Dollars for Data

One of the easiest and under-the-radar opportunities to sneak obscene materials onto schoolchildren’s screens is through school or city library data bases. This has been occurring for years. Now that kids are forced to stare at computers most days since overpaid teacher union leaders tell us children are dangerous, our society needs to take a closer look at online content.

It is a great idea to be able to log in from anywhere and grab books, magazines, research, etc. Unfortunately, at least two companies have taken advantage and have embedded obscene and controversial material into their products. If a living, breathing librarian handed a student this same material he or she could be arrested in some jurisdictions. EBSCO was the original offender. As parents started complaining the Dark Side began embedding their salacious material into GALE products.

How is this happening? First we have to face the fact evil people have powerful positions in every area of our government. Many we never see, they are bureaucrats who have considerably more influence than those who are actually elected to office. Somehow decisions are made and contracts are approved. Even if there is public comment, the decisions are made beforehand; public comment is just for optics.

We are taking a deep dive into the online data base maze in Arizona. Thanks to Pornography is Not Education – School Databases, Contains Pornography who found these data bases long ago in Colorado and beat the drum endlessly. Now that online learning will likely never go away, we must get to the bottom of this. It is a guarantee school districts have no idea the obscene material is accessible to students as young as elementary school.

School districts access EBSCO and GALE through Arizona’s Secretary of State website. Here is an example of how easily students from Tempe High School can link to both data bases. How did the information get to the Secretary of State’s website? Lots of money.

Remember the CARES Act? Here is what Arizona’s state government received to combat the Corona Virus crisis in 2020.

No wonder the majority of our country’s governors want to keep the “emergency” going 12 months later. While shutting private businesses they wrangled millions from the lowly taxpayers. Never let a crisis go to waste, especially in Arizona. We will get back to that shortly.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services provides much of the funding for the Arizona State Library, including online data bases. Below is the amount of a recent contract.

Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced the state library offices would be closed temporarily, although they would still be working to meet constituents’ needs.

If employees are staying home due to a virus, isn’t the overhead less? Perhaps some of the money is diverted to local libraries throughout the state, but those have also closed. Those local libraries also provide direct access to the online data bases we have been discussing as well as questionable hard copy books. See the “Call to the Audience” in this attachment from Tempe. Ultimately it is our taxes which pay for material that hurts and confuses children. Sadly, your local library is no longer a safe place for families, but be careful if you tell that to a librarian.

Over $3.5 million isn’t enough to sustain the library during closure, so the agency was awarded even more money under the CARES Act. If office overhead is minimal while the library offices are closed, couldn’t those already budgeted funds be applied towards the laptops and other technical paraphernalia employees need to work off-site? Apparently not because here comes another $657,000+ from the CARES Act.

Not every piece of content online is bad for children. Most of the material is helpful and informative. But like everything else in our society that starts out good, libraries have been corrupted. The state of Arizona is the same state which teaches infants are racist. Critical Race Theory is a different topic, but it was Alfred Kinsey who also experimented (abused) infants in his development of sex ed. How is all of this getting to our children? We don’t have trustworthy adults in any level of government and our children’s adult parents have been tuned out for decades. Do parents allow strangers unsupervised access to children in their homes? Do they give strangers their cars to use to schlepp their children from activity to activity? Of course not, but we have allowed strangers who are corporate and government elitists complete access to our kids under the guise of “education.”

Even Mesa, Arizona, settled by Mormons with strong family values, just passed an ordinance that allows men in girls restrooms and locker rooms, men in women’s domestic violence shelters, and men on girls sports teams. Mesa Public Schools are already under contract with EBSCO’s data base. (By the way, Scottsdale will be approving a similar ordinance soon.)

We have requested many public records and we will follow up as information trickles in. Meanwhile, watch your kids around their computer screens!