cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53250951

The early voting for the Midterms is now available in many places. You can early vote at a polling place: https://www.eac.gov/voters/register-and-vote-in-your-state

Or you can use mail-in voting: https://www.eac.gov/voters/national-mail-voter-registration-form

It's highly recommended to avoid election day voting in person, and vote early.

SEATTLE, WA (October 14, 2026) — On the last day of September, the corner of Denny Way and Stewart Street echoed with chatter and car horns as about 60 Seattle Times workers in light blue t-shirts gathered for their first picket in at least 20 years. The journalists and newsroom staff of the city’s paper of record took this rare public action after months of negotiations with Seattle Times’ management that have failed to produce a new collective bargaining agreement.

More than six months into bargaining, workers and management are still far apart on wages. In fact for months, Seattle Times management refused to even bring a wage proposal to the table, forcing the union to file an unfair labor practice charge in June. When Times management finally passed an offer across the table, it fell far short of workers’ needs: a measly increase of $1,250 a year, just $48 extra per paycheck — before taxes. For a bargaining unit where a third of the members are already working second jobs that wage offer just won’t cut it.

“So many of our members here are experiencing the cost of living crisis that we’ve covered in our own papers,” said Amanda Zhou, a reporter and bargaining committee member with the Seattle Times Union, affiliated with NewsGuild-CWA. With inflation rising 4.4% in the Seattle-area over the year, agreeing to management’s wage offer of less than a 2% raise for most union members is effectively agreeing to a pay cut.

The quote "art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable" is often cited when a piece of art elicits strong reactions.

That principle, in part, is behind a display of Ku Klux Klan robes passersby can see through a window at the Dexter Horton Building in downtown Seattle.

The robes are globally recognized as symbols of white supremacist ideology and violence.

...

They’re part of the American History Traveling Museum: The Unspoken Truths exhibit. The installation shares American history through an Afrocentric social lens. Delbert Richardson, the exhibit’s curator, guides visitors through the history.

When asked about the “uproar” his work was causing online, he said, “If you're uncomfortable, and you want to grow, stay there. Because [for] Black and brown people, it's a life of discomfort every single day. If you're inconvenienced with some uncomfortability, then I've done my work.”

Richardson primarily works with K-12 grade students. He told KUOW kids come to his exhibit and take in the information just fine.

“It's the adults where the work is needed," he said. "Not just white people, Black and brown people also too, because there's a socialization that's happened for us based on how we've had to navigate. Very seldom is a space created where white people are almost forced to connect to a feeling."

His work is divided into four sections: Mother Africa, which highlights the numerous contributions by African in STEM fields; American Chattel Slavery, which delves into the brutal treatment and psychological impacts on African Americans of the diaspora; The Jim Crow Era, which examines the racial caste system and the creation and enforcement of legalized segregation; and Still We Rise, which focuses on myriad contributions made by Black inventors in the Americas.

You'll notice that this message is intended for Republicans. I'm just being a good neighbor. Since I'm democrat I'll have to completely ignore this message.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/73215553

This year marks a remarkable milestone. It has been 50 years since Toshi Kasahara introduced Seattle to its very first teriyaki shop.

Half a century of sizzling grills, loyal customers, and a sauce so beloved that it has its own fan club. In a region known for innovation, Toshi's story is a quiet, delicious revolution that began with a simple idea and grew to an entire city claiming it as part of its identity.

A grocery store in Seattle's Chinatown-International District says it is losing customers, seeing sales decline and fielding angry calls after a viral social media video accused the business of participating in food stamp fraud.

The operations manager of Lam's Seafood Asian Market, a fixture in the Chinatown-International District that has operated for more than three decades, said the backlash has been unlike anything the business has experienced before.

"We had people calling and cursing us over the phone, saying we're cheating customers," said Teizi Mersai, the market's operations manager.

Mersai said the fallout quickly extended beyond social media.

"The worst thing that really hurt is when an actual customer calls and says, 'I've shopped with you guys for years. I'm never coming back,'" Mersai said. "Those are the ones that really sting."

Mersai said revenue declined roughly 8% to 10% in the days following the video's release and that the store saw a noticeable drop in customer traffic.

The controversy stems from a viral video created by conservative social media personality and self-described independent journalist Nick Shirley. In the video, Shirley purchases food stamps, also known as an EBT card, from a woman on the street before accompanying her to Lam's Seafood Asian Market, where he alleges the store participated in a food stamp trafficking scheme.

At the center of the dispute is a transaction Shirley portrayed as a customer paying roughly $120 for a single can of luncheon meat and another food item.

But a closer look at the video tells a different story, according to Mersai.

The register screen visible in Shirley's own footage shows the customer was being charged for an entire case containing 24 cans of luncheon meat, not a single can. The woman can also be heard speaking Vietnamese with the cashier and requesting a full case before the purchase is completed.

Mersai says those details were left out of the video's portrayal of the transaction and helped fuel public outrage against the store.

Following the video's release, Shirley tagged the FBI, Department of Justice and White House on social media, calling for Lam's Seafood to be investigated and shut down.

The store later posted its own social media response disputing the allegations.

Up against budget pressures and a plan to snuff out a deficit, the Seattle City Council is considering an ordinance to authorize the Seattle Department of Human Resources director to offer eligible city employees a “voluntary early separation program.”

The legislation would amend municipal code to give SDHR authority to design, bargain, and implement early retirements. While the city offered similar programs in 1996 and 2002 to “mitigate layoffs on the City’s workforce in anticipation of significant revenue shortfalls,” a council analysis noted that unlike those prior initiatives, the legislation being proposed this week would not require explicit council approval to enact.

The City Budget Office estimates payouts will cost around $6.5 million, in addition to $2.3 million of sick/vacation cashouts above normal. The CBO expects departments to absorb these costs using “vacancy savings” without additional appropriations.

According to council documents, officials do not anticipate savings in 2027 due to upfront incentives, but CBO “aims to save around $8 million GF per year ongoing” starting in 2028.

The plan comes under Mayor Katie Wilson’s 2027-2028 budget proposal which would wipe out a $175 million deficit without tax increases or withdrawals from city reserves. The proposal would cut roughly $50 million annually in General Fund spending by eliminating 128 positions and aligning departmental budgets with historical costs, pairing these cuts with $50 million in shuffled funding by leveraging JumpStart payroll tax revenues to cover core services and homelessness programs.

“Nick Shirley went undercover in Seattle and filmed a food stamp buyer ringing up one can of Spam and a tray of sushi for $120,” Shirley writes, about the video filmed at Lam’s Seafood Asian Market in the Chinatown International District.

The problem: According to Lam’s almost everything Shirley says is false, and the result has been a small grocery store fighting to clear its name against a social media onslaught of online hate.

“We had customers calling us, we had strangers, people who aren’t customers, calling us and just yelling and saying all kinds of nasty things,” said Teizi Mersai, the operations manager at Lam’s.

Shirley and the woman with him were trying to buy Fortune luncheon meat (similar to — but not Spam) and a container of spring rolls (not sushi) and, most important, they were rung up for a case of luncheon meat, not a single can. The total was $120 because it was for 24 cans of meat, not one, as Shirley said in his video.

Shirley did not respond to requests for comment.

Though compact, Styled by the Streets covers over 40 years of fashion history. Walking into the exhibition, a showroom encased in a shell of pink enamel, the visitor is greeted with the gold motorcycle jacket and matching bodysuit Mary J. Blige wore in a 2016 Hard Rock Cafe appearance. While this particular outfit might not be immediately recognizable, it consumed the room with its iridescent twinkle. Flanking it are two other ensembles: a spiky pleather top worn by Doja Cat for her 2019 PAPER Magazine photoshoot and a purple fringe bodysuit worn by Cardi B on her Femme It Forward tour.

Officers arrested seven men for prostitution loitering and patronizing. Police noted the men ranged in age from 22 to 64 years old, with the majority in their 20s.

SPD also pointed out that only three of the men lived in Seattle, with several of them driving from surrounding cities.

Human trafficking involves using force, fraud, or coercion to compel someone to perform labor or engage in a commercial sex act. Commercial sex involving a minor is sex trafficking, regardless of whether force, fraud, or coercion is involved.

...

Residents living near Aurora had been sounding the alarm for weeks. They reported gunfire in the middle of the night, bullets striking homes and passing dangerously close to families, and ongoing sex trafficking and exploitation of young women and girls in plain sight.

City leaders framed the move as an urgent step, not a final solution.

The following weekend, six people were arrested and charged along Aurora Ave. after officers learned they were looking to exploit children.

The arrests came from a coalition of public safety partners launching a coordinated outreach effort to go after those responsible for trafficking and exploitation, and to provide services to victims of trafficking.

Despite months of collaboration, the King County Department of Public Defense (DPD) has distanced itself from Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans’ new therapeutic court and her additional strategy to punish repeat offenders with harsher sentences. The public defenders think Evans’ system, christened “connection court,” has restrictive eligibility requirements and that her approach to repeat, low-level crime offenders doesn’t do anything to solve the root problems of crime. That’s the same problem they have with the current system.

Seattle Municipal Court hasn’t had a community court, a therapeutic court where people can be connected with services rather than a jail sentence, since Republican Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison killed it in 2023. On the campaign trail last year, all the Seattle city attorney candidates vowed to revive it (even Davison proposed a fucked up reimagined “drug court”).

In a matter of 10 months, Seattle City Attorney Erika has followed through on her promises. Sort of. Connection court, kicked off this week and will hear cases every other Wednesday, giving people same-day access to service connections. If they complete those “engagements” assigned by the court, their case will be dismissed.

Evans’ connection court has strict eligibility requirements, including a three-month period where anyone in connection court cannot commit another crime or they’ll be kicked from the program and have their case prosecuted the normal way. In another new program, Evans will also recommend “aggravated” sentences for repeat offenders.

As a candidate, Evans called for an “expansive” new community court that “reduces crime and recidivism” and allows “people who commit quality of life crimes to participate in the system.” Her platform didn’t mention recommending harsher sentences for repeat low-level offenders. When she took office, she said she would work with DPD on the new vision. Those conversations fell apart back in August, according to Katie Hurley, special counsel for criminal policy and practice at DPD.

“The current eligibility criteria for connection court, I would not characterize as ‘expansive,’” Hurley says, referring to Evans’ campaign platform. “I would characterize them as restrictive… more restrictive than we saw in the last iteration of community court.”

Satsuki Ina joined about 20 other people who began the walk in Seattle’s International District, all singing a prayer. Ina was born in an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. With a cane in one hand she held sign in the other that said “Concentration Camp Survivors” above a photo of two young girls outside barracks in a World War II camp.

“ We're destroying children's lives every day. Japanese Americans are still recovering from the trauma of our incarceration 80 years later,” Ina said. “We wanna stop ICE from continuing their racist discrimination and unjust and inhumane treatment of children and families.”

The organizers noted that the Chinatown International District was home to a robust Japantown before World War II.

“Today we're opening the first day of our 48-mile walk from Seattle's International District Chinatown, which is also the historic Nihonmachi of the Japanese American community,” said Emily Yoshioka, a key organizer for the pilgrimage in Seattle. She’s also a part of Tsuru for Solidarity, a Japanese American advocacy group, which is organizing similar pilgrimages across the country.

The Seattle route includes stops at key hubs of immigration enforcement in Western Washington including Boeing Field, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building in Tukwila. They’ll also host a healing ceremony at the Puyallup Fairground, which is the site of a former incarceration camp.

The walk ends Saturday with a public rally at the ICE detention center in Tacoma.

The schools - Rainier Beach High School and Nathan Hale High School - will be the first to launch their pilot programs in the district. Both schools initially reached out to the district to communicate their interest in a pilot, according to Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Ben Shuldiner.

“The two schools that asked for the pilot, they’re gonna kinda build around what they think success looks like,” Shuldiner said before the vote. “But it is again our hope in the next couple months to really get it up and running.”

The pilot programs won’t be the first time the district has used weapons detectors - they’ve been used at graduation ceremonies and school sporting events.

Shuldiner narrated over a video of community members walking through the OPENGATE weapons detectors the district has used at those events. The system uses two freestanding pillars, and are similar to the weapons detectors you might see at outside a professional sports game.

“It can really go through hundreds and hundreds of folks very quickly,” Shuldiner said.

The board-approved resolution also states Superintendent Ben Shuldiner has the authority to implement safety measures including, but not limited to, “capital improvements, implementation of single points of entry, and the use of weapons detectors.”

According to Seattle Public Schools, the superintendent already held the authority to implement safety measures like weapons detectors in the district; the resolution is an “expression” of board support.

The board’s decision is the latest chapter in the district and city’s struggle to address gun violence at or near Seattle Public Schools. In November 2022, 17-year-old Ebenezer Haile was killed in a shooting at Ingraham High School. In June 2024, 17-year-old Garfield student Amarr Murphy-Paine was killed outside the school at lunchtime.

Two teenage boys were shot and killed in January 2026 at a bus stop near Rainier Beach High School - just two days before Superintendent Ben Shuldiner’s first day.

I worry that in our need for retribution and justice, we’ve shifted the focus off prevention. Investigations and prosecutions must happen but that’s not how we keep today’s undergraduates safe. The issue of sexual assault on campus will not be solved by outing and punishing a small set of bad men.

The research on why men commit assault says the risk factors include attitudes toward women, hostile masculinity and an impersonal view of sex. The idea that there is a “type” of monster we need to find and weed out is a myth that keeps women vulnerable. Instead, we must initiate change on two fronts: legally and academically.

Legally, the local district attorney declined to charge anyone in 2024 because, in his words, the victim took the drugs and alcohol voluntarily and wasn’t unconscious. He was applying New York’s Penal Law correctly. That law only counts intoxication as incapacity if someone else administered it or the person was unconscious. However, simultaneously Cornell was legally required to use the affirmative consent standard New York has imposed since 2015, which says an intoxicated person may be unable to consent. Two definitions of consent, in one house, on one night. To address this, New York should close the voluntary intoxication loophole.

Education on college campuses also should be completely overhauled. The last time the Center for Disease Control evaluated the efficacy of collegiate sexual assault programs was 2014. Out of 140 programs, three showed actual evidence of reducing assault.

This doesn’t surprise me. As someone with a window into what incoming undergraduates do and don’t know about sex, students are unprepared by U.S. high school sexual education programs. Forty-three states emphasize abstinence and only 16 require consent education. Most states still offer a shame-based abstinence-promoting system that frames sex as something men try to “get” and women are charged with “protecting.”

Last quarter, a student came to my office to tell me that my class had made them feel more comfortable asking for what they want sexually and better able to recognize when something felt off. That isn’t unusual. What was unusual: In the next breath, they said that they’d seen a young woman alone and drunk at a party. They knew to walk her home. Sexual literacy and sexual assault prevention go hand in hand, and my student proved it.

Cornell’s own task force, formed because of this case, recommended a three-credit sexual citizenship course. Cornell declined to require it. Require a sex education course. Michigan is testing one right now, and New York already mandates the standard it would teach. I am working with the UW to make my class a requirement. And in the course, don’t just tell students that sexual assault is wrong, or that inebriation means consent isn’t present. Teach students how these assaults occur — and can be prevented.

What will happen when a wolf and hyena open a shop in Seattle dedicated to furry artists and creators? E Pike will find out in 2027 when Furesh opens its new Capitol Hill store.

The costume design and fabrication studio has grown as a specialist in custom fursuit craftsmanship, with an emphasis on tailored bodysuits engineered for mobility, durability, and comfort, as well as standalone parts like paws and tails.

Now it is building out a furry den of creative retail along E Pike just east of 12th Ave. The grand opening is planned for January 7th, 2027.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is suspending tech giant Microsoft from a program to apply for green cards for workers who come to the U.S. to live and work using H-1B visas as it accuses the company of fraud.

Supporters of the Republican president have long argued that various programs like the one Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft of abusing essentially empower American companies to recruit foreign workers for jobs that end up undercutting Americans. In a wide-ranging announcement Thursday, Vance and other top administration officials also called out universities over their use of J-1 visas for international students and IT outsourcing firms.

The announcement came hours before Trump was scheduled to award the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, part of an event at which he is granting some of the nation’s most prestigious science and technology awards to his tech billionaire allies.

A 19-year-old Sumner man facing 15 criminal charges related to his alleged connection to street racing across the greater Seattle area had his pretrial hearing continued Monday to Nov. 9.

The Kent City Attorney’s Office has charged Cash Fairman with three counts each of racing, reckless endangerment, third-degree malicious mischief and unlawful race attendance, two counts of disorderly conduct and one count of second-degree criminal trespass.

Fairman previously pleaded not guilty to all charges and is out on $12,500 bond. He waived his right to a speedy trial, giving prosecutors until February to bring the case to trial.

The charges stem from three incidents between July 2025 and April 2026. Kent police say Fairman organized illegal street racing throughout King County, including events in Auburn, Kent, Pacific and Seattle.

Court records detail police surveillance of King County street racing dating back to the summer of 2020, when investigators began to notice an increase in “swinging,” in which crowds of spectators “take over,” or deliberately block, an intersection and congregate around a drifting vehicle. Drivers “get active” and drift in circles — “doughnuts.”

A Kent police commander with experience in over 100 investigations into illegal street racing throughout the Puget Sound region said that he believes the practice meets Washington’s definition of a criminal street gang. Police have connected street racing events to gun violence, including shootings involving at least eight gunshot victims in 2023 alone.

The events are initially organized as “car meets” on social media, according to police. Organizers, participants and spectators congregate before moving through a sequence of 10 to 20 “spots” for illegal street racing, traveling to each new location after law enforcement responds and breaks up the group.

KING 5 obtained witness video and screen recordings of Instagram accounts connected to street racing in King County that were logged as evidence in the case against Fairman.

One of those videos depicts an incident from July 11, 2025, in which Pacific Mayor Vic Kave confronts an active takeover in daylight outside Pacific City Hall.

Police records detail an investigation into a series of alleged street takeovers that day, including one in which Kave called 911 to report a takeover in downtown Pacific.

If you’ve never visited an occult bookshop, you might possibly harbor some suspicions about whether an ordinary, non-witchy, Patagonia-clad Seattleite would even be welcome in such a shop at all. Robert Anderson, owner of the University District’s Edge of the Circle Books, wants to put those fears to rest.

“Every nice person is welcome to come in,” Anderson says. He’s encountered nervous potential customers who ask whether Christians are welcome in Edge of the Circle, or if their beliefs would be mocked. “I am not here to do any harm, or to offend people,” Anderson promises. He adds, “I’m just trying to be here to provide for people what they want and need.”

Anderson explains that the shop that became Edge of the Circle Books started out as Shamanic Convergence, “a shack on 14th and Union, which has since been torn down,” sometime in the 1980s. A regular customer of the shop, Anderson started working there a year after it was renamed Edge of the Circle in 1992. In 1994, the store moved a few blocks away to its longtime home on Capitol Hill, at the corner of East Pike Street and Boylston Avenue. Anderson bought the business in 1995, and he shepherded its move away from Capitol Hill’s rising rents to its current home in the University District, a few doors down from the Neptune Theatre, in 2015.

On its website, Edge of the Circle Books refers to itself as “Seattle’s resource for Paganism & the Occult.” But the more apt description is actually a mission statement at the bottom of the home page: “Edge of the Circle Books strives to be everything that you could want in a Magickal Pagan store.” It’s that customer-centric promise which really gets to the heart of what Anderson’s shop is all about.


On Edge of the Circle’s bookshelves, you can find books relating to just about every major belief system, from Wicca to Nordic mythology to Afrodiasporic faiths to Santeria to Appalachian folk magic. There are guides to taking spiritual baths and taxonomies of all the angels in heaven. You can browse guidebooks for most forms of divination from astrology to palmistry to tarot cards.

“I have a lot, and I mean a lot, of tarot card decks,” Anderson says, adding that it’s “probably the widest selection of tarot out of anybody in the Greater Seattle area,” ranging from the popular decks you can find at other bookstores to rare examples from Il Meneghello Edizioni, an Italian publisher which describes itself as “the last artisans of tarot in the world.” Anderson explains that Il Meneghello’s “decks are made according to older practices. They make historical reproduction decks and other things, and they’re just wonderful.”

The building that last stood there, the public safety building, was demolished in 2005. Since then, the giant hole in the ground has become a part of the downtown landscape. Some of the most powerful offices in city government, including those of the mayor and a few members of Seattle City Council, look directly into the abandoned lot.

The City of Seattle concluded earlier this year that the developer who owns the long stalled high rise project across from City Hall is in default of a 2017 agreement it signed with Seattle when it took over land.

As a result, Seattle’s Finance and Administrative Services told the developer, Bosa, it could seek damages of up to $5,000 a day depending on the length of the delay, though the city has so far declined to levy these fines, according to a spokesperson.

Bosa disagrees that it is in default. In its response to the city – and in a statement to KUOW – the company blamed “the extreme deterioration in market conditions which began with COVID, the extreme construction cost escalation that followed and the profound impacts on the neighborhood which continue today have made performance of the original development plan impossible.”

Bosa took over the project after the previous developer, Triad, was entangled in an alleged quid pro quo campaign finance scandal involving a City Council race.

Jon Grant, a council candidate, was a tenant advocate with an open lawsuit against Triad on behalf of its tenants. A Triad executive said that if Grant could drop the suit, the executive could make a negative ad campaign against Grant disappear. News of the exchange led to the city ending its contract with Triad.

Progress on the long stalled project has likely become difficult to pencil in the current downtown economy, say city officials and local real estate experts. Office vacancy is at nearly 35% in the Central Business District. Residential high rises, like apartments and condos, come with their own challenges — interest rates are high, construction costs are up, and rents are relatively stable.

“If I were a developer, I would be hesitant unless you could get those costs down because rents are flat now,” said Councilmember Eddie Lin, who chairs the land use committee.

Even if the city fined Bosa the maximum amount, it is unclear whether this would move the needle on a project valued at around $300 million.

“We ought to find out,” said former Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess, who sponsored the legislation that passed the land to Bosa.

“ I think the city needs to apply more pressure,” Burgess said.

It’s not clear when or if the city will fine the developer, but Councilmember Eddie Lin said all options should be on the table .

“ We need to take a hard look at what we do want to see and how do we get there,” Lin said.

I got one pamphlet, but we have two voters in my household in Kenmore. No ballots yet. Just wondering when. I'm not complaining. I just don't wanna be here waiting for weeks only to find out it's too late to get one.

Officer Vincent Fason got a 30-day suspension for weirding out an entire veterinary clinic with surprise visits, uncomfortable hugs, and a bizarre, overly familiar cat impression that involved meowing and rubbing his head on a staffer’s arm.

The press release, sent out on Thursday, explained that the program has allowed anyone aged 13-26 to check out books from an electronic library, regardless of where they are located.

Brooklyn Public Library started Unbanned Books in 2022, citing increased efforts to remove books from shelves in schools and libraries across the country. SPL was the second library to join, launching its own program with donor funding in 2023. Since then, the coalition has grown to include Boston Public Library, San Diego Public Library, LA County Library, and Long Beach Public Library — directly inspired by the success and encouragement of Brooklyn and Seattle.

The foundation has contributed nearly $900,000 in philanthropic funding to sustain and grow the program, the library says.

“I think about the kid I was, looking for a book that would tell me it was okay to be who I am. That’s exactly who this program is for. We’re proud to fund a program that puts a book in the hands of a young person who needs it, no matter where they live or what their local library can offer,” said Brian Lawrence, CEO of The Seattle Public Library Foundation. “I’m so proud that our donors have stepped up to provide 100% of the funding for more than 1 million checkouts. It says so much about our values as a community.”

According to BannedIndex, a real-time database of books banned in the United States, as of October 1, 45 of 50 states are impacted by book bans.

In Washington, 5 books are banned. In Florida, a law prohibits the reading of over 9,500 books.

Throughout the United States, 146 laws ban books. Alabama recently signed into law the ban of books that talk about diversity, equity, or inclusion. The law also jointly bans unisex bathrooms.

“My high school removed its library, and my local library branch is very small with a limited selection. This card will help me access more books,” a 17-year-old from West Virginia said about the Unbanned Books program.

Many of these bans focus on removing books with sexual content or content that acknowledges LGBTQIA+ relationships. This type of content is often framed as “harmful” to children.

“There are books I can’t read in my local state, and liberties taken away from me due to politics. I appreciate the ability to read what I choose. Thanks,” a 19-year-old from Washington said about the program.

“I think it is important to form your own opinions based on the knowledge and life experiences you take in. The fact that people are trying to prevent me from reading something is absolutely outrageous. I applied for this library card to expand my knowledge and come to my own conclusions about what is good for me. That is up to me to decide, not anyone else,” added a 20-year-old from Georgia.