Librarians on the Front Lines

Librarians are on the Front Lines of an educational downfall. They stand on centuries of tradition, while holding the reins to tomorrow.

Before I continue, let us start with the history of the written word. A&E, the Art of Entrainment channel, did a poll several years back of the most influential people of all times, and who was number one? Johann Gutenberg, the man who invented the printing press.

In 1452 Gutenberg conceives the very idea that will transform the world by the fabrication of movable type. In his workshop he combines the technologies of the day: paper (which came Italy from China in the 12th Century), oil-based ink (which came into existences during the 10th Century), and the wine-press (which, in one form or another, has been around before Christ).

With these three invention commonly used in the 1400’s, the printing press was born. No more did men copy word after word on to a scroll, then knowing that that scroll would be obsolete and in need of recopying within just a score of years. Man knew even at that time the word was everything, for without it communication would cease and without communication man would never survive.

Returning to my original statement, now.

Neil Gaiman, the author of American Gods and Neverwhere and the DC comic series The Sandman writes, “I love librarians… I love librarians when they crusade not to be stereotyped as librarians. I love librarians when they're just doing those magic things that librarians do. I love librarians when they're the only person in a ghost town looking after thousands of books.”

Librarians guard the words of those who came before, those who are present, and those who are soon to arrive. If librarians lose the lust for their obligations and lay down their defenses, we have lost our history, our art, our knowledge, our edge, and, quintessentially, our communication.

Somewhere along the way getting this point in our nation’s history, we forgot the importance of respect for those who hold, essentially, our society within the confines of their shelves. Books birth dreams and kindle passions and push imaginations to a realm of absolute possibilities, and we, as Americans, cannot allow for this process to stall, if so, thus, stalling the pace of human development.

Throughout history countless writers have told countless stories upon countless pages weaving countless words bounded within countless books to be read by countless readers for countless hours. The pleasures, the pains, the joys, the sorrows, the intrigues, the disappointments, the loves, the losses, the facts, the lies, and the truths captivate people, for people wrote these tales for a reason and that reason is to be, at the day’s close, human—to feel, to grow.

While books are the beacon to which ambition is drawn unto, librarians lay out the course of its navigation. No matter how much and how often ignorance grapples with our way of life, librarians just knuckle down and stands their ground. Librarians are on the Front Lines of an educational downfall.


I delivered a speech on this topic before (go through the Archives to find it). I wanted to write on Globalization this week in response to a “letter to the editor” and my last column (read below), yet I have had so much work and so little sleep this week, so I just turned this one in to fill my weekly commitment.

U.S. Trade Deficit Soars to Horrifying Heights

The U.S. trade deficit peaked at $725.8 billion, an all-time high, in 2005, and it was propelled skyward due to record imports of oil, food, cars and other consumer goods.

On February 10th Martin Crutsinger of the Associated Press reported, for the "fourth consecutive year… America's trade deficit has set a record as American consumers continued their seemingly insatiable demand for all things foreign from new cars to televisions and electronic goods."

Crutsinger stated that imports rose "12.9 percent to an all-time high of $2 trillion, swamping a 10.4 percent increase in exports, which reached a record high of $1.27 trillion."

Reading this, I wondered if the American people even care about their nation, their homeland. Yes, we are exporting more than ever before; however, our percentage of increase is not as accelerated as our imports.

I hear, it must be all the time, that outsourcing, off-shoring, and globalization eliminates American jobs, leaving millions unemployed for the gain of a few. I would argue the 4.7 unemployed rate (7.2 million individuals) is the lowest for a number of years.

Furthermore, Thomas L. Friedman, New Times columnist and author of "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century," talked about China's embracement of free market trade, thus globalization, and "how [they have] managed to pull more people out of poverty faster and in larger numbers than any country in the world by adopting a pro-globalization/trade strategy."

I am an avid free trade supporter; ergo, I support the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). "Why?" you might ask. Besides the results Friedman spoke about with China's impoverished citizens, the NAFTA and CAFTA are the only way for America as well as the Americas to compete with countries, such as China and India. At the same time, it helps the development of all involved nations--that is, economic-wise.

Check this out. If one buys a textile product made in China, 100 percent is made in China. Yet, if one buys that product made in El Salvador (one of the six nations in the CAFTA), 60 percent is produced in the U.S., while 40 percent is constructed in El Salvador. So, in return we, by buying textiles from the nations in the CAFTA, help to keep more American jobs in the States than if we purchase ones made in China or elsewhere.

The trade deficit, being so high, horrifies many and with good reason. It is especially horrifying, when $201.6 billion of the deficit is due to imports from China--still being a police state socially.

Crutsinger added, "The rising trade deficits must be financed by increased borrowing from foreigners, who so far have been happy to sell us their products and hold U.S. dollars in payment which they invest in U.S. stock, bonds and other assets."

He concluded, "The concern is that at some point foreigners will want to reduce their dollar holdings. If the change occurs at a rapid pace it could send the value of the dollar, U.S. stocks and bond prices all plunging."


The person editing page four in the Parthenon this week took some liberties, which I disagreed with and thus changing the meaning of a sentence or two. So, I am posting my draft. Next, I wonder if the person who titled this column, “U.S. Trade Deficit Misleading,” actually read it, and because of that I am not posting that title as the title of this ed-op piece.

Freedom for All or for None

Explain to me, if one will or possibly can, why? Why did the Danish not think before publication, knowing fully the passion of the Muslim world? Why does the Muslim world have to be so blind to the reaction of their own actions? Why should the Free world care?

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten was undisputedly wrong in the publications of twelve cartoons that depicted the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, especially, one which showed the Prophet with a bomb for a turban; that is, if we live in a tolerant world--a world of political and religious correctness.

Obviously, any practitioner of Islam should, based on his or her books of faith, be outraged. Furthermore, living in this world of tolerance we must give every religion (tested creeds and unestablished oaths) the courtesy and respect we ask for our own, whatever it may be.

Let us flip the tolerance perceptive. Should the Muslin world be tolerant of another individual who, apparently, does not believe in the Islamic faith and sees it quite fitting to make a joke or draw a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad or Allah, in that case?

Back in the 90’s a so-called artist placed a crucifix in a jar of urine, capped it off with a lid, and proclaimed it art. Did the Christian world rise up and riot, destroying buildings and causing deaths? No, they did not. The other month when the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the Holocaust was a “myth.” Did the world watch in horror as the Jews burned embassies? No, we did not.

Yes, there was a cry, however, in both cases from these two different faiths, but violence was not their answer. Here in the West, we acknowledge now, thanks to Gandhi, that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

The Muslims world--in this event--has shifted the attention from the ignorant display of Jyllands-Posten’s religious intolerance to themselves. They moved the focus of the initial victim (the Muslin community) to the Danish newspaper and the Danish people as well as neighboring countries. Did they not think about the repercussions to their actions, just as they asked of the Danish?

“One assumption behind some of the debate,” states Andrew Sullivan, a journalist and blogger, “over the Danish cartoons is that blasphemy is always antithetical to religion. But, of course, many great religions began in what was then deemed blasphemy. Jesus was a blasphemer, and he died in part because of his blasphemy. Religions that enforce rules against blasphemy are defensive, cramped faiths, closed to the possibility of error, which is to say, closed to the possibility of a greater truth.

We live in the West, Sullivan adds, we can depict anybody without people rioting. This is about the freedom of speech.

Is it a freedom to blasphemy, even if it is not one’s own faith? Is it a freedom to decry someone for blaspheming against one’s personal faith? We cannot live by double standards; either freedom for all or freedom for none.


The only time I did not have a title is when I get ask for one. I told Rasmi she could look at the last sentence and she worked with it. When I called to tell her I found a couple errors, she asked if she could remove a paragraph (second to last) for length’s sake. It was hard to go with but I did. I added it here.

The Socialistic War

Last week I spoke on the Theocratic War America faces within her own borders and how it is unconstitutional to deny one individual his or her natural rights as a citizen of a Republic, not a Democracy. According to Thomas Jefferson, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.”

This past Tuesday’s edition of the Parthenon ran the article “Defining Marriage”: a great example of the majority attempting to abolish the natural rights of a minority and giving them civil rights--nothing more than approved privileges.

However, this week the Socialistic War is my topic.

This Socialistic War chastises the rights of private property owners and private businesses alike. The government has been pushing for more regulations--the Democrat’s way.

Firstly, eminent domain has been understood, since the mid-19^th century, as the government seizing privately owned property, especially land, for the “Public Good.” Yet, that is no longer.

As reported by Charles Lane, Washington Post Staff Writer, “The Supreme Court ruled yesterday [Thursday, June 23, 2005] that local governments may force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted and the new project's success is not guaranteed."

The government is stepping beyond the parameters of their legal jurisdiction. Privately owned property is just that, privately owned. We should side with the construction of a school, hospital, highway, and/or government building, yet not on the side of taking privately owned land and turning it over to another private party.

Additionally, the Wal*Mart Bill, like the one currently proposed in the West Vriginia Legislature, would grant state governments the power to tell privately owned businesses of 10,000 employees or more to spend 8 percent of its earnings on employee healthcare. There are 31 states with some form of the Wal*Mart Bill in their state legislature. Wal*Mart is the only business that has 10,000 employees or more and does not provide that level of healthcare.

We all should disagree with Wal*Mart, or any corporation, which only provides 40 percent of its employees with company healthcare; nonetheless, that is an issue the employees have to take up themselves, not the state government.

Business Insurance, a weekly newsmagazine, reported January 23, 2006, “[B]usiness groups and employers are attacking the measures [of the Wal*Mart Bill] as anti-business, asserting that such mandates not only will hurt the economy but ultimately could exacerbate the nation's uninsured problem.”

The economy always hurts when the federal or state government decides to get involved. This country succeeds only when privately own businesses are allowed to play freely within the free market arena.

As for the Theocratic and Socialistic Wars, which our nation battles, we have to keep in mind there are two particular issues that cannot be legislated: morality and free market.


This is the final installment of the Theocratic and Socialistic Wars; however, I am not too pleased with this one: it seems more like facts than opinion. It is fine. I doubt anyone will remember it. Again, I did not title this one.