ReMarkable

Have you found yourself thinking, “I need to read a nice ode to public libraries”? Well, you’re in luck. Orlean (staff writer at the New Yorker for a number of years) had vowed to herself that she was done writing books. As she puts it, writing a book on any given topic is like a “slow motion wrestling match.” Here she spends a good part of a decade wrestling and exploring the circumstances around a fire that consumed much of the Downtown branch of the Los Angeles Public Library in April, 1986.

Was it arson? Maybe. Did the authorities catch the guilty party? Maybe. Did justice prevail and an innocent man was set free? Maybe. You decide. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure tale!

What is known about the LAPL fire is that it was, and still is, the worst library fire in American history. 400,000 books burned, another 700,000 were damaged by smoke and/or water. Devastating.

Threaded through the story of the LAPL fire, a specific event at a particular time and place, Orlean pulls together the various threads of library history, library philosophy, the public library’s rather unique place in American culture and incorporates a fair bit of library humor to stitch together the story of an institution that is simultaneously fragile and extremely resilient.

Even if I weren’t a public librarian, I would still give this five stars. It’s Orlean’s best work to date. You can find a copy at your local public library: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1085572852

 

 

I’m not at all sure if any of the following will have any impact one way or another, but it seems that giving money to local campaigns and candidates that I support just isn’t getting the results I would like to see. As humans are wont to do when facing a problem, I have devised a plan of action.

I’ll be printing up a batch of door hangers and I’ll spend an hour or so each week between now and November affixing them to my neighbors’ doors. On Sundays I might also focus on the windshields of cars in church parking lots with slightly amended wording that would appeal more to the righteous crowd.

If folks want to have their own version of this printed up, feel free to copy/paste and put in your own name and location. I’d be happy to be the courier once I get the initial template set up and the printing figured out. According to my reading of the Public Disclosure Commission (https://www.pdc.wa.gov/learn/publications/political-advertising-guide), such an effort doesn’t require any personal information disclosure as long as I don’t spend more than $100 dollars on the effort.

So. Here we go. Here’s the text of of the piece:

Hi, neighbor! 

My name is Mark. I live on Madison Street on the Lower South Hill and I love my neighborhood. I also love Spokane. As you are probably aware, we have an election coming up this November. 

Here are three races that are of particular importance to me:

The mayoral race. Candidate Nadine Woodward has proposed banning the homeless from using the Spokane Public Library. This idea would not only be illegal and highly impractical to implement, it’s just flat-out uncompassionate. She also went on record to say we don’t need more shelter space for the homeless. Hmm. Reality would seem to indicate otherwise. Spokane needs a practical and compassionate person in the Mayor’s office so I’m voting for Ben Stuckart. Please join me.

City Council president race. Candidate Cindy Wendle has no political or public policy experience and yet she wants to lead the legislative arm of our city government. Her campaign web page lists being a UW Husky fan growing up in Pullman and driving a Chevrolet as a member of the Wendle Ford family as two of her major diplomatic accomplishments… hmm. Right. Conversely, Breean Beggs has a long history of working to improve Spokane through thoughtful leadership, action and legislation. Join me in voting for Breean Beggs.

School board race. A comparison of candidate Katy Treloar’s platform with Nikki Lockwood’s shows that Treloar is short on the specifics of what exactly she would be advocating for in our schools. Lockwood’s stances on special education, racial equity, discipline reform, and safety show a well thought out approach and level of transparency and accountability that Treloar is lacking. Join me in voting for Nikki Lockwood. 

Not registered to vote yet? It’s an easy process. Just go to https://olvr.votewa.gov/and get signed up. October 28th is the deadline to register.

This piece of paper is paid for with my own dang money. Not a PAC, not a lobbying firm, not a union, not an industry association, just a neighbor who wants Spokane (and the people in it) to thrive.

It’s hard to see the scale, but that’s roughly a dime-sized berry. Muy yum. On a hillside somewhere in northern Idaho.

I’ve been sitting out on my front porch this morning, drinking my coffee, doing some reading and watching the world spin around.

Twice in the past 45 minutes, two different drivers have stopped their vehicles at the intersection outside my house to check their phones. I applaud the fact that they are focusing on one thing at a time, but here’s the deal: pick a better place to stop.

Both drivers chose to stop in the lane of traffic, right at an uncontrolled intersection. This causes oncoming/cross traffic to question their intentions. Are they going to go? Do they know how to navigate an uncontrolled intersection? Are they going to turn? Confusion and frustration pretty quickly become the two dominant emotions.

Moral of the story: be picky about where you choose to stop. It matters to other people.

Today is my Dad’s 82nd birthday. Happy birthday, Dad!

I called him up, wished him a happy birthday and we spent 16 minutes and 49 seconds talking about the rainstorm we had in Spokane yesterday. 1 inch of rain in less than 20 minutes.

We talked about how it reminded me of being in an earthquake in Seattle in 2001. 15 seconds of excitement and wonder, followed by 15 seconds of awe, followed by 15 seconds of wishing for nothing other than to have the shaking stop. The timeline yesterday was a little more drawn out but it followed the same pattern: childish glee at the amount of water falling from the sky, followed by amazement at how quickly the street in front of my house turned into a sizable creek, followed by the fervent desire for the rain to stop before someone got killed.

We talked about how the rain reminded me of a couple rainstorms I witnessed when I lived in Florida. Not just sheets of rain moving across the lawn, not just blankets, but duvets stuffed with down comforters of rain. Thick. More water in the air than air.

Here’s what we didn’t talk about: how Florida rain is an unusual thing for Spokane. How a warming atmosphere holds more water vapor than a cooler atmosphere. How flooding will be a more common thing going into the future. How we humans need to curb our emissions, drastically so. Now.

My Dad is 82.