Art Meets N.I.M.B.Y.-Post 4

Williams, Carol J. "It's Ink, but Is It Speech? Apellate Case May Tell?" Chicago Tribune. 30 May 2010. Section 1, Page 8.

In keeping with its zoning ordinances which prohibit tattoo parlors in city limits, Hermosa Beach, California has refused to license a shop for tattoo artist Johnny Anderson, owner of Yer Cheat'n Heart in a nearby less affluent town. Anderson claims that his freedom of expression is being violated by the zoning codes and has filed suit.

The city claims that tattoos are a risk to the city's health, safety, and welfare; the "unhealthy mutilation" and the potential for infection overrides, in their viewpoint, Anderson's assertion that artistic expression is a protected First Amendment right. Anderson's case, by the way, has reached California's Ninth District Court and is supported by some con law professors.

Heather blogged that individual rights end where the rights of others begin. I have to admit that I'd prefer not to live next door to a tattoo parlor, strip club, or even a fast food restaurant with an all night drive up window.

So don't the folk of Hermosa Beach have the right to decide what is in their backyards?

But where do their rights end?

Anderson can always create his "art" somewhere else, but what if a community refuses the Klan or Tea Partiers a permit to march because it risks the "health, safety, and welfare" of the community?

What if a community bars low end apartments and homes to keep "undesirables" out?

What if a community districts schools in ways that create racial quotas?

What if a Mapplethorpe exhibition is barred?

What if the "risk" is a book?

Student Rights or School Safety-Post 3

Dean, Terry. "OPRF Adds Cops to Stymie Second Student Protest over Tardy Policy." Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest(online), May 6, 2010. http://www.wednesdayjournalonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=17413

The last weeks of school are always tough for kids and teachers alike. Tempers are frayed, people are tired, and frankly, we all need a break from each other. Sometimes we do things that make the situation worse because we're too fried to think things through.

At a local high school, Oak Park-River Forest, administration decided to begin actually enforcing the existing tardy policy in early May after problems had built for the entire year, installing a system that tracks tardies using ID cards. According to the school, tardies and hall wandering were out of hand with students rambling into classes at will.

Led by the senior class, students responded by organizing protest, using FaceBook and other social networking sites. They planned to clog a hall with students to inhibit passage, so that everyone would be late to class. Their intent was to overwhelm the tracking systems, so that enforcement would fall apart. On the first day of the protest, kids behaved like kids at a concert; the hall was shut down, but students were also hanging and shrieking into the stairwells and body surfing. Citing concerns with student safety and security, the Administration responded by having police on hand for the threatened second day of the protest.

Here's where I'll start rambling as I try to figure this out. I believe in free speech. Student free speech is protected as indicated by the Tinker vs. DesMoine decision. School officials are legally responsible for the safety of students in school. The planned protest had a peaceful intent (even if I really believe that students should actually get to class on time, so the purpose was sort of immature. Kids sort of are.) Not all students were misbehaving, but body surfing in a world of terazzo and metal lockers is pretty dangerous.

So at what point, if any, do student rights collide with the legal responsibilities and obligations of a school to provide a safe environment that enhances learning? Does the age of the student involved matter? Are students entitled to protest anything/everything? Bad lunches, I get, but is it ok to protest the amount of homework a teacher assigns or the cell phone policy? Sure hope I can figure this out before I tackle the Little Brother essay.

So what's the value of ethics?-Post 2

In Sunday's New York Times Book Review, Emily Parker in "Censors without Borders" takes a look at the impact of the growing economic power of China on censorship.


According to Parker, a prime example of this revolves around Denise Chong's most recent book Egg on Mao, which focuses on the story of a farmer who threw paint eggs on a portrait of Mao in the Tiananmen Square protests. Chong says that many people assume that the book attacks Chinese policies. Since its publication, the Library of Congress is among others who have refused to participate in events at which Chong was to be featured. Parker strongly implies that this is a direct result of the power of money the result of the spider web that ties that the world's economy together.

The Chinese government has pressured organizations to disinvite dissidents, as was the case at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

One of the "dissidents", an American professor at Princeton claims that this is leading to self-censorship among academics. saying anonymously that as a group, scholars are "compromising our academic ideals in order to gain access to China . . .we all do it."

Does everything really have its price, or is the article just filled with self-justifying rationalizations and excuses?

Is this any different from a school signing on with Channel One or an exclusive contract with Coca Cola?

Do we as librarians do the same sorts of things if we accept grants or gifts that come with strings, even if they're unspoken?

Parker, Emily. "Censors without Borders." The New York Times Book Review, May 16, 2010, pg. 35.

Ah, the ironies of life- Post 1

Today, I'm the Bitch of Buchenwald, running a homework prison for 12 lovelies who managed to cause so much trouble in school that we were afraid to take them on a field trip. Actually, I volunteered to stay with them because I thought it would be an opportunity to catch up on work and maybe get ahead in this class.

Imagine my dismay when I discovered that, like many other sites, the state's net nanny blocked me from Wikispaces bcause of its potential for "adult oriented, illegal, and racist" materials. Of course, I'm writing this post on my school computer; in the infinite wisdom, logic, and insight of INSchools.net, Blogger is fine, even though Twitter and Facebook are verboten. The filters block sites with equal vigor from elementary through high school; after all, there are no developmental or maturational differences in those groups.


In the reality of my experiences here, the only people genuinely blocked by the nanny are teachers; students know a variety of ways around them. So is in loco parentis just loco? And who are these mysterious censors making these decisions on our behalf?

I know that economics drives the decision for most schools; to be eligible for state-funded internet service, the school must also accept the filters that accompany them.

But I also know that the real impact of the filters is extremely random. For instance, a few years ago, an African American student who was trying to write a paper on the Klan was blocked from primary sources such as the Klan's own website, and another couldn't get to site about peanut butter (come, on, people! Peanut butter?). On the other hand, spam emails offering me Viagra make it through regularly, and I'm still reeling from the results of a search for a recipe by "The Two Fat Ladies."

Nobody is opposed to protecting kids, but isn't it more important that they learn to protect themselves? And isn't that really the role I need to fulfill as I try to teach them genuine information literacy? Working with the filters is a little like trying to teach them to cook without being able to take them to the kitchen.