I Might Disagree With New College Tossing Books, But I Also Don't Want Them

I remember being a senior in high school and seeing a bunch of books at my school library ready for the dumpster. I got upset, and I took some of the books home. I don't think I kept them very long, but I'm not really sure, as my personal library has often been somewhere over 1000 books. In college at UW-Milwaukee, the English Department was tossing Shakespeare anthologies. I grabbed about a dozen, handing them out to anyone I knew who might want to read all of the plays. Needless to say, I didn't hand very many out. And when I was teaching English in Wisconsin, I would look through discarded books every year at my school library, often grabbing a few I thought my students might enjoy, and then also tossing most of them myself later.

Schools do have to weed out books. Some of us are book-lovers who want to save them, though we might not even want to read them. Recently, New College tossed some books. People got upset because it seemed to be politically motivated, and it probably was. However, I also don't want the books New College tossed. And I bet most of the people clamoring about it don't really want those books or own copies of those books. As someone who tends to sift through discarded books, I can say with confidence that most of those books probably needed to be weeded.

That said, if the New College library had space, why not leave the books, especially right now? I used an original 1871 copy of a book that the UWM library had when I was writing a paper for my French history class, and it was interesting to read what an author alive in Paris during the Commune of 1871 had to say about it then. I'm not saying LGBTQ+ rights are the same as a global political movement, but if I wanted to read about it 100 years from now, I suppose the only place that might have a copy of a particular perspective would be a large, diverse library. 

One type of literature that was popular when I was in college was confessional female tales of overcoming adversity (usually men). Frankly, I was annoyed by most of it, not because I'm a man, but because it wasn't very literary. What I mean is poor writing that was capitalizing on a subject having a moment. Like teen dramas about vampires. However, since it wasn't very good and meaningful to most people long-term, this type of literature (I assume) has mostly disappeared. Again, if someone wanted to read about Karens before they got loud, the best place to find these late-90s tales of womanhood would be a college library. 

I don't want to read all the books ever written, but I would like my kids to have the opportunity to read any stupid-ass book they want while in college. Mostly so I can mansplain to them why the book is wrong, but also because we should all be able to read whatever is out there while we try to figure ourselves out in college. It's not indoctrination. Indoctrination is NOT allowing people to read all books or see all perspectives. 

Anyhow, I still don't want any of the books from the New College library. They probably suck. But I will defend those authors' rights to create crappy literature. 

No, We Can't Rename Every Street For Crash Victims

Traffic fatalities in Jacksonville are awful. I hate reading about them, and I wish we didn't have so many. Some of the stories are especially disturbing, like when kids are involved. One recent teen traffic death led friends of the deceased to not only create a fairly permanent memorial but also to a petition to change the name of the road where it happened to honor the high schooler. However, if you look rationally at the situation, we can't rename our streets after every traffic death because there are simply too many for it to make sense.

Around 150 people are killed annually in traffic incidents in Jacksonville. That's a combination of pedestrians, drivers, and riders. You have about a .015 percent chance of dying each year, which isn't particularly worrisome until you live here long enough. If you live here for a lifetime, you'd have about a 1% chance of being killed in a traffic incident. Of course, if you're crazy enough to cross Atlantic outside of a crosswalk or ride a bike on Beach Blvd, your chances go way up.

I couldn't figure out how many named roads are in Jacksonville. My AAA map has roughly 16,000 named roads, but I believe that's the whole metro area. Ironically, road deaths in the area work out to around 1% of the total roads in the metro, meaning in 100 years, we'd have enough road deaths to rename all of our roads after someone who died in a transportation-related accident (and you'd have a 1% chance of being one of them). 

Anyhow, it's too expensive and confusing to rename 150 roads every year. Some people get their names on special parkways (on differently-named roads) because they did stuff like plant trees or serve as mayor without trying to sell JEA. My daughter tells me the young man who died in the motorcycle crash was popular and partied a lot, so I'm not sure he qualifies. If he used to pick up trash on the roadways with his church, then maybe.

So what is the cost I spoke of? Apparently, if you want to rename a private street, Jacksonville charges $400, presumably for installation of one street sign and changing maps and addresses. Imagine longer streets with multiple signs and more home addresses to change, not to mention the hassle to those who live on those streets. 

I also think it's pretty morbid to name actual streets that we have to use after those who died on streets, especially after 100 years when most of the streets would carry that burden generally left to family members of remembering someone. Granted, names like Little Miss Muffet Lane and King Arthur Road are silly in their own ways, but at least they shouldn't make anyone sad just to be on the street.

 

Here's My Unique Reason to Support Legal Pot in Florida

I don't smoke marijuana, and I don't really approve of it, yet I'll go ahead and vote for legalized recreational marijuana in Florida. It's all because of my neighbor.

I agree with Captain Ron and others who say weed stinks. In my opinion, cigarettes also stink. And half the cars in Florida, probably because we don't do emissions testing. And that area along the W295 by Commonwealth and the 95 by (ironically) Golfair and the E295 by Monument and Southside Blvd by Deerwood and (of course) Murray Hill. A lot of things in life stink, and several of our neighborhoods already stink. And people can currently smoke tobacco in their homes and cars. Also, people who can legally smoke medicinal marijuana can already smoke it in their homes, which brings me back to my neighbor.

We moved into Jacksonville way back in 2017, and we've had the same neighbor smoking weed in his garage ever since. We like our house and hood. Apparently, he does, too. I assume he's probably a disabled vet because we have about 10 on our block based on license plates. But maybe he's not, and I guess it doesn't really matter. But I tell my wife he is so that she's not as angry about the smell. The point is that unless we also repeal medical marijuana use in Florida, I'm stuck smelling ganja every day as it is, so why shouldn't everyone in Florida join me? And my neighbor, who doesn't look injured in any way, gets to smoke pot every day, so why shouldn't average stoners join him?  Honestly, we want to sell guns to each and every Floridian, and guns are way more dangerous than joints. In fact, if all the gun-toting folks smoked a little more weed, maybe they'd be more interested in peace and love than guns and attack dogs. In Jacksonville, maybe everyone will want to get high and then ride the (non)autonomous vehicle disaster through downtown, or even a bus. I had some college friends who enjoyed riding public transportation while lit, so maybe it'll be a thing.

There's always the possibility that I'll purchase some pot of my own when it's legal and head on over to my neighbor's house to finally introduce myself. And maybe we'll get silly and eat some Doritos together while watching Pink Floyd's The Wall  in his garage. So vote yes to me becoming friends with my neighbor.

[UPDATE]

The neighbor I mention had a Vote Yes sign out in front of his house as we walked by a couple of weeks ago. You could literally smell the pot and see the sign. Then, suddenly the sign disappeared. I wondered why the guy who probably smells like weed everywhere he goes would take the sign down. I will ask him when we become hashish homies.