“It would be like San Francisco or New York shutting down its library,” she says.
Uh... no. It would be like a podunk beach town, with a tradition of incompetent city leadership. A town overrun with illegal aliens, many who drop out before graduating high school, closing down a facility that isn't used because so many of it's occupants can't read above sixth grade level. The problem with our "diversity is good" advocates is that with unmanaged diversity, there comes a price. In this case, the closing of community learning and reading centers. I don't think there is a "main library" in Tijuana. If you import millions of people from that mentality, why is there surprise with the affected community reflects that mentality? In Mexico, we have a longstanding failed government infrastructure. If the United States didn't give them loans they will never pay back, as well as a means for Mexicans to send money back to their country, Mexico would be awash in blood and human misery. Why should we be surprised when our standard of living goes down, as Long Beach's unassimilated Mexican population goes up?
Sarah
· 1 year ago
Stop blaming everything on illegal immigrants....really. Isn't this about a library closing?
Dave in Alamitos Beach
· 1 year ago
I don't have a problem with this idea generally, but the lack of information coming from Bob Foster and Pat West is disturbing. If they expect people to sacrifice their libraries, then you have to explain why and how.
That being said, the Main Library really is a disaster, as is City Hall. I hope they turn the entire area back into the park it was before and was always meant to be.
As for the Main Library, I think the library could be downsized into a more virtual space with the books stored in a warehouse somewhere to be delivered to the branches when requested. The Main Library itself could be more of a meeting/computer/reference space. Think windows, coffee shop, etc. More of a Borders vibe? Yikes, but maybe that's the way to go.
Schlarb
· 1 year ago
I have a very hard time imagining Long Beach without the Main Branch Library.
When I was in high school, I would ditch class and hop on the bus downtown. That's were I was educated. In row after row of books.
Joe Weinstein
· 1 year ago
I agree with commentator Dave that the really disturbing aspect is the once-again oligarchic secretive 'planning', centralized (per the city's 19th-century robber-baron corporate charter) in Foster and West and their cronies, in place of a local democratically-organized and run community and its extended discussions.
Hints of library closures are likely just another one of their duplicitous good-cop-bad-cop tactics (combining reassuring and friendly overt smiles with tacit arm-twisting) to induce the taxpayers this November to rubber stamp their (also secretively hatched and sprung) 'infrastructure' bond.
This approach is indeed, as the first comment put it, just one more instance of a 'podunk ...town ... incompetent city leadership'. But, contra other parts of that comment, aliens (legal or otherwise) and diversity are not the problem.
Ambitious immigrants (and others) indeed are a great reason FOR the library. On this, commentator Schlarb is not alone. When brought from Ukraina to the USA at the age of ten, my parents got sustained education not only in the public schools but very importantly - and for more years - in the main Milwaukee Public Library (main). I credit my mother's successful decades-delayed enrollment into and completion of BA studies in her late forties (at UC Berkeley) to the fact that she had this library access in her twenties.
The Main Branch is, after all and first of all, the Downtown neighborhood branch. It's one of the amenities that people tacitly assume they are getting when they buy those expensive condos. And to boot it supplies special services to various non-geographic city 'neighborhoods'. So it's fallacious to argue that other neighborhood branches can painlessly fill in for Main.
Moreover (maybe second after Acres) for most residents Main is the city's best unstructured non-virtual book-browsing experience. So, before arbitrarily deciding that big libraries (or even big open-browse warehouses of books, of any kind) should be passe, we need a discussion on how important and exactly how much unstructured non-virtual browsing we want to keep, and what is its value. Maybe not as much as we used to think, but maybe more than some people credit.
In general, as suggested by the conclusion of Dave's comment, we need discussion on 'the way to go'. I agree that nowadays most of the time (apart from an opportunity to lose oneself in hours of unstructured browsing), perhaps the most useful (as well as thereby busiest) book 'stores' and 'libraries' are being redefined to certain kinds of experience places, for coffee-snacks-conversation-computers-and books. I saw it happening, even twenty years ago, well before widespread Internet, when I lived on the Monterey Peninsula. It didn't take a B&N or Borders to succeed: you could be a large or small one-outlet enterprise, e.g. Thunderbird Cafe/Bookstore (Carmel) and Bookworks (Pacific Grove).
Candice
· 1 year ago
Has anyone seen the Main library? We're not talking about closing a perfectly good library, we're talking about closing an expensive ghost-town of a library. The trees and plants have been dead on the leaky roof for years now, and it's a sad dead structure in disrepair.
I commend this bold move because it will help the city twofold. First, it will create an immediate need to plan for rebuilding or relocating downtown's library (Bond measure anyone?). Second, it will give students and everyone else back the library hours across the city that have been lacking for way too long... many kids don't have computers and suffer when libraries are closed on Sundays, and Mondays and Tuesdays.
When I was in school I took the bus to downtown to go to the main library - even people in semi-close neighborhoods took the bus there. Now we'll take the bus to another one for a while. No biggie.
C'mon Long Beach, be brave enough to do the right thing... support this plan to work toward getting a better library downtown.
howardx
· 1 year ago
for b. albert
TIJUANA INAUGURATES NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY Tijuana brought in the 2003 holiday season with the inauguration on December 5th of the Loyola Public Library on the campus of the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) in Playas de Tijuana. The event, attended by over 300 people from both San Diego and Tijuana, featured a special holiday concert by the Youth Orchestra of Baja California and a border-related photographic exhibition on loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art-San Diego. The library, developed at a cost of $2.1 million with 38,000 volumes and 250 computer workstations, is the first major library to be constructed in Tijuana that will have full access for the public. This state-of-the-art library project was made possible thanks to the vision, leadership and tireless fundraising and project management efforts of UIA’s Father David Ungerleider, who spearheaded the two-year campaign from conception to completion. http://www.icfdn.org/enewsletter/4thqtr2003.pdf
too bad racism makes you stupid, you could have googled this yourself and saved yourself the embarrassment
Dave in Alamitos Beach
· 1 year ago
I kinda agree with Candice about the Main Library. It was never really a good design to begin with, and currently it's mostly empty, and when not empty, it's peopled with the, um, residentially challenged. I've probably been there a total of 100 times and I don't think, other than the computer stations, that there are more than 50 people in the library at any one time. I think the branches could absorb this amount of people.
Some people are lamenting the fact that kids won't be able to get to another branch to use, but well, there are city buses after all, and people who live near the outer branches don't get to use them fully on the weekends becuase they're often closed, so maybe it's time to utilize the branch libraries more.
And I imagine that librarians and library staff are not going to be fired, but will rather be reassigned to the different branches. And if a new Main Library is built, there will be more than enough work for every member of the library staff for a long time to come.
B. Pistoff
· 1 year ago
Yes, well, then in about two or three years there will be a bond measure on the ballot for about $180,000,000 to construct a main library "worthy of LB"...designed to fill the pockets of the developers/construction companies who have the best connections down at city hall and make the promoters a name to associate with Education and Progress. First, of course, the usual $5,000,000 "studies" will have to be done to establish need and enviromental impacts, etc. I predict book publishers will make out well, especially after it is disclosed that many of the books in storage have either disappeared or been ruined by deliberate careless storage policies. Books in Ingles could then be subordinated for those in Espanol--since it would be foolish to ignore obvious demographic trends. Why not also mandate that anything the city builds be scheduled for demolition twenty or thirty years later. As for the homeless at the library, can't they somehow be rounded up and murdered? Why beat around the damned bush? Why be so cowardly namby-pamby about it? Taxpayers should be feeling absolutely homicidal about one segment of the populous--the political class that runs this pathetic burg.
kdog
· 1 year ago
Really Dave - no staff will be "asked to retire," or be "laid off." If the Mayor AND the City Council is doing this to safe money, how else do you save money. You get rid of some of your staff. Then, you don't have to pay for their insurance, or overtime or their salaries. Don't forget - a lot of services are run out of the main branch that there is not room for at the branch libraries. Plus, the historical collections and 100's of thousands of library books would need a new home too.
If we really are in trouble then why are we hiring more police officers, and building new fire stations. Can't the firemen just sleep in their trucks, or take the trucks home and take turns having sleepovers.
Mano Lamancha
· 1 year ago
From Post #5 "Hints of library closures are likely just another one of their duplicitous good-cop-bad-cop tactics (combining reassuring and friendly overt smiles with tacit arm-twisting) to induce the taxpayers this November to rubber stamp their (also secretively hatched and sprung) ‘infrastructure’ bond."
Agreed Joe, agreed...
Dave's comment about the "residentially challenged" (post #8) provided me with a lil' food for thought. Not that I'm cynical or anything; but the downtown businesses and condo dwellers have long complained about the Lincoln Park campers - perhaps this is part of Foster and West's plan to discourage the homeless from congregating in the downtown area? Maybe this initiative is intended to serve additional purposes? Closure of the main library may cause a few transients to move on if they found themselves deprived of hot and cold running water in which to maintain personal hygiene; private restroom stalls to do whatever it is one does in private (legal or otherwise); and a (reasonably) safe place to catch 40 winks out of the elements... at least in my conspiratorial mind...
Jason B.
· 1 year ago
Howardx: "too bad racism makes you stupid, you could have googled this yourself and saved yourself the embarrassment"
"The IQs of the races…can be explained as having arisen from the different environments in which they evolved, and in particular from the ice ages in the northern hemisphere exerting selection pressures for greater intelligence for survival during cold winters; and in addition from the appearance of mutations for higher intelligence appearing in the races with the larger populations and under the greatest cold stress. The IQ differences between the races explain the differences in achievement in making the Neolithic transition from hunter-gathering to settled agriculture, the building of early civilizations, and the development of mature civilizations during the last two thousand years. The position of environmentalists that over the course of some 100,000 years peoples separated by geographical barriers in different parts of the world evolved into ten different races with pronounced genetic differences in morphology, blood groups, and the incidence of genetic diseases, and yet have identical genotypes for intelligence, is so improbable that those who advance it must either be totally ignorant of the basic principles of evolutionary biology or else have a political agenda to deny the importance of race. Or both."
You need to visit a library, Howard. Your ignorance it pathetic.
I won't go into the tourist warnings that have been issued by the American Consulate to avoid Tijuana due to the widespread executions, kidnappings, and gunfights that are running rampant in your favorite library equipped city. However, I do hope you'll ignore the warnings, and go down there to visit for a week or more, real soon.
Jason B.
· 1 year ago
We have imported an Mexican immigrant underclass in Long Beach. These people don't read books. A staggering amount of first generation immigrants do not finish high school. If you want a local bookstore to flourish, put down the cheap del taco burrito, and speak out against unbridled illegal immigration. Just because some of you don't see Mexicans unless you're ordering a Big Mac, doesn't mean they aren't having a profound cultural and financial influence in Long Beach.
Cyndie
· 1 year ago
This city needs more resources invested in libraries and literacy, not less. The building is what's wrong with the Main Library, it's a mess; it was badly designed and poorly maintained. But we do need a library downtown. Most of the branches are small, understaffed and under stocked and the idea is now to further strain this already overburdened system? This makes no sense. What amazes me the most is that this city still wants to pretend to care about literacy and education, i.e. the annual 'Long Beach Reads One Book' and Smithsonian Week. First they’re running Acres of Books out of town and now they don't see the value of a downtown library? What will they recommend next, burning books to keep warm this winter?
Cyndie
· 1 year ago
If ignorance is bliss there must be some really happy people posting here...
Jack Gelber
· 1 year ago
We figured it out yesterday.
Long Beach is ruled by the port.
The port is run by unions.
Unions want construction. Blind construction. Tear down Acres, tear down anything.
As a liberal democrat this is baffling to me. I feel betrayed.
The dichotomy of life. It is harsh. I can't register this whole good/bad thing.
(Meet me at Fern's for drinks, bring singles for the j'box)
Love, Dumb Dude.
Bill Weber
· 1 year ago
I'd like to see you resourceful journalists go back to find out just who designed the library building, who built it, and what controls (if any) were made upon the process. It reminds me of the Cal State music building whose ceiling collapsed, what was it, 18 years ago, and nobody really was blamed for it. I look forward to watching your page on this and other issues, Bill
howardx
· 1 year ago
jason b care to provide a link for the "information" you posted? im sure its from some discredited source of the kind so loved by life's losers who need a scapegoat to blame their own lack of status on.
John_B
· 1 year ago
People, please...
Do we truly need to get all up in arms about what amounts to nothing more, at this point, than a rumor? Must we peck and snipe at one another about everything from illegal immigration to homelessness to wholesale staff layoffs in reaction to a hypothetical?
Would Mayor Foster ever seriously suggest closing down the main library? Perhaps he would, but at this point most probably only in the context of tossing out options for serious consideration. With a structural deficit that is likely to get far worse before it gets noticeably better, very little in the way of savings recommendations is actually off the table.
Fact: Becky Ames is quoted as saying "We are in active discussions about *relocating* the Main Library to another site in downtown" and "We are going to make libraries available to more folks near their homes and still meet the acute needs of people in this area for computer access. Every neighborhood library in the city is going to go to seven days and extend their hours to longer than they ever have been before."
Fact: Gerrie Schipske is reported to have said that she and other members of the Council were recently told by city management that there was a *proposal* to close the Main Library to the general public.
Fact: Assistant City Manager Suzanne M. Frick has reportedly said that the location next to City Hall would continue to house city archives and the library system's administrative staff, but the reduced functions should also reduce costs and that the Main Library is still going to “be the mother ship" (whatever that means).
My point is simply this: How about we wait and see what the budget proposals actually *are* once they are officially revealed? Once they *are* revealed let’s try to retain some perspective and recall that they are *proposals only* and subject to Council modification prior to approval?
The Mayor, the Council, the City Manager and all of those they hire on our behalf to manage our city all answer to us, or should. To the degree that they do not is not their failing, but our own. If *we* don’t want any changes made to the main library then changes will not be made. It’s really as simple as that…
that does it! at the next la raza meeting im putting jason b on "the list"
Jack Gelber
· 1 year ago
Hey guys,
I just realized. When Acres of Books is bulldozed...when it is bulldozed, Long Beach will be giving up its soul.
It is going to be a DIFFERENT Long Beach.
That is what we know.
Jack Gelber
· 1 year ago
Candy canes and comic books.
Snow Cones and first grade looks.
Apple pie and Gatorade.
Oh my.
What have we made.
kdog
· 1 year ago
Dear John B.,
If we wait until we hear something official it will be too late. We need to let our voices be heard before they tell us what they want to happen. When the government lets you know something it's usually too late to stop it. The decisions should be out in the open not behind closed doors. BY the way, do you trust the City Council? I don't. I believe they will try to appease the mayor. Remember, the Mayor's Office told them that hours and resources in their district's will increase. So, why would they fight the mayor's plan?
Also, let's make the council meetings on something important like this a little easier to attend. How many people can go to a 5:00 meeting on a Tuesday?
John_B
· 1 year ago
kdog (25): Both your passion for and your suspicion of our local government do you great credit. I would submit, however, that taking exception to anything “unofficial” is pointless because until such time as the Mayor’s proposed budget is officially released for discussion and due consideration it’s just so much rumor and speculation.
“Letting our voices be heard” (by our elected and appointed officials) should be something we do loudly and continuously and not in fits and starts each time someone at City Hall or Congress or the White House sees fit to send up a trial balloon.
My admonition was not against making our voices heard but, rather, against being concerned about falling chunks of hypothetical sky and about attacking one another in writing when nothing official on a matter has yet to be released to us.
And it *will* be released to us, kdog, because by law it *must* be.
As to your question; I mistrust government at any level and concerning anything right up until it has carried out its constitutional mandate to represent a majority of us as directed. At that point it has done what we have created it to do for us (weather I personally agree with a given decision or not) and my mistrust thus diminshes.
You see I do not, as many people seem to, see government as our enemy. I see government as nothing more or less than that which we (the electorate) permit it to become. If our government, at any level, proves untrustworthy, it’s because we have tolerated its untrustworthiness without taking swift and decisive action to correct that flaw.
Our government remains representative (and trustworthy and efficient and just and cost-effective, etc, etc) only so long and to the degree that we demand and insist that it remain so.
So, by all means, kdog, let’s be demanding and insistent…and loudly so…but let’s be demanding about facts…
…and not about rumor and speculation.
Andy
· 1 year ago
I'm not sure how this thread got hijacked to be about illegal immigrants and unions being responsible for tearing down acres of books, but...
the $2.8 million the RDA paid for acres of books to shut its doors would buy a lot of maintenance. BTW, I live downtown, and, yes, I go to the main library and I've rarely seen it vacant esp. on weekends.
The developers raping downtown can afford to fund municipal services adequately. Although if other developments are as ugly as Aqua, it's really not worth it.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
Well maybe they could just close down the Pike, since it's empty^H^H^H^H^H full of those pesky illegal immigrants jason b fears, and then we can turn that into a site for a nice library.
Screw the existing main library and build a nice new one. There're several good reasons people from all over just go to Cerritos: (1) free parking, (2) it's 12min to get there from Wrigley and that's basically the same amount of time to get to downtown, (3) a life-size replica of a T-rex skeleton, (4) a beautiful building with beautiful interiors, (5) a life-size T-rex!!!!, (6) free parking, (7) an amazingly kid-friendly kids' library, and (8) a frigging life-size T-rex for crying out loud.
They must got themselves there lots of oil over in that there Cerritos place to afford sumpin like dat. Shur wish we could get some over here.
John C.
· 1 year ago
Andy, the thread seems "hijacked" to you because you're ignorant. Since, according to the mayor of los angeles, up to 50% of immigrants drop out before getting a high school education, you're talking about a huge surging demographic who see's no need for books. Perhaps you know of a high school dropout who is a voracious reader, but I don't. If you've lived in Long Beach for a considerable amount of time, you might want to take the time to look around you. This city has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. It doesn't matter that you don't want to believe that the literacy rate in Long Beach is at an all time low due to unbridled immigration, and that the seeds that have been sown years ago are shutting down our bookstores and libraries. Unfortunately, the facts remain and the consequences are in play. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, Hispanic students born in the US are more than 3 times as likely to drop out than their native-born peers. And 45% of Hispanic students born outside of the US dropped out of high school in 2002. According to the Los Angeles Times:
“Three-fourths of parents in the district lack high school diplomas, and many are illiterate. A stunning 85% of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.” “Every week, new immigrants enter school, knowing no English and unable to read.” What this means, Andy, is that the success of bookstores and libraries in Long Beach is directly related to the success of our public school system that was never designed to deal with the influx of illegal immigrants. Old white men like Mr. Eastman are dying, and being replaced by high school drop-outs from Mexico, so those of you lamenting about the closing of Acres of Books, or the Main Library are howling at the moon. Long Beach is not the same city you grew up in. It's an unofficial sanctuary city, and bookstores are much less important than Western Union money transfer facilities.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
While such dropout rates are a disgrace, the fact is that the national dropout rate hasn't budged in more than fourty years. And since all the hullaballoo about the LA county and Long Beach dropout rates have not discussed any statistically meaningful trends over the past few decades, your arguments do not suffice as proof that our leaky library. You claim that literacy rates are at an all time low. You're joking, right? Maybe you meant "english proficiency" since that was the language passed down to us by God when he gave us the King James Bible.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
So much for literacy... my backspace key deleted a useful subordinate clause above. John C's bluster isn't worth more of my time.
ProgressiveMan
· 1 year ago
Please don't talk about illegal immigration anymore. It makes me uncomfortable. I think it leads to some sort of cognitive dissidence wherein my belief structure starts to unravel. Let's please pretend everything is going to be fine for a while longer. All those people who will be the new majority and don't care to learn the traditional American language and who believe in their heart of hearts that this state belongs to the country they've just come from don't make me nervous at all. You racist pigs should just shut up and acknowledge the tremendous achievements wrought by the Democratic Party in power. GOP bigots will be totally destroyed soon and everything will be OK. Thank you very much.
howardx
· 1 year ago
people like john c. will be forced to be our slaves in the glorious new country of aztlan.
howardx
· 1 year ago
ps. how come jason b, john c. and b. albert all say the same thing?
Andy
· 1 year ago
Re: #29 If I'm the "ignorant" one, how come I know this issue has nothing to do with illegal immigration. Last time I checked, folks weren't storming over the border to take away our good librarian jobs. (or was that last year's talking point?)
Please go post on a relevant thread. And go protest a church that's giving sanctuary to a family that's gonna be split up. And don't assume you know my position on illegal immigration because you don't.
In the meantime, if you actually care about this issue, call your councilperson and protest. After that, you can rant at them because a Mexican family in a 1988 Chevy AstroVan was took too long at the Del Taco drive thru in front of you.
And if you didn't notice there's a city called "Los Angeles" nearby, (it's close to San Pedro and La Habra and El Segundo) which I don't think is in your precious English language. Nothing stays the same, get over it or move further north.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
Move north? May I recommend south and west?
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Interesting bit of logic, Andy. And ignorant. Let me break it down for you, since it's obvious you have a problem balancing your checkbok. Illegal immigrants put wear and tear on our infrastructure. They also take more out of state and government services than they put in. A large part of this is because once an anchor baby is achieved, an illegal alien mother qualifies for government aid in the State of California. Other states do not allow this. While you mat like repeating the sponge-brained mantra of "this is a nation of immigrant," this is hardly unique in world history. The fact is EVERY nation is a nation of immigrants. Those that succeed... succeed. Those who don't die out, or move elsewhere. It is only since 1965, when our historic immigration bill was passed, that we have a unique place in human history; those to succeed, fail. Those who fail, succeed. As anyone who is, or has watched some idiot "succeed" on their dad's influence and money knows (maybe you, Andy?), the "success" continues as long as the money they had little to do with keeps coming. Once daddy stops sending the checks, junior is homeless. And so it goes with Mexico. If American dollars were not pouring in via Western Union money orders, and if we weren't supplying the welfare needs of their failures, which only continues to protect the Mexican billionaires from the "failures" gaining mass leading to the banging on their back doors with rifle butts at three in the morning; as long as we provide the economic pressure valve, Mexican's will "succeed." But here's the rub, Andy. The reason why we can't keep this up, and you can't balance your checkbook is that, the same as you can't keep writing checks when your payment due exceeds accounts received, we cannot continue to meet the welfare needs of Mexico. At some point (like now) we have to start printing money. This causes "inflation." That, Andy, is when you have too many dollars floating in the monetary system, so that it is worth less than if you hadn't printed the money for, say, bailing out subprime lenders who were pressured into giving minority loans because some politicians and their constituency felt that not enough minorities owned houses. Tax identification numbers, anyone? When inflation occurs, it is a tax on people who work for a living. They must pay the tax in the form of inflated prices. So really, YOU are paying for someone elses American Dream, Andy. This also goes for government services. The ones you pay your taxes (presumably) to maintain. Sooooo.... since history has shown us that people are only willing to pay so much in taxes before they start getting feisty towards their government representatives, rather than adding more taxes, the reduce services. Services like... libraries. Oh my gosh, Andy! Will you look at that? I just demonstrated how illegal aliens are taking librarians jobs, while at the same time, illustrating how your world view is that of a crackpot. Of course, that's presuming you have any reasoning skills. If not, you're either ignorant, or just not up to the task of figuring out your checkbook.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
"Move north? May I recommend south and west?"
As long as we're offering recommendations, Kelson, might I recommend that you take a dump in your little hat?
Oh, you already have?
Nevermind.
lbwhiner
· 1 year ago
you don't need a big bldg for LB Reads One Book - after all, one book takes very little space on a shelf or in your brain. I've never understood why the herd mentality is so accepted and even promoted in this town.
Andy
· 1 year ago
Hey, B. Albert...coupla points (I'll be brief, because unlike you single-issue angry border militia types), I have to get to be to get up in the morning to get to my job, balance my checkbook, and find my dad's coattails to ride around upon (and, unlike you, I can't afford to cut-n-paste discredited talking points from single-issue angry border militia websites).
So,
1) Juan sending money to Camenita in San Luis has nothing to do with threatening to close the main library in Long Beach (or the subprime mortgage issue, or anything else your paranoid mind tacked on to them). This city spends much more on junkets to Sumatra than all the services to the alleged tidal wave of illegal immigrants flocking to Long Beach.
Like, the $2.8 million the RDA spent to close Acres of Books does have a lot to do with it.
OK, that's just one point (see how brevity actually enhances an argument?)
Now, go drive your big SUV over to the entrance of the 405 and flip off the guy selling oranges from behind your tinted windows and feel like the big native-born USAmerican that you're not. Blaming all your issues on illegal immigrants is a tasty (and time dishonored way) of doing a little ethnic "cleansing".
Andy
· 1 year ago
Oh, and here's your open border militia link to batsh*t crazy, bug-eyed, Michelle Malkin:
Note that the problem is illegal aliens, not an improperly regulated mortgage market. But illegal aliens. Wanker.
Gustavo Arellano
· 1 year ago
B. Albert, et al., are funny. Over here in Orange County, specifically Anaheim and Santa Ana, it seems nothing but Mexicans (most those unassimilable illegal anchor babies) use their libraries--and even read in English. Racist fuck.
kdog
· 1 year ago
Um...HELLO>>>LIBRARY!!! Let's get back to the topic.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Andy, you're wasting time, since brevity doesn't mitigate stupidity, and all your "points" underscore my observation quite well. Your first point I'd simply consider a lie, except you've proven to be stupid at this point, I'm going to have to make allowances for your unfortunate lack regarding executive function and go from there. Since money that is made by American citizens tends to stay in America to support goods and services, along with contributing to our tax base, while illegal aliens do not, your assertion that the loss of this tax money that is going directly to the Mexican economy (billions a year) is not only false. It's stupid. Your assertion that any reasonable measures taken to stem the tide of illegal aliens must inevitably lead to a nazi state is historically inaccurate, unsupportable, and I would consider it manipulative of you, had I no historical data via your past missives that support the conclusion that you are not very bright. I hope this isn't news to you, as I'd suppose it might be cause for you to be upset. If so, do take some time to gather what you call "thoughts" and consider refraining from making a comment, simply because there's a neat little button that says "submit comment." Just because it's there, doesn't mean you have to use it. In your case, not using it, is akin to not spraying flatulence on a crowded metro bus. I know someone of your IQ measure considers flatulence as an important means of self-expression, but most others do not. Please consider them.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
For more info on how illegal aliens are undermining our infrastructure via their siphoning of funds intended to support it, look no further than that right wing nut job publication, The San Diego Union Tribune:
its great how the powers that be have these white dudes so shook up about illegal immigration they dont see that the very politicians they elect to save them from the brown invasion stab them in the back in the name of globalization.
Andy
· 1 year ago
Hey B. Albert...do people shy away from you at parties and avoid engaging you in a dialogue because no matter what he topic, you'll tie it to illegal immigration? Restating that "A plus B is therefore C" does not make it so. Remember, we're talking about a city funding issue, which, if A LOT of things were fixed, would not be a problem. Saying it's illegal immigration is causing this is like saying recent forest fires have caused the budget crisis.
Sadly, it is you who cannot understand the larger picture.
So (paraphrasing you here), if the problem is illegals aliens not paying taxes (which many do), then we should just make them legal, tax them, and the problem would be solved, no? I'm sure you'd have no problem with that. Oh wait, you don't want that either? They'd take all the jobs from USAmericans?
Better build that wall, or will that take money away for the library as well?
kdog
· 1 year ago
Well, at least you mentioned the library on your last comment. I guess that's something????????????????
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Andy? Are you actually trying your hand at logic again? ha haaaaa.
Okay, let's see here...
"Saying it’s illegal immigration is causing this is like saying recent forest fires have caused the budget crisis."
This would be what we call a "bad analogy," since forest fires are eventually contained, and the cost of maintaining services to deal with them are easy to budget.
To legitimize your forest fire analogy, Illegal aliens never stop (since 1965) use much more in welfare, hospital, prison, and other services than they put back in, so it's essentially a consuming forest fire that decimates our economy, as long as we have the fuel (our tax dollars, plus printed dollars from the fed) the fires continue to burn.
In your case, you're wearing a gas mask, and telling everyone else that since you don't smell any smoke, everything is just fine, and smoke makes for wonderful sunsets, so we must be against nice sunsets and that's just wrong.
If my analogy is correct, then it makes a fine illustration that correctly identifies you as a neurotic.
Andy
· 1 year ago
Nope. Actually, it was a pretty good analogy, but it highlighted the lunacy of your argument (if you might have recently read that they're having to hire more and more contractors to manage the fires, and the budget is wildly underestimated), so you attempted to discount it.
It just showed you can't pin the library's threatened closure on one issue that guys who live in their mom's basements obsess upon.
Unfortunately, the illegal immigrant issue won't be resolved tomorrow, and if it were, there'd still be budget issues. Which B. Albert will then say are all caused by illegal immigration legacy issues.
So, write your councilperson and explain that they should keep the library open whatever the cause. There's been a library on or near that site since all the Iowans came to Long Beach in the early 1900s taking all the good blacksmithing jobs from us Californians. It's a valuable asset for any downtown.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
I still say they should tear down the Pike and put up a nice library there, with free parking, so I don't have to hang my head in shame about our main library while we trundle off to Cerritos for some T-Rex action.
Plus they got them there english-readers, what with all those non-Anglos hanging out and reading books. Maybe the problem with Mr. Albert is that public libraries are just too Socialist a construct (sorry Mr. Carnegie) since libraries are all about the working classes sharing materials and ideas. At least until those non-Iowans showed up and ruined the party with their pinatas.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Andy, just saying "no you didn't" and leaving it at that is most certainly the mark of someone overcome with the frustration a fellow whose ambitious idea's far outstrip his intellect. Your analogy, as I correctly broke it down, was silly, childish, and inappropriate, no matter how you try to justify it by introducing new variables. I'm sure you've heard this before, Andy, but you're quite a piece of work. The layman's term would be "douchebag," but I'm sure you've heard that descriptive even more. Just to reiterate for people you may have confused, we can't afford luxuries like libraries when we're supporting the welfare needs of a foreign country in such a way that has never been attempted before in human history. Andy says "full speed ahead," but then Andy signs his checks with smiley face stickers. In the adult world, when you don't have the money, you curb spending, eliminate ballast. Essentially when you find yourself in a hole, the wise man stops trying to dig more to get out of it. I also know I've been going in circles with Andy, which is a traditional enterprise of the neurotic, but I did so just so Andy would know I care about him. Perhaps not as much as his imaginary girlfriend, but then who can compete with her unconditional love?
Jack Gelber
· 1 year ago
Isn't this about Acres of Books?
Because I can't give you anything else.
Love, The Giving Tree
PS: you can still sit on my stump after you've cut me down.
Andy
· 1 year ago
District Weekly Reader Comment Theatre Presents:
"A First Date with B. Albert" (all B. Albert dialogue paraphrased from actual posts)
SCENE: A nice restaurant on Pine Street, a few weeks before it closes forever. A couple sits down at a table by the window. A waiter brings water to the table.
She (to the waiter): Thank you.
B. Albert (to the waiter): No! No! No! I've got my own water.
B. Albert (whispering to the girl): I don't think he's here legally...I saw a Western Union receipt in his pocket.
She: Really? OK...Um, have you heard about Acres of Books closing?
B. Albert: Yeah, it's because the guys sitting outside Home Depot don't read books.
She: OK..um, well, I sure would hate for Long Beach to lose the main library. It's really important for Long Beach to keep it for the downtown area.
B. Albert: Yeah, well, you've got all those illegal aliens to thank for that.
She: That too? Wow, I had no idea.
B. Albert: Yeah, subprime housing crisis, weak dollar, inflation....it's all due to the Mexicans dropping their pups on this side of the border. Hell, they can't even govern themselves. They're all over this place.
She: You know I've got to go... (she gets up to leave).
B. Albert: Stupid! Neurotic! Douchebag! Ignorant!
B. Albert: (sitting alone..spying an Hispanic woman outside with three kids) Hey! You're not gonna put those in MY public school system are you?
END
All proceeds form this play shall be donated to the Save the Downtown Long Beach Library fund.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
Will you guys stop bringing the library back into this discussion? This is all about how we have to build a really big fence around the country.
Gina
· 1 year ago
For starters, I have to say I am stunned by haters of Long Beach. Haters of people. Haters of the library. What happened to everyone? I actually feel pretty sad for you because there's lots of good stuff going on down here in downtown Long Beach. You should try visiting it sometime.
Secondly, I want to say that I live in downtown Long Beach and own a business here as well. I am a citizen, I am college educated, and I am working professional. I pay my taxes each and every year. And my husband and I use the Main library all the time. In fact, I have two books at home now . When I go to the Main library, I see a wide range of phenomenal people enjoying the facilities. Young and old. Rich and poor. Black, brown and white. Those with homes and those without. I've heard a number of fascinating speakers in the library auditorium as well. It's always teeming with activity. I love it. It may not be the fanciest of libraries, but it well-used and well-appreciated.
I do understand if the building is not safe and we need to consider alternatives. No one wants library patrons and employees in an unsafe building with structural/mold problems. But let's have a real public discussion about the issues and options.
At a minimum, let's put in place an alternate location first with the same level of resources other neighborhoods receive. I don't care that Belmont Shore and Bixby Knolls will get longer library hours. That's a silly justification. The bottom line is that it's my tax money, dammit, and I demand a say in what happens to my community. And I want a library!!!
Gina
Nancy Skoobs
· 1 year ago
If the Main library were to close: -service to almost half a million customers, 50% of which are youth -service to youth- -Main Library is the neighborhood library for 18,000 youth -150+ preschool reading and school readiness programs -150+ school class visits with 5,000 students from 38 elementary schools -4,000+ homework assistance sessions at the Family Learning Center -Summer reading program for 800+ participants -access to the almost half a million library resources -access to 70 public computers -access to the Information Center for People with Disabilities
This is what might happen if this goes through. Not only will these resources be cut off, but the amount of people that are employed will be in jeopardy of losing their jobs. We need to stop this from happening....
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
District Weekly Reader Comment Theatre Presents:
“What If? ” (all Andy dialogue paraphrased from amateur psychotherapists)
INT LIVING ROOM Andy's Parents House
Andy's Dad: You're a good boy, Andy. A very very good boy.
Andy: But the kids at school... they don't like me! I just stuck up for this kid they were picking on, now they hate me too!
AD: It doesn't matter Andy. Never base your behavior on peer pressure, or you'll never grow up.
Andy: But isnt it better to get along with the crowd, Dad? I don't like eating lunch alone! It makes me feel like I did something wrong! I should just agree.
AD: There's no shame in pointing out what you see, son. Even if it's upsetting to your friends, except for one thing...
A: What?
AD: Just make sure you're right.
CUT TO two liberals in front of their Macintosh computer
Ted: Oh! I gotta show you what this "Andy" guy posted on this website comments section. Sooo funny! I like this dude.
Ned: What'd he post?
Ted: Oh, this razor sharp satire tearing apart some crazy anti-illegal immigration guy... hey...
Ned: What?
Ted: It's... it's gone! I coulda sworn...
Ned: That's weird.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Skoobs:
"If the Main library were to close: -service to almost half a million customers, 50% of which are youth -service to youth- -Main Library is the neighborhood library for 18,000 youth -150+ preschool reading and school readiness programs -150+ school class visits with 5,000 students from 38 elementary schools -4,000+ homework assistance sessions at the Family Learning Center -Summer reading program for 800+ participants -access to the almost half a million library resources -access to 70 public computers -access to the Information Center for People with Disabilities This is what might happen if this goes through. Not only will these resources be cut off, but the amount of people that are employed will be in jeopardy of losing their jobs. We need to stop this from happening…."
Your hypothetical shriek is incorrect from the start, since it's already been said that most of the services provided by the main branch would be taken on by local branches. The rest of your diatribe is irrelevant, since you provide no citations to back it up, and your figures aren't easily found, as far as I can tell. Again, most immigrant mexican's don't read as a leisurely pursuit. This is a significant reason our bookstores have closed, and our libraries aren't as important as they were before the surge. A new study by the United Way of Los Angeles finds that 53 percent of the city’s adult population—3.8 million people—are functionally illiterate. [United Way, Literacy@Work: The L.A. Workforce Literacy Project, September 2004.] The percentage soars to 84 percent in heavily Hispanic south L.A., dropping to 44 percent in the greater San Fernando Valley. only about 15 percent of L.A. County’s low-literacy adult population is enrolled in literacy programs. Dropout rates for these remedial programs approach 50 percent after the first three weeks. Very few working-age adults in Los Angeles are completely illiterate—nearly all can write their name or read a simple paragraph. But most lack the skills required for job related tasks. They are classified as “low-literate,” meaning they are unable to read a bus schedule, write a note explaining a billing error, follow instructions on a medicine bottle, or complete a job application. The distortion of the L.A. economy is sobering. Employers complain that they can’t find workers for high-skilled jobs, but the low wage, low-skill economy is booming. The county employment forecast shows that 282,000 new jobs in the $16,000 to $26,000 pay range will be created by 2008. These jobs include cashiers, dishwashers, security guards, and other occupations requiring only brief on-the-job-training and limited language skills. Wages for all of these unskilled positions have declined in L.A. County for the past 15 years—exactly what you would expect in a workforce inundated by functionally illiterate immigrants.
kdog
· 1 year ago
B. Albert,
Have you ever been to the main branch, and then gone to a branch library? Most (if not all) of the services in the main branch cannot be taken on by branch libraries. The branch libraries are significantly smaller, don't have the meeting rooms the main branch has, and barely have room for all of their books on the shelves. There's a reason the new Mark Twain branch was built. They didn't have enough room for material and staff. They still don't. Have you ever been to the branch library in Belmont Shore? It is very small. I don't see much room for more staff. Just because they did not reveal their sources, it doesn't mean their facts aren't straight. This is not a professional journal.
I'm not an immigrant, I have a graduate degree, therefore can read, and I use the library. And considering I live in Long Beach (do you?), I know that my neighbors can read and use the library.
You say: "A new study (2004 - me) by the United Way of Los Angeles finds that 53 percent of the city’s adult population—3.8 million people—are functionally illiterate." Thank you for making my arguement. THAT IS WHY WE NEED TO KEEP THE MAIN LIBRARY OPEN - HELLOOOOOOO!!!!!! I don't think the United Way was using their facts to discriminate. And I quote (page 3) "In today's economy driven by knowledge and technology, the greatest resource for the Los Angeles region is an educated workforce." Is there a breakdown by race. NO! They are including white, African American, Latino, Asian, etc.
In a time of economic hardship the library is even more important resource for the community.
Let's talk about the library, not your racist rants. Stop listening to A.M. 640, it will rot your brain.
Andy
· 1 year ago
Ted and Ned would actually use a Dell Latitude running Vista. Duh.
Imitation (even weak, humorless imitation) is the sincerest form of flattery. Thank you.
Save the Main Library (which has nothing to do with illegal immigration)!
Kelson
· 1 year ago
Maybe B. Albert would be satisfied with having librarians check each patron's documentation ("papers please") upon entering the library. Then he'll be happy that them there illegals aren't using the fruits of his precious tax dollars.
Nancy Skoobs
· 1 year ago
B. Albert: The statistics are easily found on the Long Beach Public Library website. I am an employee of the Long Beach Public Library and know the impact this can cause. As mentioned in other posts there is no way the branch libraries can absorb what the Main Library does. It is in itself its own "branch" that serves its own community. I am sad to hear the ranting about illegal immigration. How does that even relate to the proposed closing of the Main Library? So, you feel that because people cannot read that the library should close? How do you figure? Having libraries is a way to help the community. Anyway, I am done.
Brass
· 1 year ago
Wordz are lame! Who needz them!
b. Albert
· 1 year ago
Andy, the piece wasn't intended to be comedic per se. I was borrowing from the style of "The Twilight Zone," since the melody always seems to pop in my head whenever I read your scattered screeds. Your "topper," such as it is, doesn't provide much reader confidence in your knack for comedy, but I'm sure it's not something you do for a living, so no matter. Andy, is that short for Andrea? I only ask since your prose carries a decided feminine style, full of whine, bitchiness, and scattered attention. That said, I'd like to end my post to you, continuing on a positive note, by offering congratulations on your consistent writing style, that carries a definite fidelity to your gender. However, if you are not female, then I commend your passion for resonating with the gender style you so obviously aspire to.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Brass:
"Wordz are lame! Who needz them!"
As a matter of fact, I think we should deport french mimes before anyone else. btw, you guys were an embarrassment on D-Day. A little wind and you're worthless. And nobody fell for your mime tanks.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
That's impressive, Bea Albert! I haven't heard gender being used in the pejorative since 1973. Then again, everything else you say reminds me a lot of the Nixon days. If you go to a library and brush up, I'm sure you could find some other ways to actually insult somebody.
kdog
· 1 year ago
I'm truly hurt b. Albert. No response to my post? Too busy picking on women and French Mimes (when not picking on illegals of course)?
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Nancy, I'm sorry to hear your ranting about maintaining the main library when the city does not have the funds to provide for it's upkeep. City services that are tied to budgets that are tied to taxes. Our current economic state, directly related to unregulated immigration, which includes bank failures due to subprime mortgages to unqualified illegals, cannot include luxuries that we have become accustomed to in the past. I'm afraid that if you want the surge of at least one million illegals in this country a year, you must provide a number of free services for them, and a main library in disrepair must be cast off, so that we may deal with the next million illegals in the coming year, many of whom will be coming to California, since welfare is allowed in this state, while many others do not. Besides, first generation illegals generally don't read, and many don't finish school, so a library is a useless accessory compared to the massive undertaking of providing the state of California as a welfare annex for Mexico. I hope you understand. At least enough to quit whining and ranting to nobody in particular.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
When will Bea Albert take Albert's own advice: "At least enough to quit whining and ranting to nobody in particular. "?
Can there really be a real, live earthling who believes those super-powerful illegal aliens brought down the banking system of the largest economy of the world? There are no more than three neurons on the entire planet who think that subprime mortgages were actually the cause of the economic mess. It was all about *regular* normal mortgages using the inflated equity estimates as collateral. I wish these boneheads would stop channeling Lou Dobbs for just one minute and use their stinking heads.
howardx
· 1 year ago
b. albert
"PHOENIX (AP) -- The illegal-immigrant population has fallen an estimated 11 percent nationwide over the past year and perhaps even more in Arizona, according to a report by a Washington organization that promotes less immigration.
The Center for Immigration Studies said the drop of about 1 million illegal residents happened from August to May even as the number of legal immigrants increased."
turns out you've been talking out of your ass this whole time, who knew?
Gustavo Arellano
· 1 year ago
howardx, If you read the report issued by CIS they claim illegal immigrants are fleeing states like Arizona and Oklahoma for states that don't care what their legal status is, i.e. California. If the illegal population is indeed dropping, it is not dropping in states such as California or in cities such as Long Beach. B. Albert--you are a Great American.
howardx
· 1 year ago
hey gustavo how come my mexican neighbors....... hehe never mind! so the 11% nationwide statistic isnt correct? jeez i just told this racist he's been talking out of his ass too....
Jay
· 1 year ago
I walked 75 years in Long Beach.
I got brand new condo's on the new side
I got an RDA for a necktie.
C'mon take a "little" walk with me.
Who do you lotve?
Jay
· 1 year ago
typo. my b. my b.
It is supposed to say: LOVE.
(I'm buring a copy of Myra Breckenridge right now, and like, it's, like my computer is, like totally, overwhelmed...especially by emotion)
(my bbbbb....bad, bad to the bone)
You are just not a customer anymore, you are a friend,
Ok, one great column from Chris and 77 posts later, we can now discuss what is *actually being proposed*, rather than, as most of us have been doing, screaming and wailing and moaning and groaning about a hypothetical. This is copy and pasted directly out of the City Manager’s Budget Message that was released yesterday:
~~~ “Relocate and/or Rebuild the Main Library – The City’s Main Library requires extensive facility repairs and upgrades to provide a safe, pleasurable experience for both employees and the community. These repairs are estimated to be approximately $10 million to mitigate various structural facility problems. In the meantime, damage is being done to the Main Library’s resources, programming areas are significantly curtailed and the basic functions of the building are being compromised. Therefore, as the first step toward a truly regionalized library system in Long Beach, the Main Library will be closed to the public beginning in November 2008. The building will still function to support the branches, providing administrative and materials support to the other 11 branches. To provide greater access to the library system’s resources, all neighborhood branches will be opened 7 days per week while the Main Library is closed. Further, a satellite facility will be established in an effort to provide the downtown community with continued access to library resources. This operational adjustment should generate a General Fund savings of $1.8 million in FY 09 while mitigating the loss of the Main Library as a downtown resource. The specific staffing and operational impacts of this proposal are being developed and will be completed by October 1, 2008.”
~~~ We now have the words on this topic directly from the proverbial horse’s mouth. This is what is *proposed*. I will, again, emphasize that this is only a proposal and *will not happen* unless we, the electorate, want it to.
So what do we want, Long Beach? It’s time to figure that out and then get off our collective arses and make that *clearly known* to our elected representatives. It is then their job to provide the appropriate direction to *our* employee, City Manager Pat West. He answers to them, and they answer to us. It really is just that simple and it sounds something like this:
"Mr. West this is Mayor Foster, a confirmed majority of the people we were elected to represent have told us that closing the main library is not an acceptable option. The remaining Council members and I have explained to them that there will be serious challenges attached to keeping the main library open. They have said that they understand and their response to us is clear and non-negotiable. My direction to you must therefore also be so: Closing the library as was originally planned has been deemed acceptable and shall not now occur. Please develop alternative proposals on this topic and report back to me as soon as possible. Thank you."
The good people from "Supporters of the Public Library" have a firm grasp on this concept and have already taken positive steps to get something done (http://savelbpl.blogspot.com/). This looks like a very good place to start.
So how about it, Long Beach...are you ready to stop whining and start taking affirmative control of your government again?
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
John B, you obviously do not have a firm grasp of the concept, since you don't have any idea where the 10 million dollars to make the Library safe to inhabit will come from. You may also want to educate yourself regarding the bond measures for schools and infrastructure currently being put on the ballot in November, costing home owners 1.5 billion. A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon we're talking about real money, John. Where's it going to come from? This goes right back to the main issue. Long Beach is an undeclared sanctuary city for illegal aliens. You're asking for not only current citizens to reach down in their pockets to help serve as a welfare annex to Mexico, you're also asking our children and grandchildren to pitch in to make sure Juan can read. So we're back to square one. Nobody I know want's to add $60 to every $100K to their property tax bill. Would you like to take on their share, John? If not, why not? Because you don't make enough money to support that plan? Welcome to Long Beach, John. I'm sure Mars was fun for you, but now you have to be an adult, and make adult decisions so you don't wind up homeless. First things first: a strict budget, right? Close the main library, until Long Beach can get it's act together regarding the continuing support of illegals by refusing to enact local city ordinances to reduce illegals nesting here. It's time for an intervention. Long Beach loves to keep and exploit Illegals like crack.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Howard X:
how come my mexican neighbors……. hehe never mind! so the 11% nationwide statistic isnt correct? jeez i just told this racist he’s been talking out of his ass too…. _________________
I think we can all agree that you're an ignorant ass, you don't do research, or think things through, and there's not much point to you. Once you embrace these facts. you might choose to post less, but then you wouldn't be an ignorant ass, would you?
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Kelson:
It was all about *regular* normal mortgages using the inflated equity estimates as collateral. I wish these boneheads would stop channeling Lou Dobbs for just one minute and use their stinking heads. __________________________________
Wrong again, you ignorant ass. Subprime mortages converted to derivative instruments are the primary cause of the failure of small and significant banks. The federal government just bailed out freddie and fannie. If it hadn't, the largest subprime mortgage facilities in the United States would be bankrupt. The reason I generally avoid interacting with you and the like, is because the "debate" quickly turns into a lecture. I'm not here to teach your stupid ignorant ass.
However, since I'm feeling charitable today, I'll get you started on the road to not embarrassing yourself with your inane gibberish:
There's more. A lot more. But let me just sum up. Bush, and congress put pressure on banks to get minorities in homes, apparently by any means necessary. To facilitate this "request," banks "hired" mortgage brokers (ex car salesmen) to make it happen, while they tried to "protect" themselves by creating financial instruments called "derivatives" to "lower the risk," which it didn't do, because it defied logic. Nobody wanted to hear it back in 2005 when informed financial experts were wailing about it. Not politicians, not banks, certainly not the mortgage brokers or minority benificiariies. It was no coincidence when Wells Fargo and Bank of America declared that they would allow illegal immigrant bank accounts using tax ID numbers at the same time banks were hiring the mortgage brokers. Even they wouldn't loan to someone with at least a bank account. Tons of illegals bought into homes. They were more formidable than the "house flippers" in terms of home price increases. House flippers were riding the wave made possible by fannie and freddie. And it wasn't just illegals, but minorities across the board who bought into homes they couldn't afford the second they signed the mortgage, so that Politicians could answer special interest groups harping about lack of minority home ownership. They claimed discrimination by lenders, when the fact was, their members simply couldn't afford it. Hope this clears some heads about where we are, and where we're going. Oh, and one more thing, the IndyMac bailout took, if memory serves, at least a quarter of all the funds available to the FDIC to insure all banks. FDIC just warned 4 more banks that they were on the brink of insolvency. Conclusion: Learn to balance a checkbook, realize money shouldn't be printed by the fed to solve all economic issues, including Mexico's welfare cases, and learn to say "no. I can't afford it," instead of "print more money." Printing money always causes inflation, which is the tax government levies to all citizens so they can get their money without causing a massive tax revolt, or worse. Oldest game in town.
John_B
· 1 year ago
B. Albert (78): Yes, I’ve followed your various comments in this string and I must say you’ve proven yourself to be quite adept at making assumptions about people and then insulting them. While that approach to dialog might be entertaining for you, personally, it really does nothing to further a constructive, respectful discourse on the topic at hand.
Illegal immigration certainly has an adverse impact on our infrastructure. An impact that spreads out like a ripple in a pond until very few aspects of our society are not adversely affected in some way. But it’s quite a leap from that axiom to “illegal aliens are taking librarian’s jobs”.
Likewise your mischaracterization of the main library as “a facility that isn’t used because so many of its occupants can’t read above sixth grade level” is at once ill-considered, overly-simplistic and extremely naive. If you have actually used the main library then you’ve deliberately mischaracterized the vast majority of others who use it. If you have not used the main library then you really shouldn’t presume to describe those of us who do. In either case you’re patently inaccurate. Then again, perhaps you were speaking autobiographically.
Now to your comments to me: I have a slightly firmer grasp on the situation than you allege. It is not a function of the electorate to identify tactics for its elected and appointed officials. The electorate sets priorities, policies and objectives and we then elect and appoint others to carry out those policies and objectives based upon the priorities we have set. In short, we decide what’s to be done, and in what order, and we then elect and appoint others to get it done.
Limitations exist, of course.
We are limited, for example, by the federal, state and local laws that govern us and by the budget we must work within. There exists no law that dictates that we must close the main library. So we turn to the budget. The proposed FY09 budget is $3.1 Billion. Within that proposed budget, funds are allocated to sustain many diverse programs and services. I contend that there are many such programs and services that could be either reduced or eliminated altogether to permit us to both repair and then to maintain the main library.
If a majority of the electorate (i.e. those in charge) identify the main library as a priority over other programs and services and then direct our elected and appointed officials (i.e. the people who work for us) to provide us with viable alternatives that reflect our priorities, then I assure you it will be done. Because that’s the way a Representative Republic works, B. Albert…the power resides with the people as represented by the electorate and we delegate certain authority to our elected and appointed officials to carry out our collective will within the law.
I understand your frustration with continuing and increasing illegal immigration. Truly I do. That you choose to express that frustration so offensively is, just that, your choice. But I happen to believe that there are other programs and services that should be reduced or eliminated long before we should even consider the closure of our main library.
The power is ours, B. Albert. All we need do is make our collective will clearly known and our elected and appointed officials *must* abide by it or risk our replacing them with others who will.
Democracy isn’t necessarily easy, but it really is just that simple.
Elwood P. Dowd
· 1 year ago
B. Albert has taken up so much of his time explaining things here that it really isn't fair to him.
<<>> The millions spent in support of illegal aliens and their children are millions that must be cut from the budget elsewhere. That seems pretty simple to understand. This would include the money for paying librarians.
<<>> People who don't read don't need a library--especially if it's full of books written in a foreign language used by people they are supplanting. As a heavy user of the main library I can tell you it provides more bang for the buck than any other city expenditure I know of--outside of possibly the water dept. or police and fire--all of whom are overpaid. It is one of the few city run institutions I am relatively satisfied with.
I know a number of "illegals" and personally like them as people, incidentally, probably moreso than the average citizen. One is a widowed woman in her late 30's who makes a living doing janitorial work at a rate of about $12/hr. She owns a modest house here she's lived in for several years and through her bank (WAMU) also bought one on spec in Utah that appreciated dramatically after her purchase. Her bank then convinced her to buy yet another Utah property in 2005. I observed this situation develop and warned her that this sort of thing must necessarily end badly for everyone but she listened to her banker friends and now faces foreclosures since $12/hr is not adequate to meet obligations in a market that has discovered limits. She is not the only illegal I know who has played the real estate market. Many people now want to be helped out with "gov't action"--which means, of course, that I should pay more taxes to bail them out even though I've been priced out of the real estate market for many years now since I have insisted on being fiscally responsible. My new higher taxes (even if in the form of higher rent my landlord will charge to pay his higher taxes) are partially to be used to artifically support the housing prices that prevent me from actually buying a house of my own. Why buy a house in a country run by crazy people anyway? I don't really blame illegals for this problem. I blame the citizens and politicians of this country who refuse to take the time to find out what is going on. I blame the knee-jerk reactionaries who want to constantly call reasonable people names like "racist fucks" for pointing out what should already be obvious to a logical mind.
howardx
· 1 year ago
b. albert regardless, youre still talking out your ass.
LB City Girl
· 1 year ago
B Albert is an idiot.
Blaming our society's ills, the closing of the library and the country's mortgage crisis on illegal aliens is the stupidest political commentary I have heard in a long time. Personally attitudes like his/hers are more likely the real cause of our problems.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Elwood:
"I don’t really blame illegals for this problem. I blame the citizens and politicians of this country who refuse to take the time to find out what is going on. I blame the knee-jerk reactionaries who want to constantly call reasonable people names like “racist fucks” for pointing out what should already be obvious to a logical mind."
I agree and appreciate every single thing you said. I'm not at all against immigration. I am against people bum rushing the border, simply because they can. That's not how it works in any country but this one, and for good reason. It used to be that an immigrant needed a sponsor, who put up a bond on the immigrants behalf, and to a degree they agreed to be their guide to full citizenship. THAT type of process, I'm completely and passionately down with. The way it is now, it's going to, amongst many negative things, undermine our fiscal credit, and viability as a world currency. We aren't backed by gold anymore. The only thing we have is the merit of our currency, and the goods and services it represents. We can't keep printing money. We just can't. We will have a "crash" that will make 1929 look like a victorian picnic. This goes back to city services in general, and the main library in particular. As great as it was, or may still be, the fiscal irresponsibility of prior administrations have pulled the rug out from under it. The 10 million estimated (and it's ALWAYS more than they initially claim) is needed because prior city government leaders didn't fix maintenance problems as they came up. Seems a bit odd to me. Makes me wonder why. Makes me think there was a bigger plan afoot in the first place. Which takes me to John B.'s assertion that the city is run by the people. Sorry... no. The city, like most cities of any significance, is run first by property developers, then the local unions. Out of that, scraps are left for city council to flatter themselves, and to dupe you. Anyone who believes otherwise is naive, and it will distort their world view for the worse. Finally, back to immigration, it's not a racial matter. It's a culture and assimilation matter, connected to the way human beings operate. If you let tons of people from one particular culture in at once, they will tend to not easily assimilate simply because they don't have to. They will then objectify the host culture for their own ends, the the host culture suffers. The amount of people illegally immigrating now is unprecedented in human history. Anyone taking the pro side of illegal immigration, or even being neutral, is either a La Raza lacky, or is absolutely ignorant, and/or paralyzed by being considered politically incorrect by people incapable of thinking for themselves, or doing any objective research whatsoever. I think most Latino's are prime candidates for assimilating into American life, and would be a credit to this country. But not the way we're doing it now. Let's see.. what did I forget... oh, the main library. Close it. We can't afford it, and it won't be used under our current circumstances to validate the cost right now. If Bill Gates, or Oprah wants to send us a check, we can re-evaluate. If Oprah funds it, I promise I'll show up on the show, and cry.
The old National Lampoon magazine cover showing the revolver aimed at the nice doggie's head with the admonition to buy the copy or be responsible for the execution of the pooch is an apt comparison for the announcement that the main library must be closed unless (it is implied) higher taxes are voted in. It's all about, as they cynically say, "the children". I suggest, for the children's sake, we stand up on our hind feet and say NO to this despicable blackmail and demand a city leadership that is not utterly contemptible. Cut your damn salaries and exhibit some public shame for your abject failure before even expecting the time of day from the citizenry. Stop giving money and favors to the people who are giving YOU money for influence. Politicians on the take are the lowest form of life imaginable. Better yet, just get out of the offices you have disgraced. The people hate you.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Btw, howardx, every time you open your mouth, you stick your foot in it. The library you cited in comment 7, to "debunk" my claim that there is no "main library" in Tijuana was a failure for you, since the library is not a "main library," rather, it's located on a university campus. I'm sorry you are in such a social environment in real life, that you talking out of your sweaty fat behind is considered a social contribution of some kind. In this forum, I'm afraid that talking out of your fat sweaty behind, is no more than that, and what in real life may be met with approbation from your fat, sweaty-butted peers, will only be met here with derisiive laughter, finger-pointing, and plausible theories regarding your early relationship with your mother, you, and thalidomide.
howardx
· 1 year ago
oh my! a racist doesnt like me! oh no! that just means im doing something right.
howardx
· 1 year ago
ps b albert
your reading comprehension may not be all that you think it is, regardless of location that is a public library in tijuana, one that you claimed didnt exist.
kdog
· 1 year ago
Back to the library. If they want it closed it will probably close. Has anyone read the PT articles? Who pays them anyway - the city? Also, if you look at the articles closely they all say "West said that a temporary satellite location with homework helpers, computers and other resources might be used in the interim, though he had few details Friday." West always uses the word "may" or "might." It's kind of how like your boss would say: We may give you a raise this year. You might even get a bonus. Do you think either one would happen?
Mike Ruehle
· 1 year ago
Besides losing a valuable community resource, it bothers me that Mayor Foster is using the Library closing as a way to force his $571 million infrastructure bond down resident’s throats. To get our library back, residents will have to vote for Mayor Foster’s infrastructure bond proposal. Seems like extortion to me.
The Mayor and City Council have been in office for 2 years now. They are ½ way through their terms as our elected leaders and only now seem to grasp the economic difficulties Long Beach faces. I question why we are faced with infrastructure bond elections, school bond elections and library closings at a time when property values are decreasing and unemployment is increasing. Is this a joke? These issues were foreseen and talked about for years. True leaders should have been preparing our City for the worst without having to shut down libraries. We should expect better than extortion from our elected officials. I am disappointed.
kelson
· 1 year ago
Bea Albert was also talking out of his ass in blaming all them illegals and their subprime mortgages for our mess of an economy:
B. Albert (85): I am neither naïve nor duped, as you erroneously assert. I am, in fact, quite clear on how our republic and, by extension, our city is intended to work. Please take notes as necessary:
Our nation is a republic and our U.S. Constitution guarantees a republican form of government to each state (Article IV, Section 4).
The California Constitution declares that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land (Article 3, Section 1) and assures that the people *have the right to instruct their representatives* (emphasis added) (Article 1, Section 3).
The City Charter specifies that the City shall have all powers possible for a City to have under the Constitution and laws of the State of California (Section 109).
Thus, B. Albert, the people do, indeed, “run the city”. The problem is not that we do not “run the city” (and the state and the nation), but that we seem to have forgotten that we do. We have forgotten that our local, state and federal governments are intended to be representative and that they are intended to be responsive to the expressed will of a majority of the people in their jurisdictions within the confines of established law.
B. Albert, if you have been duped into believing otherwise, it’s because you have allowed yourself to be. That you believe that our city must be run by “property developers and local unions” is a demonstration of your naiveté and not my own.
Do not state such nonsense as fact, B. Albert. Rather state your belief in this as what it is; the product of your submissive acquiescence to those who would have you believe that they have re-made our constitution in their own image.
I assure you they have not done so, but they seem to have managed to convince you that they have. They do not possess that power, no matter how willing you and others may be to cede it to them.
You can be a better citizen than that, B. Albert.
We all can be.
Andy
· 1 year ago
B. Albert only votes or attends council meetings when there's a ballot initiative on building fences and sterilizing visitors without return visas. Or when Mom lets him use the car.
And, sorry B. Albert, I'm a dude, but you can keep fantasizing about me as your mail order bride (#65)...though most women I know would hand you your tighty-whitey ass if you think feminine=whiny and bitchy and ditsy.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Kelson:
Bea Albert was also talking out of his ass in blaming all them illegals and their subprime mortgages for our mess of an economy: http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?ke... Oh no! He’s an ignoramus on all subjects! _________________________________
Hmmm. some forced, if not silly conclusions in the study. That's so odd. Kelson said it debunked my claim held by so many others who understand the market.
Hold on... what have we here?
"The research was partly funded by the Homer Hoyt Institute, Freddie Mac, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Association of Realtors’ Subprime Crisis Research Consortium."
Oookay. He's citing a paper from the towering business minds at Irvine, claiming whoever else is responsible, Freddie Mac is lookin' good! The research paper received funded by special interest groups, including... Freddie Mac! Freddie Mac wants you to know they took a look at things, and found that Freddie Mac is a great organization. Kelson also declined to "debunk" my claim that mortgage brokers gave loans to illegals via tax identification numbers made popular by such banks as Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. He also found he was over his head dealing with where those mortgages ended up after being transfered as "derivative intruments" to such faraway banks as Northern Rock. People who read the news may recall Northern Rock went belly up, and required the Bank of England to bail them out.
Conclusion: Kelson is qualifiably cerebrally challenged, and should avoid the "submit comment" button in general, and stop using me as a tool to make a fool out of himself, in particular.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Howardx:
your reading comprehension may not be all that you think it is, regardless of location that is a public library in tijuana, one that you claimed didnt exist. _____________________________
1. Read my initial post again. 2. Look for the term "main library," 3. Get an attorney 4. Find your high school english teacher. 5. Sue him/her for breach of the public trust.
howardx
· 1 year ago
typical weasel move. you are unworthy of my continued attention.
Dr. C. G. Jung
· 1 year ago
howardx--"typical weasel move. you are unworthy of my continued attention."
Translation: You've kicked my candy ass on everything I've tried to put by you and I wish I'd never heard the name B. Albert.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Thank you, Carl. I've always enjoyed your work, and I believe you should be required reading, beginning in grade school.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
Oh no! Special interest groups! Oh no! Anyone want to guess who's paying for Dr. Albert's studies? Thankfully we know Dr. Albert stays away from all of modern medicine, since the studies that are used are all funded by special interests.
When Dr. Albert learns some arithmetic AND reading then we'll suddenly have an expert in both economics and libraries in our midst.
howardx
· 1 year ago
"I don’t think there is a “main library” in Tijuana." does that mean you thought there were branch libraries but no main one or does it mean, like i and everyone else thought, that you doubted the existance of ANY library in tijuana? pretty clintonesque trying to weasel out of that. bringing in sockpuppets to make it seem like you have support is another weasel move, again you are unworthy of mine and anyone else here's attention.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
So we see, in Howardx's world, a "main library" means "all libraries," just as "father" means "all family members," or "CEO" means "all employees."
What we also see is why some people get a score of 120 on a standard IQ test, while others only achieve a score of 90.
btw, here's my pet theory about IQ as it relates to comments sections.
In an IQ test, which is about pattern recognition, some people will not only come up with the wrong conclusion, they will not even understand the question as stated in the IQ test.
So our comments sections are log-jammed with these people who aren't qualified to comment, since they don't even understand that they don't understand what they're trying to talk about.
This is also why our founding father's decreed that the choice of who will become President will be decided by an electorate, and not by "the people," aka, "the clay of the earth," aka "people of the land," because they knew intuitively what we can now prove scientifically:
Many people are simply too intellectually limited to know how intellectually limited they are, and are too neurotic to admit it, even if they did.
btw, around 2002, Fannie Mae began a home mortgage program designed to provide mortgage loans specifically to illegal aliens.
It worked like this: Fannie Mae says it believes in fighting all kinds of "discrimination" in mortgage lending. In addition to fighting the discrimination rational lenders felt towards giving a mortgage to someone with no down payment and a low income, they have started a program in their "Border Region" called the "NCLR Pilot Program." As Fannie Mae noted on its own website, that's now seems conspicuously absent:
"National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Pilot A pilot developed with NCLR to address barriers to homeownership for Hispanic communities. It waives the requirement that borrowers provide evidence of permanent resident alien cards and allows for a down payment of the lesser of $1,000 or 3 percent. "
It really hit high gear in 2005:
"The Arizona Border Initiative will serve low- to moderate-income minority families, immigrants, migrant farm workers, Native Americans, and other underserved populations in border communities. The initiative will incorporate a multi-pronged approach that leverages Fannie Mae's complete array of single-family, multifamily and community development financing options."
Homeownership — New Mortgage Opportunities. To address specific geographic housing challenges, two new mortgage pilots have been created to reach and serve local home buyers, allowing them to refinance and renovate substandard housing, which is a major concern in rural communities in Pima County, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border. Also, new mortgage financing options for Native Americans and for manufactured housing will be pursued.
Border Region MyCommunityMortgageTM pilot offers expanded credit flexibilities that address unique credit issues of low-income border populations who experience high rates of unpaid medical collections, and lack credit histories. As part of the pilot, unpaid medical collections that do not exceed $5,000 will no longer be considered when determining creditworthiness for a conventional mortgage loan, and a Verification of Rent form from landlords will be accepted to demonstrate consistent payment practices, instead of 12 months of canceled checks that are normally required to substantiate a borrower's rental payment history. These flexibilities are available with all the Border Region pilots.
Border Region Sweat Equity pilot allows borrowers to contribute labor, or sweat equity, in lieu of a cash contribution, to pay for as much as 25 percent of the purchase of the as-completed value of the home.
For Native Americans, Fannie Mae will continue to purchase Section 184 loans, and will work with tribal housing entities and other partners to bring conventional lending opportunities to Indian Country.
For manufactured housing, new options will allow borrowers to buy with no money down and no mortgage insurance requirement. As part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing loan program, a borrower can also receive 100 percent financing. Fannie Mae purchases USDA Guaranteed Rural Housing Loans from approved lenders.
The rest, as they say, is history, and now that the craziness has subsided, regular middle-class homeowners, who played by the rules of common sense, get stuck with the bill via the fed printing money to bail out freddie and fannie's scheme to give houses to illegal immigrants, which means high interest and rapid inflation.
And in other news, Obama would like us to learn how to speak spanish, and Kelson is still an ignorant moron.
Film at 11.
Robert Jung (AKA Jim Anderson)
· 1 year ago
howardx B. Albert clearly needs no sockpuppets.
Kelson
· 1 year ago
If only Bea Albert put so much effort into finding a real job, instead of "Self-Employed Intertubes Troll..."
btw, around 2002, Fannie Mae began a home mortgage program designed to provide mortgage loans specifically to illegal aliens.
It worked like this: Fannie Mae says it believes in fighting all kinds of "discrimination" in mortgage lending. In addition to fighting the discrimination rational lenders felt towards giving a mortgage to someone with no down payment and a low income, they have started a program in their "Border Region" called the "NCLR Pilot Program." As Fannie Mae noted on its own website, that's now seems conspicuously absent:
"National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Pilot A pilot developed with NCLR to address barriers to homeownership for Hispanic communities. It waives the requirement that borrowers provide evidence of permanent resident alien cards and allows for a down payment of the lesser of $1,000 or 3 percent. "
It really hit high gear in 2005:
"The Arizona Border Initiative will serve low- to moderate-income minority families, immigrants, migrant farm workers, Native Americans, and other underserved populations in border communities. The initiative will incorporate a multi-pronged approach that leverages Fannie Mae's complete array of single-family, multifamily and community development financing options."
Homeownership — New Mortgage Opportunities. To address specific geographic housing challenges, two new mortgage pilots have been created to reach and serve local home buyers, allowing them to refinance and renovate substandard housing, which is a major concern in rural communities in Pima County, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border. Also, new mortgage financing options for Native Americans and for manufactured housing will be pursued.
Border Region MyCommunityMortgageTM pilot offers expanded credit flexibilities that address unique credit issues of low-income border populations who experience high rates of unpaid medical collections, and lack credit histories. As part of the pilot, unpaid medical collections that do not exceed $5,000 will no longer be considered when determining creditworthiness for a conventional mortgage loan, and a Verification of Rent form from landlords will be accepted to demonstrate consistent payment practices, instead of 12 months of canceled checks that are normally required to substantiate a borrower's rental payment history. These flexibilities are available with all the Border Region pilots.
Border Region Sweat Equity pilot allows borrowers to contribute labor, or sweat equity, in lieu of a cash contribution, to pay for as much as 25 percent of the purchase of the as-completed value of the home.
For Native Americans, Fannie Mae will continue to purchase Section 184 loans, and will work with tribal housing entities and other partners to bring conventional lending opportunities to Indian Country.
For manufactured housing, new options will allow borrowers to buy with no money down and no mortgage insurance requirement. As part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing loan program, a borrower can also receive 100 percent financing. Fannie Mae purchases USDA Guaranteed Rural Housing Loans from approved lenders.
The rest, as they say, is history, and now that the craziness has subsided, regular middle-class homeowners, who played by the rules of common sense, get stuck with the bill via the fed printing money to bail out freddie and fannie's scheme to give houses to illegal immigrants, which means high interest and rapid inflation.
And in other news, Obama would like us to learn how to speak spanish, and Kelson is still an vainglorious ignorant moron. Learn why here:
B Albert, you are merely repeating yourself in long and laborious fashion. We all understand now that you are a prejudiced hater of "illegal aliens." Please move on. It's possible that there may be the slightest glimmer of intelligence somewhere in your skull, but unfortunately you lack the kind of vision it takes to discuss our society's real problems in any way that results in a solution.
Your rhetoric is poison, and ignorant.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
JB, okay, we got it! You have no ideas of your own, but once in a while, you feel the need to bleat like the tired old sheep you are. Is being boring depressing for you? I'd imagine it would be. People nodding their heads in agreement to some stupid notion of yours, then telling you they're going to the bathroom, and they'll be right back, and... they never come back, do they "JB"? They never come back. never come back.
Andy
· 1 year ago
"Illegal immigration is a contributing cause of the civic budget crisis that affects our cities' ability to support its infrastructure."
How's that? Now you can just go.
Then there's no need for you to assert that Mexicans don't read, that the liberal government conspires against the oppressed white taxpayer, or that women are whiny airheads. Which you did.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
How's that? Andy, you're through here, you've run out of contributions, so why not take your rusty-tin, podunk, Iowa-by-the-sea self out of the game? It's getting embarrassing. Next you'll be citing "quotable quotes' from the Reader's Digest. I don't want to see you stoop that low for your next inspired contribution. Go out for a walk. Talk to a girl, even. Well, that may be going too far, but you know, do something else now.
Andy
· 1 year ago
No, B. Albert, just offering you a dignified bone that would allow you to skulk out of the room...bruised, belittled, and befuddled.
But, like the 2-year old refusing to go bed after the lights are out, you'll keep screaming your tired song, even as no one is there to listen.
So you don't like Reader's Digest? What are you? Some kind of elitist?
Kelson
· 1 year ago
We could just let Bea Albert have the last word. Albert's comments haven't added any factual material to the discussion so let's just let them float off like the flatulence that clears out a room?
Monsieur Candide
· 1 year ago
This library boondoogle is just the latest scheme to enrich the insiders at the expense of the public. It’s wonderous to me that so many are ready to buy into the absurd “turd” accessment of the facility. The building leaks when it rains. OK. You remove the dirt and debris from the roof and seal it. You don’t spend millions to tear it down or remodel it–especially since it means there will effectively be no library until taxpayers are browbeat and guilt tripped into spending more mega-millions to replace something they already own. What exactly is wrong with the people in this community that they can’t think for themselves anymore? What percentage of the population thinks it a good idea to pay Acre’s of Books 2.8 million dollars to go away? Why is the main library suddenly a “turd” that needs abandonment? Sometimes I wonder if something isn’t being put into the drinking water around here. People wouldn’t knowingly take Stupid Pills, would they? Think of what, if you MUST spend money we don’t have, we could spend it on that makes SENSE!
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Well what we've learned aside from this discussion, Andy wants you to know, is that Andy likes fart jokes. It's the compromise intellect makes with a retarded emotional life. He must be the king of comedy at the LBCC cafeteria.
B. Albert
· 1 year ago
Andy:
So you don’t like Reader’s Digest? What are you? Some kind of elitist? __________________________________
So why have you never kissed a girl, Andy? Some kind of elitist?
kdog
· 1 year ago
Hey idiots! Go post somewhere else.
Andy
· 1 year ago
OK. I'm at the Creama coffee shop between 6 and 7 every morning. I'll post from there.
All Comments
Uh... no. It would be like a podunk beach town, with a tradition of incompetent city leadership. A town overrun with illegal aliens, many who drop out before graduating high school, closing down a facility that isn't used because so many of it's occupants can't read above sixth grade level.
The problem with our "diversity is good" advocates is that with unmanaged diversity, there comes a price. In this case, the closing of community learning and reading centers.
I don't think there is a "main library" in Tijuana. If you import millions of people from that mentality, why is there surprise with the affected community reflects that mentality?
In Mexico, we have a longstanding failed government infrastructure. If the United States didn't give them loans they will never pay back, as well as a means for Mexicans to send money back to their country, Mexico would be awash in blood and human misery.
Why should we be surprised when our standard of living goes down, as Long Beach's unassimilated Mexican population goes up?
That being said, the Main Library really is a disaster, as is City Hall. I hope they turn the entire area back into the park it was before and was always meant to be.
As for the Main Library, I think the library could be downsized into a more virtual space with the books stored in a warehouse somewhere to be delivered to the branches when requested. The Main Library itself could be more of a meeting/computer/reference space. Think windows, coffee shop, etc. More of a Borders vibe? Yikes, but maybe that's the way to go.
When I was in high school, I would ditch class and hop on the bus downtown. That's were I was educated. In row after row of books.
Hints of library closures are likely just another one of their duplicitous good-cop-bad-cop tactics (combining reassuring and friendly overt smiles with tacit arm-twisting) to induce the taxpayers this November to rubber stamp their (also secretively hatched and sprung) 'infrastructure' bond.
This approach is indeed, as the first comment put it, just one more instance of a 'podunk ...town ... incompetent city leadership'. But, contra other parts of that comment, aliens (legal or otherwise) and diversity are not the problem.
Ambitious immigrants (and others) indeed are a great reason FOR the library. On this, commentator Schlarb is not alone. When brought from Ukraina to the USA at the age of ten, my parents got sustained education not only in the public schools but very importantly - and for more years - in the main Milwaukee Public Library (main). I credit my mother's successful decades-delayed enrollment into and completion of BA studies in her late forties (at UC Berkeley) to the fact that she had this library access in her twenties.
The Main Branch is, after all and first of all, the Downtown neighborhood branch. It's one of the amenities that people tacitly assume they are getting when they buy those expensive condos. And to boot it supplies special services to various non-geographic city 'neighborhoods'. So it's fallacious to argue that other neighborhood branches can painlessly fill in for Main.
Moreover (maybe second after Acres) for most residents Main is the city's best unstructured non-virtual book-browsing experience. So, before arbitrarily deciding that big libraries (or even big open-browse warehouses of books, of any kind) should be passe, we need a discussion on how important and exactly how much unstructured non-virtual browsing we want to keep, and what is its value. Maybe not as much as we used to think, but maybe more than some people credit.
In general, as suggested by the conclusion of Dave's comment, we need discussion on 'the way to go'. I agree that nowadays most of the time (apart from an opportunity to lose oneself in hours of unstructured browsing), perhaps the most useful (as well as thereby busiest) book 'stores' and 'libraries' are being redefined to certain kinds of experience places, for coffee-snacks-conversation-computers-and books. I saw it happening, even twenty years ago, well before widespread Internet, when I lived on the Monterey Peninsula. It didn't take a B&N or Borders to succeed: you could be a large or small one-outlet enterprise, e.g. Thunderbird Cafe/Bookstore (Carmel) and Bookworks (Pacific Grove).
I commend this bold move because it will help the city twofold. First, it will create an immediate need to plan for rebuilding or relocating downtown's library (Bond measure anyone?). Second, it will give students and everyone else back the library hours across the city that have been lacking for way too long... many kids don't have computers and suffer when libraries are closed on Sundays, and Mondays and Tuesdays.
When I was in school I took the bus to downtown to go to the main library - even people in semi-close neighborhoods took the bus there. Now we'll take the bus to another one for a while. No biggie.
C'mon Long Beach, be brave enough to do the right thing... support this plan to work toward getting a better library downtown.
TIJUANA INAUGURATES NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY
Tijuana brought in the 2003 holiday season with the inauguration on December 5th of the Loyola Public Library on the campus of
the Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) in Playas de Tijuana. The event, attended by over 300 people from both San Diego and
Tijuana, featured a special holiday concert by the Youth Orchestra of Baja California and a border-related photographic exhibition
on loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art-San Diego.
The library, developed at a cost of $2.1 million with 38,000 volumes and 250
computer workstations, is the first major library to be constructed in Tijuana
that will have full access for the public. This state-of-the-art library
project was made possible thanks to the vision, leadership and tireless fundraising
and project management efforts of UIA’s Father David Ungerleider,
who spearheaded the two-year campaign from conception to completion.
http://www.icfdn.org/enewsletter/4thqtr2003.pdf
too bad racism makes you stupid, you could have googled this yourself and saved yourself the embarrassment
Some people are lamenting the fact that kids won't be able to get to another branch to use, but well, there are city buses after all, and people who live near the outer branches don't get to use them fully on the weekends becuase they're often closed, so maybe it's time to utilize the branch libraries more.
And I imagine that librarians and library staff are not going to be fired, but will rather be reassigned to the different branches. And if a new Main Library is built, there will be more than enough work for every member of the library staff for a long time to come.
Taxpayers should be feeling absolutely homicidal about one segment of the populous--the political class that runs this pathetic burg.
If we really are in trouble then why are we hiring more police officers, and building new fire stations. Can't the firemen just sleep in their trucks, or take the trucks home and take turns having sleepovers.
"Hints of library closures are likely just another one of their duplicitous good-cop-bad-cop tactics (combining reassuring and friendly overt smiles with tacit arm-twisting) to induce the taxpayers this November to rubber stamp their (also secretively hatched and sprung) ‘infrastructure’ bond."
Agreed Joe, agreed...
Dave's comment about the "residentially challenged" (post #8) provided me with a lil' food for thought. Not that I'm cynical or anything; but the downtown businesses and condo dwellers have long complained about the Lincoln Park campers - perhaps this is part of Foster and West's plan to discourage the homeless from congregating in the downtown area? Maybe this initiative is intended to serve additional purposes? Closure of the main library may cause a few transients to move on if they found themselves deprived of hot and cold running water in which to maintain personal hygiene; private restroom stalls to do whatever it is one does in private (legal or otherwise); and a (reasonably) safe place to catch 40 winks out of the elements... at least in my conspiratorial mind...
"The IQs of the races…can be explained as having arisen from the different environments in which they evolved, and in particular from the ice ages in the northern hemisphere exerting selection pressures for greater intelligence for survival during cold winters; and in addition from the appearance of mutations for higher intelligence appearing in the races with the larger populations and under the greatest cold stress. The IQ differences between the races explain the differences in achievement in making the Neolithic transition from hunter-gathering to settled agriculture, the building of early civilizations, and the development of mature civilizations during the last two thousand years. The position of environmentalists that over the course of some 100,000 years peoples separated by geographical barriers in different parts of the world evolved into ten different races with pronounced genetic differences in morphology, blood groups, and the incidence of genetic diseases, and yet have identical genotypes for intelligence, is so improbable that those who advance it must either be totally ignorant of the basic principles of evolutionary biology or else have a political agenda to deny the importance of race. Or both."
You need to visit a library, Howard. Your ignorance it pathetic.
I won't go into the tourist warnings that have been issued by the American Consulate to avoid Tijuana due to the widespread executions, kidnappings, and gunfights that are running rampant in your favorite library equipped city.
However, I do hope you'll ignore the warnings, and go down there to visit for a week or more, real soon.
Just because some of you don't see Mexicans unless you're ordering a Big Mac, doesn't mean they aren't having a profound cultural and financial influence in Long Beach.
The building is what's wrong with the Main Library, it's a mess; it was badly designed and poorly maintained. But we do need a library downtown. Most of the branches are small, understaffed and under stocked and the idea is now to further strain this already overburdened system? This makes no sense.
What amazes me the most is that this city still wants to pretend to care about literacy and education, i.e. the annual 'Long Beach Reads One Book' and Smithsonian Week.
First they’re running Acres of Books out of town and now they don't see the value of a downtown library?
What will they recommend next, burning books to keep warm this winter?
Long Beach is ruled by the port.
The port is run by unions.
Unions want construction. Blind construction. Tear down Acres, tear down anything.
As a liberal democrat this is baffling to me. I feel betrayed.
The dichotomy of life. It is harsh. I can't register this whole good/bad thing.
(Meet me at Fern's for drinks, bring singles for the j'box)
Love,
Dumb Dude.
care to provide a link for the "information" you posted? im sure its from some discredited source of the kind so loved by life's losers who need a scapegoat to blame their own lack of status on.
Do we truly need to get all up in arms about what amounts to nothing more, at this point, than a rumor? Must we peck and snipe at one another about everything from illegal immigration to homelessness to wholesale staff layoffs in reaction to a hypothetical?
Would Mayor Foster ever seriously suggest closing down the main library? Perhaps he would, but at this point most probably only in the context of tossing out options for serious consideration. With a structural deficit that is likely to get far worse before it gets noticeably better, very little in the way of savings recommendations is actually off the table.
Fact: Becky Ames is quoted as saying "We are in active discussions about *relocating* the Main Library to another site in downtown" and "We are going to make libraries available to more folks near their homes and still meet the acute needs of people in this area for computer access. Every neighborhood library in the city is going to go to seven days and extend their hours to longer than they ever have been before."
Fact: Gerrie Schipske is reported to have said that she and other members of the Council were recently told by city management that there was a *proposal* to close the Main Library to the general public.
Fact: Assistant City Manager Suzanne M. Frick has reportedly said that the location next to City Hall would continue to house city archives and the library system's administrative staff, but the reduced functions should also reduce costs and that the Main Library is still going to “be the mother ship" (whatever that means).
My point is simply this: How about we wait and see what the budget proposals actually *are* once they are officially revealed? Once they *are* revealed let’s try to retain some perspective and recall that they are *proposals only* and subject to Council modification prior to approval?
The Mayor, the Council, the City Manager and all of those they hire on our behalf to manage our city all answer to us, or should. To the degree that they do not is not their failing, but our own. If *we* don’t want any changes made to the main library then changes will not be made. It’s really as simple as that…
…or should be.
I just realized. When Acres of Books is bulldozed...when it is bulldozed, Long Beach will be giving up its soul.
It is going to be a DIFFERENT Long Beach.
That is what we know.
Snow Cones and first grade looks.
Apple pie and Gatorade.
Oh my.
What have we made.
If we wait until we hear something official it will be too late. We need to let our voices be heard before they tell us what they want to happen. When the government lets you know something it's usually too late to stop it. The decisions should be out in the open not behind closed doors. BY the way, do you trust the City Council? I don't. I believe they will try to appease the mayor. Remember, the Mayor's Office told them that hours and resources in their district's will increase. So, why would they fight the mayor's plan?
Also, let's make the council meetings on something important like this a little easier to attend. How many people can go to a 5:00 meeting on a Tuesday?
“Letting our voices be heard” (by our elected and appointed officials) should be something we do loudly and continuously and not in fits and starts each time someone at City Hall or Congress or the White House sees fit to send up a trial balloon.
My admonition was not against making our voices heard but, rather, against being concerned about falling chunks of hypothetical sky and about attacking one another in writing when nothing official on a matter has yet to be released to us.
And it *will* be released to us, kdog, because by law it *must* be.
As to your question; I mistrust government at any level and concerning anything right up until it has carried out its constitutional mandate to represent a majority of us as directed. At that point it has done what we have created it to do for us (weather I personally agree with a given decision or not) and my mistrust thus diminshes.
You see I do not, as many people seem to, see government as our enemy. I see government as nothing more or less than that which we (the electorate) permit it to become. If our government, at any level, proves untrustworthy, it’s because we have tolerated its untrustworthiness without taking swift and decisive action to correct that flaw.
Our government remains representative (and trustworthy and efficient and just and cost-effective, etc, etc) only so long and to the degree that we demand and insist that it remain so.
So, by all means, kdog, let’s be demanding and insistent…and loudly so…but let’s be demanding about facts…
…and not about rumor and speculation.
the $2.8 million the RDA paid for acres of books to shut its doors would buy a lot of maintenance. BTW, I live downtown, and, yes, I go to the main library and I've rarely seen it vacant esp. on weekends.
The developers raping downtown can afford to fund municipal services adequately. Although if other developments are as ugly as Aqua, it's really not worth it.
Screw the existing main library and build a nice new one. There're several good reasons people from all over just go to Cerritos: (1) free parking, (2) it's 12min to get there from Wrigley and that's basically the same amount of time to get to downtown, (3) a life-size replica of a T-rex skeleton, (4) a beautiful building with beautiful interiors, (5) a life-size T-rex!!!!, (6) free parking, (7) an amazingly kid-friendly kids' library, and (8) a frigging life-size T-rex for crying out loud.
They must got themselves there lots of oil over in that there Cerritos place to afford sumpin like dat. Shur wish we could get some over here.
Perhaps you know of a high school dropout who is a voracious reader, but I don't.
If you've lived in Long Beach for a considerable amount of time, you might want to take the time to look around you. This city has changed dramatically in the last 20 years.
It doesn't matter that you don't want to believe that the literacy rate in Long Beach is at an all time low due to unbridled immigration, and that the seeds that have been sown years ago are shutting down our bookstores and libraries. Unfortunately, the facts remain and the consequences are in play.
According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, Hispanic students born in the US are more than 3 times as likely to drop out than their native-born peers. And 45% of Hispanic students born outside of the US dropped out of high school in 2002.
According to the Los Angeles Times:
“Three-fourths of parents in the district lack high school diplomas, and many are illiterate. A stunning 85% of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.”
“Every week, new immigrants enter school, knowing no English and unable to read.”
What this means, Andy, is that the success of bookstores and libraries in Long Beach is directly related to the success of our public school system that was never designed to deal with the influx of illegal immigrants.
Old white men like Mr. Eastman are dying, and being replaced by high school drop-outs from Mexico, so those of you lamenting about the closing of Acres of Books, or the Main Library are howling at the moon.
Long Beach is not the same city you grew up in. It's an unofficial sanctuary city, and bookstores are much less important than Western Union money transfer facilities.
Thank you very much.
Please go post on a relevant thread. And go protest a church that's giving sanctuary to a family that's gonna be split up. And don't assume you know my position on illegal immigration because you don't.
In the meantime, if you actually care about this issue, call your councilperson and protest. After that, you can rant at them because a Mexican family in a 1988 Chevy AstroVan was took too long at the Del Taco drive thru in front of you.
And if you didn't notice there's a city called "Los Angeles" nearby, (it's close to San Pedro and La Habra and El Segundo) which I don't think is in your precious English language. Nothing stays the same, get over it or move further north.
Let me break it down for you, since it's obvious you have a problem balancing your checkbok.
Illegal immigrants put wear and tear on our infrastructure. They also take more out of state and government services than they put in. A large part of this is because once an anchor baby is achieved, an illegal alien mother qualifies for government aid in the State of California. Other states do not allow this.
While you mat like repeating the sponge-brained mantra of "this is a nation of immigrant," this is hardly unique in world history.
The fact is EVERY nation is a nation of immigrants. Those that succeed... succeed. Those who don't die out, or move elsewhere. It is only since 1965, when our historic immigration bill was passed, that we have a unique place in human history; those to succeed, fail. Those who fail, succeed.
As anyone who is, or has watched some idiot "succeed" on their dad's influence and money knows (maybe you, Andy?), the "success" continues as long as the money they had little to do with keeps coming. Once daddy stops sending the checks, junior is homeless.
And so it goes with Mexico. If American dollars were not pouring in via Western Union money orders, and if we weren't supplying the welfare needs of their failures, which only continues to protect the Mexican billionaires from the "failures" gaining mass leading to the banging on their back doors with rifle butts at three in the morning; as long as we provide the economic pressure valve, Mexican's will "succeed."
But here's the rub, Andy. The reason why we can't keep this up, and you can't balance your checkbook is that, the same as you can't keep writing checks when your payment due exceeds accounts received, we cannot continue to meet the welfare needs of Mexico. At some point (like now) we have to start printing money. This causes "inflation." That, Andy, is when you have too many dollars floating in the monetary system, so that it is worth less than if you hadn't printed the money for, say, bailing out subprime lenders who were pressured into giving minority loans because some politicians and their constituency felt that not enough minorities owned houses. Tax identification numbers, anyone?
When inflation occurs, it is a tax on people who work for a living. They must pay the tax in the form of inflated prices. So really, YOU are paying for someone elses American Dream, Andy. This also goes for government services. The ones you pay your taxes (presumably) to maintain.
Sooooo.... since history has shown us that people are only willing to pay so much in taxes before they start getting feisty towards their government representatives, rather than adding more taxes, the reduce services.
Services like... libraries.
Oh my gosh, Andy! Will you look at that? I just demonstrated how illegal aliens are taking librarians jobs, while at the same time, illustrating how your world view is that of a crackpot. Of course, that's presuming you have any reasoning skills. If not, you're either ignorant, or just not up to the task of figuring out your checkbook.
As long as we're offering recommendations, Kelson, might I recommend that you take a dump in your little hat?
Oh, you already have?
Nevermind.
So,
1) Juan sending money to Camenita in San Luis has nothing to do with threatening to close the main library in Long Beach (or the subprime mortgage issue, or anything else your paranoid mind tacked on to them). This city spends much more on junkets to Sumatra than all the services to the alleged tidal wave of illegal immigrants flocking to Long Beach.
Like, the $2.8 million the RDA spent to close Acres of Books does have a lot to do with it.
OK, that's just one point (see how brevity actually enhances an argument?)
Now, go drive your big SUV over to the entrance of the 405 and flip off the guy selling oranges from behind your tinted windows and feel like the big native-born USAmerican that you're not. Blaming all your issues on illegal immigrants is a tasty (and time dishonored way) of doing a little ethnic "cleansing".
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/05/12/open-borde...
Note that the problem is illegal aliens, not an improperly regulated mortgage market. But illegal aliens. Wanker.
Your first point I'd simply consider a lie, except you've proven to be stupid at this point, I'm going to have to make allowances for your unfortunate lack regarding executive function and go from there.
Since money that is made by American citizens tends to stay in America to support goods and services, along with contributing to our tax base, while illegal aliens do not, your assertion that the loss of this tax money that is going directly to the Mexican economy (billions a year) is not only false. It's stupid.
Your assertion that any reasonable measures taken to stem the tide of illegal aliens must inevitably lead to a nazi state is historically inaccurate, unsupportable, and I would consider it manipulative of you, had I no historical data via your past missives that support the conclusion that you are not very bright.
I hope this isn't news to you, as I'd suppose it might be cause for you to be upset. If so, do take some time to gather what you call "thoughts" and consider refraining from making a comment, simply because there's a neat little button that says "submit comment."
Just because it's there, doesn't mean you have to use it. In your case, not using it, is akin to not spraying flatulence on a crowded metro bus.
I know someone of your IQ measure considers flatulence as an important means of self-expression, but most others do not. Please consider them.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/2008030...
Sadly, it is you who cannot understand the larger picture.
So (paraphrasing you here), if the problem is illegals aliens not paying taxes (which many do), then we should just make them legal, tax them, and the problem would be solved, no? I'm sure you'd have no problem with that. Oh wait, you don't want that either? They'd take all the jobs from USAmericans?
Better build that wall, or will that take money away for the library as well?
Okay, let's see here...
"Saying it’s illegal immigration is causing this is like saying recent forest fires have caused the budget crisis."
This would be what we call a "bad analogy," since forest fires are eventually contained, and the cost of maintaining services to deal with them are easy to budget.
To legitimize your forest fire analogy, Illegal aliens never stop (since 1965) use much more in welfare, hospital, prison, and other services than they put back in, so it's essentially a consuming forest fire that decimates our economy, as long as we have the fuel (our tax dollars, plus printed dollars from the fed) the fires continue to burn.
In your case, you're wearing a gas mask, and telling everyone else that since you don't smell any smoke, everything is just fine, and smoke makes for wonderful sunsets, so we must be against nice sunsets and that's just wrong.
If my analogy is correct, then it makes a fine illustration that correctly identifies you as a neurotic.
It just showed you can't pin the library's threatened closure on one issue that guys who live in their mom's basements obsess upon.
Unfortunately, the illegal immigrant issue won't be resolved tomorrow, and if it were, there'd still be budget issues. Which B. Albert will then say are all caused by illegal immigration legacy issues.
So, write your councilperson and explain that they should keep the library open whatever the cause. There's been a library on or near that site since all the Iowans came to Long Beach in the early 1900s taking all the good blacksmithing jobs from us Californians. It's a valuable asset for any downtown.
Plus they got them there english-readers, what with all those non-Anglos hanging out and reading books. Maybe the problem with Mr. Albert is that public libraries are just too Socialist a construct (sorry Mr. Carnegie) since libraries are all about the working classes sharing materials and ideas. At least until those non-Iowans showed up and ruined the party with their pinatas.
Your analogy, as I correctly broke it down, was silly, childish, and inappropriate, no matter how you try to justify it by introducing new variables.
I'm sure you've heard this before, Andy, but you're quite a piece of work.
The layman's term would be "douchebag," but I'm sure you've heard that descriptive even more.
Just to reiterate for people you may have confused, we can't afford luxuries like libraries when we're supporting the welfare needs of a foreign country in such a way that has never been attempted before in human history.
Andy says "full speed ahead," but then Andy signs his checks with smiley face stickers.
In the adult world, when you don't have the money, you curb spending, eliminate ballast. Essentially when you find yourself in a hole, the wise man stops trying to dig more to get out of it.
I also know I've been going in circles with Andy, which is a traditional enterprise of the neurotic, but I did so just so Andy would know I care about him.
Perhaps not as much as his imaginary girlfriend, but then who can compete with her unconditional love?
Because I can't give you anything else.
Love,
The Giving Tree
PS: you can still sit on my stump after you've cut me down.
"A First Date with B. Albert"
(all B. Albert dialogue paraphrased from actual posts)
SCENE: A nice restaurant on Pine Street, a few weeks before it closes forever. A couple sits down at a table by the window. A waiter brings water to the table.
She (to the waiter): Thank you.
B. Albert (to the waiter): No! No! No! I've got my own water.
B. Albert (whispering to the girl): I don't think he's here legally...I saw a Western Union receipt in his pocket.
She: Really? OK...Um, have you heard about Acres of Books closing?
B. Albert: Yeah, it's because the guys sitting outside Home Depot don't read books.
She: OK..um, well, I sure would hate for Long Beach to lose the main library. It's really important for Long Beach to keep it for the downtown area.
B. Albert: Yeah, well, you've got all those illegal aliens to thank for that.
She: That too? Wow, I had no idea.
B. Albert: Yeah, subprime housing crisis, weak dollar, inflation....it's all due to the Mexicans dropping their pups on this side of the border. Hell, they can't even govern themselves. They're all over this place.
She: You know I've got to go... (she gets up to leave).
B. Albert: Stupid! Neurotic! Douchebag! Ignorant!
B. Albert: (sitting alone..spying an Hispanic woman outside with three kids) Hey! You're not gonna put those in MY public school system are you?
END
All proceeds form this play shall be donated to the Save the Downtown Long Beach Library fund.
Secondly, I want to say that I live in downtown Long Beach and own a business here as well. I am a citizen, I am college educated, and I am working professional. I pay my taxes each and every year. And my husband and I use the Main library all the time. In fact, I have two books at home now . When I go to the Main library, I see a wide range of phenomenal people enjoying the facilities. Young and old. Rich and poor. Black, brown and white. Those with homes and those without. I've heard a number of fascinating speakers in the library auditorium as well. It's always teeming with activity. I love it. It may not be the fanciest of libraries, but it well-used and well-appreciated.
I do understand if the building is not safe and we need to consider alternatives. No one wants library patrons and employees in an unsafe building with structural/mold problems. But let's have a real public discussion about the issues and options.
At a minimum, let's put in place an alternate location first with the same level of resources other neighborhoods receive. I don't care that Belmont Shore and Bixby Knolls will get longer library hours. That's a silly justification. The bottom line is that it's my tax money, dammit, and I demand a say in what happens to my community. And I want a library!!!
Gina
-service to almost half a million customers, 50% of which are youth
-service to youth-
-Main Library is the neighborhood library for 18,000 youth
-150+ preschool reading and school readiness programs
-150+ school class visits with 5,000 students from 38 elementary schools
-4,000+ homework assistance sessions at the Family Learning Center
-Summer reading program for 800+ participants
-access to the almost half a million library resources
-access to 70 public computers
-access to the Information Center for People with Disabilities
This is what might happen if this goes through. Not only will these resources be cut off, but the amount of people that are employed will be in jeopardy of losing their jobs. We need to stop this from happening....
“What If? ”
(all Andy dialogue paraphrased from amateur psychotherapists)
INT LIVING ROOM Andy's Parents House
Andy's Dad: You're a good boy, Andy. A very very good boy.
Andy: But the kids at school... they don't like me! I just stuck up for this kid they were picking on, now they hate me too!
AD: It doesn't matter Andy. Never base your behavior on peer pressure, or you'll never grow up.
Andy: But isnt it better to get along with the crowd, Dad? I don't like eating lunch alone! It makes me feel like I did something wrong! I should just agree.
AD: There's no shame in pointing out what you see, son. Even if it's upsetting to your friends, except for one thing...
A: What?
AD: Just make sure you're right.
CUT TO two liberals in front of their Macintosh computer
Ted: Oh! I gotta show you what this "Andy" guy posted on this website comments section. Sooo funny! I like this dude.
Ned: What'd he post?
Ted: Oh, this razor sharp satire tearing apart some crazy anti-illegal immigration guy... hey...
Ned: What?
Ted: It's... it's gone! I coulda sworn...
Ned: That's weird.
"If the Main library were to close:
-service to almost half a million customers, 50% of which are youth
-service to youth-
-Main Library is the neighborhood library for 18,000 youth
-150+ preschool reading and school readiness programs
-150+ school class visits with 5,000 students from 38 elementary schools
-4,000+ homework assistance sessions at the Family Learning Center
-Summer reading program for 800+ participants
-access to the almost half a million library resources
-access to 70 public computers
-access to the Information Center for People with Disabilities
This is what might happen if this goes through. Not only will these resources be cut off, but the amount of people that are employed will be in jeopardy of losing their jobs. We need to stop this from happening…."
Your hypothetical shriek is incorrect from the start, since it's already been said that most of the services provided by the main branch would be taken on by local branches.
The rest of your diatribe is irrelevant, since you provide no citations to back it up, and your figures aren't easily found, as far as I can tell.
Again, most immigrant mexican's don't read as a leisurely pursuit. This is a significant reason our bookstores have closed, and our libraries aren't as important as they were before the surge.
A new study by the United Way of Los Angeles finds that 53 percent of the city’s adult population—3.8 million people—are functionally illiterate. [United Way, Literacy@Work: The L.A. Workforce Literacy Project, September 2004.]
The percentage soars to 84 percent in heavily Hispanic south L.A., dropping to 44 percent in the greater San Fernando Valley.
only about 15 percent of L.A. County’s low-literacy adult population is enrolled in literacy programs. Dropout rates for these remedial programs approach 50 percent after the first three weeks.
Very few working-age adults in Los Angeles are completely illiterate—nearly all can write their name or read a simple paragraph. But most lack the skills required for job related tasks. They are classified as “low-literate,” meaning they are unable to read a bus schedule, write a note explaining a billing error, follow instructions on a medicine bottle, or complete a job application.
The distortion of the L.A. economy is sobering. Employers complain that they can’t find workers for high-skilled jobs, but the low wage, low-skill economy is booming. The county employment forecast shows that 282,000 new jobs in the $16,000 to $26,000 pay range will be created by 2008. These jobs include cashiers, dishwashers, security guards, and other occupations requiring only brief on-the-job-training and limited language skills.
Wages for all of these unskilled positions have declined in L.A. County for the past 15 years—exactly what you would expect in a workforce inundated by functionally illiterate immigrants.
Have you ever been to the main branch, and then gone to a branch library? Most (if not all) of the services in the main branch cannot be taken on by branch libraries. The branch libraries are significantly smaller, don't have the meeting rooms the main branch has, and barely have room for all of their books on the shelves. There's a reason the new Mark Twain branch was built. They didn't have enough room for material and staff. They still don't. Have you ever been to the branch library in Belmont Shore? It is very small. I don't see much room for more staff. Just because they did not reveal their sources, it doesn't mean their facts aren't straight. This is not a professional journal.
I'm not an immigrant, I have a graduate degree, therefore can read, and I use the library. And considering I live in Long Beach (do you?), I know that my neighbors can read and use the library.
You say: "A new study (2004 - me) by the United Way of Los Angeles finds that 53 percent of the city’s adult population—3.8 million people—are functionally illiterate." Thank you for making my arguement. THAT IS WHY WE NEED TO KEEP THE MAIN LIBRARY OPEN - HELLOOOOOOO!!!!!! I don't think the United Way was using their facts to discriminate. And I quote (page 3) "In today's economy driven by knowledge and technology, the greatest resource for the Los Angeles region is an educated workforce." Is there a breakdown by race. NO! They are including white, African American, Latino, Asian, etc.
In a time of economic hardship the library is even more important resource for the community.
Let's talk about the library, not your racist rants. Stop listening to A.M. 640, it will rot your brain.
Imitation (even weak, humorless imitation) is the sincerest form of flattery. Thank you.
Save the Main Library (which has nothing to do with illegal immigration)!
Your "topper," such as it is, doesn't provide much reader confidence in your knack for comedy, but I'm sure it's not something you do for a living, so no matter.
Andy, is that short for Andrea? I only ask since your prose carries a decided feminine style, full of whine, bitchiness, and scattered attention.
That said, I'd like to end my post to you, continuing on a positive note, by offering congratulations on your consistent writing style, that carries a definite fidelity to your gender. However, if you are not female, then I commend your passion for resonating with the gender style you so obviously aspire to.
"Wordz are lame! Who needz them!"
As a matter of fact, I think we should deport french mimes before anyone else. btw, you guys were an embarrassment on D-Day. A little wind and you're worthless. And nobody fell for your mime tanks.
City services that are tied to budgets that are tied to taxes. Our current economic state, directly related to unregulated immigration, which includes bank failures due to subprime mortgages to unqualified illegals, cannot include luxuries that we have become accustomed to in the past.
I'm afraid that if you want the surge of at least one million illegals in this country a year, you must provide a number of free services for them, and a main library in disrepair must be cast off, so that we may deal with the next million illegals in the coming year, many of whom will be coming to California, since welfare is allowed in this state, while many others do not.
Besides, first generation illegals generally don't read, and many don't finish school, so a library is a useless accessory compared to the massive undertaking of providing the state of California as a welfare annex for Mexico.
I hope you understand. At least enough to quit whining and ranting to nobody in particular.
Can there really be a real, live earthling who believes those super-powerful illegal aliens brought down the banking system of the largest economy of the world? There are no more than three neurons on the entire planet who think that subprime mortgages were actually the cause of the economic mess. It was all about *regular* normal mortgages using the inflated equity estimates as collateral. I wish these boneheads would stop channeling Lou Dobbs for just one minute and use their stinking heads.
"PHOENIX (AP) -- The illegal-immigrant population has fallen an estimated 11 percent nationwide over the past year and perhaps even more in Arizona, according to a report by a Washington organization that promotes less immigration.
The Center for Immigration Studies said the drop of about 1 million illegal residents happened from August to May even as the number of legal immigrants increased."
http://www.knx1070.com/Illegal-Immigration-Down...
turns out you've been talking out of your ass this whole time, who knew?
If you read the report issued by CIS they claim illegal immigrants are fleeing states like Arizona and Oklahoma for states that don't care what their legal status is, i.e. California. If the illegal population is indeed dropping, it is not dropping in states such as California or in cities such as Long Beach.
B. Albert--you are a Great American.
how come my mexican neighbors....... hehe never mind! so the 11% nationwide statistic isnt correct? jeez i just told this racist he's been talking out of his ass too....
I got brand new condo's on the new side
I got an RDA for a necktie.
C'mon take a "little" walk with me.
Who do you lotve?
It is supposed to say: LOVE.
(I'm buring a copy of Myra Breckenridge right now, and like, it's, like my computer is, like totally, overwhelmed...especially by emotion)
(my bbbbb....bad, bad to the bone)
You are just not a customer anymore, you are a friend,
7-11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIW-BZ8oLrk
~~~
“Relocate and/or Rebuild the Main Library – The City’s Main Library requires extensive facility repairs and upgrades to provide a safe, pleasurable experience for both employees and the community. These repairs are estimated to be approximately $10 million to mitigate various structural facility problems. In the meantime, damage is being done to the Main Library’s resources, programming areas are significantly curtailed and the basic functions of the building are being compromised. Therefore, as the first step toward a truly regionalized library system in Long Beach, the Main Library will be closed to the public beginning in November 2008. The building will still function to support the branches, providing administrative and materials support to the other 11 branches. To provide greater access to the library system’s resources, all neighborhood branches will be opened 7 days per week while the Main Library is closed. Further, a satellite facility will be established in an effort to provide the downtown community with continued access to library resources. This operational adjustment should generate a General Fund savings of
$1.8 million in FY 09 while mitigating the loss of the Main Library as a downtown resource. The specific staffing and operational impacts of this proposal are being developed and will be completed by October 1, 2008.”
~~~
We now have the words on this topic directly from the proverbial horse’s mouth. This is what is *proposed*. I will, again, emphasize that this is only a proposal and *will not happen* unless we, the electorate, want it to.
So what do we want, Long Beach? It’s time to figure that out and then get off our collective arses and make that *clearly known* to our elected representatives. It is then their job to provide the appropriate direction to *our* employee, City Manager Pat West. He answers to them, and they answer to us. It really is just that simple and it sounds something like this:
"Mr. West this is Mayor Foster, a confirmed majority of the people we were elected to represent have told us that closing the main library is not an acceptable option. The remaining Council members and I have explained to them that there will be serious challenges attached to keeping the main library open. They have said that they understand and their response to us is clear and non-negotiable. My direction to you must therefore also be so: Closing the library as was originally planned has been deemed acceptable and shall not now occur. Please develop alternative proposals on this topic and report back to me as soon as possible. Thank you."
The good people from "Supporters of the Public Library" have a firm grasp on this concept and have already taken positive steps to get something done (http://savelbpl.blogspot.com/). This looks like a very good place to start.
So how about it, Long Beach...are you ready to stop whining and start taking affirmative control of your government again?
You may also want to educate yourself regarding the bond measures for schools and infrastructure currently being put on the ballot in November, costing home owners 1.5 billion.
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon we're talking about real money, John. Where's it going to come from?
This goes right back to the main issue. Long Beach is an undeclared sanctuary city for illegal aliens. You're asking for not only current citizens to reach down in their pockets to help serve as a welfare annex to Mexico, you're also asking our children and grandchildren to pitch in to make sure Juan can read.
So we're back to square one. Nobody I know want's to add $60 to every $100K to their property tax bill. Would you like to take on their share, John?
If not, why not?
Because you don't make enough money to support that plan?
Welcome to Long Beach, John. I'm sure Mars was fun for you, but now you have to be an adult, and make adult decisions so you don't wind up homeless.
First things first: a strict budget, right?
Close the main library, until Long Beach can get it's act together regarding the continuing support of illegals by refusing to enact local city ordinances to reduce illegals nesting here.
It's time for an intervention. Long Beach loves to keep and exploit Illegals like crack.
how come my mexican neighbors……. hehe never mind! so the 11% nationwide statistic isnt correct? jeez i just told this racist he’s been talking out of his ass too….
_________________
I think we can all agree that you're an ignorant ass, you don't do research, or think things through, and there's not much point to you.
Once you embrace these facts. you might choose to post less, but then you wouldn't be an ignorant ass, would you?
It was all about *regular* normal mortgages using the inflated equity estimates as collateral. I wish these boneheads would stop channeling Lou Dobbs for just one minute and use their stinking heads.
__________________________________
Wrong again, you ignorant ass. Subprime mortages converted to derivative instruments are the primary cause of the failure of small and significant banks.
The federal government just bailed out freddie and fannie. If it hadn't, the largest subprime mortgage facilities in the United States would be bankrupt.
The reason I generally avoid interacting with you and the like, is because the "debate" quickly turns into a lecture. I'm not here to teach your stupid ignorant ass.
However, since I'm feeling charitable today, I'll get you started on the road to not embarrassing yourself with your inane gibberish:
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml...
http://www.cnbc.com/id/25851253
http://www.therealestatebloggers.com/2008/06/04...
There's more. A lot more. But let me just sum up. Bush, and congress put pressure on banks to get minorities in homes, apparently by any means necessary. To facilitate this "request," banks "hired" mortgage brokers (ex car salesmen) to make it happen, while they tried to "protect" themselves by creating financial instruments called "derivatives" to "lower the risk," which it didn't do, because it defied logic.
Nobody wanted to hear it back in 2005 when informed financial experts were wailing about it. Not politicians, not banks, certainly not the mortgage brokers or minority benificiariies.
It was no coincidence when Wells Fargo and Bank of America declared that they would allow illegal immigrant bank accounts using tax ID numbers at the same time banks were hiring the mortgage brokers. Even they wouldn't loan to someone with at least a bank account.
Tons of illegals bought into homes. They were more formidable than the "house flippers" in terms of home price increases. House flippers were riding the wave made possible by fannie and freddie.
And it wasn't just illegals, but minorities across the board who bought into homes they couldn't afford the second they signed the mortgage, so that Politicians could answer special interest groups harping about lack of minority home ownership. They claimed discrimination by lenders, when the fact was, their members simply couldn't afford it.
Hope this clears some heads about where we are, and where we're going.
Oh, and one more thing, the IndyMac bailout took, if memory serves, at least a quarter of all the funds available to the FDIC to insure all banks. FDIC just warned 4 more banks that they were on the brink of insolvency.
Conclusion: Learn to balance a checkbook, realize money shouldn't be printed by the fed to solve all economic issues, including Mexico's welfare cases, and learn to say "no. I can't afford it," instead of "print more money."
Printing money always causes inflation, which is the tax government levies to all citizens so they can get their money without causing a massive tax revolt, or worse. Oldest game in town.
Illegal immigration certainly has an adverse impact on our infrastructure. An impact that spreads out like a ripple in a pond until very few aspects of our society are not adversely affected in some way. But it’s quite a leap from that axiom to “illegal aliens are taking librarian’s jobs”.
Likewise your mischaracterization of the main library as “a facility that isn’t used because so many of its occupants can’t read above sixth grade level” is at once ill-considered, overly-simplistic and extremely naive. If you have actually used the main library then you’ve deliberately mischaracterized the vast majority of others who use it. If you have not used the main library then you really shouldn’t presume to describe those of us who do. In either case you’re patently inaccurate. Then again, perhaps you were speaking autobiographically.
Now to your comments to me: I have a slightly firmer grasp on the situation than you allege. It is not a function of the electorate to identify tactics for its elected and appointed officials. The electorate sets priorities, policies and objectives and we then elect and appoint others to carry out those policies and objectives based upon the priorities we have set. In short, we decide what’s to be done, and in what order, and we then elect and appoint others to get it done.
Limitations exist, of course.
We are limited, for example, by the federal, state and local laws that govern us and by the budget we must work within. There exists no law that dictates that we must close the main library. So we turn to the budget. The proposed FY09 budget is $3.1 Billion. Within that proposed budget, funds are allocated to sustain many diverse programs and services. I contend that there are many such programs and services that could be either reduced or eliminated altogether to permit us to both repair and then to maintain the main library.
If a majority of the electorate (i.e. those in charge) identify the main library as a priority over other programs and services and then direct our elected and appointed officials (i.e. the people who work for us) to provide us with viable alternatives that reflect our priorities, then I assure you it will be done. Because that’s the way a Representative Republic works, B. Albert…the power resides with the people as represented by the electorate and we delegate certain authority to our elected and appointed officials to carry out our collective will within the law.
I understand your frustration with continuing and increasing illegal immigration. Truly I do. That you choose to express that frustration so offensively is, just that, your choice. But I happen to believe that there are other programs and services that should be reduced or eliminated long before we should even consider the closure of our main library.
The power is ours, B. Albert. All we need do is make our collective will clearly known and our elected and appointed officials *must* abide by it or risk our replacing them with others who will.
Democracy isn’t necessarily easy, but it really is just that simple.
<<>>
The millions spent in support of illegal aliens and their children are millions that must be cut from the budget elsewhere. That seems pretty simple to understand. This would include the money for paying librarians.
<<>> People who don't read don't need a library--especially if it's full of books
written in a foreign language used by people they are supplanting.
As a heavy user of the main library I can tell you it provides more bang for the buck than any other city expenditure I know of--outside of possibly the water dept. or police and fire--all of whom are overpaid. It is one of the few city run institutions I am relatively satisfied with.
I know a number of "illegals" and personally like them as people, incidentally, probably moreso than the average citizen. One is a widowed woman in her late 30's who makes a living doing janitorial work at a rate of about $12/hr.
She owns a modest house here she's lived in for several years and through her bank (WAMU) also bought one on spec in Utah that appreciated dramatically after her purchase. Her bank then convinced her to buy yet another Utah property in 2005. I observed this situation develop and warned her that this sort of thing must necessarily end badly for everyone but she listened to her banker friends and now faces foreclosures since $12/hr is not adequate to meet
obligations in a market that has discovered limits. She is not the only illegal I know who has played the real estate market. Many people now want to be helped out with "gov't action"--which means, of course, that I should pay
more taxes to bail them out even though I've been priced out of the real estate market for many years now since I have insisted on being fiscally responsible. My new higher taxes (even if in the form of higher rent my landlord will charge to pay his higher taxes) are partially to be used to artifically support the housing prices that prevent me from actually buying a house of my own. Why buy a house in a country run by crazy people anyway?
I don't really blame illegals for this problem. I blame the citizens and politicians of this country who refuse to take the time to find out what is going on. I blame the knee-jerk reactionaries who want to constantly call reasonable people names like "racist fucks" for pointing out what should already be obvious to a logical mind.
regardless, youre still talking out your ass.
Blaming our society's ills, the closing of the library and the country's mortgage crisis on illegal aliens is the stupidest political commentary I have heard in a long time.
Personally attitudes like his/hers are more likely the real cause of our problems.
"I don’t really blame illegals for this problem. I blame the citizens and politicians of this country who refuse to take the time to find out what is going on. I blame the knee-jerk reactionaries who want to constantly call reasonable people names like “racist fucks” for pointing out what should already be obvious to a logical mind."
I agree and appreciate every single thing you said. I'm not at all against immigration. I am against people bum rushing the border, simply because they can. That's not how it works in any country but this one, and for good reason.
It used to be that an immigrant needed a sponsor, who put up a bond on the immigrants behalf, and to a degree they agreed to be their guide to full citizenship.
THAT type of process, I'm completely and passionately down with.
The way it is now, it's going to, amongst many negative things, undermine our fiscal credit, and viability as a world currency.
We aren't backed by gold anymore. The only thing we have is the merit of our currency, and the goods and services it represents.
We can't keep printing money. We just can't. We will have a "crash" that will make 1929 look like a victorian picnic.
This goes back to city services in general, and the main library in particular.
As great as it was, or may still be, the fiscal irresponsibility of prior administrations have pulled the rug out from under it.
The 10 million estimated (and it's ALWAYS more than they initially claim) is needed because prior city government leaders didn't fix maintenance problems as they came up. Seems a bit odd to me. Makes me wonder why. Makes me think there was a bigger plan afoot in the first place.
Which takes me to John B.'s assertion that the city is run by the people.
Sorry... no.
The city, like most cities of any significance, is run first by property developers, then the local unions. Out of that, scraps are left for city council to flatter themselves, and to dupe you.
Anyone who believes otherwise is naive, and it will distort their world view for the worse.
Finally, back to immigration, it's not a racial matter. It's a culture and assimilation matter, connected to the way human beings operate.
If you let tons of people from one particular culture in at once, they will tend to not easily assimilate simply because they don't have to. They will then objectify the host culture for their own ends, the the host culture suffers.
The amount of people illegally immigrating now is unprecedented in human history. Anyone taking the pro side of illegal immigration, or even being neutral, is either a La Raza lacky, or is absolutely ignorant, and/or paralyzed by being considered politically incorrect by people incapable of thinking for themselves, or doing any objective research whatsoever.
I think most Latino's are prime candidates for assimilating into American life, and would be a credit to this country.
But not the way we're doing it now.
Let's see.. what did I forget... oh, the main library.
Close it. We can't afford it, and it won't be used under our current circumstances to validate the cost right now.
If Bill Gates, or Oprah wants to send us a check, we can re-evaluate.
If Oprah funds it, I promise I'll show up on the show, and cry.
Illegal immigrants?
Aren't we all?
Let's not rant.
This is an epitaph.
Poor Acres of Books.
Poor Long Beach.
Forgive us God.
We know not what we do.
Can we forgive the RDA and the 2nd District?
(I'm glad I don't vote)
Love,
Noam Chomsky
I suggest, for the children's sake, we stand up on our hind feet and say NO to this despicable blackmail and demand a city leadership that is not utterly contemptible. Cut your damn salaries and exhibit some public shame for your abject failure before even expecting the time of day from the citizenry. Stop giving money and favors to the people who are giving YOU money for influence. Politicians on the take are the lowest form of life imaginable. Better yet, just get out of the offices you have disgraced. The people hate you.
The library you cited in comment 7, to "debunk" my claim that there is no "main library" in Tijuana was a failure for you, since the library is not a "main library," rather, it's located on a university campus.
I'm sorry you are in such a social environment in real life, that you talking out of your sweaty fat behind is considered a social contribution of some kind.
In this forum, I'm afraid that talking out of your fat sweaty behind, is no more than that, and what in real life may be met with approbation from your fat, sweaty-butted peers, will only be met here with derisiive laughter, finger-pointing, and plausible theories regarding your early relationship with your mother, you, and thalidomide.
that just means im doing something right.
your reading comprehension may not be all that you think it is, regardless of location that is a public library in tijuana, one that you claimed didnt exist.
The Mayor and City Council have been in office for 2 years now. They are ½ way through their terms as our elected leaders and only now seem to grasp the economic difficulties Long Beach faces. I question why we are faced with infrastructure bond elections, school bond elections and library closings at a time when property values are decreasing and unemployment is increasing. Is this a joke? These issues were foreseen and talked about for years. True leaders should have been preparing our City for the worst without having to shut down libraries. We should expect better than extortion from our elected officials. I am disappointed.
http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?ke...
Oh no! He's an ignoramus on all subjects!
Our nation is a republic and our U.S. Constitution guarantees a republican form of government to each state (Article IV, Section 4).
The California Constitution declares that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land (Article 3, Section 1) and assures that the people *have the right to instruct their representatives* (emphasis added) (Article 1, Section 3).
The City Charter specifies that the City shall have all powers possible for a City to have under the Constitution and laws of the State of California (Section 109).
Thus, B. Albert, the people do, indeed, “run the city”. The problem is not that we do not “run the city” (and the state and the nation), but that we seem to have forgotten that we do. We have forgotten that our local, state and federal governments are intended to be representative and that they are intended to be responsive to the expressed will of a majority of the people in their jurisdictions within the confines of established law.
B. Albert, if you have been duped into believing otherwise, it’s because you have allowed yourself to be. That you believe that our city must be run by “property developers and local unions” is a demonstration of your naiveté and not my own.
Do not state such nonsense as fact, B. Albert. Rather state your belief in this as what it is; the product of your submissive acquiescence to those who would have you believe that they have re-made our constitution in their own image.
I assure you they have not done so, but they seem to have managed to convince you that they have. They do not possess that power, no matter how willing you and others may be to cede it to them.
You can be a better citizen than that, B. Albert.
We all can be.
And, sorry B. Albert, I'm a dude, but you can keep fantasizing about me as your mail order bride (#65)...though most women I know would hand you your tighty-whitey ass if you think feminine=whiny and bitchy and ditsy.
Bea Albert was also talking out of his ass in blaming all them illegals and their subprime mortgages for our mess of an economy:
http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?ke...
Oh no! He’s an ignoramus on all subjects!
_________________________________
Hmmm. some forced, if not silly conclusions in the study. That's so odd. Kelson said it debunked my claim held by so many others who understand the market.
Hold on... what have we here?
"The research was partly funded by the Homer Hoyt Institute, Freddie Mac, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Association of Realtors’ Subprime Crisis Research Consortium."
Oookay. He's citing a paper from the towering business minds at Irvine, claiming whoever else is responsible, Freddie Mac is lookin' good!
The research paper received funded by special interest groups, including... Freddie Mac!
Freddie Mac wants you to know they took a look at things, and found that Freddie Mac is a great organization.
Kelson also declined to "debunk" my claim that mortgage brokers gave loans to illegals via tax identification numbers made popular by such banks as Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.
He also found he was over his head dealing with where those mortgages ended up after being transfered as "derivative intruments" to such faraway banks as Northern Rock. People who read the news may recall Northern Rock went belly up, and required the Bank of England to bail them out.
Conclusion: Kelson is qualifiably cerebrally challenged, and should avoid the "submit comment" button in general, and stop using me as a tool to make a fool out of himself, in particular.
your reading comprehension may not be all that you think it is, regardless of location that is a public library in tijuana, one that you claimed didnt exist.
_____________________________
1. Read my initial post again.
2. Look for the term "main library,"
3. Get an attorney
4. Find your high school english teacher.
5. Sue him/her for breach of the public trust.
Translation: You've kicked my candy ass on everything I've tried to put by you and I wish I'd never heard the name B. Albert.
When Dr. Albert learns some arithmetic AND reading then we'll suddenly have an expert in both economics and libraries in our midst.
What we also see is why some people get a score of 120 on a standard IQ test, while others only achieve a score of 90.
btw, here's my pet theory about IQ as it relates to comments sections.
In an IQ test, which is about pattern recognition, some people will not only come up with the wrong conclusion, they will not even understand the question as stated in the IQ test.
So our comments sections are log-jammed with these people who aren't qualified to comment, since they don't even understand that they don't understand what they're trying to talk about.
This is also why our founding father's decreed that the choice of who will become President will be decided by an electorate, and not by "the people," aka, "the clay of the earth," aka "people of the land," because they knew intuitively what we can now prove scientifically:
Many people are simply too intellectually limited to know how intellectually limited they are, and are too neurotic to admit it, even if they did.
Oops. Look out, everyone!
Here comes Hooooowaaaaard!
I'm TEEEEACHINNNNGGGG!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/business/05fr...
btw, around 2002, Fannie Mae began a home mortgage program designed to provide mortgage loans specifically to illegal aliens.
It worked like this: Fannie Mae says it believes in fighting all kinds of "discrimination" in mortgage lending. In addition to fighting the discrimination rational lenders felt towards giving a mortgage to someone with no down payment and a low income, they have started a program in their "Border Region" called the "NCLR Pilot Program." As Fannie Mae noted on its own website, that's now seems conspicuously absent:
"National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Pilot A pilot developed with NCLR to address barriers to homeownership for Hispanic communities. It waives the requirement that borrowers provide evidence of permanent resident alien cards and allows for a down payment of the lesser of $1,000 or 3 percent. "
It really hit high gear in 2005:
"The Arizona Border Initiative will serve low- to moderate-income minority families, immigrants, migrant farm workers, Native Americans, and other underserved populations in border communities. The initiative will incorporate a multi-pronged approach that leverages Fannie Mae's complete array of single-family, multifamily and community development financing options."
Homeownership — New Mortgage Opportunities. To address specific geographic housing challenges, two new mortgage pilots have been created to reach and serve local home buyers, allowing them to refinance and renovate substandard housing, which is a major concern in rural communities in Pima County, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border. Also, new mortgage financing options for Native Americans and for manufactured housing will be pursued.
Border Region MyCommunityMortgageTM pilot offers expanded credit flexibilities that address unique credit issues of low-income border populations who experience high rates of unpaid medical collections, and lack credit histories. As part of the pilot, unpaid medical collections that do not exceed $5,000 will no longer be considered when determining creditworthiness for a conventional mortgage loan, and a Verification of Rent form from landlords will be accepted to demonstrate consistent payment practices, instead of 12 months of canceled checks that are normally required to substantiate a borrower's rental payment history. These flexibilities are available with all the Border Region pilots.
Border Region Sweat Equity pilot allows borrowers to contribute labor, or sweat equity, in lieu of a cash contribution, to pay for as much as 25 percent of the purchase of the as-completed value of the home.
For Native Americans, Fannie Mae will continue to purchase Section 184 loans, and will work with tribal housing entities and other partners to bring conventional lending opportunities to Indian Country.
For manufactured housing, new options will allow borrowers to buy with no money down and no mortgage insurance requirement. As part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing loan program, a borrower can also receive 100 percent financing. Fannie Mae purchases USDA Guaranteed Rural Housing Loans from approved lenders.
http://www.fanniemae.com/newsreleases/2005/3515...
The rest, as they say, is history, and now that the craziness has subsided, regular middle-class homeowners, who played by the rules of common sense, get stuck with the bill via the fed printing money to bail out freddie and fannie's scheme to give houses to illegal immigrants, which means high interest and rapid inflation.
And in other news, Obama would like us to learn how to speak spanish, and Kelson is still an ignorant moron.
Film at 11.
B. Albert clearly needs no sockpuppets.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/business/05fr...
btw, around 2002, Fannie Mae began a home mortgage program designed to provide mortgage loans specifically to illegal aliens.
It worked like this: Fannie Mae says it believes in fighting all kinds of "discrimination" in mortgage lending. In addition to fighting the discrimination rational lenders felt towards giving a mortgage to someone with no down payment and a low income, they have started a program in their "Border Region" called the "NCLR Pilot Program." As Fannie Mae noted on its own website, that's now seems conspicuously absent:
"National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Pilot A pilot developed with NCLR to address barriers to homeownership for Hispanic communities. It waives the requirement that borrowers provide evidence of permanent resident alien cards and allows for a down payment of the lesser of $1,000 or 3 percent. "
It really hit high gear in 2005:
"The Arizona Border Initiative will serve low- to moderate-income minority families, immigrants, migrant farm workers, Native Americans, and other underserved populations in border communities. The initiative will incorporate a multi-pronged approach that leverages Fannie Mae's complete array of single-family, multifamily and community development financing options."
Homeownership — New Mortgage Opportunities. To address specific geographic housing challenges, two new mortgage pilots have been created to reach and serve local home buyers, allowing them to refinance and renovate substandard housing, which is a major concern in rural communities in Pima County, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border. Also, new mortgage financing options for Native Americans and for manufactured housing will be pursued.
Border Region MyCommunityMortgageTM pilot offers expanded credit flexibilities that address unique credit issues of low-income border populations who experience high rates of unpaid medical collections, and lack credit histories. As part of the pilot, unpaid medical collections that do not exceed $5,000 will no longer be considered when determining creditworthiness for a conventional mortgage loan, and a Verification of Rent form from landlords will be accepted to demonstrate consistent payment practices, instead of 12 months of canceled checks that are normally required to substantiate a borrower's rental payment history. These flexibilities are available with all the Border Region pilots.
Border Region Sweat Equity pilot allows borrowers to contribute labor, or sweat equity, in lieu of a cash contribution, to pay for as much as 25 percent of the purchase of the as-completed value of the home.
For Native Americans, Fannie Mae will continue to purchase Section 184 loans, and will work with tribal housing entities and other partners to bring conventional lending opportunities to Indian Country.
For manufactured housing, new options will allow borrowers to buy with no money down and no mortgage insurance requirement. As part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing loan program, a borrower can also receive 100 percent financing. Fannie Mae purchases USDA Guaranteed Rural Housing Loans from approved lenders.
http://www.fanniemae.com/newsreleases/2005/3515...
The rest, as they say, is history, and now that the craziness has subsided, regular middle-class homeowners, who played by the rules of common sense, get stuck with the bill via the fed printing money to bail out freddie and fannie's scheme to give houses to illegal immigrants, which means high interest and rapid inflation.
And in other news, Obama would like us to learn how to speak spanish, and Kelson is still an vainglorious ignorant moron. Learn why here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=...
Your rhetoric is poison, and ignorant.
They never come back. never come back.
How's that? Now you can just go.
Then there's no need for you to assert that Mexicans don't read, that the liberal government conspires against the oppressed white taxpayer, or that women are whiny airheads. Which you did.
It's getting embarrassing.
Next you'll be citing "quotable quotes' from the Reader's Digest.
I don't want to see you stoop that low for your next inspired contribution.
Go out for a walk. Talk to a girl, even. Well, that may be going too far, but you know, do something else now.
But, like the 2-year old refusing to go bed after the lights are out, you'll keep screaming your tired song, even as no one is there to listen.
So you don't like Reader's Digest? What are you? Some kind of elitist?
The building leaks when it rains. OK. You remove the dirt and debris from the roof and seal it. You don’t spend millions to tear it down or remodel it–especially since it means there will effectively be no library until taxpayers are browbeat and guilt tripped into spending more mega-millions to replace something they already own.
What exactly is wrong with the people in this community that they can’t think for themselves anymore?
What percentage of the population thinks it a good idea to pay Acre’s of Books 2.8 million dollars to go away?
Why is the main library suddenly a “turd” that needs abandonment?
Sometimes I wonder if something isn’t being put into the drinking water around here. People wouldn’t knowingly take Stupid Pills, would they?
Think of what, if you MUST spend money we don’t have, we could spend it on that makes SENSE!
So you don’t like Reader’s Digest? What are you? Some kind of elitist?
__________________________________
So why have you never kissed a girl, Andy? Some kind of elitist?