Show a Little Faith, America

Regular commentator to this blog Doug shared a story about voting this midterms that I consider an apt anecdote in these days:

I just got off of the phone with a nice employee of the Madera County Elections office.

I called to see what I should do with the second ballot they mailed me by mistake, presumably because I had re-registered to vote when I renewed my state ID online.

The guy I called said to just throw it away because when I cast the ballots they sent me last month, it automatically invalidated the second one issued by mistake, meaning that nobody could use the extra ballot to cast a fraudulent vote.

He thanked me for taking it seriously enough to call and ask about it.

Apparently, the folks who run our elections know what they're doing.

All that doomsaying and fearmongering from the Republicans and the Far Right, about how our elections are "rigged" or "compromised" or "stolen." They're lying: the voting system - for all the glitches that can pop up - as a whole works, because there's professionals doing their jobs as mandated by laws and customs. There's checks and balances in the counting process at the county level - I know, I was a precinct officer in 2002 - and for all the things that can go crooked, there's guidelines in place to catch those problems and fix them to ensure a fair vote.

trump can't admit he loses, so he claims mass voter fraud he can't ever prove in courts. That's because there is no mass voter fraud: Every case of fraud is from individuals making mistakes on their own, or specific individuals trying to cheat in meager - hilariously few fake IDs compared to the tens of thousands genuinely voting - numbers that won't affect a thing.

The Republicans - the Far Right conservatives making up the core of their party - don't like the idea of non-elites voting at all: They will do what they can to stop the rest of us from voting, but they can't because for all their tricks and denials - especially at the SCOTUS level - the Constitutional amendments upholding the rights to vote are still in effect.

Trust the vote, America. This is why it's important to show up for early voting, to get your mail-in ballots posted, to show up on Election Day November 3rd at your local precinct to get your votes counted. The majority of Americans want change, they want trump and his ilk held accountable for their crimes, and voting in Democrats across the board all 50 states is the best way to do so.

Thank you Doug for your efforts. 

Thanks to everyone else voting Democratic everywhere. 

Let's do this.

The Return On Investment With Public Libraries (AKA Professor Mourdoukoutas Does Not Care To Invest In Us)

Usually I write about my librarian profession at my other blog, but right now I gotta slap the taste out of some entitled upper-class libertarian's mouth who went and wrote a shitty op-ed in Forbes about turning public libraries into Amazon stores. I won't link directly to the SOB (actually, as I was writing this article I find out Forbes removed the op-ed for reasons I can't yet confirm, but I'm willing to guess has something to do with the op-ed being a pile of dingo droppings), so here's a link to Gizmodo reflecting my mood:

This weekend in ratios we have a jaw-droppingly bad op-ed in Forbes explaining that the age of the crusty old library is dead, and instead of them, we should all get Amazon. Not some kind of Amazon-like digital public library, or even Amazon Prime itself, mind you, but physical Amazon Books retail locations. Titled “Amazon Should Replace Local Libraries to Save Taxpayers Money,” it is written by Long Island University Post economics professor and seemingly prolific Forbes contributor section writer Panos Mourdoukoutas.

Mourdoukoutas writes that the government should stop funding libraries in part to save taxpayers a vague (and within the article, never quantified) amount of money and also to jack up Amazon’s stock price for some reason...

Lemme guess, Mordorsukoulot owns stock in Amazon, why else fcking care about a company already worth billions on the market.

The professor also argued that because Amazon had online ebooks that it could be a lending library already (and in reality it is, using services like Overdrive to provide ebooks for Kindle readers), so all the brick-and-mortar places can just double as coffee shops.

Essentially, the article reads like it was written by an asswipe who hasn't stepped inside a public library in ten-twenty years, completely overlooking the growing trends towards Makerspaces - crafts, 3D printing, quilting projects for the homeless, art classes for teenagers, what have you - and ignoring the reality that a lot of children, adults, and retirees still read print books in this day and age.

The article doesn't consider the library as a community information resource hub, not just with public computers for access, research, and emailing but also a place where local groups can use rooms and equipment to work on projects, classrooms and presentations. I doubt an Amazon bookstore would create such resources for sharing (and from personal experience almost no bookstore does because it takes floorspace away from SELLING SHIT).

This article WAS written by someone complaining that he was paying 400 bucks or so in yearly property taxes, which points to the libertarian/Far Right ideology of "why do I have to pay for the poor to use community resources and places to do things like read, use computers, write resumes, and job hunt?"

Dear Professor Mourdoukoutas: You wanna know what your Return On Investment is with libraries? It's very simple to find - you can even GOOGLE SEARCH IT using "Return On Investment" and the words "public libraries" and not bother a reference librarian like myself - and you'll get a 2011 report from the state of Minnesota's Department of Education. In that report, on the front page so you won't miss it, you'll find you get a ROI of $4.62 per tax dollar spent. That's a pretty good return on investment, seeing your community get the kind of financial support that EVERYONE can benefit from.

There's a reason why, in nearly every tax hike or bond issue that comes up in local elections regarding library spending, a vast majority of residents heartily APPROVE of tax hikes to pay for their public libraries. I still feel enormous civic pride from the days I worked in Broward County and the county residents voted FOR a bond issue to build and upgrade library buildings back in 1995 (or 1996, I'm trying to find the citations now, sorry)

I guess the problem is, professor, you don't want any of that investment in our communities. You just want it in your goddamn stock portfolio.

It's a good thing Forbes dropped your op-ed, considering how poorly researched and lacking in citations it had. I seriously argue your university should investigate your failure to do the one thing I'm sure you tell your college students to do, which is to use peer-reviewed citations in your work.

In the meantime, to every American citizen out there: Library cards are FREE to apply for in most public libraries, we've got the latest popular hot titles in books and DVDs you can check out, and when you stop by take a look at the Activities Calendar to see what you can do with your families at your local library. We've got Paws To Read, we've got Story Times for Three-Year-Olds, we've got Lego Builders, we've got Gaming clubs, we've got Drone Flyers, we've got things to do that Amazon can never plan for you.

Public Libraries serve the public trust. Libraries are one of the few service points in a city/county government where people WANT to be there, and are happy using it.

That should be something certain professors need to study up on.