Letters to the Editor
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God, I just so wish
...that someone would confront the bald guy with this. But it'll never happen and he might even win.
"Mean" and "dumb" are the exact words that so need to be said and heard. And the exact words we'll never hear.
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The still, small voice of hope and reason
I am Australian. I have quite a few friends in the US, so I know that USians are rarely as ugly as their caricatures, but still I tend to despair when I see what is done by the US in the name of the USA to support the world-view that the US and Australia share.
Then along comes Garrison Keillor, star of silver screen and Australian radio (we used to hear him in Oz as well), to remind us that there is hope, that there is respect for the decent thinking folk -- and for thinking.
A suitable case for cloning, I believe!
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Librarians and libraries
I am a librarian in a public library, I am not called an information professional like in the corporate world. I hope Mr.Blue/Keillor understands that his small town public library in MN does not compare to a mid-sized city urban public library that is far from quiet and condusive to studying and real contemplation of the world we live in. Or for reading literature and history that might encourage people to make a difference in the world. The staff in my downtown brand new architecturally gorgeous building have dubbed it, "the homeless Hilton". Older teens and young adults spend entire days in the library to get off the street and socialize and use the PCs to play ganes and cruise MySpace. I love Mr. Keillor and often agree with his opinions but he is not doing us any favors by portraying public libraries in this light. We all want to be the ideal public library and what it stands for in the USA and we work at it everyday, but the reality is we are social workers/teachers/information sources with Master's degrees that are overworked and underpaid not being able to do the jobs we aspired to.
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Thank You
Thank you, Garrison Keillor. You have it exactly right. Freedom to speak, to publish, to read, to discuss are fundamental to our liberties in these United States. In small-town New England, where I grew up, even the smallest town had its public library, which often sat across the main intersection from the only church in the town, and both were built with equal pride and affection. Bravo, Garrison.
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I dunno; my library's full of smelly and dare I say "creepy" peeps.
Our public library is where the soup kitchen and "Room at the Inn" folks while away the hours between their "hots" and "a cot." They hog the computers and - dare I say - do a lot of porn surfing, if what I see before I hastily avert my eyes (and nostrils) is correct.
Listen, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool old-skool liberal, and I'm ashamed of the way I feel about our library, but I would no more drop my kid off at the public library to cruise the shelves as I did in my childhood than the man in the moon. I'm truly afraid to think of what kind of "cruising" is going on at the library. I'm almost inclined to say that the shopping mall is a safer environment these days.
Sorry, but this one's too pie-in-the-sky even for me. I'm sorry that libraries - some of them, anyway - have become such aversive settings, especially for the kind of wonderful bookishness I remember. But there it is, and I, for one, am outta there.
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at least you still have a public library
I'm trying not to cry.
Everything Keillor says about what a library can mean is true. What isn't true is that neighborhood libraries still exist. I live in Memphis, Tennessee, and our brilliant, insightful leaders (who are demanding money to build a new stadium) have just ordered the closing of several of our public libraries, including the White Station branch, which was to me growing up what Keillor's library was to him.
Libraries, they say, are an idea whose time is past. This is the information age, and information (everyone knows) comes exclusively from computers.
I presently live within the most densely populated zip code in Memphis. There is no library within walking distance of me. Never has been. There were never plans for one. There are no bike lines in Memphis, either. Not one single bike lane, and rudimentary public transportation, which means that the children of the many poor people without cars (for whom a library would be most essential, as a link to a better life) are shit out of luck. The closest branch closes at 6 p.m., making it essentially impossible for anyone who works or anyone with working parents to use it. I haven't been, but I've read in the papers why it closes so early: rows of gang members lined up outside, a beating and rape of a librarian in the parking lot, regular theft and intimidation of visitors.
The quiet zone inside a library isn't valuable unless you can get to it.
Mayor Willie Herenton, our city's leader, doesn't see libraries as a priority, which you might consider odd, since he was superintendent of schools before becoming mayor and could therefore be expected to take an interest in education. He doesn't. He takes an interest in bringing pay-for-view boxing matches to Memphis, and he takes an interest in basketball, but not education.
Public libraries sure are nice.
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We get it...
I used to really look forward to Mr. Keillor's weekly offering, but over the past few months the constant, repetetive political ranting(Even though I agree with all of it) had diminshed the small joy I found every Wednesday morning for a few minutes. Bush is destructive, ignorant, uncontrolled and dangerous. If someone hasn't caught on to that yet, they're not going to.
Please curb the political slant and get back to your butter.
Just my two cents...which are worth even less than that.
Thanks,
Pete Bower
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you almost had me there
with your Pollyanna approach to libraries and higher learning and all the young Hmong and Vietnamese seekers of wisdom and truth in Minnesota, but then the other posters, including librarians, have clued me in to what life in the real world is like (not that fictional place where Pollyanna lives).
Talk about your Unhappy White Guys...GK should be the poster child.