Summertime, and the thinking is queasy. Those two days of sun really put my brain in the dryer, so here are some dried-out beads of unrelated thoughts that were gathering mould until the sun hardened them off and compelled me to share them.
First, a dangling hypothesis on why the mayor of Vancouver is having such trouble finding out how many police officers were on duty for the Stanley Cup riot, and why the police chief won’t say. (OK, Chief Jim Chu has been quoted as saying, “If I told you it was 350 officers, what difference would it make?” Isn’t it up to the citizens of the city to decide that?)
Maybe it’s in neither of their interests to discuss this number. Suppose the mayor did limit the resources available to the police, and told them to make do with a fixed amount of spending that precluded an adequate number of police on duty for Game 7. This would be perfectly understandable given the relative peace after the first six games, the happy Olympic experience and the long history of the police digging inordinately deep in their requests to council for dubious extra funding for big-crowd events. Suppose the chief doesn’t want to admit he was shortchanged by council, for fear of consequences for embarrassing his paymasters. Suppose his paymasters really don’t want to be embarrassed for their mistake in organizing such a big expensive party and not spending enough on security?
Then it’s in both of their interest to just shut each other up about the number of police on duty, so much so that the mayor is willing to look like a bumbling doofus who can’t get basic information from someone who works for him.
Next up, libraries on the e-cusp; how much longer can libraries escape the fate of video rental stores, photo printing stores, encyclopedias, print newspapers and bookstores? Toronto city council has included library shutdowns in a list of proposed cuts to make up a $774 million budget deficit. There is a predictable uproar, but libraries as repositories of reference books are no longer necessary. Reference books are no longer necessary. They’re all online, at the end of a click, in an instant, at no cost. Amazon’s e-book sales overtook printed book sales almost two years ago. Libraries as dispensaries of e-books are an elaborate extravagance, given the space required for e-book contents (none).
Libraries are evolving into necessary places for going online at no cost to find out things to read things on-screen, but their signature role as keepers of free access to print literature and public information has disappeared.
As havens for equal access to the Internet, quiet places for learning and reading and a lingering luxury resource for those (like me) who insist on printed books, they serve a noble purpose. But that role doesn’t include warehousing the thousands of books that no one needs or reads anymore.
Toronto is right to be questioning the value of library budgets in the new e-world. Vancouver should be doing the same.
Thirdly, enough with referenda. Now that we have survived the long, dreary and convoluted no-means-yes HST referendum, can we please put this decision-making tool on the “too-blunt-to-handle” shelf? I don’t want to be B.C. finance minister. I just want to be able to vote for who is, and know – in advance, preferably – what the minister plans to do and why.
Governing by expensive one-off votes on emotional bumper-sticker slogans leads governments into California-style dysfunctional cul-de-sacs – bankruptcy, to be precise. Sorry, but public finance policy is way too complicated to be left to occasional unpredictable public outbursts in referenda to get it right.
And, finally, a scary parting thought courtesy of Bill Moyers, venerated U.S. public broadcaster, on his greatest fear, in the July 2011 issue of Vanity Fair: “[that] democracy proves to be a Potemkin village and gross inequality becomes our permanent way of life.”