Feinstein's Smiling Faces and Library Porn

November 22, 2001

Dear Editor,

Being Patriotic and respectful to our great country and to all veterans are the real issues. I disagree with both Linda Sullivan ("Frank, What Have You Been Smoking? and Cavorting's Legal," Letters, Nov. 21) and Katherine Marie Anderson's ("Cavorting Homeless, Toying with Alan and Uncommon Sense," Letters, Nov. 13) statements reflecting on the November 11 ceremony at the Veterans memorial.

I feel that the ceremony was really about giving respect and showing love to both our Veterans and to our great country. Being housed and getting drunk/cavorting or being unhoused and getting drunk/cavorting are not the real issues behind the Veterans memorial ceremony.

Furthermore, during the past few weeks I have heard some nasty comments coming from activists and advocates that are very angry with Michael Feinstein for his actions and policies. I feel that unsubstantiated personal attacks on poor Michael Feinstein for never being a real mayor are wrong.

Crude comments about the mayor allegedly converting Green Party donation money to his personal bank account, allegedly lacking honesty, allegedly lacking leadership, allegedly lacking courage or allegedly lacking respect for democracy or to his oath of office is getting real old with me. Our poor mayor is what he is. We the people of Santa Monica never elected him to be our mayor.

I wish my friends would just leave the poor man alone. Instead of picking on Michael Feinstein for not being perfect, they should impeach him and change the political system to allow the people to elect their own real mayor. Michael Feinstein is a human being and is only guilty of trying to make everyone happy, most of the time with both of his smiling faces. After all, he is a politician, and we all know that politicians have more then one agenda.

Pro Se
Santa Monica

November 15,

Dear Editor:

I am writing to call public attention to the fact that Santa Monica's public libraries are knowingly giving our children access of pornography, including child pornography.

Before complaining about this matter publicly I have contacted the Library Board, the City Manager, and every member of City Council. I had hoped that there would be at least one public official who would be able tell me that my information was incorrect, and that this does not occur in Santa Monica. Instead I have received full confirmation that any 8-year old child can walk into the main branch of the Santa Monica public library and download graphic pictures of another 8-year old child being molested.

I have suggested to all of these public officials that it would be easy for the libraries to install internet screening software, and that if the City felt there was a compelling need to provide adults with pornography, they could place the unscreened computers in a special room, supervised by an attendant checking IDs for age. In addition, I suggested that the libraries immediately post prominent signs to warn parents that the library gives children access to pornography. All of my suggestions were rejected.

In a letter dated August 1, 2001, I received the following response from Dr. Gene Oppenheim, Chair of the Santa Monica Public Library Board:

"Filters may provide peace of mind for parents, but it is a false security, as filters are very imperfect. Even those related the best, may only filter out 60-70% of objectionable material. They also may block information that would be useful for students, such as information on breast cancer, web sites for Vice President Dick Cheney, or a Navy site on A+ exams."

I am still scratching my head on why the inability to stop all harm is reason not prevent the vast majority of harm.

In addition, it is hard to believe that there is a large amount of useful information on breast cancer, the vice president, or the navy that cannot be found in books or magazines. However, if there is, a librarian following the state's guidelines on what kinds of literature a private business can and cannot distribute to a child could print out the over-screened internet site for the child.

In a letter dated November 8, 2001, I received the following response from Susan McCarthy, City Manager for the City of Santa Monica: "The most widely used filters fail to block many objectionable sites, creating a false sense of security... Unlike education in safe and responsible use of the Internet, filters do not teach children how to avoid negative sites, or what to do if they encounter an uncomfortable situation online."

This again is an argument that the inability to stop all the harm is justification not to try to stop the vast majority of the harm. Could you image if this logic was applied to police protection (i.e. we should not have a police force because the police fail to prevent many crimes, creating a false sense of security; unlike education in crime prevention, the police do not teach us how to avoid criminals or what to do if we are a victim of a crime).

I find it particularly ironic that the people who assert this argument oppose giving fair warning to parents that the library is a dangerous place for children and that parental supervision is highly recommended. I suspect there are a lot of parents who would be shocked to learn that our libraries provide pornography (including child pornography) to their children.

At a time when the City is contemplating spending tens of millions of dollars in building a bigger and fancier main branch library, I think that there should be some public discussion on whether the City should be expanding its program to provide pornography to our children. I think there should also be a hard look at whether those tens of millions of dollars could be better spent improving the quality of our public schools.

Sincerely,