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This is at the same time that the City of Philadelphia is trying to cut funding and close 11 city public libraries… In an effort to save money in the economic downturn.

With as much effort as they’ve put in to rezoning the Market Street Gallery Mall to make it able to have a casino, and how little effort they’ve put in to saving the libraries *AND* are now asking for that much money to place a casino in the center of the city…

Mayor Nutter will not get my vote when he’s up for reelection.

Please Support : http://www.casinofreephila.org/

Education is not a non-sustainable endeavor. It may not be FINANCIALLY profitable, but it is critically important to any society and civilization, to maintain, improve, and grow that society.

The benefits to education are not realized immediately, they are grown in the on going efforts of the individual who has been educated, and what they return to the community and society in which they live and breathe.

You’re absolutely right.
College is nothing more than a finishing school in many cases. There are a lot of people that I know as well who have gone to just a little college, decided they were bored, and have left for their own world and have flourished. (My Brother is one, so I’m pretty familiar with the idea).

And, the problem here is not that education isn’t needed, I agree that it is… It is that the entire system is broken so badly that our focus is in individual success and wealth instead of long term prosperity and societal growth.

For each person who doesn’t go to college, who doesn’t get exposure to the history and culture that is available to them in college, it become harder and harder for that individual, and the whole society to maintain things other than what it takes to be successful and wealthy.

My undergraduate experience was invaluable to me. But not because of the professional skills I developed there (on my own time, and not in class room), but because of the world view it gave me. The exposure to international students, art work, history, language, literature. That I simply did not have access or exposure to in my 97% white high school in a upper class part subburb.

In my view, libraries need to be less about storage of knowledge, (though this is actually very important if you’re worried about hard drive reliability) and more about sharing knowledge and growing knowledge.

Libraries of the future, in my mind become a place where people come to learn in dynamic and interactive ways, with other people, in voice, music, writing/reading, sharing and working.

Much like IndyHall has fostered a number of innovative people to start to work together to create new and exciting things, Libraries should be the place where people go to share ideas and work on ideas together.

They should be equipped with the knowledge and ways of training people to do things, and then provide the mediums in which to do it.

This is exactly what they do now, but right now its about being quiet, and reading something.

As the storage of knowledge becomes more compact, (how many ‘books’ fit in your laptop?), the space in each of these grand buildings can be freed up for other functions and other ways of sharing knowledge and exploring the art of learning.

The exploration of what we do with these spaces should focus on what it takes to bring people together to learn, and share knowledge, and what it takes to facilitate that behavior.

This all requires a shift in our culture though back to rewarding, and favoring education and creativity over greed and conquest. It is all too easy in this world to bomb your neighbor, but our nation struggles endlessly to cure our sick, feed our hungry, and protect our children.

As we scale back on our cultural expenditures as a nation, something I hope to see reversed under the new administration, we scale back our possibilities to grow as a nation and a society.

These learning establishments, or libraries, of the future should be seen as a stepping stone in to returning the value of education as a long term investment, and less about learning how to do a job. We as a society need to learn the value of those lessons in culture, history, reading and writing, and make sure they are a priority to us, that can be shared, and that will help us with our commercial ventures, and not be a seen as something that will delay or gathering of wealth and success in the financial world.

I appreciate any comments.

• 1am: Wake to sound of neighbor banging on his door for 10 minutes before his room mate lets him in. Neighbor proceeds to yell at room mate for about 15 minutes
• shortly after, I’m able to fall asleep, annoyed, but not so bad in the grand scheme of things.
• sleep…
• 4am: Wake bolt upright in bed to the sound of pounding music directly above my bedroom, in my neighbors bedroom. Wonder out loud “what the fuck?”
• 4:15am: consider arson, but am in unconscious zombie land, and time slips away.
• 4:45am: realize I’m still awake, return to thoughts of violence
• 4:50am: think of calling the cops, but remember that they won’t do anything besides ring the door bell unless you say someones being murdered, or you’ve been shot, decide that lying to cops isn’t a good idea in the grand scheme of things.
• between 5am and 6am: zone between sleep and awake and half asleep, mostly angry
• Comprehend, from my days as an RA in college that trying to quell a drunk or high neighbor at 5-6am is not usually that productive.
• 7am, somehow fall asleep, possibly out of sheer exhaustion.
• wake up at 830, realize that I’m going to be late for my 9am meeting with the VP of Technology and the VP of Communications
• This is where I find my rage, that I should have had the night before, instead of paitence and hope it would quiet down
• 905am as I am walking out the door, receive a personal phone call from the VP of Technology asking where I am…

Today is not only a day where I was late for a 9am meeting, but its going to be capped with two holiday parties, that i was really hoping to be present and functional for.

But I suspect around 8pm I’m going to crash pretty hard, and thats going to suck.
A lot.

But at least its time to really have a conversation with my neighbor, and the landlord.

Though, I did just find this on my neighbors stoop…

Uh… yeah… How about that.

Thanks to Alex for the link.

… video after the jump…

In Philadelphia we have this celebration / tradition of sorts, called The Mummers.
I like to refer to it as “the day of assholes”.

I woke up on New Years day, looking forward to a day of relaxation, peace, quiet, a law & order marathon… but instead, I found my self in a world of costumed men, wearing thick makeup, carrying umbrellas, and urine.

Call me a snob, but I’ve got this problem with people who get drunk, dress up like clowns, march down the street in large packs, and pee on things.
Maybe I’m just stuck up, I don’t know.

I spent the day stepping in and out of my front door asking said drunk make up wearing clowns to stop peeing on my curb, street, neighbors wall, the car in front of my house, my motorcycle (its got a cover on it, so it MUST be ok to stand behind and pee on…), instead of relaxing, chilling, going to a friends new years day party, watching the law & order I wanted to watch, and etc etc etc…

To make my day less sucky, I’ll share with you what I saw every few minutes all day long….

With that wonderful visage engrained in your eyes, burning from the inside, I bid you a happy new years, and hope everyone had a great time last night.

We started at my old favorate bar, Tattooed Moms, Went to L’Etage after that because its around the corner, and the drinks are good.

Then we went over to the Moshulu for Mojito, a little party thrown by some guys I know.

The pictures are worth a thousand words — Thanks Leah for working the camera.

Update: More photos from Trilissa — Thanks T.