Illinois Library Trustee Gives His Opinion of New Internet Bill

Regarding the recently passed “Internet Screening in Public Libraries Act, House Bill 1727”, now sent on to the Illinois senate, Winnetka library trustee John Jansson comments, “The proposal would better be called the ‘Public Librarians and School Librarians Don’t Care About Children and We Gotta Straighten Them Out bill’.” More on what he sees is wrong about this bill in today’s Chicago Tribune.

May 16, 2007 by Uncategorized 6

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6 Responses

  1. Anonymous Patron says:
    May 17, 2007 at 12:14 am

    Yet another unfunded mandate
    If legislatures were required to fund all the provisions they set forth in laws then there wouldn’t be many new laws. I’d have less trouble with the lesgislation if they funded it, still wouldn’t like it but 10,000 will prevent material from reaching the shelves.

    Reply
  2. mdoneil says:
    May 17, 2007 at 8:14 am

    The Illinois House of Representatives….
    The Illinois House of Representatives….oh, wait Representatives? You mean they are to represent the people? You mean do the people’s business. You mean the people have told them they feel filtering Internet terminals that may be seen by children is a good idea? Hmmm…. what a concept Democracy?

    Who elected the librarians that violated their professional code of conduct by cutting off all Internet access to make a political statement that on its face is diametrically opposed to that of the people as voiced by their democratically elected representatives?

    No one elected the librarians – the librarians who have been brainwashed by the same professional organization that drew up the professional code of conduct that they violated.

    Filtering is not a Federal issue. It is based on community values. If you don’t think the states are communities – and if you think that way stop talking about red and blue states- then you have a great deal to learn.

    Joe Lunchbox and his wife do not want pornography available to their children and filters are one of the several methods of preventing that in the public library.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous Patron says:
    May 18, 2007 at 10:00 pm

    Censorship, Not Democracy
    Here we have a LOCAL LIBRARY TRUSTEE saying “no thanks, our community does just fine without filters and we’re happier that way,” but some folks think it’s just jim dandy for the STATE government to impose its will on the LOCAL community, telling the LOCAL community that is has to spend scarce dollars on a disfunctional technology in the cockeyed and naive belief that somehow software can parent kids, arrest pedophiles, and generally do a better job than educated librarians.

    This has nothing to do with the “will of the people,” and everything to do with censorship. Get real.

    Reply
  4. Fang-Face says:
    May 19, 2007 at 7:19 am

    Re:The Illinois House of Representatives….
    Good God, mdoneil, you are getting so tiresome with all this “pornography” crap.

    So: define pornography.

    Do you, when you use the term, mean books such as Where’s Waldo? Dr. Seuss? The four alphabet primers of which I’m aware have been subjected to challenges? Dictionaries? (Which, I might mention, contain a great deal more than just Carlin’s seven dirty words.) Autobiographies? Books that teach tolerance for homosexuality, transvestism (which does not necessarily arise from homosexuality), or transexualism (which has absolutely nothing whatever to do with orientation)?

    For a wider ranging list of banned or challenged such works, see the page for non-fiction works in my Banned Book List.

    Or do you mean sexuality based information in which the facts do not conform to the hypersensitivies and revisionism of the ultra-right wing nuts? Like, for instance, the idea that mommies and daddies make babies as opposed to the idea that God has them delivered by storks.

    How about simple nudity, which is not even indecent, by the U.S. Supreme Court definition of that term, unless genitalia or the anus is exposed? A full frontal nude of a female, by that criterion, is not indecent if the mons venus is screened by the pubic hair, and the buttocks are not an excretory organ, which can allow for full dorsal nudity.

    Or do you mean “proscribably obscene”?

    What, exactly, are you talking about when you say “pornography”?

    Reply
  5. mdoneil says:
    May 19, 2007 at 9:05 am

    Re:The Illinois House of Representatives….
    If you don’t know what pornography is you must live in some part of Canada to which I have never been. If it is in a magazine, video, or establishment that requires you to be the age of majority to see and if people are unclothed that’s it.

    It is not Michelangelo’s David, frankly I’m not too concerned about the written word, if you are that up for dirty words at least you’re reading. Sure there are some books that kids should not read, but I’ll leave that to their parents.

    Nope, not sexually informative material such as This is My Body, or books like that. It is too bad we need books that teach tolerance for homosexuality, or transgenderism, or the Irish or Pakistanis, or fat people or anyone else.

    Nope, simple nudity is not pornography, baby on a lambskin blanket is not porn. Venus Rising is not porn, artistic nudity is not porn.

    Sex education books and websites that are done by physicians, psychologists, educators, heck probably even planned parenthood – those that do not appeal to a normal person’s prurient intrests (sure some people would get worked up by Grey’s Anatomy – the book not the TV show -never seen it BTW so it might apply or not) those are not porn.

    Most things in the library are not pornography, a lot of web sites are if I can gauge anything from my spam.

    So I am opposed to making pornography easily viewable by children. There are a number of ways to prevent that (of course none 100% effective but at least an effort is made) put the terminals in highly visible public area, filter, prohibit kids from cetain areas of the library -not something I endorse), prohibit adults from the kids area w/o their kids. There are ways to keep pornography from kids (and obscenity from everyone).

    Oh, and I think you mean mons pubis, not mons venus. Mons Venus is a strip club about 2 miles from my office in Florda. I thought it was also a mountain in Italy so I googled it, after the fourth page of strip club results I gave up. That gave me quite a chuckle.

    Truthfully I have no idea why Where’s Waldo or Dr. Seuss would be described as pornography, but there are a lot of whack jobs (who often happen to be religious nuts) who probably think they are but I try to just ignore those people.

    I know that won’t somebody think of the children is a tired cliche, but really can’t we just let them be innocent as long as possible. Do they need to catch a glimpse of a three-way with a grandmother or worse some pervert with his penis out in public in front of the computer at the library before they are 10? Sure it won’t kill a 12 year old to see the occasional breast, but the crap that is on the internet that some people in the public library that I saw patrons looking at was just icky. That stuff should best be left to adults that want to see it.

    I don’t want Puritanism, just a little extension of the innocence of childhood from where it has eroded today.

    I know ten year olds probably know Carlin’s routine, but they don’t need pictures…yet.

    Reply
  6. Fang-Face says:
    May 19, 2007 at 6:09 pm

    Re:The Illinois House of Representatives….

    I know that won’t somebody think of the children is a tired cliche, but really can’t we just let them be innocent as long as possible.

    Innocence is a state of mind, not a state of ignorance, and “No”, we can’t. Because what you don’t know can not only hurt you, it can kill you dead.

    We start teaching children to be un-innocent when we teach them to look both ways before crossing the street. We go overboard when we forbid them anything that might result in scraped knees and try to make them live in a bubble-wrap coccoon of unenforceable rules.

    However, I will note from your reply that you tend to refer to proscribable obscenity when using the term “pornography”.

    Most things in the library are not pornography, a lot of web sites are if I can gauge anything from my spam.

    “A lot” in raw numbers only, not statistically speaking. As near as anyone can determine only two percent or so of web sites pander to proscribable obscenity. And as I have noted elsewhere, the ultra-ring nut elements in the U.S. did not devise or demand filters against such sites, but against anything that did not conform to their petty, little prejudices.

    Re: Mons Venus:

    Good thing I didn’t write Mons Olympus; I’d rather not hear from horrified women about that kind of allusion as regards their vulva. Try the dictionary, though. Mine has mons veneris included under mons pubis.

    Reply

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