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."
Stand proud, America!
What a beginning! It's my first MyColumn (Creative name, huh? I'll get to that shortly.) but my last as a Texan.
I'm so creative! :)
Firstly, as the idea of this weekly online column was forming, growing, and bouncing around in my head, I kept trying to think of a really cool, yet somewhat sophisticated (read: not stupid-sounding) name. After a couple days of thinking, I've arrived at: MyColumn. That's what it is. Plain and simple.
Well, in my own defense, I was limiting myself to two-word titles so I could do my cool white/navy title. That made it marginally harder.
O-Town in S-Town @ the W-Mart
![O-Town fans stand in front of a Shreveport, LA, Wal-Mart Supercenter on Jun 23 2001, [ridiculously] proving that I'm not lying about this whole thing! Captured from RealVideo of the concert. Courtesy Babblebox.com.](../Images/OTownWalMart.jpg)
Next, I've had this on the Inside Joke list since it happened, but it's not really "inside" and I still think it's pretty ridiculous so I'm going to mention it here. All last week, Shreveport radio station K94.5 announced that "one of the hottest musical acts in the world today," O-Town (that boy band from ABC's Making the Band), would be performing a concert in, as they put it, "S-Town."
When I heard these promos, I assumed that, being the latest boy "band" off the assembly line, this popular group would be performing in a venue such as the Hirsch Coliseum or CenturyTel Center (even though that's actually in Bossier).
Not quite.
I happened to be listening to K94.5 around the time of the concert, and heard the DJs urging everyone to come out to this free concert.... in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart on Mansfield Road! Needless to say, I found this wildly funny (and still do).
Apparently, these guys aren't as popular as the amount of airplay they get suggests. But, Wal-Mart?! The parking lot?! Even I wouldn't do a concert at Wal-Mart! Even the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame members do their thing at the junior high auditorium which, by the way, they're renaming the "Country Music Theater" for the August show. Even the Country Music Theater is more respectable than a parking lot!
Goodbye, Texas
Finally, our computer is being taken apart as I type to be taken to Phoenix (The mover won't move it for some reason.), so I just want to say thanks to all my friends from Texas who I'll be leaving in two days.
Thanks for all the jokes from UIL (Massachusetts!), threatening to kill me (Carrie, half my Biology class!), and everything else that I can't think of right now... lol. Carrie, thanks for putting the great party together. (Behind my back! lol) Thanks to everyone who came, and everyone who wanted to come but was in Arkansas, Colorado, Japan, outer space, or at home... grounded!
In closing,
In closing, let me answer the questions everyone keeps asking me:
- Yes, I'll keep the same email and screen name. (If you don't know my address or screen names, then email me.)
- Yes, I'll get on MSN and AIM every day... once we get into a house and get the computer going again. (That might not be until August, though.)
- Yes, I'll come back to visit sometime.
Until next Wednesday (Hopefully I'll be able to post! lol), have a great week.