A Temple to Books, and Not the E- Kind

Seattle is an odd mixture of progressive and not. In the "not" column definitely falls the transportation system, which is seriously inadequate to a city of its stature -- not only is the city automobile-bound (a rail transit system is just now being constructed), but the highways aren't engineered to the standards common in a true car city like Los Angeles. Blocked roads, unexpected one-way streets, can't-turns and must-turns are common, and not always reflected clearly in the iPhone's Maps app, to our chagrin.

On the other hand, there is something awesome about a city that just built this as its new public library:


It's even more impressive to find the printed book being cared for so lavishly in the home of Microsoft and Amazon.com.