Get Away From That Book!
I've been doing some hard thinking and sweaty research in hopes of better understanding what it could be in the water way out in that upper left corner of the lower 48. Washington State ("the other Washington" as a recent Chamber of Commerce program had it) was out of step in both of the last presidential elections, always troubling for anyone who likes unanimity rather than diversity. And then there has been the disturbing lawsuit protesting the gubernatorial election, filed by the republicans if you can imagine (risking raising questions about the presidential elections elsewhere that virtually all - defying all probability - in the past two national elections actually went their way, either by magical behind-the-curtain means or by Supreme Court fiat). A land of strangeness and mystery for sure. I haven't been able to track down proof, but I wonder if "Ripley" is an unusually common surname in the state?
I have turned up a report in the magazine Engineering News-Record (I'm guessing you do not subscribe to ENR) that may give some clues on the source of at least some of this subversive, out-of-step behavior. This article indicates that the Seattle Public Library has completed 15 of 27 projects in a $235 million program of library upgrades, featuring most prominently the recent completion of the $154 million new downtown Seattle flagship. That's a lot of projects and a wad of dough!
This has to be a concern to anyone properly supporting the Patriot Act and associated management of information flow. Even more disturbing, the new downtown library has reportedly been visited by 10,000 to 16,000 visitors per day since the opening, far exceeding expectations. It doesn't seem to have occurred to the rather timid ENR reporters, as they don't mention the possibility, but this researcher worries whether some of those visitors might have been inadvertently exposed to books and literature. What if they checked out or even read some?? That could be just the sort of smoking gun we have been looking for.
When you couple this with the news that the republican lawsuit was recently dismissed and the "ohmigod" realization that the state as a result now features a female governor and two female senators, I think we can suspend the research.
Anything could happen in a place as strange as Washington.
I have turned up a report in the magazine Engineering News-Record (I'm guessing you do not subscribe to ENR) that may give some clues on the source of at least some of this subversive, out-of-step behavior. This article indicates that the Seattle Public Library has completed 15 of 27 projects in a $235 million program of library upgrades, featuring most prominently the recent completion of the $154 million new downtown Seattle flagship. That's a lot of projects and a wad of dough!
This has to be a concern to anyone properly supporting the Patriot Act and associated management of information flow. Even more disturbing, the new downtown library has reportedly been visited by 10,000 to 16,000 visitors per day since the opening, far exceeding expectations. It doesn't seem to have occurred to the rather timid ENR reporters, as they don't mention the possibility, but this researcher worries whether some of those visitors might have been inadvertently exposed to books and literature. What if they checked out or even read some?? That could be just the sort of smoking gun we have been looking for.
When you couple this with the news that the republican lawsuit was recently dismissed and the "ohmigod" realization that the state as a result now features a female governor and two female senators, I think we can suspend the research.
Anything could happen in a place as strange as Washington.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:35 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home