Little Rhode Island Ranks 5th (Tied With Kansas, apparently)

In the midst of some searches for Gene Debs and Rhode Island, I found a sweet ranking for Rhode Island.

Although not in first place, we are very well ranked for Library Visits.

Education Statistics > Public Libraries > Library Visits per Capita (most recent) by state
VIEW DATA: Totals
Definition Source Printable version
Bar Graph Map Correlations

Showing latest available data.
Rank States Amount
# 1 Ohio: 6.9
# 2 Colorado: 6.3
= 3 Indiana: 6.1
= 3 Connecticut: 6.1
= 5 Kansas: 5.9
= 5 Rhode Island: 5.9
# 7 Wyoming: 5.8
# 8 Wisconsin: 5.7

South Dakota, New York and Illinois are all ranked 9th !


I am not familiar with this site, and rarely concerned with rankings (except in matters of baseball), but I Love Libraries, and think that library visits are a good thing.

How exactly a visit is defined, and how reputable these numbers are, I have no idea.

The Providence Community Library has a facebook page, and there is no requirement that you live in Providence or any part of RI for you to "like" it.

The Library Reform Group link is below.

Alas, the Providence Public Library is not handing over the buildings to the Providence Community Library, nor is it making vital repairs.

When buildings are closed due to heat ( no air conditioning ), falling roof, et al., our library visits per capita decrease.

Perhaps the RI Nonviolence Institute will mediate this conflict.

This One Should Close: The "School" Of the Americas

The School of the Americas (SOA) has been training people to commit unmentionable crimes since 1946. It has a new name, Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation with new acronyms, and the curriculum now includes 8 (eight!) hours of human rights instruction. The wikipedia entry is worth visiting.

Among the links that article offers are to the official website and to its defenders...

Four people were arrested there this weekend. Thank You to all who were present there this weekend and for past vigils. I found an article from 2003 by Richard Dujardin about two Rhode Islanders who participated then...

I hope and pray that President Obama and his staff pay serious attention to this Institute. The best thing we could do is to have it closed, and to try to learn from its horrors.

Support RI's Family Life Center: Buy Coffee...

Yesterday I received this email:
Support the Family Life Center--

Buy your coffee at Blue State Coffee!

Great news! The FLC has been selected as one of Blue State Coffee's causes of the quarter. This means that for the next three months, a percentage of every purchase at Blue State Coffee will be donated to the Family Life Center.

To support our ongoing services and policy work, visit Blue State Coffee at 300 Thayer Street in Providence, and "vote" for the FLC. Every little bit helps.

To make an online donation to support the Family Life Center, please click here.

About the FLC:
The Family Life Center helps ex-offenders and their families re-integrate into the community by providing long-term holistic case management services starting prior to release from prison and extending after release. In addition to supporting individual families and ex-offenders, the FLC advocates on behalf of communities affected by crime and incarceration.

For more information about the FLC and our services, please visit our website at www.riflc.org.


Cheers!

Annelise Grimm
Communications Specialist
RI Family Life Center
agrimm@riflc.org

It is my understanding that the RI Family Life Center is one of the local entities which has suffered due to the Madoff scandal.

I have not been employed by the FLC, but I know several of its staff and had one brief but cheerful conversation with its executive director. I'm glad that it exists. If Rhode Island's movements for Civil Rights are successful, then we won't need this kind of advocacy/service organization.

Serendipitous meeting with RI's Rep. Langevin on Jan. 21. 2008

By sheer luck, I bumped into my congressman eating lunch with a group of suspiciously young looking people ( indeed, I learned they were all affiliated with RI's Institute for Study & Practice of Nonviolence...http://www.nonviolenceinstitute.org/) and when the group disbanded, he graciously spent a few minutes with me.

Despite my plan to focus on CPL. Ciara Durkin (see link below) and Jamie Leigh Jones, a few other issues surfaced before he left the diner.

My son was patiently playing with his new gadget.

Jim Langevin had apparently heard Jamie Leigh's testimony before Congress, and made appropriate sympathetic noises.

He had not heard of Ciara.

Massachusetts and Rhode Island are kissing cousins in a geographic sense. Mr. Langevin told one of the people with him to find out which congressional district the Durkin family lives in. I was pleased. I will be following up more formally with his office.