What Happens at the New York Public Library, Stays at the NYPL
Jack Kemp
Jonah Goldberg has an article commenting on the allowing of access to internet porn at the NY Public Library.
http://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2011/04/29/a_thorny,_porn-y_issue_for_ny_public_library/page/2
He makes a limited case against it, briefly glancing over the moral factor and claiming that internet access is cost free, unlike a library subscribing to paper porn magazines (and buying porn videos), so there is no cost problem involved.
I recall going to the business center at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in the 1990s to use their internet access/computer rental service. While attempting to access some financial related websites, a software program MGM Grand had installed to keep out porn also blocked my favorite financial sites because of sloppy settings on the anti-porn software. When asking about this, the staff told me that this blocking had to do with porn fans using the Business Center's printer to create nude photos. Even with a fee for printouts, printer ink costs money and this porn printing denied use of expensive resources for others. The very same MGM Grand had on display, in a shop on its lower level, some pretty raunchy items in a "novelties" store - and the City of Las Vegas has no shortage of other places to go for live strippers, lap dancers, "escorts," etc. In reality, the type of people who would waste their time printing out pornographic pictures at the MGM Grand Business Center are teens who would be afraid to deal with a real woman and/or would be denied access to a strip club because they were under 21 years of age.
Now the NY Public Library also has a limited number of printers and printer cartridge ink is expensive. People can pay for printouts, I believe, and the staff could be inundated with preparing porn printouts for its "visiting scholars." By the way, the Main Library of the New York system, with its famous pair of stone Library Lions out front, is only one or two blocks from the Times Square tourist area where a few of the former sleazy porn centers still exist. This is not some remote academic center. And the same is true for branches of the library in local neighborhoods where junior high kids go to do their book reports. Is this the type of “searcher of knowledge” you want sitting next to your 11 year old son or daughter doing their homework? Doesn’t the library have an obligation to protect children and operate “in loco parentis?”
Underage teens doing a book report and academic scholars will now have to sit next to porn fans - indeed, these three categories might merge into one. With the low moral level of license allowed showing porn in a library, perhaps - I have to say it because Mr. Goldberg is too polite to raise the issue - some of the library porn fans might chose to masturbate on the spot. The "cultural liberation and advancement of post modern culture" could easily make a fairly large library a more difficult place to maintain decorum then the small Business Center of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
And some people wonder why twenty-odd countries score higher on standard math and science exams than the United States. We are devolving.
Jonah Goldberg has an article commenting on the allowing of access to internet porn at the NY Public Library.
http://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2011/04/29/a_thorny,_porn-y_issue_for_ny_public_library/page/2
He makes a limited case against it, briefly glancing over the moral factor and claiming that internet access is cost free, unlike a library subscribing to paper porn magazines (and buying porn videos), so there is no cost problem involved.
I recall going to the business center at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in the 1990s to use their internet access/computer rental service. While attempting to access some financial related websites, a software program MGM Grand had installed to keep out porn also blocked my favorite financial sites because of sloppy settings on the anti-porn software. When asking about this, the staff told me that this blocking had to do with porn fans using the Business Center's printer to create nude photos. Even with a fee for printouts, printer ink costs money and this porn printing denied use of expensive resources for others. The very same MGM Grand had on display, in a shop on its lower level, some pretty raunchy items in a "novelties" store - and the City of Las Vegas has no shortage of other places to go for live strippers, lap dancers, "escorts," etc. In reality, the type of people who would waste their time printing out pornographic pictures at the MGM Grand Business Center are teens who would be afraid to deal with a real woman and/or would be denied access to a strip club because they were under 21 years of age.
Now the NY Public Library also has a limited number of printers and printer cartridge ink is expensive. People can pay for printouts, I believe, and the staff could be inundated with preparing porn printouts for its "visiting scholars." By the way, the Main Library of the New York system, with its famous pair of stone Library Lions out front, is only one or two blocks from the Times Square tourist area where a few of the former sleazy porn centers still exist. This is not some remote academic center. And the same is true for branches of the library in local neighborhoods where junior high kids go to do their book reports. Is this the type of “searcher of knowledge” you want sitting next to your 11 year old son or daughter doing their homework? Doesn’t the library have an obligation to protect children and operate “in loco parentis?”
Underage teens doing a book report and academic scholars will now have to sit next to porn fans - indeed, these three categories might merge into one. With the low moral level of license allowed showing porn in a library, perhaps - I have to say it because Mr. Goldberg is too polite to raise the issue - some of the library porn fans might chose to masturbate on the spot. The "cultural liberation and advancement of post modern culture" could easily make a fairly large library a more difficult place to maintain decorum then the small Business Center of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
And some people wonder why twenty-odd countries score higher on standard math and science exams than the United States. We are devolving.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 4:46 AM
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