PPSD

   It is highly likely that this new initialism will soon appear, even before the curve has been flattened or washed away by a second wave. It is such an obvious one, you don't need me to spell it out for you. It is my pandemic prediction and I think PPSD will spread widely among a large segment of the population. Understandably, those who lost loved ones, those who attended them, and those who were themselves hospitalized are most likely to fall victim to this scourge, which is often more psychological than physiological and more manufactured than natural. A mask and clean hands won't help and the disease is very difficult to diagnose.

   Think of the tremendous collateral damage yet to be found among all the havoc that has been wreaked. Those whose nails remained too long unpainted and those whose un-etched tattoos left skin bare are, somewhat less understandably, likely to be the first to experience symptoms and notify the legal first responders. Soon, their more robust friends who were unable to go to the gym, will join them at the law offices. Thousands more who couldn't enjoy their Timbits in Tim Hortons, but had to wait in the drive-thru for over four minutes, will succumb, creating even more victims among those who had to witness their suffering.

   Triage will be difficult in such circumstances.
 
   And there will certainly be a second wave of PPSD claimants when class action law suits, against whomever or whatever caused this pandemic, are no longer an option because there is no money left in the coffers.

Post Script:
  For additional contrarian information about this subject see: The PTSD Pandemic.

Trail Tunes For Old-Timers

   A while back I did a post about Canada's Great Trail and I plan to do a series relating to the subjects of trails, roads and pathways. Right now, writing about trails is less difficult than walking them. The weather is still rather bleak and wet and we are supposed to stay inside to avoid the Great Virus. I am offering here some Trail Music for you to listen to in the comfort of your cozy home.

    I will begin with a song which I heard recently on the car radio. Bing Crosby was the singer and you can easily find a version done by him and the Andrews Sisters on YouTube.  The one I have chosen is a little rougher and is found on "Hell Bent For Leather", an album by Frankie Lane.

  Click on each title to listen to the tune. 

Along the Navajo Trail
Every day, along about evening
When the sunlight's beginning to pale
I ride through the slumbering shadows
Along the Navajo Trail
When it's night and crickets are callin'
And coyotes are makin' a wail
I dream by a smoldering fire
Along the Navajo Trail
I love to lie and listen to the music
When the wind is strummin' a sagebrush guitar
When over yonder hill the moon is climbin'
It always finds me wishin' on a star
Well what a ya know, it's mornin' already
There's the dawnin', so silver and pale
It's time to climb into my saddle
And ride the Navajo Trail

    The next one will be familiar to the elderly as the theme song sung by the "King of the Cowboys" along with "The Queen of the West."

Happy Trails
Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.
Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smiling until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song, and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.

   During the 1950s when Roy and Dale were singing Happy Trails, this tune from Germany wandered onto the Pop Charts and probably drove you crazy since it was hummed, whistled and sung far too often. I have provided a particularly annoying version.

The Happy Wanderer
I love to go a-wandering
Along the mountain track
And as I go, I love to sing
My knapsack on my back
Val-deri, val-dera
Val-deri, val-dera
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Ha
Val-dera
My knapsack on my back
I love to wander by the stream
That dances in the sun
So joyously it calls to me
Come join my happy song
Val-eri, val-dera
Val-deri, val-dera
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Ha
Val-era
Come join my happy song
I wave my hat to all I meet
And They wave back to me
And blackbirds call so loud and sweet
From ev'ry green wood tree
Val-eri, val-dera
Val-deri, val-dera
Val-deri, val-dera
Oh, may I go a-wandering
Until the day I die
Oh, may I always laugh and sing
Beneath God's clear blue sky
Val-eri, val-dera
Val-eri, val-dera
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Ha
val-dera
Beneath the clear blue sky
Beneath the clear blue sky

   This song is from an earlier time and is generally associated with World War I.  I ran across a recent reference while reading The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, by Robert Macfarlane where it is discussed in the chapter about the poet Edward Thomas. There are many recordings of it. The one chosen offers you a medley by Frank and Bing; it is the third song at about 3:15.

There's A Long Trail A-Winding
Nights are growing very lonely,
Days are very long;
I'm a-growing weary only
List'ning for your song.
Old remembrances are thronging
Thro' my memory
Till it seems the world is full of dreams
Just to call you back to me.
Chorus:
There's a long, long trail a-winding
Into the land of my dreams,
Where the nightingales are singing
And the white moon beams.
There's a long, long night of waiting
Until my dreams all come true;
Till the day when I'll be going down
That long, long trail with you.

All night long I hear you calling,
Calling sweet and low;
Seem to hear your footsteps falling,
Ev'ry where I go.
Tho' the road between us stretches
Many a weary mile,
I forget that you're not with me yet
When I think I see you smile.

   And, I suppose, this one by the Sons of the Pioneers cannot be left out.

Tumbling Tumble Weeds
See them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground!
Lonely, but free, I'll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds
Cares of the past are behind
Nowhere to go, but I'll find
Just where the trail will wind
Drifting along with the tumblin' tumbleweeds
I know when night has gone
That a new world's born at dawn!
I'll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds
I know when night has gone
That a new world's born at dawn!
I'll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song
Here on the range I belong

Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds

The Bonus Material (provided by me)

Along the Navajo Trail is also a movie that is now relevant and perhaps should be re-run.
 U.S. Deputy Marshal Roy investigates the disappearance of a government agent who has come to Dale's father's ‘Ladder A Ranch’. The bad guys want the land the ranch sits on because they know an oil pipeline is planned through this location. IMDb

   Apparently the German song, The Happy Wanderer became the unofficial anthem of the Montreal Expos. (See the Wiki entry for The Happy Wanderer. )

   One learns from the Wiki entry for Happy Trails that: "On October 1, 1970, Janis Joplin left a taped recording of the song as a birthday greeting for John Lennon, three days before her death. Lennon, whose birthday was October 9, later told Dick Cavett that her taped greeting arrived at his home after her death."

   If you enjoy western music and Sons of the Pioneers and singing cowboys like Gene Autry, you might be interested in It's the Cowboy Way! The Amazing True Adventures of Riders In The Sky by Don Cusic. (University Press of Kentucky).

Post Script: 
During this time of COVID-19, there are real concerns about lost jobs and how people can be employed. There were similar concerns in the 1930s and this book discusses one solution that involved music and musicians.
   At its peak the Federal Music Project (FMP) employed nearly 16,000 people who reached millions of Americans through performances, composing, teaching, and folksong collection and transcription. In Sounds of the New Deal, Peter Gough explores how the FMP's activities in the West shaped a new national appreciation for the diversity of American musical expression.

Happy Rambling..

The Gibbet

   A while back I wrote about a lynching. It was the last lynching that occurred in the state of Maryland and it happened in 1933. It is an example of what is now described as a "racial terror lynching" and I will say no more about it. All the information you need for this subject is found at The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. 

   Around the time I wrote about "The Last Lynching", I happened to run across a description of one in a book I was reading. It was written by a white man, but he was a Welshman not a white southerner. His reaction to what he saw is curious, to say the least. The event happened around 1900 in Tennessee. Here it is:

Some days after leaving Memphis, I arrived at a small town, where I was surprised to see an unusual amount of bustle, the surrounding country for miles having sent in all its able bodied men. Every man was armed with a gun, and they stood in small groups talking outside the various stores. It seemed as though there had been rumours of an invasion, and that these men were organising to defend their homes and country, but I had not the least idea of what had really happened. The small groups now began to join together into larger ones, and the larger groups joined until they became one large body of men. This one body then shouldered guns and moved quickly along the main street, the men's faces being drawn and pale. I followed on, perhaps the one unarmed man among them, curious to know the meaning of it all. They came at last to a halt, and, to see the reason for this, I stepped across the way, and saw that they had halted before a large building, which, by its barred windows, I had no difficulty in recognising as the jail. One man had curled around his shoulders a long rope, and this man with two others knocked loudly with the butt ends of their guns on the prison door. Almost in an instant the door was flung wide open, and the sheriff stood in the open way to know their wants. The men must have demanded the prison keys, for I saw the sheriff at once produce them, which he handed to these men without the least show of resistance. This man with the rope and several others then entered the jail, and the silent crowd without cast their eyes in that direction. Up to the present time I had not heard a distinct voice, nothing but the buzz of low whispering. But suddenly from the jail's interior there came a loud shriek and a voice crying for mercy. Men now appeared in the open doorway, dragging after them a negro at the end of a rope. This unfortunate wretch was possessed of a terror that is seldom seen in a human being. He fell on his knees to pray, but was jerked to his feet ere he could murmur the first words, O Lord. He staggered to and fro and sideways, at the same time howling and jabbering, foaming at the mouth, and showing the horrible white of his eyes. I can well understand a man screaming, trembling and crying for mercy, when actually enduring bodily pain, but that one should show such a terror at the thought of it, filled me more with disgust than pity. That this prisoner should have been so brutal and unfeeling in inflicting pain on another, and should now show so much cowardice in anticipation of receiving punishment inadequate to his offence, dried in me the milk of human kindness, and banished my first thoughts, which had been to escape this horrible scene without witnessing its end. For it was now I remembered reading of this man's offence, and it was of the most brutal kind, being much like the work of a wild beast. They now marched him from the jail, their strong arms supporting his terror stricken limbs, but no man reviled him with his tongue, and I saw no cowardly hand strike him. Soon they came to a group of trees on the outskirts of the town, and, choosing the largest of these, they threw the rope's end over its strongest branch, the prisoner at the same time crying for mercy, and trying to throw his body full on the ground. When this was done a dozen hands caught the rope's end, made one quick jerk, and the prisoner's body was struggling in the air. Then all these men shouldered their guns, fired one volley, and in a second the body was hanging lifeless with a hundred shots. In five minutes after this, nothing but the corpse remained to tell of what had occurred, the men having quietly scattered towards their homes.

I will also say nothing more about this episode.

   I gather that Steven Pinker argues in The Better Angels of Our Nature, that the world is gradually becoming a better place and we are growing less violent. Maybe so. I ran across another execution in Maryland, but this one was earlier and happened in 1781.  The sentence of the men found guilty:
That they be carried to the Jail, of Frederick County, that they be drawn from thence, to the Gallows of Frederick Town, and be hanged thereon, that they be cut down on the Earth alive, that their Entrails be taken out, and burnt, while they are yet alive, that their heads be cut off, that their bodies be divided into four Parts, and that their Quarters be placed where his Excellency the Governor shall direct and appoint.

Sources:

    The lynching account is from: The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, by W.H. Davies. I also wrote about the book in my post about "Jails as Hostels."

    The image chosen for this post is a fairly benign one, I think you will agree. If you would like something more graphic you can find lots of photos of black men hanging above a crowd of people, containing some children and many who are smiling see: Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, by James Allen.

    My abruptness above is in reaction to the current issue of 'cultural appropriation'. Apparently it is easy to be seen as insensitive if one writes about such things and is white. 

    See for example:

"Emmett Till’s Coffin, a Hangman’s Scaffold and a Debate Over Cultural Appropriation,” Hillary M. Sheets, NYT May 31, 2017

"Protests over Sam Durant’s sculpture “Scaffold,” installed in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden of the Walker Art Center, have drawn immediate parallels to the controversy this year over Dana Schutz’s painting “Open Casket” in the Whitney Biennial.

Both works, made by artists who are white, recall historical acts of racial violence and have been viewed by many as painful and insensitive to communities that have suffered directly from those injustices.

Central to both cases are issues of cultural appropriation and artistic freedom. Should white artists, no matter how well intentioned, represent harrowing stories that are not their own to tell? Conversely, should any subject matter be off-limits to artists because of their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or other life experiences?"

  And:

"Thank God for Cultural Appropriation," Richard Cohen, Washington Post, June 5, 2017.

"The great jazz singer Billie Holiday recorded “Strange Fruit” on April 20, 1939. It is a song about lynchings, inspired by the 1930 murder of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, who were photographed, like in the words of the song, “hanging from the poplar trees.” Holiday sang the song so often and it meant so much to her that she apparently came to believe she co-wrote it. She didn’t. Abel Meeropol wrote it. He was a Bronx high school teacher — white, Jewish and, not uncommon at the time, a communist. Now, maybe, he would be called a “cultural appropriator.”

Bonus Material

   There is a huge and hugely interesting book by John Sutherland which contains short essays on 287 novelists. 287 of them! If you are interested in the subject of  hangings in literature, Sutherland is your man. For example, he discusses Thackeray's On Going to See a Man Hanged, and the many hangings that are found in the works of Dickens and Hardy. The book is: Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 287 Lives. 

   For hanging histories in our very own London see: "Hanging Days" by the late Christopher Doty. 

Factlet (5)

The Opioid Epidemic

   

       A review of this book presents a few factlets worth noting:

“Eyre begins with the story of a single pharmacy in Kermit, W.Va., population 382. In just two years in the mid-aughts, the Sav-Rite distributed nearly nine million opioid pain pills to its customers. People drove hundreds of miles to get there, passing dozens of other pharmacies on the way. Lines were so long that the pharmacy’s owner sold popcorn and hot dogs to people in the drive-through lane.”

   "Eyre calls the addiction crisis “a man-made disaster fueled by corporate greed and corruption.” Cardinal [a drug distributor]“saturated the state with hydrocodone and oxycodone — a combined 240 million pills between 2007 and 2012. That amounted to 130 pain pills for every resident.” He writes: “The coal barons no longer ruled Appalachia. Now it was the painkiller profiteers.”

Deaths of Despair

   Right now we are preoccupied with the deaths and illnesses resulting from COVID-19, but the impact of despair should not be overlooked. It has been linked to the dramatic rise in drug overdoses, suicides and deaths caused by alcoholism. "In 2018, more than 158,000 Americans died from these causes, up from 65,000 in 1995, with increases that are similar for men and women." Among poor whites the historical patterns in longevity have been slowed or reversed. "From 2013 to 2017, life expectancy fell for white Americans, and from 2014 to 2017, it fell for all Americans, a setback that had not been seen since the influenza pandemic a century earlier." The current one won't help.

Deaths of Newspapers

   The author of Death in Mud Lick, won a Pulitzer Prize for the articles about the opioid epidemic in the Charleston Gazette. It was a family-owned newspaper for over 100 years and although it is not 'dead', it went bankrupt and was bought out and is now The Charleston Gazette-Mail. Supposedly, the unofficial motto of the paper is being kept - "sustained outrage over basic injustices" - and will still be an operating principle. We'll see.

Sources:

The review of Mud Lick is found in, "How Painkiller Pushers Took Over Coal Country, "by Dwight Garner, New York Times, April 6, 2020.

"Deaths of Despair" is a phrase coined by Anne Case and Angus Deacon back in 2015 and it is now in the title of their book: Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.

There has been so much written about Deaths of Despair and the Death of Newspapers, you don't need much assistance from me. They even have their own Wikipedia categories: See "Diseases of Despair" and "Decline of Newspapers".
For a good article about despair see: "There's Something Terribly Wrong: Americans Are Dying Young at Alarming Rates," Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2019
For dying newspapers see: "A Hedge Fund's 'Mercenary' Strategy: Buy Newspapers, Slash Jobs, Sell the Buildings," Jonathan O'Connell and Emma Brown, Washington Post, Feb. 11, 2019.

The Canadian Angle:
   North of the border, people are also dying of despair and many of our local newspapers are deader than the parrot in the Monty Python sketch.
   The first instance I found of the phrase "Deaths of Despair" is in this headline which appeared on The Canadian Press website back in the summer of 2016: "Deaths of Despair: Overdoses, Drinking, Suicides Hit Whites," by Mike Stobbe on June 3. (As a very caustic aside, some people who are non-white, of indeterminate gender, or in the higher income levels, have suggested that the culling of a cohort of poor white males is not a bad thing!)
   The most recent issue of "Canada's National Magazine," Maclean's (May 2020) has a full page ad which begins with a question in very large type: "HAS THE PRESCRIPTION OPIOID CRISIS AFFECTED YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW? And, locally, if you search for information about class actions and opioids in Canada, you will find Siskinds. The cover of that issue of Maclean's consists of the headline, in very large type, "HOW DOES THIS END?, which is referring to the CORONAVIRUS, but it could refer to the other crises as well.
   I do not recall when our local paper, the London Free Press, died. I do recall that the publisher of the Davidson Leader out in Saskatchewan had an essay contest, the prize of which was the Davidson Leader, and the entry fee was $1 (and that would be a Canadian $ which is now worth about 12 cents.)
   The "News Deserts" are not just in Saskatchewan. For more on that subject see: For the U.S., the University of North Carolina.  For Canada see: Ryerson University.
    The problem of the loss of local news was recognized in Canada a few years ago and a large sum was promised: See: "Ottawa Bolsters Struggling Media With $600M in Tax Measures," The Canadian Press, November 21, 2018. There may now be more immediate concerns.

Factlet? You were expecting Factoid? For the important distinction see Factlet (1) - What's a Gee-Gee? 

Bonus Material:
In one of the pieces there is quote about the dying papers: "There is a morbid joke in this business: Every time we print an obituary, we lose another subscriber."
Remember when a good local newspaper motto would have been: "The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
This appears under the masthead of the Washington Post: "Democracy Dies in Darkness."

    

The History of Everything

   

   I am undertaking this post during the COVID-19 pandemic and my assignment is to come up with books for you to read. I am doing so because the emails I now am receiving are desperate indeed. Even my hockey-playing buddies are looking for books, since they have already watched the Chatham curling championship from 1979 three times and their wives have seized the remotes. (I should clarify because one of the hockey playing guys says he sometimes reads this dribble. They play hockey; I am just a ‘buddy’.)

   The answer I am suggesting for the shortage of good reading material  comes in the form of history books, many of which are now marginally more interesting than curling. Historians  are no longer concerned only with Kings or Queens. They now embrace the Commoners and look below stairs where they have found subjects like sex and ‘queens’ of a different kind. The Cliometricians have come along behind them and calculated everything, but that is a subject for a different post. In short, historians are now studying everything.

   Bryson’s, A Short History of Nearly Everything is mainly about science and Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything looks a little too spiritual and philosophical, while Sigmar Polke’s  History of Everything is really about only paintings and drawings. Daum’s, The Problem With Everything is about the culture wars, a subject which I am trying to avoid. I will not pretend to be able to write about everything since I have difficulty in writing about anything. But, I can at least direct you to books about the history of all the things included within everything.

 ABECEDARY

   I will present you with an abecedary of books. For each letter I will offer a history book. For some letters there will be more than one, so there will be more books recommended than whatever the number is for the number of letters in the alphabet.

   I know you are thinking this will be easy. For even those letters in the lower latitudes it can’t be that difficult to find a corresponding historical work. Take “Y” for example. Surely there must be a History of Yugoslavia -- but, Yugoslavia no longer exists. See how tricky this exercise is. Now you can appreciate the problems that I have had to deal with.

   You will find some interesting books. I am still wondering about a few of them: how does one research the history of TWILIGHT, the NIGHT, SLEEP or the WIND? You will also find some that are not in alphabetical order: I snuck some BOOZE histories under the letter “G”. You will also find some odd juxtapositions: “C” books about Cannibalism and Cookbooks, and “F” books about Fat and Famine. There is also one there about the history of the F-Word, just to provide a little additional incentive.

  You will also not find some books. These two, for example, about the history of Fear: Fear: The History of a Political Idea, by Corey Robin and  Fear: A Cultural History, by Joanna Bourke. We have enough to be fearful of and I thought it best not to include them. You will not find any works of fiction since they can be about anything. Most of these books will not be found at the local Indigo store or library and, anyway they are closed. Amazon and Abe, however, seem to still be up and running.

   Those of you who are interested should consult A History For Every Letter which, alone provides you with enough reading for the rest of the day. It may take a bit of time to load since I have provided some cover art for those of you who judge books by their covers.

Getting to the Bottom of Things

   I recently offered a post “On Barfing” and thought of labeling this one “On Pooping”, but Peeing is also involved and I did not want to sell this post short. I am dealing again with a subject that was covered in the post titled, oddly enough, "Duct Cleaning" and it has to do with the current catastrophic shortage of Toilet Paper.

   My purpose here is to point you to an article which explains why we have run out of TP.  In it, the author notes that “The economics and logistics of the problem are a bit controversial,” so controversial in fact, that some of the theories offered are substantial enough to be broken into parts. The article is found in the Washington Post  and that is all I am saying, because you should pay for good journalism and, by now, even Jeff Bezos probably needs some money.

   I anticipate your disappointment and will provide some older examples of how academics have long been studying our various bodily functions. I will also attempt to allay your anxiety since solutions to problems with all of them should soon be near.

   Here is an example from several years ago about another kind of TP problem. I will only say that I could have taken two screen shots to illustrate how complicated this issue is.

   Here is another example which will indicate that all of our bathroom activities are being subjected to scholarly scrutiny. It involves micturation and even you gents who don’t recognize the word will be familiar with some of the difficulties one can experience when arriving at the urinal after standing in a long line with a bursting bladder. A related issue has to do with 'stall choice'.

ABSTRACT: "Tested the hypothesis that personal space invasions produce arousal in a men's lavatory where norms for privacy were salient, where personal space invasions could occur in the case of men urinating, where the opportunity for compensatory responses to invasion were minimal, and where proximity-induced arousal could be measured. Research on micturation indicates that social stressors inhibit relaxation of the external urethral sphincter, which would delay the onset of micturation, and that they increase intravesical pressure, which would shorten the duration of micturation once begun. 60 lavatory users were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 levels of interpersonal distance and their micturation times were recorded. In a 3-urinal lavatory, a confederate stood immediately adjacent to an S, one urinal removed, or was absent. Paralleling the results of a correlational pilot study, close interpersonal distances increased the delay of onset and decreased the persistence of micturation. Findings provide objective evidence that personal space invasions produce physiological changes associated with arousal." 

Middlemist, R. D., Knowles, E. S., & Matter, C. F. (1976). Personal space invasions in the lavatory: Suggestive evidence for arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33(5), 541–546.

Sources:

"Flushing out the True Cause of the Global Toilet Paper Shortage Amid Coronavirus Pandemic," Marc Fisher, Washington Post, , April 7.

"The Toilet Paper Problem," Donald E. Knuth, The American Mathematical Monthly 

Volume 91, 1984 - Issue 8

Two whole books for those of you who are really, really interested:

The Bonus: Speaking of selling short...
You have probably received many emails from those handling your money, beseeching you to stay calm. Well, there is one investment manager who is not staying calm, he is ecstatic! Mark Spitznagel’s Universa Investments just posted a 4000% GAIN. He must have known even more about what was happening than President Trump and also invested in Kohler bidets.    

Books & Libraries (Again)

"I will try to keep this short since the battle has been lost. I will not repeat all the arguments endlessly made about the aesthetic beauty of books, the wonderful musty smell of the stacks as one browsed through them, etc., etc"

   The picture above and the lines below it are from a post I provided back in 2016, which bore the title: "The University Library: A Last Stroll for a Lost Cause." In it, I lied: it was not my last post about the subject and it was not short. While I am, yet again, raising the issue, I will at least be brief.

   The issue, for those of you who understandably don't worry much about what is happening up at the academy, is that university libraries are being emptied of books. There are many reasons for this trend, but the surprising thing to me is that even the librarians are being 'trendy' in support of relinquishing the space. It seems to me that when the provision of space becomes your primary purpose, you should seek a job with the folks in the Physical Plant Department.

    Why am I again dwelling on the subject of stackless libraries, particularly during a time of the  coronavirus? For two reasons: 1) I was pleased to see that some Senators have raised the issue up at Western and 2) because of this article, which indicates that there are a few others still fighting for a cause which has been lost.

 "Keep the Books on the Shelves: Library Space as Intrinsic Facilitator of the Reading Experience,"
James M. Donovan, The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 46, Issue 2, March 2020. Abstract
Library literature frequently reports projects to remove print collections and replace them with other amenities for patrons. This project challenges the untested assumption that the physical library itself serves no useful function to its users unless they are actively consulting books from the shelves. The alternative hypothesis is that readers benefit from the mere act of studying while in a book-filled environment...

Even granting the desirability of these additions ['maker spaces'] to the library environment, the literature focuses its discussion to defending the need for such improvements while spending comparatively little on calculating the costs of culling the print collections. Often the print materials are spoken of in disparaging terms as constituting a “museum” or “warehouse,” giving the impression that the areas to be renovated are presently dead spaces that serve no useful purpose. The benefit of discarding the books is treated as self-evident....

This belief, however, has no evidence to support it. It has instead been taken as an article of faith that books can be discarded and replaced with digital alternatives, freeing the space to then be used for popular amenities. No harm befalls the library from such changes, runs the argument, because the information content has remained the same. But what if libraries are not fully reducible to the information they contain?

Conclusion
Certainly as a profession we should scale back the evangelism about discarding physical books. Otherwise, worried to prove their continued relevance, librarians may inadvertently deconstruct the very institution that affords them the unique role in cultural life they instinctively strive to preserve. With the best of intentions they risk inflicting an irreparable harm upon not only the collections they hold in trust, but more importantly upon the patrons who expect them to provide an environment conducive to study and learning.

Sources:
   Some of the questions about the use of library space at Western were raised in the Senate meeting of Nov. 15, 2019, and in the meeting of Dec. 6 there are some indications that these are being considered.
   For my other posts about this issue see:
"The University Library: A Last Stroll for a Lost Cause"
"Actual Libraries"
"Library Lamentations: Stackless Universities"
"Libraries and Space"
"Empty Rooms"

Post Script: 
   I used to work in the Western Libraries. The person who helped me get my first job there when I was a student, recently passed away. The last email I received from him concerned this subject. The article recommended in it is well worth reading.
"The Books of College Libraries Are Turning Into Wallpaper," Atlantic, May 26, 2019.
"University libraries around the world are seeing precipitous declines in the use of the books on their shelves." Some samples from it:

When I tweeted about this under-discussed decline in the use of print books in universities, several respondents wondered if, regardless of circulation statistics, we should keep an ample number of books in the library for their beneficial ambience. Even if books are ignored by undergraduates, maybe just having them around will indirectly contribute to learning. If books are becoming wallpaper, they are rather nice wallpaper, surrounding students with deep learning and with some helpful sound-deadening characteristics to boot. If that helps students get into the right mind-set in a quiet, contemplative space, so be it. Maybe they will be more productive, get away from their distracting devices, and perhaps serendipitously discover a book or two along the way...

But there is another future that these statistics and our nostalgic reaction to them might produce: the research library as a Disneyland of books, with banker’s lamps and never-cracked spines providing the suggestion of, but not the true interaction with, knowledge old and new. As beautiful as those libraries appear—and I, too, find myself unconsciously responding to such surroundings, having grown up studying in them—we should beware the peril of books as glorified wallpaper. The value of books, after all, is what lies beneath their covers, as lovely as those covers may be.

The Frog-Marching Continues

   I will justify this violation of my rule to avoid posting anything related to contemporary issues, especially political ones, by noting that this is about a news item you may have missed, given the current Corona concerns. Unfortunately, it will give you something else to worry about.
   About a month ago the cartoon above by Tom Toles appeared in the Washington Post. Unlike most cartoons, which quickly lose their relevance, this one is suited to be displayed again above the articles I will call to your attention below.
   While a few of the President's men have been publicly perp-walked, a larger number of his enemies are quietly being frog-marched out of many government departments and agencies. I suppose that Fox News is  indicating that these enemies of the people are all disloyal 'Never Trumpers'. I think, however, that most of them were likely loyal, career Civil Servants, and many of them are probably Republicans. It makes you wonder when even the Republicans will get worried about the state of things.

1."Trump to Fire Intelligence Watchdog Who Had Key Role in Ukraine Complaint," By Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Nicholas Fandos, The New York Times, April 4, 2020.
President Trump is firing the intelligence community inspector general whose insistence on telling lawmakers about a whistle-blower complaint about his dealings with Ukraine triggered impeachment proceedings last fall, the president told lawmakers in a letter late Friday.

The move came as Mr. Trump announced his intent to name a White House aide as the independent watchdog for $500 billion in corporate pandemic aid and notified Congress of other nominees to inspector general positions, including one that would effectively oust the newly named chairman of a panel to oversee how the government spends $2 trillion in coronavirus relief.

The slew of late-night announcements, coming as the world’s attention is gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, raised the specter of a White House power play over the community of inspectors general, independent officials whose mission is to root out waste, fraud and abuse within the government.

2. "Democrats are Outraged at Trump’s Late Night Firing of Intelligence Community Watchdog," Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post, April 4, 2020.
"Leading congressional Democrats expressed rage over President Trump’s decision Friday night to fire the intelligence community inspector general who raised concerns about the president’s conduct that led to Trump’s impeachment, describing it as a “chilling” move against the truth.
Since the news of Michael Atkinson’s firing broke, there’s been no reaction from top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.) and House Intelligence Committee ranking Republican Devin Nunes (Calif.)
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said, “At a time when our country is dealing with a national emergency and needs people in the intelligence community to speak truth to power, the president’s dead of night decision puts our country and national security at even greater risk.”

3. "Trump is Trying to Undermine the Government’s Independent Watchdogs — Again," Joe Davidson, Washington Post, April 4, 2020.
President Trump’s plan to fire the intelligence community’s inspector general is his latest attack on internal government watchdogs — despite their officially independent status.

Trump’s announcement late Friday to immediately put Michael Atkinson on leave, before the dismissal is final in 30 days, reeks of revenge following Atkinson’s decision to inform Congress of the whistleblower complaint that led to Trump’s impeachment.
This action comes one week after Trump’s claim of “presidential supervision” over the Treasury Department’s pandemic recovery watchdog, an ominous attempt to limit independent oversight of administration actions. Allowing vacancies is one way to do that. Currently 14 of 75 inspector general positions are vacant, according to the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. Trump nominated five on Friday.

“The president clearly wants to operate without accountability and oversight,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who also is an American University constitutional law professor. “When he was asked the question, who will conduct oversight, he said he will conduct oversight of himself. That is not the meaning of checks and balances in America.”

Post Script:

   Before I abandon the present and politics, I will take this opportunity to encourage you to read this article, which is much more frightening than the Coronavirus.
   
"How To Destroy A Government: The President is Winning the War on American Institutions," George Packer, The Atlantic, April 2020.
Some samples from it:
When Donald trump came into office, there was a sense that he would be outmatched by the vast government he had just inherited.

The new president was impetuous, bottomlessly ignorant, almost chemically inattentive, while the bureaucrats were seasoned, shrewd, protective of themselves and their institutions. They knew where the levers of power lay and how to use them or prevent the president from doing so. Trump’s White House was chaotic and vicious, unlike anything in American history, but it didn’t really matter as long as “the adults” were there to wait out the president’s impulses and deflect his worst ideas and discreetly pocket destructive orders lying around on his desk.


After three years, the adults have all left the room—saying just about nothing on their way out to alert the country to the peril—while Trump is still there.

This is the story of how a great republic went soft in the middle, lost the integrity of its guts and fell in on itself—told through government officials whose names under any other president would have remained unknown, who wanted no fame, and who faced existential questions when Trump set out to break them.

But Trump’s ambitions have swelled since the election. He hasn’t crushed the independence of the Justice Department simply to be able to squeeze more money out of his businesses. Financial self-interest “is why he ran,” Fred Wertheimer, of Democracy 21, says. “But power is a drug. Power is an addiction—exercising power, flying around in Air Force One, having motorcades, having people salute you. He thinks he is the country.”