Last comments from the Burtians

[Filtering Facts]

At 03:05 PM 8/23/97 -0700, Karen G. Schneider wrote:
>
>1) Two years ago, as in, September 1995, I did have many more reservations
>about filtering software than I do now. Hello!  Two years is a LONG time on
>this issue.  Two years ago, I thought differently about a lot of things.
>Some of my attitudes have changed quite a bit.  Then again, so have the
>tools. 

David Burt responds:
You need to elaborate more on this.  If you are renouncing what you said
then, you should do so explicitly.  I do not think I am going to be the last
person who brings this up when you claim to be open minded on filters.  You
also do not address the comment about filtering librarians being like
Fahrenheit 451 firemen.  That wasn't two years ago, that was 5 months ago.
Have your attitudes changed again significantly since March? 


>
>2) The comment about who "deserves ink" is telling.  I get decent press
>coverage; no complaints there.  I do think all sides of an issue should be
>discussed, and Meeks' article about the "radical librarian" perpetuated the
>myth about the poor, beleaguered librarian picked on unfairly by his
>colleagues.  It was surprisingly one-sided, given the topic, and suggested
>that there were only two attitudes in librarianship--the Disciples of the
>First Amendment and the Burtian Filterers.  My response was not about me
>vs. him, however much he wants to see it that way (as I remember from an
>early post, "David and Karen in the press"), but about the issue, and about
>the librarians who hold a different set of views than was illustrated in
>Meeks' article.

DB:
I think The Burtian Filterers sounds like a sci-fi novel.  I will give you
credit for coining "Burtian", though.  I like it much better that
"Burtesqe", which sounds a lot like burlesque.

The "David and Karen in the news" post was an annoucement of the Wired
article which we were both quoted in, not a comparison of you and I.  You
know that.  Who is the one taking things out of context this time?

I find it pretty suspect that a letter to two journalists (Brock Meeks of
MSNBC and John Berry of Library Journal) which contains several comments
clearly meant to discredit me while calling attention to yourself is not
"you vs. me".

You charge me with putting people in "us vs. them" camps, yet you know
perfectly well I advocate choice on filters.  That is our slogan, after all,
"Fighting for Libraries Right to Choose". It is you guys on the ALA council
and in the ALA OIF, and your buddies at the ACLU who want to restrict choice.

>
>3) Folks have tossed rocks at David Burt, and done underhanded things, and
>so forth.  However, he's simply proved that two wrongs do not make a right,
>by belittling people, taking comments out of context, slinging insults and
>in general pouring gas on a fire.  He hasn't made his organization
>appealing for anyone interested in filters.  Also, dismissing TIFAP to
>reporters (which they have told me he has done, because reporters always
>check up on what people say) hasn't been terribly cricket.  When they ask
>me about filteringfacts.org, up to now I have said everyone has a right to
>promulgate his/her opinion, and dropped it at that.  He should learn to be
>equally courteous.  Until he does, he shouldn't be surprised when what goes
>around, comes around.
>

DB:
I have and will continue to point to reporters where Karen has made
anti-filtering comments, and the flaws in TIFAP.  Since when did criticizing
flaws in a study become "not cricket".  I don't think to many researchers
would agree with that.  I'm sure Karen will continue to tell the press I am
a renegade and a loose cannon, badges of honor I wear with pride.  

I will continue to call her Karen though.  She used to call me David, but
now insists on only calling me by my last name in the third person,
distancing me into the enemy other.  I didn't want an adversarial
relationship, she did.  Karen is the one who started with the public
criticism (right after I started getting media attention), not me.


David

*****************************************************************************
David Burt, Filtering Facts, HTTP://WWW.FILTERINGFACTS.ORG
David_Burt at filteringfacts.org