[The Dad Fisherman]

This is my neighbor aross the street. He always likes to challenge the town. You could buy a square at the library for a donation of $500 towards the building of the new library

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.”

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.”

Steven S. Epstein

Georgetown