The CDT picked up a piece today by the Salageddin and Yacoub, writing for the Associated Press, which discusses the ransacking of the Central Library in Mosul last month by the extremist group ISIS. This is nothing new. You can pick up your favorite news piece from who knows when and read about some identifiably evil group burning books or destroying libraries. This is the 21st Century, so there was a new wrinkle—ISIS packed up the best of the books in refrigerated trucks to sell on the black market, to finance what they’re selling, which I believe is wholesale murder.
I had a happy childhood. But a rational person would be hard pressed to describe my neighborhood in Brooklyn with any other word then dismal. That was one reason my mom would take me to the local library branch on Church Avenue, in East Flatbush. It was better than Disneyland. I would roam the shelves and choose a handful of books to take home twice a week. Fast forward to Schlow Library today and it’s different bright eyed children, still clutching their stacks of books. Some things change in only minor ways.
It’s distressing then, that while we seem to find all the money we need for weapons and delivery systems, we can’t seem to find the money to fund our libraries (and our schools). And while it is not always wise to ask people to support what our enemies detest, I believe we are on firm ground here.