It's been wonderful to see the whole community react to the potential loss of our totemic community meeting place. Here's a message from Elaine, the principle of the bookstore, explaining some of the details of the situation:

(Transcribed from the video above)

"As it stands now, this 30-day notice is a bit of a death sentence. The downtown location on Allen street is about 80% of my business's cash flow, so taking that away suddenly means I have 12 employees that I don't have jobs for, it also means that I can't make my monthly "nut", as you call it, let alone getting (new) financing.

The response to this has been, to say the least, overwhelming, and I am truly grateful from the bottom of my heart."

Dear Voices Reader,

    Circumstances came to light right after we published July 1 that cause us to alert you to an important situation: Webster's Bookstore Cafe in downtown State College has been given 30 days' notice to vacate due to falling behind on rent (although full payment was eventually offered to the landlord).

    Voices was the first in the county to post this news to our website and Facebook page and start getting the word out, but due to our volunteer workforce and the summer holidays, we don't have people on the ground reporting. We do have Art Goldschmidt and other Voices supporters actively helping owner Elaine Meder-Wilgus. To that end:

   1. Elaine has requested that Webster's supporters write a 500-word letter about what Webster's means to you and deliver it to the store (or email to webstersbookstorecafe@gmail.com)  so she can use it with banks, future landlords or even the current landlord to get an extension.
    2. She also has asked people to buy books (1/2 off) to help her liquidate.
    3. And we ask you to sign the petition being circulated now and during Arts Fest  so that it may also be used in support of Webster's. The paper petition is down at the bookstore, but if you can't get to town to sign that please sign this online petition:

 Save Websters Bookstore Cafe - the online petition
 
   4.

An interesting bit of news floating thru the internet journalism community, about Atlanta Progressive News senior journalist Jonathan Springston losing his job.

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2010/02/15/atlanta-progressive-news-fires-reporter-for-trying-to-be-objective/

"In an e-mail statement, editor Matthew Cardinale says Springston was asked to leave APN last week “because he held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy at Atlanta Progressive News.”"

---

As many of our readers know, we are in the midst of a major website redesign and relaunch that will result in new content and new forms of content, as well as tools to empower our readers to meaningfully participate in the democratic process. Part of that has meant going back to our core mission and re-examining how every part of what we do is consistent with, and advances, that mission.

In the end, we had to make a very difficult decision to move forward as a publication without Jonathan Springston. Last Wednesday, we informed him it seemed more appropriate if he found work with another publication or started his own publication.

At a very fundamental, core level, Springston did not share our vision for a news publication with a progressive perspective. He held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy at Atlanta Progressive News.

We get a lot of strange stuff in our email inbox - so when I saw this promo I was about to hit delete.

But I like the Blues. So I listened. This was actually a prety good tune - and its free,

http://www.pavementpr.com/1.mp3s/BrotherDege.TheBattleofNewOrleans.mp3

Traffic to the VOICES website has increased dramatically, and we have outgrown the servers we have used for many years. We are planning a move in the next few days, so unfortunately you can expect some periods of down time. Hopefully before long we will be settled into a new home.

I came across this story and thought it was an interesting one.

A person makes a vulgar post, (not all that terribly vulgar by normal human standards, but incautious and in poor judgement in the context of the written word) apparently in the comments section of someones blog, and when the comment is quickly deleted, the person repeats the post.

The blogger somehow determines that the poster is posting from a school computer, makes a phone call, leading to the quick resignation of the poster when the school identifies him.

Then the blogger reports on this series of events.

The comments to this final report are what is interesting. Most commenters take the position that this is an intolerable act on the bloggers part, that he should not have done anything more than ban the poster.

This is pretty much my position as well - I think the blogger who called the school was wrong.

But it's a curious question. If you are interested in this kind of issue, you might enjoy reading this webpage, especially the long long string of comments that follow. Some of it gets partisan, but that reflects the country we live in.

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-editors-desk/the-editors-desk/2009/11/post-a-vulgar-comment-while-youre-at-work-lose-your-job/all-comments/