mdoneil writes “Channel 3 Cleveland did an investigative report on the shenanigans that go on in public libraries. They used hidden cameras in public areas of the library and photographed a patron enjoying the Internet way too much.
They also interviewed the librarian who saw this behavior the last time he did it. Last time?
Yep he is a serial autoeroticist in this particular library.
Last time he exposed his penis in public the library, the staff told him that if he did it again they would have to call the police.
Again? Yep, apparently 1 sex offense is OK at that branch. I guess 2 crosses the line.
Since they like to give people second chances they let him come back to the library again, and again. Of course he was still manipulating his masculinity at the public computers across from the childrens room. Finally after the TV crew videotaped it was he prosecuted.
This pillar of society is to be sentenced at 1:30 This afternoon. Check the court docket to see what happens.
Are filters such a bad idea now?”
$552
Five hundred and fifty two dollars for masturbating in the library. Seems little consequence if you ask me. Heck his bond was initally half a million dollars.
Some people would pay that in advance if they were allowed to enjoy the library as much as this fine upstanding patron.
I wonder if he is allowed back into the library?
Oh, please
“Are filters such a bad idea now?”
Oh, for crying in the bucket. You’re kidding, right? Masturbation in the library must pre-date unfiltered Internet access by hundreds, perhaps thousands of years!
This kind of individual will find their inspiration to masturbate or expose themselves in a library regardless of whether that inspiration is the Internet, or Nabokov’s _Lolita_, or this month’s sex quiz in _Cosmopolitan._
Prosecute them for breaking the law, absolutely. But don’t use their behavior as an excuse to stomp on my civil rights or my patrons’ rights either. Sheesh.
Someone tell Bill O’Reilly
We need to get Bill O’Reilly interested in these library liberals.
Re:Oh, please
I gotta agree. The library where I worked in 1991 had trouble with this. We had no Internet, and no computers at all. It had nothing to do with any of the materials in the library, as he was not using them.
If you argue that we should install filters because computers cause people to masterbate, then by the same logic we should increase gun control because guns cause people to kill.
I do agree that he should not have been allowed back into the library after the first offense. But filters are not the answer. Patrons can, and do, masterbate in the library without using a computer. This is an example of faulty cause and effect.
Re:Oh, please
I have to agree, too. Filters will not stop people, well, okay, it seems that it’s mostly men who get caught, from masturbating in public spaces.
When we were taking our LT course, my (now) best friend was working at a video rental store in the evenings/on weekends to make a little money. This guy comes in one evening, asks to use the washroom–store policy was to allow customers to use the washroom, so she let him. Finally she thinks he’s taking a little too long so goes back to check on him (make sure he wasn’t trying to steal stuff out of the office). He’s oh-so-politely left the door open enough so that she can see him sitting there, jerking off. She was alone in the store, so she goes back out front and calls the cops. Turns out the guy was in the Armed Forces, so I believe they called the MPs in, too. The guy was banned from the store. I don’t know if he was ever charged but my friend never had to go to court as a witness.
So, people like that? Don’t need unfiltered internet access to do what they want to do.
But I do agree that he should’ve been banned from the library and charged the first time…and that $552 isn’t enough of a fine/punishment.
Re:Oh, please
Come on now, you are advocating looking at dirty pictures in the libray. There is no Constitutionally guaranteed right to look at dirty pictures in public. Didn’t the ALA US v. ALA (539 US 194) show that.
Crying civil rights violation every time a patron is prohibited from looking a porn on a library computer is what makes the average person think that librarians and the ALA are complete nutjobs. This wanker shows the perversity of society, and librarians saying “People have been doing that since Ben Franklin was stamping date due cards” does not carry much weight with the public. The public at large does not want dirty pictures in the libary. While I am opposed to filters primarily because they don’t work well and are a waste of time and money and more importantly public librarians have more to do than switch filters on and off for patrons, I think that cities or counties in which the majority of the citizenry requests filters should have them. Just as the test for obscenity can vary from town to town, the tolerance of the public to lewd content on the Internet terminals in public libraries is disgusting in one city, and a rallying cry to the ACLU in the other.
If filtering the Internet causes these perverts to stay at home and tickle their fancies there, then I say filter. I also think, that sunshine being the best disinfectant,, placing computers in public and librarian view tends to keep the zippers up. Then again that is not always effective as I have yelled so that everyone in the compueter area could hear ” Put your penis away!.” It worked and the person has yet to return.
If communities want to filter let them, there is no law that requires libraries to provide Internet access, and no law saying they have to let people look at dirty pictures. Stop making the profession look like idiots because you care about some pud puller’s ‘civil rights’. Public perversion is not a right and that includes both wanking and simply looking at porn in public.
The public does not give a damn about the ALA and the only time they hear about them is when they do something like support dirty picture viewing in libraries. No wonder librarians are treated like dirt, they probably think we are all sodomizing one another in the break room.
Re:Oh, please
That is an absurd argument. There is nothing illegal with looking a dirty pictures – in private. It is perfectly legal. So is crowning the king, but it too should be practiced in private.
Guns are legal and owning a gun is legal. Shooting someone is most frequently illegal no matter if you do it in public or private. Owning guns will not cause murders, in fact they have been shown to prevent crime. (In fact I used mine last Monday to prevent an abduction.)
Obscenity in libraries and frappeing the daquari in the library cannot serve a lawful purpose – ever. Guns are used daily for lawful puproses. To equate library filtering with gun control is specious. I am not advocating that all computers be filtered, or that all curry combing the horse be made illegal. Gun control will serve to control all guns not simply guns used in the library, or guns used illegaly.
Re:Oh, please
I can’t agree that filters will not stop people from basting the turkey in the library. If you make fewer dirty pictures available fewer of these demented sickos will be inclined to amuse themselves.
I’m not advocating filters, it should be up to the community. If the community feels that filtering will reduce public perversion then they should be allowed to do so.
I can’t say that open access will result in fewer (or the same number of) perverts in the library, but I am confident that a library without dirty pictures on the Internet will have fewer masturbators.
Re:Oh, please
I am advocating punishing offenders without punishing the rest of us. If filters were capable of distinguishing intent, that would be a different matter. But they are not, and probably never will be. The longer we mislead the public into thinking that filters are anything close to an effective mechanism for protecting their community standards, the more we have ourselves to blame when things go horribly awry. I’m not defending “some pud puller’s ‘civil rights'” — I’m defending those of the law-abiding patrons that comprise 99% of our population.
Re:Someone tell Bill O’Reilly
… so he can call the librarians on the phone to talk sexy about vibrators, falafel, and the “good parts” of Those Who Trespass.
Just cut it off!
Just cut it off! Simple.