David McElroy

More and more, we’re living in an age of digital books. I can’t say that I quite object to having books on a Kindle or an iPad, but I also can’t say that I embrace the trend away from “real” paper books. There’s something about the smell and feel of books that a digital file will never capture, at least not for me.

Partly because of how strongly I feel about books, this animation called “The Joy of Books” is a thing of real beauty to me. It presents books as having lives and character of their own. If you’ve ever had a favorite bookstore or library, you might find this short animation as magical as I do, both in its meaning and in its artistic whimsy.

Thanks to a reader for sharing it with me. It’s worth sharing — just as good books are worth sharing.

An Indiana mother is upset that her 14-year-old son keeps getting into trouble with the law, so she’s trying a new tactic. She shamed her son this week by requiring him to stand on a street corner wearing a sign proclaiming his transgressions. (See video below.)

Is this effective punishment that might turn a child around? Or is it small-minded shaming that will only damage him? Or something else?

Dynesha Lax of Fort Wayne, Ind., says that the juvenile court system was of no use in helping to get her son under control, so she believes extreme measures were called for. The boy has been convicted of multiple felonies and Lax claims the court system hasn’t done anything to effectively punish him.

“He constantly chooses to break the law,” Lax said. “I’ve had my son in the [juvenile court] system and he ends up getting nothing but community service. So today I decided that if he wants attention, we are going to get him some attention.”

Some people who saw the situation called police to report Lax, although it’s not clear what law they believed Lax was breaking. Still, it’s understandable that people would be uncomfortable with this sort of public shaming of a minor.

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If people can tell you what to do with your own property, do you really own it? Or do you just get to use your property as long as you do things with it that the majority like? A financially struggling South Carolina woman found out that her neighbors’ complaints about her yard can send her to jail.

Linda Ruggles is a photographer who lives in a suburb of Charleston, S.C., and her photography business has fallen on hard times recently. She lost her photo studio to foreclosure and she almost lost her home to foreclosure last year. She now works part-time as a cashier at a grocery store, and she sold her blood, collected scrap metal and volunteered for medical experiments to come up with the money to barely keep her home.

The roof of her house leaks, so she was able to buy some roofing tiles, but she hasn’t yet been able to come up with the money to pay roofers to install them, so they’ve been sitting on her roof waiting to be put on for three years. Her yard has some junk, including some columns that need to be installed on her porch.

Her neighbors aren’t happy. After they complained to the local municipal government, she was issued a fine for $480 — which she can’t afford to pay. “I told everyone, ‘If I had $480 to pay the fine, I’d fix the roof,'” she told the Charleston Post and Courier.

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