Category Archives: Uncategorized

Broadening our View

CCSD has changed its name and its focus!

The CONCERNED CITIZENS FOR SCHOOL DATABASES (the new CCSD) has taken shape from a core group of Colorado activists who located pornography in their local school districts and public libraries. Our research has led us down a startling path – the problem is nationwide, and even international.

EBSCO Information Services is a major provider of school databases, to over 50,000 schools across the country, and is knowingly streaming pornography into its elementary, middle and high school databases. Last February, we contributed to an effort that resulted in their placement on the 2017 Dirty Dozen List by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. EBSCO has taken baby-steps to clean up its school products but they continue to stream obscene material at children, soft porn, “erotica”, sexual imagery, links to sex toy shops and escort services, with some of the escort services even encouraging kids to “sign up” for “casting”.

Other large corporate entities, such as Cengage/GALE, OverDrive, and ProQuest have now also been identified as streaming obscene material into children’s databases which are marketed as school and library products across the nation, and around the globe.

The CCSD grew out of the prestigious, Cherry Creek School District in Colorado but has grown to address this assault on our nation’s children. As we became more educated about the extent of the problem, it became clear that this is not an issue restricted to a school, or a school district, or a state, or even a country. It is endemic, it is global, and it is an assault on our children.

Get the porn out of our schools! Demand that schools do not conduct businesses with pornographers! These are your tax dollars that are being misused and misspent.

Think Your Local Library is Safe- Think Again

Parents should be aware that, while the focus, here, is on the egregious behavior of the Cherry Creek School Board, your local libraries are doing the exact same thing, and more.

On a recent trip to the Smoky Hill Library, part of the Arapahoe Library District, we visited the children’s section of the library and logged in to one of the available computers. These computers, reserved for small children, had the same problematic data base resources as the schools, and more!

We have made the Library District aware of the issue and they have shown little concern. Now, I know that, if pressed, the Library would offer the exact same rationale as the schools; that they are anti-censorship, that the kids need access to research material, etc. These people are all cut from the same cloth; they march in lock-step to a tune only they can hear; the rest of us understanding that, as adults, our primary job is to protect our children.

However, what is the exact need for children, aged 0-10 for “research” data bases? And exactly why do they feel kids of any age need to be able to access pornography.

Parents, keep your kids out of these libraries (and they all have it) until they clean it up. This is not your Aunt Bea librarian. These are people with an agenda and it is not protecting children

Want A Job, Kid?

As if it couldn’t get any worse, another data base resource used by the schools, GALE, has links to an escort site called Zaragosa. Here, children are bedazzled with stories by escorts about how fun and lucrative a job as an escort can be.

Stay in luxury hotels, meet rich men, stay on their yachts, live the life of leisure. And kids, you can apply right there on the site.

This atrocity was brought to the attention of the Cherry Creek School Board in the April meeting, yet nothing has been done to remove GALE. Is GALE a good corporate citizen? Is GALE really providing any educational value to school kids, I doubt it.

This month, the Cherry Creek School Board sent out a self-serving newsletter defending the use if these types of data bases.

This document is so full of conflicting statements, faulty logic, rationalization, and self-justification that it would take PAGES for me to fully discuss them. Let’s just look to the highlights.

I will paraphrase

1. STATEMENT- The internet is full of bias but EBSCO and other databases are not.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In a recent test we performed on Gale, around the issue of Sex Education, there were 15 articles in favor of radical Planned Parenthood based Comprehensive Sex Ed and 5 abstinence based articles. Of the 5 abstinence articles, 4 of the links were disabled, only one active. Of the 15 for CSE, all 15 links were operative.

We found similar patterns of censorship elsewhere in Gale and the other databases. So, I guess your view of objectivity and censorship depends only on your version of the truth. How egalitarian.

2. STATEMENT- The data bases are vetted.

Since Jim Duncan of CliC and Tim Collins, CEO Of EBSCO, both admit that EBSCO contains pornography and, according to EBSCO, it is problematic, how well could these data bases have been vetted?

You either fully vetted these products, missing the fact that huge volumes of pornography will be available to children, in which case it was an incompetent job. Or, you fully vetted these products, knew the pornography was there, and decided to put it in front of our children anyway.

Pick your poison.

3. STATEMENT- Denise Wendl states that the products are “grade level appropriate”.

Unless you are saying that pornography is age appropriate for kids as young as elementary school, then this statement is just out of touch with the reality.

In a discussion with an EBSCO executive, we were told that ‘the only segmentation by grade level is on lexile and (as the executive then went on to facetiously state) porn does not contain a lot of big words, so it is quite possible that some of this is in our elementary school products’.

In addition, why would a search on Human Biology filtered for a lexile of Gr 7/8 return Orgasms for All? Is this something that we should be presenting 12 and 13 year olds?

4. STATEMENT- “Some of the respect for the content has to come from teaching students and parents that things are going to show up once in a while. But they’re going to show up on the general web, even more so”.

Let me make the very simple and somewhat obvious observation that objectionable material cannot just “show up” if it is not in the content. It will not just “show up” if you purchase products that do not contain objectionable material.

The fact is, and remains, that these data base resources are full of pornography and rather than deal responsibly with the issue, the Cherry Creek School Board is fully content to continue to expose children to the real risk of encountering disturbing depictions and images.

The board is content to continue to do business with EBSCO, a company that has been added to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s Dirty Dozen list as a major contributor to the sexual exploitation of women and children.

It is long past the time for the district to do the right thing, sever all ties with any company that provides pornography to children,

The Curious Case of the Misplaced Priorities

Nobody likes to be lectured to but sometimes it necessary.

Case in point: The last Cherry Creek School Board meeting.

The primary item of the evening, if you can believe it, was an over 2 hour presentation of the study, the analysis, the rationale, and the time frame for implementing a 15 minute change to the school starting times. There were speakers during the public comment session that, quite literally, had tears in their eyes as they argured passionately either for, or against, the change in the starting times.

This is not to diminish the importance of the issue; particularly to teenagers.

Anyone that has teenage children knows how important sleep is to them. Making the decision to delay the high school start time was, therefore, a laudable one; made in the interests of student health and safety.

However, I have to ask; where is that same level of concern for health and safety when it comes to the issue of making pornography available to  kids? Where is the parent concern over what, arguably, is an issue that, in importance to the health of children, leaves sleep times in the dust?

I wonder, could we, like the start times meeting, have an expert attend a school board meeting and deliver a discussion of the effects of violent and dehumanizing pornography on developing minds. How do these images and messages shape a young person’s view of the world and of their relationships? What expectations are created? What fantasies that will never be fulfilled?

I am pretty certain what they would say. They would describe the high incidence of failed relationships, the problems holding jobs, the incident of partner violence; all of which they learned from exposure to pornography.

Do you really want your son growing up to think that a leather mask and a gag, while being whipped into submission is route to happiness?

Do parents really want their daughters growing up to think that they merely exist as an object of casual use by men?

The effects are well documented in adults: desensitization, unreal partner expectations, damage to relationship building, bonding issues, divorce, mysogenistic views of women, poor body image; addiction to pornography; the list goes on and on.

And these are the effects on adult brains. What can we expect from in the undeveloped, mushy grey matter that is still forming as a child’s brain? Is there a connection to the current rape crisis in our colleges? Is there a connection to the rapidly rising incidence of STDs and AIDS among young people; those in the 18-25 year cohort? I have my guess. What’s your’s?

This should be of a huge concern to parents. These kids are our future. Is this the future you want for them?

Why does this not concern parents?

We have 2 daughters. We want them to grow to be confident, independent women; secure in themselves and in their relationships with men and to view those relationships as mutually supportive, to the benefit of both partners to the arrangement.

What does the Cherry Creek School District want for the children in their care? Well, they want them to have sleep. We know this from the action they have taken.

It seems that they also want them to have pornography. We know this from the lack of action they have taken. Why would they ever want this? God help them.

 

EBSCO Industries Identified As A Major Contibutor to Sexual Exploitation- CCSD to Follow?

Today, the National Council on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) added EBSCO Industries to its annual Dirty Dozen list of companies that they have identified as significant contributors to the sexual exploitation of women and children.

This is a major announcement, linking EBSCO to the significant international problem of sexual exploitation, in all its forms: prostitution, child pornography, pornography, sex trafficking, rape, and other forms of sexual exploitation.

Will the Cherry Creek School District continue to do business with this business? Are they proud of this “business” relationship? Will they continue to defend this company as a valued provider of “sensitive and controversial material” and material important to the District’s goal of “inclusive excellence”? By what measure, exactly, do they measure the “value” of the offensive and dehumanizing material that is being made available to our children?

To be fair, EBSCO is by no means the only online data base provider. There are others, such as Pro-Quest and Cengage, that do exactly the same thing. Let us hope they will take note of the impending fallout on EBSCO and proactively take steps to root out pornography from any of their products that they make available to school children.

All of these are currently being used by the the Cherry Creek School District. Are they insane? Or just corrupt.

National Council on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) References:

The Case for Naming EBSCO Information Services to the 2017 Dirty Dozen List

VIDEO: How Kids Are Being Exposed to Porn in Schools

Pornography in our Schools! A New Culprit

John Kennedy- An Embarrassment to the District

Last night, at the monthly school board meeting, the district community was treated to the spectacle of the Director for Middle School Education, John Kennedy, conducting himself in a most unprofessional and juvenile manner.

A very kind and thoughtful lady took the podium during Public Comment and addressed the Board on the ongoing matter of pornography being made accessable to school children. During her 3 minutes, this lady went to great pains to praise the board for the action they had taken on school start times and for other positive things she had felt they had done. However, she did call on them to remove the availability of pornography from the resource data bases that the District makes available through its web portals.

During this thoughtful and calm presentation, John Kennedy, squirming like a school boy in church, could barely contain hiself at the blistering wit that he no doubt felt he possessed.

Setting his cell phone to mimick the bell signaling a speaker’s presentation time was finished, he set it off at about the 20 second mark; then proceeded to laugh and giggle, along with his doltish and bovine companion.

Is this the best the district can offer? This man makes in the 3 figures and yet he seems incapable of restraining his rude and juvenile antics. Unacceptable.

It is typical of his bullying behavior, behavior which, in a child, the district seems to demonstrate zero tolerance for. Like a bullying child, however, John Kennedy seems to think he can either threaten or demean others into his way of thinking. Not true.

This insignificant, rude, little, little man attempted to threaten us into silence when we first raised the issue of pornography to the school district and, it seems, he continues to practice this same behavior.

It is an indication of the challenged intellect of this man that he continues to practice what clearly is not working. We will not be silenced,either by threats or by sophmoric wit.

Mr. Bull, you employ this man and he is not only an embarrassment to the District, he is an embarrassment to you, personally. Is this the calibre of “professional” that you employ? He reflects very poorly on the district and should be terminated….immediately.

Mr. Bull is very keen on admonishing others that he finds disruptive but maybe that only extends to admonishing them if he disagrees with their opinions; for those that he agrees with, a disruption is perfectly acceptable. Is that pretty much how it works, Mr. Bull?

Taxpayers of the Cherry Creek School District, this is where a significant portion of your tax dollars are going; to a clown. Buyers remorse anyone?

Responsible Parenting Requires Responsible Censoring

Recently, over the past several weeks, we have been accused repeatedly of “being censors”. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.

We believe that adults have every right to consume information that they think appropriate. Don’t like the subject of a movie or a book, then don’t go see the movie, or don’t buy the book. That is your right as a consumer but you do not have the right to tell another adult that they cannot read that book or see that movie.

What you do has no negative affect on me, so have at it.

When it comes to children, however, responsible parents are responsible censors. That is our job. We must protect our children, physically as well as emotionally and psychologically.

Further, the “do as you want as long as it doesn’t affect me” philosophy, as it applies to adult behavior, does not extend to children.

We are all well aware of the “pack” mentality of children. What one child does and another finds “cool”, soon spreads like the plague through a school or community. Think Poke Mon cards, Furbbies, etc.

This is particularly worrying when we consider the easy availability of the dehumanizing, often violent, and frequently disturbing pornography available to children in the Cherry Creek School District.

According to Harry Bull, he is “not comfortable” making the decision for all families to remove the EBSCO, ProQuest, and Cengage data bases that are responsible for almost all of the pronography being made available to our kids. According to Harry Bull, there are “others” who feel that the data bases should be maintained. Is he seriously suggesting that there are parents in the school district that want to maintain the availability of pornography for their children? I can’t image any parent agreeing to this.

Pornonomics and the Cherry Creek District

Make no mistake, this issue is about to go national, with all the media attention on this issue focussed on the Cherry Creek School District. Here is what we can expect, as long as this issue remains topical, and perhaps long after.

1. People nationwide will become familiar with the Cherry Creek School District. This will not be a case of “any press is good press”.

2. Metro Denver is, for 2017, the #2 hot spot for people to live. This means that many people will be hyper aware of the publicity surrounding this matter.

3. The national coverage of the Cherry Creek School District and the pornography available to the students enrolled there will cause many….many…. people to rethink what district they want to move into, assuming that they still want to move to Denver.

4. The potential impact on property values and the tax base could be significant. Revenues for the school district and the encompassed cities and counties will suffer.

5. Given the scandal, and the resultant loss of tax revenue, the District will no doubt approach the voters, once again, with hands and bowls outstretched. “Please sir, can I ave some more?”

6. Voters will not give it to them, which will be entirely appropriate.

7. What they will give them, is elected school board members that will take back control of the district and fire Harry Bull, Scott Siegfried, and Jason Koenig all of whom they will hold accountable for their failure to prevent a cinder growing into a wild fire.

Taxpayers would do well to remember: We elect the School Board to repersent the wishes of the members of this community. They are not servants of the Administration.

Pornography in Schools? What’s the Big Deal?

These are old statistics. I doubt it has gotten better with age.

1. Pornography is a $97 billion world wide industry (2006).

2. There were, in 2003, 1.3 million porn websites, with 260 million porn pages.

3. There are 72 million individual users monthly that visit porn sites. No telling how many of them have been directed by the Cherry Creek School District web portals.

4. There were 13,588 new porn video titles release in 2005.

5. Adults admitting to internet addiction; 10% and 28% of those being women. Again, no statistics on kids who found their way there through the Cherry Creek School District web portals.

6. More than 20,000 images of child pornography posted online every week (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 10/8/03).

7. 100,000 websites offer illegal child pornography (U.S. Customs Service estimate).

8. 9 out of 10 children aged between the ages of 8 and 16 have viewed pornography on the Internet, in most cases unintentionally (London School of Economics January 2002). Yet Mr. Bull, Superintendent of the Cherry Creek School District says it is not possible to accidentally access porn the CCSD web porntals.

9. Average age of first Internet exposure to pornography: 11 years old (Internet Filter Review). This average age will go lower if companies like EBSCO and school districts like the Cherry Creek School District go unopposed.

10. Largest consumer of Internet pornography: 12 – 17 year-old age group (various sources, as of 2007). Any wonder why?

11. Adult industry says traffic is 20-30% children (NRC Report 2002, 3.3). And they are allowed to remain in business?

12. Youth with significant exposure to sexuality in the media were shown to be significantly more likely to have had intercourse at ages 14 to 16 (Report in Pediatrics, April, 2006). And you think you’re too young to be a grandparent.

13. “Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions.”
 – U.S. Department of Justice, Post Hearing Memorandum of Points and Authorities, at l, ACLU v. Reno, 929 F. Supp. 824 (1996). It is a national disgrace and Harry Bull and the Cherry Creek School District are complicit in this, as is any parent that does not get involved and demand better.

14. 1 in 7 children who use the internet have been sexually solicited – 2005. (Internet Filter Review)

15. 1 in 4 kids participate in Real Time Chat. (FamilyPC Survey, 2000). Until recently, the Cherry Creek School District facilitated this through their association with the Trevor Project. Children as young as 13, or less (there were no checks on age) were enticed into chat rooms with adult “counselors”. The same family fighting against porn in the schools demanded it be removed. You’re w.elcome

16. 1 in 5 children (10 to 17 years old) receives unwanted sexual solicitations online (Youth Internet Safety Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, 2001). See 15, above.

17. 2 in 5 abductions of children ages 15-17 are due to Internet contact (San Diego Police Dept.). See 15, above.

18. 76% of victims in Net-initiated sexual exploitation cases were 13-15, 75% were girls. “Most cases progressed to sexual encounters” – 93% of the face-to-face meetings involved illegal sex (Journal of Adolescent Health, November 2004).See 15, above.

So, parents that are not getting involved with the issue of pornography being made availabe through the Cherry Creek School District, read and weep. These could be your children. Demand better from the district.

Lies, Damn Lies, and the Cherry Creek Administration That Tells Them

We have recently been in touch with EBSCO, the huge data base content provider that is responsible for much of the pornographic material entering our schools.

It is clear that the Cherry Creek School District is working frantically with EBSCO to try to sanitize the Fox Ridge Middle School web portals. That’s good, that is fantastic, that is what we have been asking for, for over 5 months.

So, where is the cloud in this silver lining?

First, the District is only removing this material from a limited number of middle schools; they are not removing it at all from the high schools.

Second, they are not removing it from the middle schools fast enough, this material is still available at a large number of the middle schools.

It is imortant to note, however, that this is all a piecemeal approach; they only remove what our group has identified for them. These data bases (EBSCO, ProQuest, Cengage) are entirely corrupted with this material.

Why do they just not remove these “resources” in their entirety? What is the quid pro quo benefiting the administration or the District that compels them to keep doing business with pornographers?

When we started on this hideous journey, we raised the issue of graphic pornography through the District web portals, expecting that the district would be anxious to clean it up. Nothing could be further from the truth.

First, we were threatened and told to stop talking about it.

Then, the district defended the material, saying it was necessary for “inclusive excellence” and an “appropriate use of controversial and sensitive material”.

Then, we were told that we were censors.

People that called the district, including reporters from the Christian Post, Fox News, and WND were told that we were liars, that the material just did not exist.

If you are to believe we are liars, as the Cherry Creek administration and Tustin Amole, of the Ministry of Truth, allege, then you must also believe:

MassResistance.org is lying

http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen3/17a/CO-middle-school-x-rated/index.html

Mr. Bull has denigrated this organization as being a hate group. This is typical of the left, when they don’t like the message they are hearing….call the messenger a hater.

Mr. Bull has done the same to us. “Don’t like porn in schools; HATER!”

WND News is lying.

http://www.wnd.com/2017/01/parents-school-sex-ed-program-an-open-door-to-porn/#!

Steve Curtis of KLZ radio in Denver is a liar.

https://soundcloud.com/wake-up-with-steve-curtis

 

https://soundcloud.com/wake-up-with-steve-curtis/01302017-update-on-ccsd-pornography-debacle

 

John Rush, also at KLZ, is a liar.

https://soundcloud.com/rushtoreason/rush-to-reason-1-19-17-hour-3

Dr. Everett Piper, President of Wesleyan University in Oklahoma, is a liar.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10154954936529529&id=613164528&p=0&av=100002678831044&refid=52

 

http://www.1170kfaq.com/shows/pat-campbell/pat-campbell-podcast/pat-w-dr-everett-piper-porn-curriculum-devos-hearing

 

Tony Perkins, syndicated host of Washington Watch, is a liar.

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?c=RADIO

 

Look for the Jan 18th recording

 

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WA17A34&f=WU17A11

 

John Loeffler, of Steel on Steel, is a liar.

Really? Everybody is a liar except Harry Bull and Tustin Amole? Maybe this “single family” are just evil masterminds that have been able to dupe so many of these people? What masterful evil genius’ we must be. Tinfoil hats anyone?

How can it be that all these public personalities, along with this poor lying family, are all wrong and Harry Bull, Tustin Amole, and the Cherry Creek School Board are paragons of the truth? Want to buy a bridge?

Under intense pressure, the District began to sanitize the web portals and began working with EBSCO to get the material removed, but only from a limited number of middle schools, the high schools are to remain untouched.

Now, apparently, the corporate line is this:

  1. The “single family” complaining about this matter are troublemakers in the district and there is no pornography.
  2. Even if there is a bit of pornography, it is not very bad and needs to be searched out; it is not easy to find.
  3. And that even if there is a bit of pornography, and it is not easy to find, the District is taking steps to remove it.
  4. But remember, the family is just nuts.

Now, I admit to bias in this matter, but even a childlike application of critical thinking can quickly see that if there is really no porn, and the family is just nuts, why is the district working “so hard” to remove it as quickly as they can?

And how much porn is an acceptable amount for our children?

And what kind of porn does the District think is not so bad as to require removal.

Why are there videos available that clearly show the hideous nature of the material and the extreme ease with which it is accessed? What kind of effort must it have taken for the family to create these “fake” videos?  And why would local and national media get on board with this hoax? Really? Who sounds like the conspiracy nut, here?

Why did Mr. Bull, the Superintendent of the District, stand before an audience of around 100 people at the last Parent Council meeting and admit that, in fact, there is pornography available through the District portals? He didn’t deny it at all. He also did not say it was hard to get at.

What he did say was he considers it a balance that needs to be weighed; does the good material available outweigh, on balance, the negative effects of the easy availability of pornography to children?

Our position is that there is no balance to be weighed. We all heard the woman at this meeting crying, as she relayed the effects that viewing this material had on her nephew, or was it her son? This young boy was so traumatized by the experience that he has been in therapy for a year. Does this sound like an issue that requires a weighing of the pros and cons?

For the people that were at the Parent Council meeting, unless you are going to be completely dishonest with yourself, you must have seen the anguish this woman was experiencing. You must understand the damage that this material has done this young boy. You must know, despite any political ideology you might have, that this is an injustice and it has been committed by your employer and your schools.

Teachers and parents, you have been told by Harry Bull and Tustin Amole, the District chief propagandist, that we are “haters”, that we are a “single family”, that we have an “agenda”, and that our “motivations” are questionable. It is time to move out of your comfort zone and get involved. If you believe the characterizations of Harry Bull, the District ,and Tustin Amole, without doing any of your own verification, then you acquiece to being used as puppets.

We, unlike the District, are not asking for your blind faith, we want you check into this.

We understand that this requires an effort on your part; a need to look past what you are being told by people in whom you have placed your trust. We understand that it makes for an easier sleep if you do nothing, but doing nothing is not an adult response in this matter. You must act!

So, if we have an agenda, we do; no porn to kids. Kids come first.

If we have questionable motivations, we do, although there is nothing questionable about our motivations. Kids come first.

If we are censors, we are; admittedly and proudly. We believe in making all information available to all children, at the appropriate level in their physical and emotional development which allows them to process that information. We want healthy kids. Kids come first.

It is not our motivations, agenda, objectives, goals, or desires that you need to examine; it is your own and the District’s.

Or maybe that won’t allow you to sleep at night.