Walking along the usual route to the local supermarket, between the Manhattan Island New Amsterdam era botanical museum and the Community Garden, was a homeless man lying in the middel of the walkway between these tree and flower filled spaces on one side, NYU faculty housing and the Morton Williams supermarket on the other. No baggage, no blanket, no cardboard, no plastic. I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. People are walking around him. Others are feeding the very fat squirrels. Nobody even seems to notice him, much less cares.
I called our local EMS-911 number. While I was waiting for them to arrive, two college guys walking their dogs started to encourage their dogs to pee on the man. I stopped them. They told me to get a sense of humor, frigid bitch.
Then, coming home after he was roused by the EMS people and ran away from them, though he couldn't walk, much less run, in anything resembling a straight line, a very young woman pushing a baby carriage with two small children begged me for money to take the PATH train to her mother's because she just had no money. This is the second time this exact conformation and request has been made to me in two days. Nevertheless I gave her 5 dollars of what I've got to live on this week, unless a check comes it (which is supposed to, but so often doesn't). How can you tell, things are so bad for so many.
Of course for those for whom it isn't bad at all, they have more money than ever. You see it all around us here.
Showing posts with label Great Depression02. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Great Depression02. Show all posts
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
A Librarian's Work Never Ends
Everywhere the public library systems' funding has been slashed and slashed and slashed again -- this even before the Big Bubble Burst of last August.
Public assistance, education, libraries, art and museums, and health care are where budget cuts in bad times are always made first, and made most deeply, the very public services that populations everywhere turn to in times of economic despair. Public transportation is also on that list of first, deepest and continuing cuts if you live where there is any public transport-- the budgets are slashed, services are cut, and the price of usage is increased.
If these are not regressive charges upon the public that has not been responsible in any way for creating the global economy, please tell me what a regressive tax is.
In Europe, Merkle, for instance, isn't panting to join in Obama's and the U.S.'s ideas of how to handle this Depression 02. They are counting on their social safety net of housing subsidies, health care, and all the rest that Europeans' taxes pay for, to carry them through, rather than throwing billions and billions at their banks and dying corps. We here, of course, don't have a safety net ....
Here is one public library's story (in Arlington Heights, a well-to-do suburb of Chicago), but I see this same story played out in front of my eyes right here, and I hear the same story from friends all over the country.
The article includes stories from other libraries around the country:
[ "In Sacramento this year, two branches of the public library temporarily stopped accepting cash as fines for overdue books, after thieves struck three times since June — in one instance, taking off with a safe filled with money." ]
[ "In Lynchburg, Va., a gunman shot a man outside the public library on a Monday afternoon in late January. The victim, who survived, staggered into the library bleeding and looking for help. Since then, an off-duty police officer has been hired by the library for extra security." ]
[ "And in Quincy, Mass., where a man was recently arrested in the library and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, among other offenses, a police officer on beat patrol now walks through the library during operating hours." ]
Libraries have been dangerous places for a long time -- in some places, such as Albquequerque, the university libraries are the worst, attracting predators of all kinds -- which is why some decades back it got difficult to enter a university library (or any other facility) without I.D. Not that this has stopped terrible events from taking place in them or other university facilities -- I'm thinking particularly of some stories from Tulane, at the moment.
But our public libraries deserve so much more from this nation. There are reasons why one of the primary indicators of a 'successful' state is a national library.
Public assistance, education, libraries, art and museums, and health care are where budget cuts in bad times are always made first, and made most deeply, the very public services that populations everywhere turn to in times of economic despair. Public transportation is also on that list of first, deepest and continuing cuts if you live where there is any public transport-- the budgets are slashed, services are cut, and the price of usage is increased.
If these are not regressive charges upon the public that has not been responsible in any way for creating the global economy, please tell me what a regressive tax is.
In Europe, Merkle, for instance, isn't panting to join in Obama's and the U.S.'s ideas of how to handle this Depression 02. They are counting on their social safety net of housing subsidies, health care, and all the rest that Europeans' taxes pay for, to carry them through, rather than throwing billions and billions at their banks and dying corps. We here, of course, don't have a safety net ....
Here is one public library's story (in Arlington Heights, a well-to-do suburb of Chicago), but I see this same story played out in front of my eyes right here, and I hear the same story from friends all over the country.
The article includes stories from other libraries around the country:
[ "In Sacramento this year, two branches of the public library temporarily stopped accepting cash as fines for overdue books, after thieves struck three times since June — in one instance, taking off with a safe filled with money." ]
[ "In Lynchburg, Va., a gunman shot a man outside the public library on a Monday afternoon in late January. The victim, who survived, staggered into the library bleeding and looking for help. Since then, an off-duty police officer has been hired by the library for extra security." ]
[ "And in Quincy, Mass., where a man was recently arrested in the library and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, among other offenses, a police officer on beat patrol now walks through the library during operating hours." ]
Libraries have been dangerous places for a long time -- in some places, such as Albquequerque, the university libraries are the worst, attracting predators of all kinds -- which is why some decades back it got difficult to enter a university library (or any other facility) without I.D. Not that this has stopped terrible events from taking place in them or other university facilities -- I'm thinking particularly of some stories from Tulane, at the moment.
But our public libraries deserve so much more from this nation. There are reasons why one of the primary indicators of a 'successful' state is a national library.
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