Carleen and Mike

A columnist by the name of Rich Lowry has written a rather disturbing article proposing, albeit sarcastically, that we “kill all the librarians”. According to Lowry, librarians are “thoughtless” and suffer from “unreconstructed leftism”. He also seems to infer that ALA opposes filters, not because the software is flawed, but because they believe a person has the “right” to download pornography on the internet. Lowry has also fallen for Ashcrofts assertion that section 215 of the Patriot Act has never yet been used. Perhaps he should check out this California survey.

However, little Richi does score at least one point in my book. I did some research on the independent librarians jailed in Cuba this past summer and according to a New York Times article, ALA failed to support their cause for an extremely stupid reason:

“Winston Tabb, the outgoing chairman of the ALA’s international-relations committee, gave perhaps the flimsiest rationale for the association’s decision. “One of the questions was whether there was too much focus on Cuba,” he said in the New York Times, “and whether we should focus on freedom of access to information and freedom of expression generally. Those questions arise in Cuba but they arise in other places, too.” Tabb listed Turkey and Zimbabwe as two of these other places. This evasive logic posits that unless all violators of free speech are being censured, no one government or dictator should be criticized. But even if there are more than a few tyrannies that stifle intellectual and journalistic liberties, how does that excuse the most egregious offenders, such as Castro?”
Find a copy of the article here along with more information on The Friends of Cuban Libraries. Hypocrisy is everywhere, even in those we believe in.
~C

Posted on October 2nd, 2003 under Libraries • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback