stadiums,-Libraries-and-Taxpayers.html

Baseball, Libraries and Taxpayers

There used to be a time when baseball parks were built by private
investors—usually a wealthy local family—and the stands were full of
what used to be called the "masses."

There used to be a time when libraries were maintained and stocked as
an integral part of the neighborhood and community. Not a single
library closed in America due to the great economic depression of the
nineteen thirties.

As illustrated so elaborately in Washington D.C. last week, the
"gleaming new baseball stadium" temporarily named "Nationals Park" for
the local major league baseball team, opened with $ 611 million
dollars—mostly taxpayers money—going into its constructions. A
Washington Post editorial crowed that the stadium was built "on time
and within budget." Why not? The cost came in at twice the estimate
five years ago and its frantic construction pace reflected the
priorities of the nation's capital.

Consider one aspect of this "tale of two cities"—the depleted and
disrepaired condition of the main Martin Luther King Library and its
twenty six neighborhood branches. The annual budget last year was only
$33 million. Four of the branches were shut down for remodeling or
rebuilding three and a half years ago. The money has been
appropriated. But with the sites being eyed by avaricious developers
for "multi-use" complexes, among other reasons, the residents still do
not have operating libraries. "On time and within budget" is not even
on the radar.

Now I ask you—what is the most appropriate, profound, and respectful
use of tax dollars? A ballpark built for mega-millionaire owners who
could have raised their own capital? Or "gleaming new libraries" which
edify a metropolis and play a critical role in educational, civic and
urban renewal?

The question would answer itself were the decision made by local
referendum. Polls continually showed that the disenfranchised people
of the District of Columbia opposed a taxpayer-funded professional
ballpark. The new mayor Adrian Fenty made this opposition a major
issue in his improbable run for that office in 2006.

There is little doubt that the people would have preferred to use that
$611 million (and other estimates are higher) for library renovations
and acquisitions as well as neighborhood recreational facilities for
participatory sports by all ages. Studies have shown that after school
programs at libraries help children learn better and participatory
sports—indoor and outdoor—keep physically exercised youngsters from
getting into street trouble.

Nationals Park opened to great fanfare this past weekend, hailed by
page after page of coverage in excruciating detail by the Washington
Post. Would that this major newspaper devote such attention to the
details of 27 library buildings, many of them crumbling and
dysfunctional, in its home town.

When Post opinion writer Marc Fisher did devote two columns to the
library's plight in 2002, it helped spark our D.C. Library Renaissance
Project, headed by Robin Diener. With library-minded citizens, this
Project has brought more public attention, an increased budget and
some improvement in the D.C. Library system, long considered to be in
the bottom tier of library systems in major American cities.

When power is concentrated in the hands of the few, it's small wonder
that priorities are inverted to the level of the grotesque. Our
national capital has been undergoing one of the biggest commercial
building booms in its history. Cranes are busy everywhere, except for
building the schools, libraries, clinics and neighborhood parks. Real
estate developers and their customary allies—banks, mortgage firms,
corporate law firms and trade associations—dominate. Not the people,
who cannot even have the right to vote for two Senators and a
Representative having full voting power in the Congress.

In its March 28, 2008 special, ten page section on Nationals Park, the
Washington Post printed a full page "Letter to Nats Fans" by the
team's owners, the Lerner family. They profusely thanked the Mayor,
the DC City Council, the corporate-welfare promoter called the DC
Sports and Entertainment Commission, along with the construction
firms, consultants, and workers.

Remarkably absent from their list of gratitude were the D.C. taxpayers
who paid for the building that will make the Lerners and their
partners even more wealthy. (These owners are in arbitration over
their demand that the taxpayers even pay for the uniforms of the
multi-millionaire ball players!)

The Lerners, in all decency, should name the stadium "Taxpayers
Stadium." Instead, they are shopping around the corporate groves for a
company to pay to put its name on the building instead of its present
"Nationals Park" designation.

Once again the boosteristic Washington Post headlined "Millions Ride
on Nats' Naming Rights." It is the Lerners who get the millions, but
Mark Lerner shared a worry, during an interview with the Post reporter
while looking around the Park.

"It's going to be a huge and expensive task between the signs on the
roadways, and all the signs in here—all these neon signs. It's going
to cost a fortune—when the time comes," he declared.

D.C. taxpayers are left to wonder who will pay for replacing these
Nationals Park signs? They better check the fine print.

END

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