Trust fund issues record payout for school libraries - The Board of Commissioners of Public Lands has announced library aid for 2009 totaling $35.3 million, breaking last year’s record of $35 million.  Officials said the distribution would amount to more than $28 per student for improving library collections and facilities in schools serving kindergarten through 12th grade.

Meanwhile, at our public Universities:

UWM identifies 19-year-old found dead in dorm suite - A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee freshman was found dead inside a dorm suite early Monday… Murphy’s death follows the Feb. 21 death of another UWM freshman, Ali Marie Raddatz, who died after a night of consuming alcohol and prescription drugs during an off-campus party in the 3000 block of N. Frederick Ave.

This is where much of our tax dollars are going.  Funding libraries in schools with outrageous sums and in addition, we have to fund the public library which pays salaries upwards of $60,000.00 for “coordinators” up to over $100,000.00 for a “director”. 

Kids drinking themselves to death on UW campus’s.

Tax and spend insanity.

Stumbled onto this  story – not sure where it originated, but appears to have come from Lewiston, Idaho.  The year, according to the story, was 1914.  I found it pretty interesting…

One of the lovliest items ever sent through the U.S. mail was a 48-1/2 pound, 4-year old child.  In 1914, May Pierstorff’s parents decided to send the child to visit her grandmother in Lewiston, Idaho, 100 miles by train from their home in Grangeville, Idaho.  A ticket for a child traveling alone, however, was full fare.  So they elected to mail May by parcel post, then new and quite cheap.

At the post office, the postmaster looked up the rules and regulations for sending such a package.  Young May fit the wieght requirements – 50 pounds or under.  It was then illegal to mail live animals, insects, reptiles and smelly articles, among other things.  Sending baby chicks by parcel post, however, was permitted.  The postmaster classified blonde May as a baby chick, collected 53 cents in postage from her parents and glued the stamps on a tag on the child’s coat.  After being taken into the post office workroom, May was driven to the depot and lifted into the mail baggage car. 

On the  way to Lewiston, she was under the care of the train baggage man and upon arrival was transported to the post office.  Though the custom was to leave parcel post packages overnight, a kindly clerk took May to her grandmother.

Guess we couldn’t pull this one off in today’s credit crunch, could we. The most important reason being the poor child wouldn’t be safe, sadly.

This poem ran in the Tribune-Star, Terre Haute, IN sometime during the 70′s. I saw it reprinted in a magazine and thought it was too good not to share!

You Tell on Yourself

You tell on yourself by the friends you seek,
By the very manner in which you speak,
By the way you employ your leisure time,
By the use you make of dollar and dime.

You tell on yourself by the things you wear,
By the spirit in which your burdens you bear,
By the type of things at which you laugh,
By the smile you share on your photograph.

You tell what you are by the way you walk,
By the things of which you delight to talk,
By the manner in which you can bear defeat,
By so simple a thing as how you eat.

By the books you choose from the library shelf,
By these things and more you tell on yourself.
–Author Unknown