Subject: Houston Comical Slams Public Libraries as "pornography ring"

[I saw this article by Joe Obfuscatory in today's paper. Or maybe I just made
it up. Permission to copy is granted to members of the MIT media laboratory
posting the article as a GIF file to alt.dave-barry. - Carl Kadie]

Library Porno: a card catalog away
   Top-flight, tax-aided research centers also home to the sexually explicit.

Bestwury High School student Fenn Xonoj's homework was rudely interrupted by
the world's most largest pornography collection. He was minding his own
business when a copy of Playboy flew through the air, landing at his table. At
first he tried to ignore it. When that became impossible, he moved to another
table, but it followed him there. Finally he gave in and read it. To date, we
are happy to report, he has not turned into a sex pervert.

Xonoj glimspsed only part of an collection of erotic art and literature that
grows daily, offering titles such as "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and "Her". It's
supported by taxes and brought into towns by the brightest lights of higher
education. The purveyor of Fenn's surprise and Lady Chatterley's lover is a
grand undertaking called the Public Library. It is the world's most capable
research tool, but it is an equally efficient at collecting pornography.

[...]

Clear Lack High School is thinking about setting up a library. Principal Smith
worries about how to keep the students from reading magazines like Playboy and
books like "Lady Chatterley's Lover". Some of the honor students may even get
library cards from the University of Houston's library. Officials know about
the library's explicit content but they hope the honor system and the threat of
a bad grade will discourage students from exploring where they should not.
They all signed a form saying they would use the tool as intended."

[...]

Some definitions:

Public Library: A place where pornographic and other books are stored. Adult
books stores are open to the public and have books, so they too are public
libraries.

Librarian: Someone who catalogs pornography and other material.

Patron: Someone who uses pornography or other material.

[...]

In addition to all the porno stuff, our investigation discovered other
material. For example, we found an article by John Swift entitled "A Modest
Proposal" that advocates the use of babies as food! A book called "Das Kapital"
talks of violent revolutions against capitalism. Another book called "Mein
Kampf" talks of a international Jewish conspiracy. A magazine called "American
Atheist" caters to atheists.

[...]

Q: Do public libraries raise issues of academic freedom and free speech?

A: Anything you can write, publish, broadcast, or yell from the top of a
building, libraries can collect and disseminate further, faster, more
elegantly. Until this article, no one noticed.

[...]

In the final analyses, it is inevitable that public libraries will contain
expressions of ideas with which some taxpayer will disagree. Must we, thus, get
rid of the public library?