Do real men read?

I went to the Printer's Row Book Fair this afternoon, which is one of my favorite street fairs of the summer. It's always on the same weekend as the 57th Street Art Fair, which is one of my other favorites. (I'll go there tomorrow.)

The Book Fair has readings, used book stalls, obscure publishers, and apparently literacy groups, like Real Men Read. The only troubling thing was that there was no one there - not even a little stack of brochures. I was struck that it appeared that no real men were reading, or even talking about it.

This brings to mind for me the trouble that some of my clients face as well. If you claim to be doing good, but then don't do as well as other people expect you to, you get more criticized than if you'd never tried to do good in the first place. So, do I criticize Real Men Read for not showing up? Maybe they were out actually teaching reading this afternoon.

In my work, I help companies and commercial buildings become greener and the environmental watchdogs are ruthless when someone misses their targets, but are fairly quiet about companies that make no attempts to do the right thing. It hardly seems fair. My father, somewhat cynically, has been known to say "No good deed goes unpunished."

So, am I punishing Real Men Read by pointing out that they're MIA at the Book Fair? Or is it reasonable to hold people who have declared a goal to a higher standard?