A couple of days ago I was on the City Hall Plaza in Lincoln Park, Long Beach when what did I come across but a group of City bigwigs, including the Mayor, and some of their flunkies from the Long Beach Library administration. Seems they were setting fire to part of a giant pupet with fake books piled around him. It turned out that this was part of the "Long Beach Reads the Same Book" program (how's that for a brainless idea to begin with?) and the book this time was Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

How dare these frauds claim that they are against censorship! They have installed filters on all the public internet computers in the building. Once I tried to access the Thomas Hardy Study Center on one of them and found it banned - either because it contains Hardy's recipe for home-brewed ale or perhaps because it discusses the question of whether Tess Durbyfield was raped or seduced in Hardy's famous novel. Whaterver ignorant lout decided to install filters here has no business claiming to be against censorship or for freedom to read in any form. He or she might feel more at home in Arkansas or Texas.

In addition, I remember reading right here on IMC that the library administration had ordered staff members to get the names of Arab customers who asked to see pictures of famous buildings and turn them into the cops - a step that would surely lead to harassment and possible evictions and firings. To hell with privacy seems to be the motto at the Long Beach Public Library, not freedom to read. The only freedom these oatmeal-brained library bureaucrats are interested in is freedom to please their bosses at City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce.