h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It happens. I got jumped all over because I said it happens and was accused of defaming librarians.

http://www.local6.com/family/4779597/detail.html

If this doesn't work go to local6.com and look up story about daughter being subjected to porn at library.

You can share this or not.

But this has nothing to do with librarians. It is all about what moronic people can do with computers and how kids can be exposed to porn or if "intelligent" enough get it on thier own away from home.

I hope the mother complains as well when her daugther catches glimpses of violence in Newspapers, tv, on film and on the internet - or in real life.

I believe that children and youngsters - especially in the US - are exposed to cruel violence and murder every day (real or fictive) with society's and parent's consent. Some violence - like war - is even glorified.

Of course there is sick porn (with psychological or physical violence) - which noone should make or watch in my opinion. And most porn has hardly anything to do with what women like about sex. In my opinion it's as boring as watching a golf tournament (no offence meant to entuisiasts).

But isn't it better to let kids watch people love each other than hate each other?

(no offence meant to entuisiasts).is that golf ,porn or both

Golf

..I am offending porn entuisiasts amn't I

Yes, people loving each other is beautiful. But most porn is not about loving. It is more about degrading women and even children.

Americans find a strong correlation of children porn and molestationers. And way too many men that are strong on molesting children also kill them. It may be that the fear of being caught causes the killings. But regardless, the psychological damage of being raped by an adult stranger can be long lasting.

I believe it was Thorne Smith who commented in one of his "Topper" stories that it is not the naked body that arouses our prurient interest, but the clothed body lending suggestions to the mind of treasures beneath. Anyway, he may have a point about nudism, but, he was talking about open nudism.

Some man watching porn, no matter what kind of porn, and if I remember correctly he was partially exposed as well, has no place in a public. No choices are necessarily being allowed. The young lady may have good reason to not want to be exposed to sex in public. It may have an effect on her that she may have trouble understanding.

We also have a problem with children having children. It is more an economical problem but does cover problems such as children not wanting to take care of a baby or children not having the maturity nor the finances to care for a child.

One has to play the game by the law of the land. Porn in a public library is verboten. Sex in a movie is not but, ha ha, only adults are supposed to be able to view sex unless accompanied by an adult parent. I so much agree with what you are saying but it is not the American way. There are people trying to get the viewing of violence reduced but right not too much luck.

In a way I wonder if it all started with Clark Gable saying "damned" in "Gone with the Wind?" But until the television series "Have Gun, Will Travel" I never heard any swearing. But the power of one man, Richard Boone, held sway over the censors. I think it was the opening show of the second season where a hung over Paladin awakes to find out that some one he loves has been killed and already interred. His opening line to this scene was, "OH God," (a pause of two or three seconds), "Damned."

Mo

And by the way, maybe you just watch the wrong golf game. Tiger could be interesting to watch. Personally watching any racing but stock cars I find boring. My son can't stand to watch baseball.

So different strokes for different folks. How do you feel about rodeo's. Oops, that is a sore subject to animal lovers. The heck with all this, I think I'll go back to watching porn. Just don't tell anyone. Secret, okay?

Mo

Hi Mo

Very good points in posting 6. And I agree with "..most porn is not about loving. It is more about degrading women and even children".

Sorry I didn't take the time to elaborate on my points.

I've read the "Topper" books many times when I was in my twenties. They were funny and made you think about society's moral, individuals ethics and hypocrisy.

>>Americans find a strong correlation of children porn and molestationers.<<

Children have always been and still are abused - sexually, violently, as cheap workers/slaves, as soldiers - often at the same time. Also in places where they've never seen child porn. And children are killed for sick kicks, for money, for their organs - made damagingly ill, refused medicine or starved to death because of profits.

There shouldn't be sex between an adult and a child and it shouldn't be filmed. Full stop. I believe child pornography is prohibited in all the countries that have signed the FN convention of Children's Rights.

It seems the library in question is alert and spends funds and workhours to protect children from stuff they shouldn't involuntarily be exposed to. So what else should the librarians do? I know our school tries to keep up with the the profitable industry's ways around filters. But the moneymakers always come out the strongest. Are the governments really prepared and willing to go for them or is it easier to use an incident like this to introduce censorship that also take in other fields of knowledge? In this country we hear a lot about USian groups who want to censor different kind of knowledge.

What bugs me, really, especially about what we hear about USians, are what we call 'double moral'. For instance being all aghast about nudity and at the same time keeping a gun in the home with the intention of using it to molest. Or catholic priests/paters in US who preach that sex before marriage or sex without the intention of making a child is a sin, and yet some of those people have molested 10.667 US children, primarily boys, during the last 50 years. And these are only the cases that are known.

>>We also have a problem with children having children. It is more an economical problem but does cover problems such as children not wanting to take care of a baby or children not having the maturity nor the finances to care for a child.<<

Well, you have an economical system, an individualistic system, a wellfare system that decieves/lets down many of your citizens and favours others - especially the rich and powerful individuals and corporations.

A society/government should be evaluated for/by how it takes care of the weakest citizens.

We've been here before, haven't we? And I know we agree on the end results if not on the means to get there.

>>the psychological damage of being raped by an adult stranger can be long lasting<<.

Rape *is* psychologically damaging - whether the victim is a child or an adult - and whether it is a stranger or a close, trusted adult. Rape and sexually abuse of children is mostly happening within the family.

I know. Different people are interested in different sports.
Animals cannot give their consent to take part in a game that humans have invented - which sometimes involves an animal get hurt or killed. I don't really know anything about rodeo's, but a little more about bull fights, dog fights etc. What does it say about humans that make an entertaining spectators game out of hurting animals or making animals kill each other?

Hear, hear.
As usual - Tartaronne expresses my thoughts far more eloquently than I could.

I totally agree with you on American standards. We are a double standard country and it confuses our children.

A somewhat humerous, but sad just the same, situation: A complaint was called in to the police of excessively loud music. The police located the site of the music. A nineteen year old Amish lad in his buggy, playing a boombox, drunk as a skunk, and a buggy full of stolen house numbers.

Even in the strongly religious society of the Amish the kids will take the fall from the tree.

In mainstream America it is so much harder. We teach our children that sex is a private matter and yet it is shown all over the airways and easily accessible on DVD. We teach the children it is wrong to physically hurt other people and yet killing and torture can be found on the airways or just as easily bought on DVD. Even good guy Mel Gibson went around killing people in search of seventy thousand dollars stolen from him which was stolen money in the first place. Talk about gratutious violence -- I loved every minute of that movie.

Both parents work and both are too tired at the end of the day to be parents. Our children are being brought up in daycares while the parents work. Once home they parent themselves by watching television in the privacy of their own rooms where they learn everything they need to know about sex and mayhem.

I know this may sound extremist but terrorism is good. When we are attacked we pull together and start thinking about values more. Most of the times neighbors just ignore each other until a disaster hits. Then everyone is out helping each other. In 1967 we recieved ten times the normal snow in a blizzard. The neighbors were out helping dig each other out, walked together to the store, and laughing. As the snow melted away so did the laughter and comaraderie. The neighborhood became quiet again and while they may wave and say Hi there is no conversation.

When it really comes down to it I don't think there is a Utopia. No matter where you travel on this planet there are problems. Some countries have high suicide rates, others severe alcholism, some are dens of hate of anyone different than their religious beliefs, some so poor that disease is rampant, and others so rich they mistakenly think wealth means happiness.

All I wanted to say in the beginning of this thread is you cannot protect your children from the the things you don't believe in because they can be found everywhere; in schools, libraries, at the mall, in churches and when you are not vigilent in your homes. The only thing that has maintained my insanity has been music and singing. Unfortunately I cannot play any musical instruments and my singing would drive a bat battier.

So while the world entertains me as I listen serenely to the melodies all they get from me is noise.

...and sincerity, compassion and a good try to comprehend and maybe via dialogue change matters little by little.

It really is frustrating not to be able to understand everything and have the power and the abillity to start and one corner and make all right little by little - like you do when you wash a floor. Economics, people's different views on life and actions, political and religious ideologies and nature interact, so if you pull a lever here to improve the conditions for these people - this environment - it might have a bad effect somewhere else in the world.

I've always been suspicious of making money by selling money at a profit. Somebody looses money in the process, right. But who? And what does it imply? where?

Each of us can begin with the nearest and dearest, try to comprehend where present politics will take us. Take part in discussions locally, at our workplace and globally.

For a month I have been researching into the history of how our society has treated mentally handicapped people for the last 25 years.

There has been great changes especially of the physical conditions mainly thanks to pedagouges working alongside mentally handicapped and with zest, vigour and a lot of empathy have tried to create conditions that compensate handicapped citizens, so they also can decide what is quality in life for them and to assist them in obtaining quality in life. In spite of much better conditions mentally handicapped are still the last to obtain what we think are normal benefits for everyone else. Mentally handicapped haven't a free choice of where to live, whom to live with, whom they want to assist them, which education, what work and how to be understood and interpreted by walks of society.

MoFoLo said >>I know this may sound extremist but terrorism is good. When we are attacked we pull together and start thinking about values more.<<

In this part of the world, recent events have certainly not had the effect of pulling us together.
Rather the opposite; we are now regarding any male of a certain facial appearance as being a possible terrorist.
This is grossly unfair; the muslims I know are peaceful and law-abiding and are as shocked by terrorist activity as I am.

I agree.

I've seen people get together and help each other during snow storms and the likes. And it makes you wonder why we are not kind and helpful towards each other all the time. I try to be, though.

It is dangerous to gather people against a common enemy - be he/they of a specific religion, etnic origin, ideology or country. That means you take one (bad) example and judges all people of the group by the features you have selected and deemed as bad og evil. Myths are created as is collective fright and that is only useful for despots. Then humans don't get to think for themselves or get to know another person of another opinion. No dialogue equals no understanding and leads to inhuman actions against man, woman and child. Selfrightious and excusable to the 'actors' because it is 'only' the enemy. Like the terrorists think, I think (?).

More security, public surveillance and Terrorism Acts limit everybody's freedom and we must discuss the effects all the time so we don't unawares slide into a society of control and fewer rights we do not want to live in and that is prone to support despots.

But then how to stop people from becoming fanatics and think nothing of killing themselves and a lot of random people with them? Obviously we in the Western world should share our benefits - and ideas about democracy afterwards. And try to stop our own institutional violence and rattling with our weapons.

Again I think dialogue and a sincere attempt to understand each other AND education especially of women, who in most of the world bring up children and alters society from the inside and from the bottom up not the outside and from the top down. If educated, they also bring fewer children to the world, and improve the health- and food-situation. It will also take the power away from the (mostly men) who interpret religion, nationality, ideology and ethnicity.

I think UN could and should play an important role. I think the discussions right now are important.

I appreciate you wanting to discuss matters, MoFoLo, and I am complimented that you want to bring the discussion here, but would you mind very much if I ask for this topic to be moved to the main salon? We don't run quite the same way as Ask H2G2 or the Community Soapbox, where researchers are invited to start their own threads at whim. If that happened here we would drown!

So we have national and global politics in their own threads, and we have rooms for discussing other matters, such as computer tech, and we have the main salon. Please have a look at A304354 and refresh yourself with the nature of this forum.

Lil

... and, to help you, I have mentioned the matter at post 847 in the main thread.

Sorry, I was trying to adress a library situation to you and when responses hit I didn't think about the process. Mia culpa!