While American librarians fret over the Patriot Act, Fidel Castro is shutting libraries in Cuba. Here’s an email message I just received from the Friends of Cuban Libraries:

From: Bob Kent
Subject: Sensational TV broadcast of Andrei Codrescu’s speech to the ALA
A Friends of Cuban Libraries newsletter is in the process of being written, but I may not be able to send it out before a key event occurs. So the purpose of this message is to give you advance notice of a wonderful C-SPAN2 broadcast on Saturday, Feb. 18.
By way of background, in January the writer and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu was the keynote speaker at the ALA’s midwinter conference in San Antonio, Texas. To warm applause from the audience, Andrei delivered a surprise speech eloquently denouncing the ALA’s failure to defend Cuba’s independent librarians from persecution.
Andrei Codrescu’s sensational speech will be aired on the BookTV program of C-SPAN2 on Saturday, Feb. 18, at 5:45 P.M. (Eastern Time). The film of the post-speech “dialogue” between Codrescu and stunned ALA president Michael Gorman is reported to be especially interesting.