Editorial: The first cut

Much of the outcry over restructuring at the Free Library of Philadelphia has focused on “express” branches — those that will lose accredited librarians and see their hours cut. Ten branches around the city, including Roxborough and nearby Wadsworth, have already suffered that fate, and, if a judge’s temporary injunction is overturned (as the city would like), 10 more will follow, including Oak Lane and Ogontz here in the Northwest.

Neither the Chestnut Hill nor Lovett branches are seeing any cuts, but this doesn’t mean that we in Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy have no reason to be concerned. The busy Andorra branch in Upper Roxborough has seen no cuts, but reduced staff and hours at the Roxborough branch has had a big effect on the level of service at Andorra, as librarians and library assistants have had to spend time covering hours at the “express” branch.

Library spokesperson Jennifer Berry told the Local that much of this time-sharing is temporary, that Roxborough will be better staffed once new part-time library assistants are hired. It appears, however, that Andorra’s sharing its accredited librarian (because Roxborough no longer has one) is a permanent situation, with the librarian spending one or two afternoons a week at the other library. This means that neither branch will be getting the level of service it deserves.

We don’t have to worry about our librarians dividing their time at multiple branches — yet. But a dangerous precedent is being set with these cuts, one that could eventually impact library services in all branches. The only solution is to staff all city libraries adequately. Shortchanging library service in some parts of the city is not fair to anyone.

James Sturdivant

 

Opinion: View from another planet 
by JOSH MITTLEDORF

On a flight to Nashville this past weekend, I sat next to a man who asked what I was writing. Preparing a talk, I told him, for a conference of people sharing evidence that the 2004 presidential election was stolen. Without missing a beat, he asked “Isn’t that next door to the convention on UFO sightings?”

I wasn’t surprised. We’ve been painted as conspiracy theorists and worse by Democrats and Republicans alike, and even the liberal arm of the press has steered clear of this issue.

But when I arrived at the Jefferson Street Baptist Church in Nashville, my doubts about the election were reinforced by a community of sober professionals, none of whom seemed overtly loony.

I met David Griscom, a retired physics professor who had spent months with his colleague, John Brakey, poring over election tapes, signature rosters and “consecutive number registers” from Brakey’s Tucson, Ariz. home precinct. They audited and verified, one by one, the 895 votes in the precinct, and here’s what they discovered: 12 innocent and unsuspecting voters had had their names duplicated on the roster and their votes for Bush counted twice. There were 22 “undervotes” where the machine had failed to register a preference for president, and these had been dutifully and meticulously converted to 22 votes for Bush. The “Republican” and “Democratic” co-directors of the polling place were a local fundamentalist preacher and his wife. Thirty-nine of their parishioners from another precinct had cast provisional ballots, which had been (illegally) converted on the spot to regular ballots and passed through the vote counter, all 39 for Bush. The net result, Dr. Griscom figured, was that Bush got 394 votes when he was entitled only to 336, a swing of 13 percent.

I met Richard Hayes Phillips, a Ph.D. geologist from New Hampshire who traveled to Ohio to satisfy his curiosity about the integrity of the vote count, gradually realized that a complete inventory of lost and miscounted votes was needed, and committed himself to the task. To date, Phillips has analyzed 15 of Ohio’s 88 counties, and by his most conservative estimate – the counts he can actually prove – has found 101,000 uncounted Kerry votes (136,000 is the margin by which Bush officially defeated Kerry).

I heard Clint Curtis talk about working in 2001 as a programmer for Yang Enterprises in Florida. He was assigned, one day, to a meeting with State Senate Speaker Tom Feeney, who asked to have a program written into the software that controls voting machines so that the totals could be manipulated without leaving a trace. Curtis, the whistleblower, is now unemployed. Feeney, the politician, is now the U.S. Representative from Florida’s 24th Congressional district.

I was inspired to hear the travails of Ohio Attorney Cliff Arnebeck. After the Green Party raised $200,000 and obtained authorization for a recount in Ohio, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell staged a charade in which every state rule about the conduct of the recount was thrown out and two hand-picked precinct captains emerged from behind locked doors to report that yes, indeed, the numbers were exactly right and all was hunky dory. Arnebeck was lead attorney in a lawsuit to expose this sham, and demanded a real recount. The suit was dismissed by Supreme Court Justice Thomas Moyer, who ruled on the case despite the fact that his own re-election in 2004 was part of the challenge. Arnebeck has continued to pursue the case while he fights on the side for his legal life: State Attorney General Jim Petro has brought an action to discipline Arnebeck for bringing a frivolous lawsuit that wastes the precious time of the Ohio court.

I was in Nashville to present the work of Steve Freeman, a Penn professor who was the first to point out that we do have a way to pull these horror stories together, and to know how much effect all these little scandals have had in the aggregate. The National Exit Poll by the Edison/Mitofsky consortium interviewed 70,000 voters fresh from the voting booth on Nov. 2, and asked for whom they had just cast their ballots. Fifty-one percent of them said John Kerry and 48 percent said George Bush.

Now it’s Monday morning. I’m safely returned from Planet Nashville, back home in the land of ABC-CBS-NBC-FOX-AP-UPI. I find it reassuring to remember that if any of this had really happened, the Democrats in Congress would be screaming about it. I’d read about it on the front page, and it would be all over the network news. Yes, I can be sure that Nashville was just a bad dream. The reality is that President Bush won the election, and it’s time to move on. Time to move on. It was all just a dream. Yes, it’s time to move on.

Josh Mitteldorf lives in Mt. Airy and teaches math and statistics at Temple University.

Opinion: City’s summons truly ‘improper’

by MARLENE SANTOYO

There I was, Monday morning at 8:30 a.m., a 67-year-old Quaker, retired Philadelphia public school teacher and member of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, appearing in Philadelphia’s "Nuisance Court." What was my crime? On April 15, tax day, dressed in a hospital gown with the words "SICK with NO HEALTHCARE," I was accused of "improper distribution of handbills."

As I walked along the sidewalk of South Street with my friend, Mary Jo McArthur, I asked passers by, "Would you like to know where your tax dollars are going?" Some didn't. Others nodded and reached out to take the War Resisters League flyer, "WHERE YOUR INCOME TAX MONEY REALLY GOES."

Other War Resisters League members and supporters included Steve Gulick and Sylvia Metzler, dressed as billionaires in their tuxes, evening gowns and mink stoles, thanking pedestrians for the numerous tax breaks they, the wealthy, receive under the Bush administration.

My friend and lawyer Larry Krasner juggled his schedule in order to be in court to represent me. Sitting next to me was one gentleman accused of having a bag of crack. When asked by Judge Palumbo (who nimbly skipped to his bench a few minutes before ten) to come to the bench, Krasner asked, "Do you really want to take up the court's time on this? Marlene Santoyo is a Democratic Committeeperson, a community activist, and you are going to take up the court's time and resources because she was leafleting on tax day?”

The District Attorney forcefully interjected that my community activities were totally unrelated to this case. Judge Palumbo went along with the DA.

So much for freedom of speech. As of now, it looks as though I will be prosecuted in Criminal Court for sharing information with U.S. citizens on where our tax dollars are going.

In case you wonder, 48 percent is going to military-related expenditures, a far larger amount than cumulatively allotted for education, health and human services, HUD, food/nutrition programs, the Labor Department or the Social Security Administration.

To see the offending leaflet, "Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes," go to: www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm.

Marlene Santoyo is a resident of Mt. Airy.