My Sunday column

They should close the local public library.
Shut it down. Sell the books on eBay. Toss the aging furniture on a junk pile and lop those salaries right off the payroll.
Truth be known, neither the city or county want to fool with it. Next to the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center — which the city and county have finally given up on — the library may be their biggest loser. Besides, they’ve got parks to build and gymnasiums to refurbish — athletic facilities designed to let our future athletic stars polish their handoffs and jump shots. What could be more important than that?
Who needs a financial money pit like a library, with those stacks of books and other learning resources?
Books? Learning?
Bah, humbug! (That’s from Charles Dickens, by the way).
One option the city and county should consider is turning the library into a gentleman’s club.
Fellow Daily Citizen columnist Charles Oliver once laughingly suggested the same thing about the trade center, but his idea was stupid. Mine is really smart.
In my plan, we would use the trade center parking lot. Lonely truck drivers could stash their rigs there and then ride the trolley to “the library,” which we would rename something clever like The Naked Truth or Dusty Books and Dirty Looks.
Revenue would pour in.
But seriously folks ...
If we are going to have a public library in this town, the city and county should do right by it.
Ante up.
We’ve heard the song and dance for years about how the two governments would love to do more for the library, but the money isn’t there. That has always been a lie. Occasionally a councilman or commissioner will champion the library’s cause for a few months. Hope will spring anew, before it is once again snuffed out by indifference. City officials say they would do more but the county has to match them and the county resists. Or is it vice versa? Lots of sympathetic talk, no action.
If you listen to some of our community leaders they’ll tell you all the wonderful things that can be accomplished when the city and county work together. But the fact is, they can’t even come up with a plan for systematically upgrading the library. The next time one of our elected “leaders” starts yakking about the community’s quality of life, ask him or her where our underfunded public library fits in that picture. Or is “quality of life” only aimed at producing linebackers and point guards?
I started this column joking about closing the library. But if the only option to quick death is slow strangulation, maybe it’s not such a joke.

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Speaking of books, former Dalton resident Robert Whitlow’s successful “Christian novel” “The List,” has been made into a movie starring Malcolm McDowell. I got it from Netflix, but it’s also available locally at Wal-Mart and may be in local rental stores as well.
I wish the movie was a knockout and it does have some nice moments. McDowell is always fun and veteran actors Pat Hingle and Will Patton are good. The South Carolina locations are very effective and the movie is sharply photographed. The mystery plot works well too, up to a point.
But the ending will prove a big letdown for many thriller fans, though viewers more interested in the religious elements than in more standard Hollywood storytelling will probably be happier with the final act.
“The List” might make a good stocking stuffer for folks who like movies but are distrustful of the standard fare produced by Hollywood.


• Jimmy Espy is executive editor of The Daily Citizen. He received numerous Gold Stars in the Summer Reading Program at the Summerville Public Library, oh so many years ago.
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