Brother Can You Spare 12 Bucks?
What a classic debate – libraries versus stadiums? It’s one for the centuries. This debate probably goes back to the beginning of mankind. Surely the Egyptians and the Romans squared off a time or two on this one. Caligula (a.k.a Little Boots), never met a coliseum proposal that he didn’t like. If he had gotten his way all the time, all librarians would have been sold into slavery and their codices and scrolls would have been ground up for cattle feed or reconstituted for chariot glue.
The top Minnesota politicians are riding their own chariots this spring. They’ve begun to parade around the streets in large numbers, blocking traffic wherever they go. They aren’t kidding around this season. They’ve come dressed in full gladiator armor. Their swords catch the morning light just so and cast a beam of pure light on mission statements that are shorter than attention spans. You can almost catch a glimpse of the Trojan Horse in their compassionate smiles and flirtatious winks given on the morning television news circuits.
These guys have learned a thing or two from their once and future king Norm Coleman. Everyone loves a stadium and more importantly everyone loves the guy that can deliver a new stadium. Delivering a stadium to the people of Minnesota pretty much gives you a political force field and free keys to a new and better chariot.
The premise that I’m not buying in this debate is that somehow new stadiums and new libraries are mutually exclusive. Our finite resources dictate that you can have one one but not the other. I love the Twins and want desperately to watch them playing outdoors in a new stadium on grass. I would also love to be able to keep going to my library on an almost daily basis. I’d love that library to be open more then 3.5 hours a day! But if the states going to frame the debate in this way and make me choose sides, then I’m going libraries all the way. If the New Romans of our state can’t find five million for our libraries in need then I’ll be damned if their going to spend hundreds of millions on building a new stadium.
Luckily, there are some folks that aren’t waiting for leaders to mislead. They’ve taken it upon themselves to do the hard math and have started passing around the public collection plate. Basically the libraries are suffering from a 4.4 Million dollar budget cut. Spread that over the population and it comes out to $12 bucks a citizen. That’s a steal in my book (checked out from the library of course). So if you love libraries, say hell yeah! Now say it again. Now go to The Friends of Minneapolis Public Library and give $12 bucks.