Don't even think about selling lemonade. (via)
Imagine the movie Footloose, only replace Kevin Bacon with a 9-year-old boy. And instead of a town trying ban kids from dancing to the synth-rock jams of Kenny Loggins, they're closing down a small "free library" on a kid's front lawn. Now replace the fiery sermons from John Lithgow about sin and God's wrath with anonymous phone calls from a few spineless neighbors, and you've got yourself one crappy movie.
That's the real life drama that Spencer Collins and his family are dealing with in Leawood, Kansas, after the family returned home from vacation to find a letter from the city saying that the "take a book, leave a book" stand on their lawn was an "accessory structure," and if it wasn't removed, they would receive a citation.
The part of the humorless bureaucrat with his hands tied by the law is Leawood official Richard Coleman, who said, "We need to treat everybody the same. So we can't say if somebody files a complaint but we like the little libraries -- we think they're cute -- so we ignore it. We can't do that."
To his credit, Spenser isn't replacing the library with a sign reading "My neighbors suck" or going the Cliven Bundy route by creating an armed standoff with law enforcement. Instead, he moved the library to his garage and is reading up on the law in preparation for a fight with City Hall. He's also set up a Facebook page for it and is quickly accumulating supporters.
He should also consider loading some Kenny Loggins onto a portable music player for a choreographed dance number. It won't help his case much, but it will make it considerably more entertaining.
(by Jonathan Corbett)