Ben Franklin Strikes Again!

Danielle McElwee's article on the environmental impact of using our libraries (Open Mic, "Open Books," Jan. 6) reminded me of an article I read about government-run institutions that buy materials, loan them to you for free and act as community centers. That author pointed out (tongue-in-cheek) that our public libraries are the best example of the "horrible" costs and effects of socialism that he could think of. People actually get their money's worth and then some.

This summer, we used public libraries across the Northwest, and we found them growing an indoor garden in Idaho, lending theme summer backpacks to teens in Montana and sponsoring activities throughout the long summer days in Wyoming. We even sat with other travelers outside them before they opened, and paid our bills online using their wireless internet connection. What an incredible resource! Next to our national parks, libraries may be the best idea America ever had.

Thanks, Ben Franklin.

Linda Hale

Glen Ellen

Brevity: Wit's soul

Great article about our libraries. Thank you.

Dianne Graner

Windsor

Men and their balls

Regarding Pieter S. Myers' open letter to President Obama (Letters, Jan. 6): Mr. Myers needs to brush up on his baseball before getting all cutesy with the metaphors. Two strikes would be an 0 and 2 count, not 2 and 0 as stated. Two and 0 just means Obama has two balls. Which I'm guessing is at least one more than "sports fan" Myers has.

Russ Reynolds

Production Director/Imaging Guy

98.5-KFOX, San Jose

Dept. of accidentally outing addicts

Dude, seriously???

I just read the fifth paragraph of your "Opium War" (Jan. 6) article—the one where you explain how Stefan R. had asked that his last name not be used, and four inches up and one inch to the right, there's his full name printed on some sort of correctional ID in the accompanying photo. His name is in larger type in the picture than it is in the article itself!

So much for anonymity.

I'd ask that my name be withheld, but I know better now.

Arjay Parker

San Rafael

Dude. Seriously. We have taken many calls and more than one snarky email regarding the OxyContin image accompanying the Jan. 6 news story. Here's the deal:

Stephan R., the subject, was fine with having his name shown on his ID, because a scan of that text is not (yet) Google-able. Our original caption reflected that. An hour before presstime, our copy editor suggested that, just to do our highest diligence, we alter the image to obscure his surname entirely and that we change the caption. We did both things.

However, and no one can quite figure this out, the image that went to press was the original. Stephan R. is not harmed by this and, while we feel like dolts, we do thank all who have contacted us about it. One young woman suggested that if we needed to take all the papers back off the streets (30,000 and counting) we should get moving, so that's why she called.

Given that it was such a crappy, mystery-shrouded error, it was pretty cool to get such a warm outpouring of concern. Thanks!

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