San Fran Library's Helping People Jerk in Secrecy

Fox News - Officials in San Francisco have reportedly installed plastic privacy screens at the city’s main library to block pornographic images from the eyes of other visitors..."We're always looking for any kind of elegant solution that strikes a balance between the right to privacy and folks that want to use the library for any other intended purpose," city librarian Luis Herrera told the website. Adrian Dumont, a regular library visitor, is a fan of the new screens because he sees “a lot” of users viewing pornographic material. But Dawn Hawkins, executive director of the anti-pornography group Morality in Media, thinks even more should be done. "I think it's definitely not enough," Hawkins said. "Even with those protector screens, people walking directly behind somebody can see porn. I mean porn in the library? There's no place for that."

You have to respect the hell out of City Librarian (that's a real title, folks) Luis Herrera for that "we're always looking for any kind of elegant solution..." line. That is a man that is just born for politicking. I also like the fact that he's a pragmatist. As the city librarian he has his ear to the street and he knows what people currently want from their local libraries...unfiltered access to porn and a little privacy while they take care of business. I mean, just look at the rest of that sentence, "balance between right to privacy and folks that want to use the library for any other intended purpose." Any other intended purpose is basically an afterthought there...I can almost picture a local librarian being like;

 "oh, you just came here to rent a book? Ok I guess you can do that...while you're hear I should mention we also have a gold membership to Brazzers if you have a few minutes you should really check it out."

Bottom line, Dawn Hawkins doesn't want to see the citizens of San Fran taking advantage of free high speed broadband porn, go to Barnes and Noble. I don't know what gave her the idea that she could just waltz into a public building looking for free books and not catch a few eyefulls of porn, but this isn't fantasy land...This is a public city building, if people don't have a right to privacy here, where do they? Their home? Come on. I believe  it was Matt Damon's character in Goodwill Hunting who so elegantly put it:

"Liberty is the soul's right to beat off in private at the public library, your honor."

Or something like that.


PS: Does Fred Willard know about this?

Boston Gives Break-Up Advice to a Bunch of Geeks

BOSTON (AP) — Andrew Curtin said it happened at least twice at his Boston-area high school in the last year. Angry about a breakup, a boy ended up at the school nurse's office with a broken hand after punching a locker or a wall. "You don't think about when you see two people walking down the hall, 'Are they in a bad relationship or is it good?'" the 17-year-old Waltham High School senior said Thursday. But he was among about 250 teenagers doing a lot of thinking about healthy relationships at a seminar at Simmons College on Thursday. And the dating advice was coming from an unlikely source: city government officials...On Thursday, teens talked about breaking up by sending a text message, or being on the receiving end of one. They also spoke about fights they'd seen in their schools between students who were in competition for another student's affections, or felt jilted after a relationship ended badly. Counselors at the forum urged teens to communicate with partners about relationship boundaries, together defining whether they were "just texting," casually "hooking up," ''friends with benefits," or in a monogamous relationship. They also encouraged students to end relationships with face-to-face contact, and to look for warning signs that ongoing relationships could turn abusive.

I'm not faulting the idea, just the execution. Guys...it's the middle of summer. A gorgeous July day. You know where the guy were that could use this kind of advice? At the beach with their girls trying to figure out a good place to park later so they can get a handy and still be home in time for dinner. They certainly weren't in some college auditorium sharing their feelings about how they felt when Sally told them she'd been sending sexts of her boobs to someone else for the past few months.  I mean these weren't even your sexually active band geeks because they're all getting down at band camp right now. These are just run of the mill kids who had nothing better to do on a phenomenal summer day. Better advice would have been: How to Deal with the Fact that Popular Kids Are Rounding the Bases and You'll Have to Wait a Few Years. That would have been truly worthwhile and focused on the target demographic.