It takes all the running you can do…

"… to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" —The Red Queen, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll)

Yes. Well, that's me right now. The lallapalooza seems to be shaping up nicely, and all sorts of interesting auction items are coming in. Hans is doing most of the solicitation, but Debbie is working on the dessert people and Amy is rounding up apron-makers. (The dessert auction and the apron show are gonna be kick-ass!)

I was in the midst of finishing up the February Republic when I got a call from Rep. Guttenberg's office about the grant request I'd sent in a couple of months ago to get starter money for the library building. I'd requested too little, of course (I seem to have inherited my mother's Yankee scrime muscles), but it seems that the federal stimulus package does include money for libraries, so we adjusted the request and submitted it, along with several letters of support, to Senator Begich's office, in the hopes that he'll support (and then that we'll get) funding for the Ester library.

It's a funny thing. I realized yesterday, as we were heading home, that the library is far more important to me than The Ester Republic, say, or my art. The Ester library is something that can benefit a lot of people for a long, long time, in a lot of ways. It feels like a Right Thing.

I get a little worried when I think about how small the actual membership is (i.e., that we won't get taken seriously simply because we are such a small library), but we live in a small community, and still, people all over use it. So although the membership is around 150, the actual population it could serve is around two to three thousand. Of course, small and local is what a local community library is all about. (One of the things I absolutely LOVED about Seattle was the network of neighborhood libraries throughout the city. It was absolutely great. Such a pedestrian-friendly place, despite the population and square acreage.)

Unfortunately, as I said in the proposal, it can't really serve the population adequately because we are crammed into such a tiny space. There's just not enough room to make proper use of the library. (We NEED a couch--but first, we need space in which to put it! Plus all those books--about twice as many as we currently have space for!)

The meeting to vote on incorporation is this Sunday (take note, dear readers: Hartung Hall, 4 pm, downtown Ester). Plus, Matt Prouty of USKH is going to be there with the new and improved version of the new and improved concept of the building. (Gary Pohl is taking a well-deserved vacation in Hawaii, although he foolishly brought his cell phone with him so people at work could call him. Thoughtful and all that, but I can't imagine he was too happy about the rush estimate that Begich's office needed us to provide--we had to ask him a couple of questions on it.) As I told Jared VanderWeele, who sent the estimate to me, these guys ROCK!

So long, Uncle Ted

The end of an era. An increasingly more arrogant era, it's true (not to mention an increasingly more unconstitutional one), but also one in which science and infrastructure in Alaska were well-funded. Hopefully Begich will continue to work for us in this regard, and Sarah Palin's ignorance of how little things like fruit flies, for instance, can yield large results in medical treatments and other applications of pure research.

One thing that Stevens excelled at was knowledge of the Senate rules. It wasn't just a pushy personality, longevity, and good connections that got Stevens the dough, it was a thorough understanding of the rules by which the Senate conducts business. Understand parliamentary procedure, and you can clock your opponents cold and smile winningly at them while they wobble in the aftermath. (Sorry, getting carried away with a slightly extended metaphor, there.)

I think Begich will be good for us.

Dang! Begich may make it yet!

According to Alaska Dispatch, Begich is actually in the lead—by a measley three votes, mind you.

Talk about close!

Addendum Check out the ADN story on it, too. Young still seems to have his seat, alas.

Don Young AGAIN

Well, it looks pretty definitive. Alaska went for the blowhard, rather than the man who might have been able to do something for us in the changed political landscape: Berkowitz. What a bunch of doofuses in the electorate...

The Stevens/Begich race, however, isn't quite there yet:

Stevens, 84 and a 40-year incumbent, led his Democratic challenger, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage, by fewer than 3,400 votes, with more than 55,000 absentee, early and questioned ballots remaining to be counted. If he wins, Stevens would be the first felon elected to the U.S. Senate.
Even if Stevens wins, he could still be forced from office.

Many top Republican leaders in the Senate have called on him to resign, and some Senate leaders have threatened to expel him.

(San Jose Mercury News, 11/05/08)