On a daily basis, Perry, my six year old son, cruises the neighborhood looking for somebody to play with. He'll talk to anybody. When he connects, which is more times than not, he's suddenly full of new enthusiasms.

So he'll walk in the door abruptly agog over Japanese action figures. Or he begins leaping around the house doing spin kicks.

Lately I've been thinking about a question I first ran across when I was in fifth grade. For three syllables, it packs a lot of punch.

What is wise?

I admit it. At the core of my soul is a contradiction. I am a libertarian who works for the government.

In general, I believe that that government is best which governs least. I believe in the value of the individual over the state. I believe, at a minimum, that any tax-supported institution should hold to the strictest standards of accountability and good stewardship.

But I also believe that the public library, and even more specifically, the public library district, is close to a perfect form of government.

Why?

I've been picking up a lot of old science fiction lately from library book sales. One of the greats is Theodore Sturgeon, who wrote many haunting stories. "More than Human" is probably the best known, about the emergence of a gestalt human being with mutant abilities. But Sturgeon is also the father of something called "Sturgeon's Law," which reads as follows: "Ninety percent of everything is crap."