I’ve made very few corrections in the fifteen years of the blog (this may be the first), but there is one I need to make today, and it’s important to me. It involved the Bright Lights Book Project in Palmer, Alaska, and its director,  Alys Culhane.

Alys is a hero of mine; she has gotten thousands of dollars worth of books to Bishop Maginn High School, the Mansion residents, and many other people in Alaska who want and need books but can’t always afford to buy them.

She discovered that recycling stations are throwing away a lot of good books, and her nonprofit organization collects them, cleans them, and distributes them.

In March, I wrote a piece about Alys, thanking her for all the good she is doing and writing about her group and how it came to be.

The blog report said that Alys was at a recycling session when she saw workers throwing boxes of books in excellent condition into incinerators; this inspired her to save the books and get them to the people who need them.

Alys says she never said this and never saw this; she saw them shredding books, which seems like the same thing to me, just in a different form. She is bringing this to me because the recycling people used this quote on my blog to keep her from retrieving these books.

Contemporary politics repel me for many reasons; this is one of them. Can we get any smaller?

Because of this quote, six months ago, the local recycling center in Alaska decided not to give her access to any more books she collects for students, people experiencing poverty, older people, and others who need them.

I can’t imagine why any recycling center would deny her access to these books because of a blog post in New York State. It seems so mean-spirited to me. Public institutions are supposed to worry about the good of the people they work for, not their swollen egos.

I know Alys well and know her to be an honest and big-hearted person who does much good.

This was months ago, and there are many blog posts between then and now, and I have no recollection of where I heard this and no way of judging its accuracy. But I know Alys. She doesn’t lie.

If Alys says she didn’t say it, she didn’t, which is good enough for me.

I retract that post and those comments. I can’t defend them or argue that they are true. I’m sure I had some reason to write them, but I can’t recall.

I will strongly protest that my blog post of many months ago justifies denying needy people books to read.

I apologize for any trouble it has caused, and I sincerely hope the local recycling company wakes up to the damage they are doing to a great cause that has done so much good.

I will follow the outcome closely and make whatever fuss my blog can make.

This smells.