Charlie Savage, in the NYTImes:
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — The prison library here is housed in a prefabricated building behind chain-link fencing and razor wire inside Camp Delta, an older, largely disused wing of the complex. Inside, the place has the feel of a branch library, with several rooms of books divided by language and genre — but its patrons may not browse the stacks. Instead, the chief librarian, a civilian who asks to be identified as “Milton” for security reasons, or an aide fills plastic bins with about 50 books and takes them to each cellblock once a week. If they obey prison rules, the 166 detainees may peer at the spines through the slots in their doors and check out two titles at a time, or make specific requests.
The library has about 18,000 books — roughly 9,000 titles — the bulk of which are in Arabic, along with a smaller selection of periodicals, DVDs and video games. Religious books are the most popular, Milton said, but there is also a well-thumbed collection of Western fare — from Arabic translations of books like “News of a Kidnapping,” by Gabriel García Márquez, and “The Kiss,” by Danielle Steel, to a sizable English-language room, which boasts familiar titles like the “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” series, “Watership Down” and the “Odyssey.” Some detainees arrived knowing English, while a few others have learned over time. Most have now been held without trial for over a decade.
Milton has a small budget for new acquisitions, and detainees’ lawyers and family members can send books to specific inmates through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Those copies are first donated to the library and then passed along to the prisoners, who can keep them in their cells for up to 60 days, rather than the usual 30.
David Remes, a lawyer for Guantánamo detainees, told me one client requested romance novels, while others have asked for skiing, surfing and mountain-climbing magazines, “because they never see nature.” His client Shaker Aamer, a former resident of Britain, took a liking to George Orwell. “I sent him a copy of ‘1984,’ and he said he read it about three times and that it perfectly captured the psychological reality of being at Gitmo,” Remes said….
What’s on the agenda for the day?
Linda Featheringill
Four walls do not a prison make . . .
Libraries are wonderful things, aren’t they? They are repositories of history and philosophy, they preserve a whole bunch of technical knowledge, and they offer wings to many a landlocked soul.
This particular library might be worth contributing to, if one had a site for doing so.
NotMax
Leave us not forget that Dubya ordered closed and abandoned the longstanding program of libraries operated out of embassies and consulates, which had a storied (no pun intended) history of promoting goodwill and access to ideas which might not otherwise be readily available.
Defunct.
Every. Single. One.
WereBear
@NotMax: I didn’t know that.
Why? How incredibly stupid.
These kinds of “elites” are just begging for a twilight.
NotMax
@WereBear
In fairness, should note that a number of the State Dept. operated diplomatic libraries have since reopened on a limited basis (or closed until administration attention was diverted elsewhere), or else have been reconstituted under other programs (see Lincoln Learning Centers in Afghanistan, for example). But the program is nowhere near as robust and widespread as it had been for decades prior.
Ben Cisco
Gitmo is a disgrace.
Gitmo cannot be closed w/o appropriations.
Congress has the sole control over the purse, and therefore appropriations.
Congress is full of cowards who think these guys are the Legion of Doom and/or that they’ll get voted out of office if they vote to shut Gitmo down.
The end.
qwerty42
@Ben Cisco: Our very own Château d’If a disgrace? Where you can be imprisoned forever on the word of the shadowy “authorities”? This isn’t what Founding Fathers would have wanted?
low-tech cyclist
While it’s true that Gitmo can’t be closed without Congress’ consent, I’d think that Obama would have considerable latitude to improve the treatment of the prisoners there, particularly the ones who we want to release but can’t arrange a place for them to go to, for whatever reasons. While they have to be confined to the Gitmo complex, why not treat them as nonprisoners within the areas it’s OK for them to go? It’s not like there’s so many of them that they can’t be monitored.
c u n d gulag
Conservative POV:
We shouldn’t even allow those evil bastards to read.
They should be working at making smaller rocks out of bigger rocks, 18 hours a day. And being water-boarded the other 6.
And we should be thankful to our great “Young Churchill,” President George W. Bush, and his tough VP, Dick Cheney, for starting-up a great program Gitmo.
These evil Mooozum terrorists, and their superpowers, can not be tried, and if found guilty, put into Super Max Prisons.
Everyone knows that sunshine, sharks, and ocean water are the Kryptonite that weakens their superpowers enough, so they can be kept in cells in Cuba.
And we thank the usually cowardly Democrats in Congress for keeping Gitmo going, when they had the majority in the House and Senate, with Oblackie as President.
We rarely applaud them, but this time, we do!
And we’re also pleased that they’ve kept the NSA busy paying tax dollars to private companies to collect every single thing every single person in this country does, when communicating electronically.
Ready? Everyone together:
USA! USA!! USA!!!
Emma
There aren’t many days where the first thing I read makes me feel proud as all hell. My profession rocks. Librarians do great things in the worst of conditions.
cvstoner
Not sure why we’re still referring to Guantanamo as a prison, instead of the gulag that it is.
WereBear
@Emma: Yes. I <3 librarians!
MomSense
@Emma:
I love librarians!! Growing up I could always be found either in the school library or the town library and now I get to enjoy a second childhood through my boys as they all love the library! The older ones go on their own now but the youngest guy still needs a ride!
Snarki, child of Loki
“The Gulag Archipelago” is too long and depressing. Well, perhaps it’s a light humorous read in Russian, I don’t know.
But someone needs to gift those prisoners with “The Man in the Iron Mask”. And perhaps “The Anarchist Cookbook”.
c u n d gulag
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Actually, believe it or not, it really is quite funny in Russian!
I’m Russian-Ukrainian, and, like the Jews and the Irish, we look for, and find, humor in the bleakest of settings.
Lurking Canadian
@Snarki, child of Loki: Better not let them read Count of monte Cristo, though, or they’ll get dangerous ideas about how to make tunneling equipment out of cutlery and how to braid their beards to make rope. Wouldn’t want to abet their escape.
Svensker
@low-tech cyclist:
This 100 times. He can’t close it but he should be making damn sure that the folks there are not being mistreated.
muddy
@NotMax: I wonder what Laura had to say about that. Wasn’t reading books her signature topic as FLOTUS?
jon
I was a prison librarian for seven years. Worst job on earth in the worst place on earth. GITMO sounds like a different planet.
Now work at a public library in a poor neighborhood with lots of halfway houses and shelters. See a few faces from the other job. Every day. They’re all happy to see that I got out. It’s mutual, usually.
YellowJournalism
@muddy: Having Laura Bush be an advocate for reading during the Bush years was like Exxon purchasing a few carbon offsets.
I love that someone checked out Danielle Steel. I don’t understand those who want to deny prisoners of any type the chance to read and learn of the viewpoints and life experiences of other people.
Tone in DC
No doubt.
J
Three cheers for librarians!!
I’m normally a big fan of Gail Collins’ NYT column, but I found today’s a little off-putting. I’m glad someone prominent–NY’s Mayor Bloomberg–thinks gun control is a matter of urgency, and that the outrage is the proper response to the NRA-lackeys in the Democratic party. GC wheels out the familiar–and not entirely misguided–line that Republicans would be even worse, my ability to endure which has been sorely tested. But it’s the hint of sympathy she seems to feel for the four worthless cowards in the senate that is beyond endurance.
ruemara
@Emma: Yay for librarians. You were always rockstars to me.
Nancy B.
Another librarian here, going off on a tangent What really chafes my hide about the Snowden mess is that public libraries are totally cash-strapped and people with MLS degrees can’t even get jobs shelving books for $10/hour, yet defense contractors are giving anywhere from $122-200K to high-school dropouts. Grrr!
LanceThruster
“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” ― Carl Sagan
mai naem
I really really want to tweet and ask WJC and Chelsea if Chelsea is willing to join up and serve in any of the Armed Forces in this Syrian mission that WJC is all excited about. If she’s not then he needs to STFU. She looks young and healthy enough to go to basic training.