Since some of what I’ve said before has met with suspicion and doubt, it occurred to me that I could attenuate the skepticism by posting this photo of the story I couldn’t locate online. Yes, I might have Photoshopped this, but before you intimate that it’s a fake, please check with an inhabitant of Nantucket.
Look, I don’t have any interest in stirring up trouble with law enforcement officials, or reporters, and I certainly don’t care to stir up librarians. My two points all along have been (1) open access points should be open, and (2) no one should be rousted from a public space just because he or she might be violating a law undetectably. (Otherwise, who couldn’t be harassed? You might be breaking the law, too.) I don’t want to bust the Deputy Chief’s chops, or the summer officer’s, and after all it might be an Shakespearean play of coincidence and confusion. But (as librarian Jewell has now said) I ought to have been permitted to continue using the access that the Atheneum deliberately made available freely, and I ought not to have been shooed away from the library.
I didn’t resist when I might (lawfully) have refused to turn off my wireless card nor when I might (lawfully) have continued sitting quietly on the bench. I didn’t give the officer a hard time other than discussing, in a calm tone, the complexities of the topic. I didn’t name the officer. I didn’t make a stink at the Atheneum. I don’t care to make life more difficult for any of these parties even now — again, I have on-island family who might be discomfited by my association with this whole fiasco. But in case someone thinks that the newspaper story alludes to my saga, then I will firmly and persistently set the record straight.
