Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Porn in Brooklyn, just don't light up
Apparently it is now OK to view porn on public library computers in any of the 200+ branches in New York City if you're a grown A-dult. "Customers (?) can watch whatever they want on the computer" said Brooklyn Public Library spokeswoman Malika Granville. "In deference to the First Amendment protecting freedom of speech the New York Public Library cannot prevent patrons from accessing adult content that is legal" said New York Public Library spokeswoman Angela Montefinise. The libraries provide for extensions on the sides of the computers for privacy, no mention if they provide spackle buckets too. Libraries that only get federal funding have to install filters on the public computers to block content that is illegal like obscenity (?) and child porn. Maybe someday we'll get around to actually nailing down the definition of obscenity but if a barely 18 girl with braces and a couple of zits is circle-jerking three guys and it's straight down the hatch and she's blowing bubbles does that qualify? I give great preference to the First Amendment in most cases but this is kind of skeevy. You already got your societal castoffs playing card games by themselves, your homeless set, druggies, young dorky stalkers, older men who form a kind of male bonding club and spend all day at the library because their wives don't want 'em around the house. Do we really want to downgrade the clientele even further? I feel like an immigrant in my own country. As my friend once said New York City is violently weird:)
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Porn and Public is a bit of an oxymoron for me.
ReplyDeleteNormally I'm fairly libertarian but aren't these guys self-conscious? I mean it's gotta be the right environment. Bright sunny day outside, kids are playing stickball and you're in your bedroom with some cheap gas station porn, Mocha Chicks or something and you got your whiskey and after it's all over you feel all guilty like you should have been out jogging or something. PUBLIC LIBRARIES? are they nutz! does a tent in the pants count for lewd conduct?
ReplyDelete"I feel like an immigrant in my own country. As my friend once said New York City is violently weird:)
ReplyDeleteWell, you could leave for a bit..you know, take a taxi ...
OK, it is time for you to get your own computer, Z-man, do you really want to use the keyboards from the libraries when you don't know where those hands have been while they surf the 'net?
ReplyDeleteYeah Z what's up? Even a netbook would suffice and you can pick one of those up for about $250. You don't even need internet if it's Wi-Fi capable.
ReplyDeleteYeah the libraries are getting pretty gangster. I would like Lista to chime in here since you could file this under The Dangers of Absolutism. Now I worked in a library a few years myself and am familiar enough with the American Library Association (ALA) to know they take pretty much absolute positions on the First Amendment. Now I myself side with Free Speech most of the time, probably much more so than the vast majority of people out there (Imus, nappy-headed 'hos, what's the problem?) so my First Amendment bona-fides are pretty intact BUT still common sense and decency, civility have to have the last say in certain situations and this be one of them. There are SOOOOO many problems here not to mention where those hands have been, you're gonna invite the riffraff and the list is pretty long on this one and yeah, once I build up my checking account again after paying off all those traffic tickets to the City of Yonkers I gotta do something. Got my bank statement in the mail the other day and let's just say the Yonkers PVB wastes absolutely no time in cashing those checks!
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it. There's no First Amendment issue here. To infer otherwise is to accept some sort of notion that you have some sort of Constitutional right to the government subsidy that is the public computer anyway.
ReplyDeleteStrike. Next subject.
Well put, it's a false issue. 'Fraid I don't have next subject today unless you wanna discuss Obama's birth certificate. I'll whip up a couple eggs tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI've posted my thoughts on Obama's BC over at Geez's place.
ReplyDeleteI can copy and paste herein if you'd like.
Sure. You know the weird part, he waited so long to quash the rumor.
ReplyDeleteI read them all and digested the gist, interesting:)
ReplyDelete