Surprising everyone including myself, I’m kinda in a writing groove right now. I spit out a few 1,000 words out in the library this afternoon. What kind of people are in a public library in the afternoon? No comment. Between the library and the usual kid-shlepping, I haven’t had much time to blog today. In fact, I only have 1 hour to catch up before I have to take the kids out for pizza and then ashes at church.
Here’s what I’m reading:
Video of the Russian Times reporter quitting on air. I wish she had a music soundtrack.
Here’s a handy video that instructs your teens about bondage.
A 1:1 scale of Manhattan in Minecraft.
The SATs have changed. Not reading this article for another two years, when Jonah is a Junior. Then I won’t be able to avoid it, because suburban-school-hysteria.
Apt. 11d 
I think it is Russia Today, not Russian Times.
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What kind of people are in a public library in the afternoon? No comment.
Yeh. My mom worked in the downtown branch of a public library. They had a security guard to keep order/eject anybody too out of it to pretend they were looking at a book. That was back when the only computers were for the card catalog but I don’t suppose there’s been some sort of a social revolution in making sure people had a place to not freeze in.
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My brother-in-law the librarian said one of the choices libraries have to make is whether to set the screens for the internet access computers so they are visible from the main rooms – if they are visible, it restrains some of the guys (but not all) from accessing disturbing pornography sites.
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There isn’t that trouble in Pittsburgh that I’ve ever seen. Possibly because they make you sign on with a library card number.
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Regarding dave. s.’s comment: What I love about this situation is the civil libertarian view that children are tough little critters, so that the First Amendment requirement that pornography be freely available on library computers trumps any concern for their welfare, but that adult working women are fragile flowers, so that businesses must ban pornography from the workplace or face sexual harassment lawsuits.
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The courts haven’t held the civil libertarian view for presumably something like that type of reasoning.
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Nice strawman y81. Women are fragile flowers is totally the reasoning behind workplace porn bans. Totally.
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“I don’t suppose there’s been some sort of a social revolution in making sure people had a place to not freeze in.”
Actually, our library has been very supportive of the community. Granted we are suburban, so we have fewer transient people (yes, euphemism for brown people, but whatever population is there for warmth). But there is no security guard, and kids often hang out there after school rather than go home as latchkey kids. The school bus from the middle school will even stop there even though it’s less than a mile away from the middle school.
It’s just funny because I have to stop by there today on my way to pick up E from school early (dentist appointment). I will survey the population there at 1:45 pm. 🙂
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Ours library, too is fairly supportive. Not too many transients, and, our transients are not brown people. In general, our library is fairly well used by families with youngish children and senior citizens in the afternoon hours. There’s the occasionally atypical person is usually developmentally disabled, rather than drunk or drugged out or obviously homeless.
The porn issue does arise in our library — the general decision is that they won’t restrict porn. But, I do believe they’ve tried to isolate the children’s areas & computers further and limit internet access on some computers.
Also, we don’t get as cold, so people generally don’t have to come inside to avoid freezing.
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