by: Deirdre Foley-Mendelssohn
Is the upcoming holiday season infecting people with unusual goodwill toward man? Last month, New York City approved a five-minute grace period for parking meters. In October, an I.R.S. amnesty program for tax evaders with offshore accounts brought some fifteen thousand contrite Americans forward to disclose their illegal holdings. Now, San Francisco, perhaps inspired by the news last month that a library book fifty years overdue was returned to an Arizona school along with one thousand dollars in late fees, is extending this altruistic attitude to books with their own amnesty program for book borrowers. Between May 3rd and 16th, the library will accept overdue books, no questions asked, and restore borrowing privileges to naughty book thieves. (It’s already begun advertising the program with a contest for the best excuses, as well as a series of “celebrity” excuse videos, probably the best of which is Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger chiding, “Maybe you’re just trying to think up a really, really good excuse, like it got lost in the Hudson River?”)
For those who think that this isn’t “Pay It Forward”: the last time the San Francisco Library held an amnesty program was in 2001. In all, the library received five thousand books, worth a total of one hundred thousand dollars. Perhaps, sometimes, good acts make good sense.
from: The New Yorker
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