The local TV news out of Manchester,NH last evening had one of the most disgusting stories I have ever heard. It wasn't the subject that was disgusting; rather the manner and treatment of the information.
It seems that the city of Nashua, in response to not having enough money, is discontinuing the library's bookmobile service--a service that has been provided for decades, if not a century. But to listen to the patter of the news readers, you'd think that getting rid of a dillapidated vehicle that toted more than twenty thousand volumes, mainly children's books was somehow a sign of progress since these books would now be available in the school libraries.
And just to show that someone had done his homework, this development was provided with an historical context--the fact that while not so long ago there were over 200 bookmobiles in the country, now there are only 12. The enthusiasm for the story couldn't have been greater, if they were reporting a decrease in the number of murders in their metropolis.
Perhaps what made this story really disgusting was that it was presented in conjunction with an ad for the Republican Governor. Benson, who's running for re-election on a platform of reducing taxes and persuading his friends to provide a couple of hundred children with lap-tops--the electronic equivalent, to their way of thinking, of the public library and the bookmobile.
Never mind that lap-tops for children are the modern equivalent of passing out free cigarettes on the school playground. It's an effort to get kids hooked on electronics, on gadgets that have a short shelf life, high maintenance costs and tend to be psychologically addictive and physically debilitating in the long run. Not to mention that the lap-top user is likely to become part of a virtual community and withdraw from the real one that the historical bookmobile used to create.
There are some really stupid public policy choices being made.
What I want to know is why, if our country is becoming ever more prosperous and our standard of living is supposed to be going up, the level of public services keeps going down?
You know, there was a time when garbage got collected twice a week, when the mail got delivered every day, when there was a newspaper morning and evening, when the streets got swept on a regular basis, not just for a convention or a visit by the circus, and when people could do all their shopping on public transit. So what happened?