Letters to the Editor - April 10, 2025

Call to retain federal funding for our libraries

National Library Week is a time to highlight the role of public libraries in civic society, but recent news is nothing to celebrate.

On March 14, the “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy” Executive Order was signed, affecting numerous federal agencies, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

On Monday, March 31, the entire 75-member staff of IMLS was placed on administrative leave. The mission of IMLS is “to advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development.” Its largest program, the Grants to States Program, allocates federal funding to State Library Administrative Agencies, which use those funds to support statewide services and/or to distribute through subgrant competitions to public, academic, school, and special libraries.

On April 2, the Connecticut State Library (CSL), the agency responsible for administering IMLS funds in our state, along with the State Libraries of California and Washington, received notification that their LSTA/Grants to States were being terminated, effective April 1. These grants are funded through congressional appropriations and are mandated by law.

What does this mean for our library patrons? The Connecticut State Library uses these federal funds to support:

•Accessibility: Fostering aging, dementia and disability-inclusive communities; providing free reading materials for the blind, and resources to support veterans and the military community.

•E-Rate and Internet Connectivity: Improves broadband access for schools and libraries.

•Early Literacy Initiatives

•Professional Development and consulting for libraries across Connecticut

•Summer Reading and Enrichment

•Statewide Digital Resources include databases, periodicals, and the searchable statewide library catalog

•Statewide eBook and eAudio Platform provides access to 40,000 eBooks and audiobooks

•Statewide Resource Sharing through the statewide interlibrary loan service

While most library funding in Connecticut comes from local sources, federal dollars are crucial in supporting the infrastructure provided through the State Library. Federal funding for libraries accounts for only 0.003% of the overall federal budget, and this incredibly modest investment is leveraged at the local level to ensure that all of our communities have access to essential library services.

Our public libraries are open to everyone, and services are very well used. In 2024, there were over 13 million visits to public libraries in Connecticut.

We want to thank the Connecticut Congressional delegation, who have historically supported Connecticut libraries and the IMLS, and encourage them to continue to stand up for libraries. We encourage our delegations in Hartford to stand up for libraries and safeguard our essential work. The American Library Association has also issued a statement in support of IMLS, along with an online resource to inform and encourage people to advocate for the preservation of the agency that supports our nation’s 125,000 public, school, academic, and special libraries.

Although the direct impact is still unclear, the loss of these funds will have significant consequences not just for us, but for libraries all over the country. We hope for a reversal of these decisions and will continue to provide the high-quality library services our communities value.

Norma DeMay, Douglas Library, North Canaan

Karin Goodell, Scoville Memorial Library, Salisbury

Gretchen Hachmeister, Hotchkiss Library of Sharon

Margaret Haske, The Cornwall Library

Ann Havemeyer, Norfolk Library

Sarah Marshall, Kent Memorial Library

Meg Sher, DM Hunt Library, Falls Village

A precarious democracy

America’s democracy may have some peculiar undemocratic features, but I never imagined it could end up in such a precarious state.A very long time ago, 1958 in Zürich, I saw the Swiss author’s Max Frisch new play “Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter” (Mr. Biederman and the Arsonists), in which some salesmen talk Mr. Biederman in letting them stay in his attic.He serves them some drink and food, and they casually tell him that they are indeed the local arsonists he reads about in the newspaper, and they are now here to burn down his house, which Biederman thinks is a funny joke. Over six scenes he helps them along, up to lighting the fuse. The house burns down.

The play is a parable on Hitler’s rise in Germany. It must have made an impression on me. I was born into a dictatorship and even a young boy comprehends that kind of oppression. I remember how Americans —thank you — in 1945 brought freedomand the GI who lobbed the orange, my first, and a candy bar up to me, hanging out the window. The thought of perhaps dying in an American version of dictatorship seemed up to now kind of nutty, a sort of sci-fi disaster movie.

Bolsonaro, Brazil’s wannabe Trump, is on trial, because Brazilians may have gotten inoculated against dictatorship by their 20-year long experience with it, when people got “disappeared.” Is it now our turn? When at last will the mum senators and representatives realize that they might be remembered as accomplices, salami-slice by salami-slice enablers of the Constitution’s destruction, for turning the USA into a Putin-style tyranny, where laws can be ignored and criminals go free and even rule? Let’s open our eyes, believe our ears. Will we even have another free election?I am not sure. The arsonist may be a vindictive madman and a liar, but he is not joking, has not been joking for a long time.It’s not about immigration, DEI or tariffs anymore — the fuse is lit. It is about saving the house.

What does one call someone, who in a time of war switches sides?Who turns friends into enemies, betrays America’s ideals, its standing and reputation in the world?Burns down his own house?Or, on a less lofty level, who proclaims climate change a hoax and consults with Laura Loomer on U.S. security?

Fritz Mueller

Sharon

Imposing tariffs — just raising consumer taxes

It just takes common sense — you don’t need a degree in economics — to see how import tariffs affect American consumer prices.

First, remember that tariffs on imports do nothing to reduce how much it costs to manufacture goods in America: labor costs remain the same, parts ditto (or their cost will rise if they’re imported).

So locally made goods won’t get cheaper (while their markets shrink and revenues contract). Second, imported goods will cost Americans more because when tariffs increase foreign manufacturer costs, prices rise to compensate.

Smell the coffee: Through these price hikes, we consumers end up paying the tariffs, and the tariffs go to the government just like our taxes do… so imposing tariffs is really nothing more than raising taxes on American consumers.

Essentially, this administration is imposing a kind of national sales tax. Is that what America voted for?

Fiddle (if you like) with this simplified model with quibbles about exchange rates and whatnot; the math doesn’t lie.

Robert Buccino

Salisbury

RJK Jr. and a cod liver oil treatment

We’ve been hearing a lot about cod liver oil recently, from the present United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He is telling everyone to give kids cod liver oil to treat the measles, or to prevent their catching them; two children have died in the recent measles outbreak in Texas. I would like to tell you about my experience of cod liver oil treatment, way back in World War II when I was a small child.

Everyone got measles then; it was a given of childhood, like mumps and chicken pox and whooping cough. We were very skinny kids, as Britain’s food rationing was very strict as we could only eat what we could grow — no food could be imported anymore owing to German submarine attacks on our shipping, and the troops had to be fed first. So we lived basically on things like cabbage and potatoes and rabbit and fish, and one egg a month, with the addition of what our mothers could grow or raise in the garden; though the children were always given a ration of milk every day, though we didn’t appreciate it.

Our health was looked after by elderly gentlemen — the younger doctors all having been called up into the services — so their treatments were pretty Victorian. We children were prey to many infectious diseases, and we all caught them all and most of us had some of them more than once. But these old men gave us one thing that we loved, as an antidote to measles, and it was called “Codliver oil and Malt.” The ingredients were fairly easy to find: cod was caught in the waters around the British Isles every day of the year, and malt was a by-product of beer-making, and no government ever dared to prohibit the making of beer in wartime. So the two ingredients were blended and put in jars and provided for the children. And the glory of it was, that this sticky stuff was sweet! There was no candy for kids, or anyone else, during the war, so when our mothers first persuaded us to open our mouths and swallow a spoonful of “cod liver oil and malt,” which sounded most unappetizing, we had a wonderful surprise!

Food rationing lasted basically until about 1952, and the government gave us cod liver oil and malt every day through about ten years — a constant antidote until there were vaccines for most of the major childhood diseases. And we all grew up to be tall and slim and strong — and healthy.

I don’t think Secretary Kennedy knows this. He seems to be telling people today that cod liver oil in large doses will prevent their children from getting measles better than a vaccine would. He’s wrong about that. And dangerously so. I wish someone could get this through to him.

Gaile L. Binzen

Salisbury

That much manure?

I read with great interest your front page story about CowPots. It said these were made of composted cow manure. A sentence or two on how this is done would have been very helpful.

Even more intriguing was the statement that the Freund Farm dairy cows produce a staggering amount of manure: “100 pounds per cow per day.” As someone who grew up on a Michigan dairy farm and had to both hand milk cows and shovel their manure into our spreader, I was very happy that our cows produced far less than the Freund herd. Outside, our cows produced what we called cow pies on the ground, which we carefully avoided stepping on. But after they dried and hardened, us kids could carefully lift and toss them, discus-style, at each other.

Jim Sterba

Sharon

Editor’s note: UMass Amherst notes a range of 82 pounds (dry dairy cow) and 106 pounds (lactating dairy cow) of manure per day.

Transfer station assist

On Sunday, March 23, 2025 my brother-in- law fell to the ground at the Salisbury-Sharon Transfer Station.

He was unable to get himself up.

Two very kind gentlemen lifted him up and got him into the car.

I would like to let Michael and Bob know how thankful his family is for your help.

He is on the mend.

Terry Eddy

Lakeville