Intellectual Freedom Wins?... For Now?

According to the February 22nd Indianapolis Star, public access to the Army's Reimer Digital Library was denied February 6th, with only those with a username and password being able to access the information. Going to the website, my computer provides a warning that accessing the site could be potentially dangerous. I think htis might have to do with the statement, "Use of this DoD web site, authorized or unauthorized, constitutes consent to monitoring" (http://www.train.army.mil/).

According to the Federation of American Scientists website, they filed a Freedom of Information Act request on February 13th, asking for all unclassified files so that they could provide them on their website.The Federation of American Scientists then posts on March 6th that the site is restored, but when certain documents are attemptedto be downloaded, they are restricted.

What else would we expect? If the Army chose to not provide public access to material, but then was persuaded to do so involuntarily, why would we expect to see all the material? I worked as a civilian at a military hospital. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the place, but no one was ever worried about malpractice. According to them, it was extremely difficult to sue a federal institution. So, if one wants complete access to the army's resources, they'd better be prepared with a lot of persistence and financial support.

I did go to the website. I didn't find anything restricted, but I may not have dug deep enough. I did get good information on how to respond to depleted uranium, how to determine direction within the target area, and how to prepare a range card for an M60 machine gun. Who knows what I didn't have access to simply because it wasn't there?

Women are from Venus

I don't want to take a stand on this one. I just think it's interesting...

The February 15th issue of the Indianapolis Star stated that London's Transport Authority was refusing to display a poster of Venus by Lucas Cranach because it was too racy. They said they would display the poster if the bottom half was cropped out. I guess the breasts were ok, it was the vagina. But, on Feb. 22, the Transport Authority allowed the poster after a lot of ridicule, sans cropping. "The posters went up on February 22 and so far there have been no reports of spontaneous orgies breaking out on the tube nor has anyone been struck blind by having to view the racy art work" (DigitalJournal.com).

I don't know. I'm pretty well-traveled, but have not been to London. I'm not sure how well the nude artwork would go over in our culture. It wouldn't work in Asia. Certainly the Transport Authority does have people of all ages traveling along it; it's a public service. I'm sure many people rely on the subway as their primary means of transportation. If the artwork were to be in a museum, well, people don't have to go to the museum. Over and over I've stressed that parents need to be held accountable and responsible for their children, and if parents choose to not expose their children to nudity until a certain age or maturity level, I think that's ok. In this case, the parents don't have a choice. Is it London's job to force parents to have certain conversations with their children before the parents and children are ready? It was actually the Academy of Arts that used this portrait for their posters, but looking over Cranach's artwork, most of them do contain a nude Venus, so what choice would they have?

I know intellectual freedom does entail artwork, also. But, at the risk of sounding anti-intellectual freedom, I think the London Transport Authority was right for at least reviewing the poster in further detail, putting it into the mind's eye, and letting the public decide for themselves.

Who am I?

My name is Lucille, but people call me Lucy. I'm a 33 year old female. I'm a pisces. I'm a SLIS student, and I will be graduating in May. My husband and I own and operate our own tattoo shop. I am interested in reading, anime, libraries, manga, writing, foreign languages, foreign cultures, and music.
Sound familiar? It is all material copied from my fellow students profiles with the exception of Jo and Jamie, who have nothing on theirs. I, too, left mine blank. Not because I was afraid that someone would steal my identity or profile, but because I have dated at least one freak and have a loco sister out there somewhere.
A recent article in Indy.com discussed this issue, citing this Wall Street Journal article. Maybe some of you that use social networking already knew that this happens. I'm not surprised, but as much time as some of our patrons and my brother spends on MySpace, wouldn't one think that people would come up with their own material? I mean, if you're spending time going through profiles and learning about people, but you're one of those people who use other people's profiles, why would you even bother investing time in MySpace knowing that half of it might not be true anyway?
So, if Intellectual Freedom is freedom of the mind, do we feel free when our personalities are borrowed or stolen? Do we need to put a copyright on our personalities, too?