AOL doesn't want you to see this!
AOL offers parents the option of blocking sites for users under eighteen years of age. Apparently, this website as well as my eleven-year-old brother's site (http://MICrazy.Indrelunas.com/) are being blocked for children, and "young teens," ages 13-15. (I do not know if "mature teens," ages 16-17, can access our sites.) According to AOL, Parental Controls enable kids and teens to have a "safe, fun and enriching experience online."
I believe my and Michael's websites, as well as all of Indrelunas.com, are definitely safe, usually fun, and somewhat enriching. Basically, I think our sites are appropriate for all ages, so I do not think they need to be "web restricted" for users of AOL or any online service.
I'd also like to add that while AOL blocks sites such as this one, they do not restrict access to some blatently pornographic material, as was demonstrated to me by an AOL user who is a "young teen" on AOL's Parental Control system. (Young teens, according to AOL, are 13 to 15 years old.)
I wrote the following message to AOL on their feedback form at http://www.aol.com/info/feedback.html and I ask that, unless you think this site is inappropriate, obscene, or otherwise subject to restriction, you please complain to AOL as well.
Thanks,
I have some friends who subscribe to your internet service, and their parents have enacted your "Parental Controls" to keep them off of inappropriate web sites. However, your web restriction system is totally inadequate!
My friends are unable to visit my website (http://Brian.Indrelunas.com/) because of your restrictions. I understand that this may be because I had a link entitled "Kitty Porn" on my site a while back but the site that linked to was a completely appropriate site (http://www.crosswinds.net/~scourfish/kittie/kitty.html) that makes fun of porn sites. It depicts cats standing next to each other and occasionally lying next to each other, sarcastically calling it "Kitty Porn."
But even if you still feel that is justification for my page's restriction, that link has been phased out. (It was part of a weblog from Blogger.com.)
Other than that, I feel that my site is completely appropriate for all ages. I do not use obscene language, make suggestive comments or jokes, or link to adult sites. The only off-site links I have on my page are to Blogger.com (in accordance with their ToS), Indrelunas.com (my family's site), and Air 1, the Christian music station I listen to.
In addition, you also restrict my eleven-year-old brother's website (http://MICrazy.Indrelunas.com) which I am convinced has NO OBSCENE, SUGGESTIVE, OR INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT WHATSOEVER. The worst word used on his is when someone said "poop" in his guestbook!
However, it cannot be said that your restrictions of even somewhat questionable sites enable you to successfuly block all inappropriate material. Not even close! While at a friend's house where they subscribe to AOL and the teenager is restricted by your Parental Controls, this friend showed me how searching for mundane, appropriate words ON AOL'S OWN SEARCH SERVICE can yield pornographic or otherwise inappropriate search results which your service FAILS to restrict and can be viewed/visited.
I am deeply offended that you seem to think that my brother's and my personal websites inappropriate for viewing by your teenage subscribers, but that some blatently pornographic and inapropriate sites are not. and I ask you to please remove your restrictions on my site and my little brother's.
Regards,
Brian Indrelunas
Happy Independence Day.
This week I'd like to publish a Canadian editorial that you may have read before but is worth reading again, especially today. The People to People Lousiana (and Mississippi and Texas!) Delegation may remember receiving a copy of this article a year ago today while flying over the Pacific.
God bless America.
America: The Good Neighbor.
By Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the
Americans as the most generous and possibly the least
appreciated people on all the earth.
"Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the
Americans who poured in billions of dollars and
forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its
remaining debts to the United States.
"When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their
reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
"When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59
American communities were flattened by tornadoes.
"Nobody helped.
"The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped
billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now
newspapers in those countries are writing about the
decadent, warmongering Americans.
"I'd like to see just one of those countries that
is gloating over the erosion of the United States
dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country
in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo
Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10?
If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American planes?
"Why does no other land on earth even consider putting
a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese
technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German
technocracy, and you get automobiles.
"You talk about American technocracy, and you find
men on the moon - not once, but several times -
and safely home again.
"You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded.
They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless
they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American
dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
"When the railways of France, Germany and India
were breaking down through age, it was the Americans
who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and
the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
"I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name
me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
"Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating
over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."