Remember a while back I screamed that USA legislators wanted to make a local censorship service a la China's Great Firewall? They're still at it. Lots of folks are protesting it today. You can, too. Meanwhile, it's tough not to get distracted by details. While I was cynically looking at where some entertainment-industry PACs were spending money, I found out that Rhode Island has a senator whose last name is Whitehouse. His website is whitehouse.senate.gov, not to be confused with whitehouse.gov, the White House website. But I bet folks get them confused all the time.
But the fun thing I did today was tour the Mechanics' Institute Library. This is a private library in downtown San Francisco. In general, it's not open to the public but they give tours Wednesday noons. It's a nice library, with a bunch of books. If I were in the market for another library, I'd probably like this one plenty. As it was, I was wondering if it would be a nice workspace, a place to peck away at the laptop away from home... while avoiding being one of those people pecking at laptops at cafes. This Library didn't seem right for that; folks were reading, not pecking. Things were pretty still, I might feel sheepish with my grunts of inspiration. No reason to think a library would be a good place for that. But it was interesting to check out anyhow. It's a pretty space. It's got some architectural details that folks wouldn't bother with anymore, but at the same time it's a well-used functional space. Plus now when I keep hearing about its chess club, I can say Oh, I've been there. And I finally got to see the staircase. I walked up, which isn't perhaps the best way to appreciate its beauty so much as its climbi-ness, but there you go.
