Nov 26 - A Fish, A Barrel, A Smoking Gun

I did 2 bad things recently, but Saturday morning wiped the slate clean. That means I win.

Bad Thing #1 - Our subscription to the London Free Press lapsed and I did nothing to stop it. My wife and I have debated this for years. I always opt to keep paying for the Freeps so that I have some amount of local news to read every morning. My wife has wanted to kill it because it's generally a pretty crappy paper anymore. She's right, of course, so I just never bothered to pay the bill. Sure enough, we got a final warning and then one day there was no morning paper.

Bad Thing #2 - After missing just one day of Freeps delivery, I called their offices and re-activated my account. The Globe and Mail was the first choice, but I'm too cheap to pay their subscription rates and I still wanted some amount of crappy local news. I felt dirty, but there you go.

Now for wiping the slate clean: Today's edition of the Freeps brought glorious opportunities for mockery, which means I can fill up some space here without too much effort. Observe the following letter to the editor:

Don't use taxes for porn

Regarding the article Porn filters up for review (Nov. 24).

What is the London Public Library board’s problem?

What makes them think it’s OK for taxpayer money to be wasted on public access to pornography? Am I wrong in thinking libraries were born of the need for an inexpensive access to books, so children and adults could be exposed to literature (not porn) they otherwise wouldn’t have an opportunity to have?

As a taxpayer, I am appalled a portion of my money is being used for free access to porn. I do not want my money being spent on access to porn for anyone. Period. No freedom of this or that. If a person has the desire to access porn, then let it be on their own dime in the privacy of their own home — not in a publicy funded public space.
What if the libraries were told all public money would be withheld until the free access to porn is halted? Would that make them sit up and take notice? And who exactly on the library board is supporting this? They must be out of touch with the average family.

Carol Vincent 

Carol really makes me wish there was someone down at the Freeps newsroom who could answer these letters in print. I'd even volunteer to do it. It would be fun to point out to Carol that, in fact, the library is not providing free access to porn. They're simply saying that information should be freely available. That's kind of an ethical foundation for a good library.

I'd also point out that one simply cannot withhold dollars from the library system until they cry 'Uncle'. At the very least, it's bad governance - and one reason why the library board is arms-length from City Hall.

I think I'd also want to ask Carol if she'd like to apply her finely-tuned sense of propriety to, perhaps, the books in the library's collection. I'll bet Carol could free up tons of space on the shelves for the Carol-approved literature that an average family so desperately craves to fight the good fight against all this taxpayer porn.

But my favourite Carol Quote^TM is "No freedom of this or that". That's gold, man. Pure gold. No freedom for anyone, except for half-wits like Carol who would decide on which freedoms are okay. She must be fun to hang around with. 

So, indeed, my two wrongs turned out alright (at least for today).