Field of Science

Promoting literacy, but not in our neighborhood

TPP's walk to work takes one of three paths, all quite pleasant, two of which are green boulevard malls. It's good to switch things around, but generally, the eastern most street is taken to campus and the western most street taken home. The middle street, one where the Phactors lived for 22 years is seldom walked now for no good reason. At any rate, on the way to campus TPP walks past one yard where what looks like a doll house sits on a pole. It is a little free library; take a book, bring back a book. This has always struck TPP as a fine gesture, a really nice, simple thing to do to make the world a slightly better place. However it turns out that not everyone has neighbors as nice as ours, or neighborhoods as nice as ours; in some places neighbors complained about these little libraries and dopey city officials citing ordinances stored away for decades just for such purposes deal with squeaky wheels by giving in to their curmudgeonly complaints and asking for the removal of these book exchanges. This makes TPP want to put up a little library along with a Thai spirit house (not an endorsement), especially if little floral leis were easy to come by as they are in Bangkok. How about that neighbors? Freedom of speech right beside freedom of religion.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What good ideas these little book lending libraries are. And shame on the curmudgeons. And what fun to see a mention of a Thai spirit house - one sits in my garden and so far the garden spirits seem to have taken to it with no complaint. In fact, they seem to have taken an interest in the surroundings judging by the lush foliage.