Replying to My friends Dad vs. town library
I had found an article from a newspaper about this a couple days ago, yet I think the link has dissapeared. I found this letter he wrote though,
Opinion Letter: Censorship of library tile
Thu Nov 08, 2007, 05:10 PM EST
Georgetown -
Georgetown - To the editor:
A letter to Laura Zalewski, chairwoman of the Trustees of the Georgetown Peabody Library:
In May, I submitted a $500 donation check together with a quotation gleaned from the American musician and satirist, Frank Zappa, “If you want to get laid, go to college, but if you want an education, go to the library.â€
I learned only at the library dedication [Saturday, Nov. 3] that this would only be acceptable if the word “laid†were censored and an ellipse substituted in its place. While I might expect a library in the 19th and early 20th century to censor its collection, I did not expect it in the 21st, and certainly not for a word George Carlin does not include in his list of words you cannot say on TV.
As I am advised that this censorship was discussed at trustees meeting(s) I request pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act copies of those minutes be made available to me for inspection and copying.
Instead of battling with you over this censorship, I submit the following from the first great American satirist, Mark Twain: “A public library is the most enduring of memorials, the trustiest monument for the preservation of events or a name or an affection; for it, and it only, is respected by wars and revolutions, and survives them.â€
Steven S. Epstein
Georgetown
You can buy a square for $500 dollars that actually goes into building the new library, and everyone can read what you want to put on it. Most people put names, he puts a Frank Zappa quote.
Needless to say, the guy is a fuckin baller.
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