Monday, July 14, 2008

In Praise of Librarians

I am in Portland, Oregon attending the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting and being in the company of fellow librarians (not all of whom are radical and militant, but many of whom are) I would like to point out and praise one brave member of my chosen profession who stood tall this last week and had the audacity to express a fairly innocuous sentiment (McCain = Bush) and was escorted off the premises for her simple expression of free speech. The librarian's name is Carol Kreck and she has blogged about her experience on the Huffington Post. Not only is this a curious sentiment to object to (McCain = Bush) as it would seem that any good Republican would not only welcome a comparison between a sitting president and his own party's candidate for the same office, but also it is curious that any self-respecting Republican would find fault with a sign that merely compares two prominent party stalwarts. It was even more strange that this sign caught the attention of the local police department who saw fit to escort Ms. Kreck away from an event that candidate McCain was about to appear. The event at which McCain was about to appear was being held in a public building - Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The irony apparently lost on the police who, under orders from the McCain campaign, removed and ticketed Ms. Kreck for attempting to enter the McCain campaign event.

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