Pope Leo XIV: In age of AI, the family is the first school of humanity; Vatican News, August 22, 2026

 Deborah Castellano Lubov, Vatican News; Pope Leo XIV: In age of AI, the family is the first school of humanity

""Sound legislation should encourage scientific and technological creativity while safeguarding fundamental human rights and freedoms.  It should protect users from exploitation, preserve personal privacy, ensure transparency in the use of emerging technologies and guarantee that they strengthen democratic institutions."

Pope Leo XIV expressed this conviction to the International Catholic Legislators Network in the Vatican on Friday.

Reflecting on legislation, the Pope reiterated that “robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required.”

He observed that such oversight can operate at multiple levels — local, national and international — facilitating open discussion of “the ethical frameworks involved and subjecting them to shared standards of social justice,” ensuring "that no single ideology or interest dictates the values embedded in artificial intelligence systems."

At the same time, the Holy Father underscored, the rapid development of artificial intelligence risks creating new forms of technological dependence, with poorer nations increasingly reliant on wealthier ones.  

Subtle forms of domination

"We must remain vigilant in this regard," he said, "lest innovation become another vehicle for ideological or economic colonialism."

Sadly, he lamented, "we are presented with a subtle form of domination when algorithms decide who is seen, and who remains invisible, when digital platforms shape public discourse without accountability, and when the dignity of workers is subordinated to the optimization of systems."  

Such developments, Pope Leo warned, "reveal a new face of the ancient temptation to domination and mastery without service."

The family as the first school of humanity

Against this culture of power, the Holy Father suggested, the Church proposes “the civilization of love.”"

Trump Is Making the 250th Small; The Atlantic, June 24, 2026

 Tom Nichols, The Atlantic; Trump Is Making the 250th Small

"To the extent that Trump’s appearance was about anything besides Trump, it was about a kind of vulgar nationalism. Trump cannot comprehend patriotism, the love of one’s country. Instead he defaults to nationalism, the sour and hostile glorification of one’s own nation over everyone else’s. He does this because he views the world the way he apparently has viewed most things in his life: as a competition...

All Trump had to do tonight was walk out on the stage and remind the American people that the nation and its ideals are bigger than all of us. He could have told us that we are blessed to live in freedom and plenty. He could have reminded us that the survival of the American experiment, and the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution, are miracles that bless every person who lives here.

Instead, he told America that he is great, and that because he is great, America is great, and thanks to him, it is now better than everywhere else. And then a handsome man in a bright military dress uniform sang “YMCA” to him, as the president of the United States danced and smiled."

Flu vaccine requirement discarded ‘effective immediately,’ Hegseth says; Military Times, April 21, 2026

 Patricia Kime, Military Times ; Flu vaccine requirement discarded ‘effective immediately,’ Hegseth says

"The U.S. military will no longer require service members to get an annual flu shot according to a post Tuesday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the social media platform X. 

Hegseth said the mandatory flu vaccine requirement has been discarded “effective immediately.”

“The War Department is once again restoring freedom to our Joint Force,” the secretary wrote. 

The flu vaccine has been required annually for U.S. military personnel since the 1950s to preserve the health of the force, and generally, the Defense Department has aimed to inoculate more than 90% of active-duty personnel. 

The program has been a major factor in lower rates of hospitalizations among service members than national U.S. rates, according to an October 2025 Armed Forces Health Surveillance Division report."

72 Years Later, the Greatest Quote in Western Movie History Is Still Untouchable; CBR, March 31, 2026

Ashley Land, CBR; 72 Years Later, the Greatest Quote in Western Movie History Is Still Untouchable

[Kip Currier: I first saw the movie Shane (1953) as an undergraduate university student taking a course called "Samurai and Western Films", as an elective for my East Asian Languages and Literatures degree at the University of Pittsburgh. A course that I thought might just be a necessary elective for my major remains one of the most memorable courses I've ever taken. And the film Shane that we watched during the term became one of my all-time favorite movies. Little did I know then, until I talked about the course with my Dad at some point, that Shane was one of his favorite films, too.

The instructor and creator of the course, the late Dr. Keiko McDonald, with whom I was also taking Japanese language courses, provided trenchant insights into and comparative analysis of all of the films that we watched in the class sessions: The Seven Samurai (1954), The Magnificent Seven (1960), Stagecoach (1939), Johnny Guitar (1954), and Shane, among others. (I still recall Dr. McDonald drawing our attention to the symbolism of the buckskin "frontier" clothes Shane changes out of when he tries to take on the identity of an upstanding townsman by donning "civilized" garb.) All of the curated selections included anti-heroes with morally-fraught backgrounds, facing ethical dilemmas between doing right and wrong and confronting societal expectations.

If you haven't seen Shane (or even if you already have), check it out. And also watch its Japanese counterpart Yojimbo (1961), directed by Akira Kurosawa.]

"Unlike most Western protagonists, Shane's moral conflict doesn't come from choosing between right and wrong — it comes from knowing the difference and still being haunted by the cost. He isn't the morally ambiguous outlaw of later decades, nor the spotless lawman of the past; he's a man who knows that violence solves problems in the short term but poisons everything in the long term...

Shane is constantly framed against open sky or distant mountains — symbols of freedom that paradoxically emphasize his isolation. Every time he steps into a frame with the Starrett family, he looks slightly out of place, as if the domestic world itself resists him. These quiet visual cues underline the tragedy: Shane's strength makes him invaluable, but it also ensures he can never stay.

The interesting part of his story doesn't come from his skills, but his moral code and how he bucks the traditional gunfighter archetype. Neither a lawman nor a duelist, he was something different for his time. After its release, Shane completely changed the way Hollywood thought of Western heroes. Before the film, the standard protagonist of the genre was a cavalry officer, lawman, upstanding small-town citizen, or the like, typically a reflection of the Hays Code rules.

Shane's ambiguity pushed past that. He was a drifter who had done bad things but was still capable of goodness — an early cinematic antihero who carried his own code rather than society's. That nuance set the template for later figures like Eastwood's William Munny in Unforgiven or Costner's Charley Waite in Open Range. All of them share Shane's paradox: moral men trapped in immoral skills.

Shane's Speech is a Flawless Part of Western History

After defeating Ryker, an injured Shane saddles up to leave the valley, much to the sorrow of Joey. Seeing the boy's emotions, the hero delivers a speech that has since become one of the finest monologues ever written for film. As he states, "A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can't break the mold. I tried, and it didn't work for me. Joey, there's no living with the killing. There's no going back from one. Right and wrong is a brand. A brand sticks. There's no going back." Having said all he needs to, Shane rides off into the distant sunset, his fate ambiguous from a gunshot to his body. A poignant ending for a film that was almost never made." 

SHELLEY’S ‘FRANKENSTEIN’ GETS AN AI REBOOT AT PASADENA’S HASTINGS BRANCH LIBRARY; Pasadena Now, March 15, 2026

 Pasadena Now; SHELLEY’S ‘FRANKENSTEIN’ GETS AN AI REBOOT AT PASADENA’S HASTINGS BRANCH LIBRARY

A discussion today ties the 1818 novel's warnings about creator responsibility to contemporary debates over artificial intelligence, part of the city's One City, One Story program 

"Two centuries before algorithms began analyzing people’s dreams and predicting their crimes, Mary Shelley wrote a novel about a scientist who built something he could not control. That novel, “Frankenstein,” is the subject of a free discussion today at Hastings Branch Library, where presenter Rosemary Choate will connect its 207-year-old themes to the same questions about artificial intelligence that Pasadena’s citywide reading program is exploring all month.

The event, titled “Frankenstein: Myths and the Real Story?” is part of the Pasadena Public Library’s 24th annual One City, One Story program, which this year selected Laila Lalami’s “The Dream Hotel” — a dystopian novel about a woman detained because an algorithm, fed by data from her dreams, deemed her a future criminal. The library has organized a month of lectures, films and book discussions around the novel’s themes of surveillance, technology and freedom, and the Frankenstein session draws a direct line between Shelley’s 1818 tale and the anxieties at the center of Lalami’s story.

Choate, a comparative literature and humanities instructor and founder of the Pomona College Alumni Book Club, will lead the discussion at 3 p.m. She will examine themes including creator responsibility, the consequences of unchecked technological ambition and society’s rejection of the “creation” — questions the library’s event description calls “highly relevant to contemporary debates surrounding the development and governance of AI,” according to the Pasadena Public Library’s event listing.

Shelley published “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” anonymously in 1818, when she was 20 years old. The novel tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who assembles a creature from dead body parts and recoils from what he has made. The creature, abandoned by its creator, becomes violent as it fails to find acceptance. The novel is widely considered one of the first works of science fiction.

The One City, One Story program, now in its 24th year, selects a single book each year for citywide reading and discussion. A 19-member committee of community volunteers, led by Senior Librarian Christine Reeder, chose “The Dream Hotel” for its exploration of surveillance, freedom and the reach of technology into private life. The program is sponsored by The Friends of the Pasadena Public Library and the Pasadena Literary Alliance.

The month of events culminates in a conversation with Lalami and Pasadena Public Library Director Tim McDonald on Saturday, March 21, at 2 p.m. at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 585 E. Colorado Blvd. That event is also free and open to the public."

Honoring the Memory of Alex Pretti; The Bulwark, January 26, 2026

 William Kristol, The Bulwark; Honoring the Memory of Alex Pretti

"It’s fitting to begin with the words of Alex Pretti a little over a year ago at the deathbed of Terrance Lee Randolph, a veteran Pretti had cared for at the VA hospital in Minneapolis.

Today we remember that freedom is not free. We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom. So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we give them our honor, and our gratitude.

It’s fitting, in the wake of Pretti’s killing Saturday, to remember and give thanks for his dedication and sacrifice in the cause of our freedom. And it’s proper that we resolve that he shall not have died in vain.

What would such a resolve mean? We can be guided by Michael and Susan Pretti, Alex’s parents, who said Saturday,

We are heartbroken but also very angry. . . .

Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However his last thought and act was to protect a woman.

The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. . . .

Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man.

The good news is that the administration’s slander campaign against Pretti is failing, underscored by the news this morning that the president is dispatching border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis—a rebuke of those currently in charge. But there will be lasting dishonor for all those who joined in the smears, and on those who kept silent.

But the way to honor Pretti isn’t simply to insist on the truth about him. It’s to end the lawless occupation that took his life. It’s to free his fellow citizens, in Minnesota and beyond, from attacks by masked, trigger-happy government agents. It’s to begin to end the grotesque mass deportation campaign that has led to so much inhumanity, cruelty, and violence across the nation. It’s more broadly to limit the authoritarian depredations of the Trump administration over the next three years. It’s to lay the groundwork for an America in which men and women like Alex Pretti and Renee Good are once again honored rather than killed.

This is a task for all of us, and for many institutions, including the courts, state and local government, civil society, and the private sector. But it’s above all a task for Congress. The simple fact is that DHS, ICE, and CBP are creatures of Congress. They are authorized in legislation; their funds are appropriated; the behavior of their employees can be regulated by Congress as it chooses." 

7 Questions to Ask Yourself for a Happier New Year; The New York Times, December 26, 2025

 Jancee Dunn , The New York Times; 7 Questions to Ask Yourself for a Happier New Year

"At the end of every year, I like to reflect by asking myself a question. This year, I’m mulling one recommended by Kandi Wiens, the author of “Burnout Immunity.”

Dr. Wiens told me to ask myself: What is worth remembering from 2025?...

Now it’s your turn. I asked experts for other reflective questions that could provide a framework for thinking about the year ahead. Pick one or two that resonate, journal about them or discuss them with a friend.

When did you feel the most joyful and carefree?...

What gave you energy — and what drained it?...

What seemed impossible — but you did it anyway?...

What habit, if you did it more consistently, would have a positive effect on your life?...

What did you try to control that was actually outside your control?...

Is there anyone you need to forgive in 2026?

Hanging on to anger and resentment can take mental and emotional energy, said Anthony Chambers, a psychologist and the chief academic officer of the Family Institute at Northwestern University. Deciding to forgive, he added, doesn’t mean forgetting.

Instead, it’s a “choice to stop letting a past action control our present emotions,” he said, and it can be good for your mental health. To help his patients get started, Dr. Chambers frequently recommends the book “Forgiveness Is a Choice,” by Robert Enright.

“Forgiveness allows you to move forward feeling freer and fulfilled instead of filled with bitterness,” Dr. Chambers said. “And what better way to bring in 2026 than to have a sense of freedom?”"

Trump’s Security Strategy Focuses on Profit, Not Spreading Democracy; The New York Times, December 5, 2025

 Anton Troianovski, The New York Times; Trump’s Security Strategy Focuses on Profit, Not Spreading Democracy

[Kip Currier: At the heart of this heartless Trump 2.0 National Security Strategy is an ethos of naked transactionalism and moral bankruptcy.

The transparent inhumanity, unbridled avarice, and indifference to the wellbeing of fellow human beings are a shameful repudiation of fundamental American democratic values and ethical principles.]

[Excerpt]

"The world as seen from the White House is a place where America can use its vast powers to make money.

President Trump has shown all year that his second term would make it a priority to squeeze less powerful countries to benefit American companies. But late Thursday, his administration made that profit-driven approach a core element of its official foreign policy, publishing its long-anticipated update to U.S. national security aims around the world.

The document, known as the National Security Strategy, describes a world in which American interests are far narrower than how prior administrations — even in Mr. Trump’s first term — had portrayed them. Gone is the long-familiar picture of the United States as a global force for freedom, replaced by a country that is focused on reducing migration while avoiding passing judgment on authoritarians, instead seeing them as sources of cash."

The Guardian view on the Alaska summit: there must be no more gifts to Vladimir Putin, Editorial; The Guardian, August 17, 2025

 Editorial; The Guardian view on the Alaska summit: there must be no more gifts to Vladimir Putin

"Ukraine must remain in control of the future of its own territory, and the use of force must not be rewarded by the summary redrawing of borders. With enormous bravery and skill, and at immense cost, Ukraine has resisted an illegal invasion for more than three years. There must be no sellout."

Ukrainian mood hardens as MPs insist country should not be forced to surrender; The Guardian, August 17, 2025

Dan Sabbagh in Kyiv and Artem Mazhulin , The Guardian; Ukrainian mood hardens as MPs insist country should not be forced to surrender

[Kip Currier: For anyone who thinks Ukraine should just capitulate to Putin and Trump's pressure to give up its sovereign territory and its peoples, realize what that means: 

all. Ukrainians. in. those. territories. will. now. be. living. under. Russian. totalitarian. rule. 

Period. Full stop.

Ask yourself, too, if you're an American, if you'd be willing to just acquiesce to pressure and surrender a half dozen U.S. states to an authoritarian invader.

Moreover, giving up those states to Russia is no guarantee that Russia won't later use those newly acquired regions as footholds to again attack Ukraine and try to take over the entire country. 

As an 8/17/25 BBC article reports:

Zelensky has consistently said Ukraine would not hand over the Donbas in exchange for peace. And confidence in Russia to abide by any such arrangement – rather than simply use the annexed land for future attacks – is low.  

For that and other reasons, about 75% of Ukrainians object to any formal cessation of land to Russia, according to polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgv1pdkll8o

That's what a despotic abductor of Ukrainian children, a bomber of hospitals, and indicted war criminal like Putin is likely to do.

And for anyone who is a marginalized person in those territories, such as LGBTQ+ persons, your very life may be at risk if Russia takes control of those lands. (See here and here and here.]

[Excerpt]

"A string of Ukrainian politicians and public figures condemned the idea of handing over unoccupied land to Russia for peace on Sunday, arguing that their country had not been defeated and should not be forced into a surrender.

The hardening of the mood came at the end of a weekend where there was first ridicule and disgust in Ukraine at the red-carpet treatment of Vladimir Putin by Donald Trump at their summit in Alaska, followed by frustration as it appeared that Trump was siding with the Russian leader.

Trump reportedly told European leaders that he believed a peace deal could be negotiated if Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to give up the areas of the Donbas region that the Russian invaders have not been able to seize in more than three years of fighting.

Halyna Yanchenko, an independent member of Ukraine’s parliament, said the suggestion that Ukraine should “simply surrender new territories without a fight – just because Putin wants it – is absurd from the very start”.

The MP, an anti-corruption activist previously part of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, said hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians would be affected by Putin’s proposal, initially favoured by Trump after Friday’s Alaska summit.

Official estimates are that 255,000 people still live in the 3,500 square miles (9,000 sq km) of Donetsk province that Russia has been unable to seize in its three-and-a-half-year invasion, which includes the industrial cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. The Donbas also comprises Luhansk province, which is almost totally occupied by Russia.

Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion the population of Donetsk was 1.9 million, so the number of people with property and other connections to the area wanted by Russia is higher. “So when someone brings up the idea of ‘trading territory’, we must understand that in practice it is trading people,” Yanchenko said...

Cartoons and memes circulated widely online over the weekend with a particular focus on the sight of US soldiers kneeling to straighten out the red carpet in Alaska for the Russian president.

“Dishonored,” wrote Serhii Sternenko, a Ukrainian drone fundraiser, on X, comparing the image to soldiers raising the US flag at Iwo Jima towards the end of the second world war.

Maksym Palenko, a cartoonist, drew a picture of a glum-looking Trump with his trademark red tie spooling out beneath him and turning into a carpet on which a laughing Putin was standing. It reflected shots of Putin smiling as he was sitting in Trump’s limousine while it was setting off.

“We do not deserve to surrender and we are not in a position to surrender,” said Oleksiy Goncharenko, an MP with the opposition European Solidarity party. “This part of Donetsk is a fortress and Putin has tried and failed to take it for 11 years. Now he wants to take it through diplomatic tricks and manoeuvres.”" 

Carla Hayden on her time as a pioneering librarian of Congress and getting fired by Trump; PBS News, June 20, 2025

 Geoff Bennett , PBS News; Carla Hayden on her time as a pioneering librarian of Congress and getting fired by Trump

"Geoff Bennett: What effect do you believe censorship has on our democracy?

• Dr. Carla Hayden:

  As Alberto Manguel said, as centuries of dictators, tyrants, slave owners and other illicit holders of power have known, an illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule. And if you cannot restrict a people from learning to read, you must limit its scope.

  And that is the danger of making sure that people don't have access.

• Geoff Bennett:

  She says she will keep advocating for her beliefs and feels bolstered by support from elected officials on both sides of the aisle, as well as from people across the country.

  She shared that her 93-year-old mother has been cataloging the notes and messages she's received. A former president of the American Library Association, Hayden is set to address some of its 50,000 members at their annual meeting. This year's agenda, she says, takes on new urgency.

• Dr. Carla Hayden:

  How to help communities support their libraries, how to deal with personal attacks that libraries are having, even death threats in some communities for libraries.

  So this convening of librarians that are in schools, universities, public libraries will be really our rally. We have been called feisty fighters for freedom."

Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression; The Washington Post, October 17, 2018

Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post;

Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression

 

"A note from Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor

I received this column from Jamal Khashoggi’s translator and assistant the day after Jamal was reported missing in Istanbul. The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together. Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post. This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for. I will be forever grateful he chose The Post as his final journalistic home one year ago and gave us the chance to work together.

I was recently online looking at the 2018 “Freedom in the World” report published by Freedom House and came to a grave realization. There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as “free.” That nation is Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of “partly free.” The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as “not free.”

As a result, Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives. A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change."

The Russification of America; New York Times, February 21, 2017

Roger Cohen, New York Times; 

The Russification of America

"I’m skeptical of Trump ever running a disciplined administration. His feelings about Europe are already clear and won’t change. The European Union needs to step into the moral void by standing unequivocally for the values that must define the West: truth, facts, reason, science, tolerance, freedom, democracy and the rule of law. For now it’s unclear if the Trump administration is friend or foe in that fight."

How The U.S. Navy Named a Ship After Harvey Milk To Show Its LGBT Pride; Daily Beast, 8/20/16

Lizzie Crocker, Daily Beast; How The U.S. Navy Named a Ship After Harvey Milk To Show Its LGBT Pride:

"“It’s important to remember and honor naval heroes—sailors and marines who have sacrificed so much for America,” [Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus] said. “But it’s also important to recognize and honor those who have fought in a different way and sacrificed… those who have fought for the ideals that we cherish as a nation: justice, equality, and freedom.”

Under his leadership, the Navy has now created a new naming convention (in January, Mabus named the first ship in this new class of command replenishment vessels after John Lewis, the Georgian politician and civil rights activist).

“My uncle always told me that it poisoned the soul to have to lie about or hide who you were,” [Stuart Milk, Harvey’s nephew and leader of the Harvey Milk Foundation] said, recalling how his uncle gave him a book in 1972, Seven Arrows, about Native Americans when Stuart was 12 and not yet out of the closet.

“He told me that my authenticity and the fact that I felt different from everyone else was important, and he wrote in the front, ‘All of your differences are the medicine that the world needs, even when the world doesn’t recognize that.’ I think the USNS Harvey Milk can telegraph that message to the world.”"

Abraham Lincoln’s lesson for Trump: America’s at its best when we respect individual dignity; The Conversation via Salon, 7/8/16

Donald Nieman, The Conversation via Salon; Abraham Lincoln’s lesson for Trump: America’s at its best when we respect individual dignity:

"Lincoln believed that America’s commitment to equality and human dignity made it great. He criticized those who denied that the Declaration of Independence applied to African-Americans as “blowing out the moral lights around us.” In announcing his support for emancipation as president, he argued that it would preserve America’s role as “the last best hope of earth.”

If Trump wants to “make America great,” he can learn a lot from Lincoln. He can begin by following Lincoln’s example and appeal to “the better angels of our nature” rather than to fear. He should realize that we are at our best when we respect individual dignity, not when we stigmatize groups because of their race, sex, identity or religion.

Or he can join the Know Nothings. The party enjoyed a meteoric rise in 1854 but splintered over slavery and fizzled in the 1856 presidential election. Today, Lincoln is remembered for expanding our understanding of freedom and equality. In contrast, the Know Nothings’ appeal to fear and bigotry reminds us only of our worst instincts."

Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming; Guardian, 10/15/13

Neil Gaiman, Guardian; Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming: "I was lucky. I had an excellent local library growing up. I had the kind of parents who could be persuaded to drop me off in the library on their way to work in summer holidays, and the kind of librarians who did not mind a small, unaccompanied boy heading back into the children's library every morning and working his way through the card catalogue, looking for books with ghosts or magic or rockets in them, looking for vampires or detectives or witches or wonders. And when I had finished reading the children's' library I began on the adult books. They were good librarians. They liked books and they liked the books being read. They taught me how to order books from other libraries on inter-library loans. They had no snobbery about anything I read. They just seemed to like that there was this wide-eyed little boy who loved to read, and would talk to me about the books I was reading, they would find me other books in a series, they would help. They treated me as another reader – nothing less or more – which meant they treated me with respect. I was not used to being treated with respect as an eight-year-old. But libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education (which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or university), about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information. I worry that here in the 21st century people misunderstand what libraries are and the purpose of them. If you perceive a library as a shelf of books, it may seem antiquated or outdated in a world in which most, but not all, books in print exist digitally. But that is to miss the point fundamentally. I think it has to do with nature of information. Information has value, and the right information has enormous value. For all of human history, we have lived in a time of information scarcity, and having the needed information was always important, and always worth something: when to plant crops, where to find things, maps and histories and stories – they were always good for a meal and company. Information was a valuable thing, and those who had it or could obtain it could charge for that service... Libraries really are the gates to the future. So it is unfortunate that, round the world, we observe local authorities seizing the opportunity to close libraries as an easy way to save money, without realising that they are stealing from the future to pay for today. They are closing the gates that should be open... We have an obligation to support libraries. To use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future."