I find it amazing what worries people. For instance, very few people seem to be worried about the drugging of "hyperactive" school children with the very powerful drug Ritalin. But you present the idea to them that somebody might snap a picture of them without permission, and man, is that a problem! They have even started banning picture phones just on the theoretical chance this could become an issue!

Quote from article above:
"West Lothian Council has admitted it has had no reports of incidents where the mobiles have been misused. But it said it wanted to do something now before the issue became serious."

So absolutely no instances of this sort has happened yet, but they want to "do something before the issue becomes serious."(!)

There have also been instances recently where people were actually arrested simply for photographing in public places where there were children. Despite the fact that per the law you can rightfully photograph anything you can see in a public place, and rightfully so. (Post-911 paranoia is another matter which complicates things.)

It seems to me that some people would want a society where children are kept in state camps, away from the general population, just to make sure nobody sees them and gets impure thoughts. And just to make sure, even their parents should not be allowed to be alone with the children without security cameras in the room.

One of the least helpful reaction to Evil (perceived or real) is to become so afraid that you refuse to look. Just reacting spastically with your eyes closed seldom creates useful results...

You can be certain that people who want to prevent you from looking have no good intentions.

Your recent reporting of "Pupils face camera phone ban" reminded me of my similar run in with school authorities in 1962.

I was 16 and a sophomore, in a Catholic high school, when a head nun issued an edict that the girls couldn't wear patent leather shoes because supposedly you could look up the skirt of the girls by seeing the reflection in the shoes.

This happened quite suddenly as the girls had before this intrusion been wearing patent leather shoes for decades. Part of the irony of the proclamation was that the girls in question were actually separated from the boys. We all were divided by an invisible wall that kept the girls on one side of the building and the boys on the other side. So it was almost impossible to view the offending shoes in the first place.

I was selling shoes part time after school, and I and my fellow salesmen that night conducted many experiments to test this accusation. The results were that nothing could be seen no matter how hard we tried. The next day I presented our evidence to the head nun and I was immediately dismissed with, "You're the type we're trying to prevent from looking."

I went to my next class and shortly after sitting down the dean came in and hailed me to his office - seems I had offended the dear Sister. I was then marched over to her classroom and made to apologize to her in front of a class of snickering girls. I was issued a detention for my offending remark and had to stay after school for an hour - despite the fact I told the dean that my bus home would have quit, my folks didn't have a car, and I lived 15 miles away.

He told me that I could use the 15 miles to reflect on how wrong I was in God's eyes to have offended the dear Sister, and that perhaps I'd be more considerate the next time.

Jerry

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