Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Not Free, Hardly Clear

I am sick today, so today's post will be brief. The 120-year-old Free Library of Philadelphia, the public library system of the city of Philadelphia, is closing on October 2nd due to a lack of budget.

The library, the foundation of an aware, knowledgeable, enriched populace, is closing. Completely.

This is not just a problem of Philadelphia. Day by day we see the consequences of reckless, profligate spending. I've resigned myself to the reality that things will be worse, much worse, for my generation than it was for my parents'. I've accepted that things like returns to the moon and boots on Mars will probably be science fiction until I'm an old man or dead.

I've accepted that this is the proximate fault of untrammeled greed, of unscrupulous traders and businessmen and suit-wearing Wall Street miscreants. I've accepted that the world is creaking, like an old wooden table piled high with cinderblocks, and sooner or later something has to give. Something will give.

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