It used to be that public libraries were places of quiet. That is certainly no longer true when it comes to my local branch. In an effort to be more "family friendly" young children are now allowed to rampage around screaming their little heads off. Now, I'm all for children being encouraged to visit libraries and have no wish to see them cowed into total silence- I'm not a fan of "children should be seen but not heard". But I seem to remember that when I was a child, under the older quieter no-screaming regime, that we were actually learning something useful. That was that there were other people than ourselves and our families in this world and they were entitled to some consideration. Nowadays, children behave the same way no matter where they are and who they are with. It's apparently all part of the everyone-gets-a-sweetie, there's-no-such-thing-as-wrong, approach to child-rearing. More than 20 years ago I was surprised at the selfish inconsiderate way a horde of young kids on a Canadian ferry across Halifax Harbour ran amok. But I thought, hey, they get out of their system and turn into decent human beings. But I was wrong. That age group rioted a couple of years back in Edmonton on the annual celebrations to mark the foundation of modern Canada. It turned out that little self-obsessed inconsiderate brats turn into big self-obsessed inconsiderate brats. And as they are now the parents, which chance do the little children have of growing into decent considerate members of society?