South Bend seeks quality of life through censorship
Richard Riddle
junior
I just want to acknowledge how lucky those of us living in the South Bend, area truly are. How many communities can say that their elected, county prosecutor and staff work overtime to impose their morals upon the community.
Deputy Prosecutor Tony Zirkle presented a four-day case to a grand jury, "dealing with very explicit sexual conduct ..." according to Marti Heline of the South Bend Tribune. We should be thankful that Zirkle made time to fixate upon four local adult bookstores. He accuses the owners of selling materials of an obscene and perverse nature. Specifically, it is materials, "pertaining to group sex, anal sex, clearly viewed penetration and other such graphic activities."
This being the 21st century, who has time to make choices concerning what they believe to be obscene or perverse. Realistically, how many times have we all been innocently driving down the street, past one of those vividly advertised adult places and made sick by by what is possibly lurking behind the closed doors? How wonderful is it to have a great big brother, such as the county prosecutor's office, censoring material for us? Moreover, we save a lot of time by not having to think for ourselves. Is the Internet and personal mail delivery going to be the next target? Is Zirkle going to ask a grand jury to evaluate those for us also? Where do we draw the line on censorship?
Zirkle claims he is not going forward with his case because he wants to impose his morals. He states, "I want this to be a quality place to live. What might be ok in San Francisco may not be here." Maybe once Zirkle makes this area a better place to live the city population will not drop to its lowest levels since the 1920s as it has done in the late '90s.
In making this area a better quality place, maybe Zirkle should focus on real issues. Such as the local ISTEP scores that have been continuously dropping for the past several years. A few years ago, the city helped one of the accused business owners move his store to a new location. During a period of inevitable economic downturn, Zirkle is looking to close businesses. What business is next on Zirkle's list?
Besides, San Francisco cannot be that great. The demand for housing in San Francisco outweighs the available supply to such an extent that housing prices are roughly twice that of South Bend prices. If San Francisco cannot even provide enough reasonably priced housing for all the people wanting to live there, how great can such a place be? Since San Francisco's population consists of the largest percentage of college graduates in the country, you would think they could come to this obvious conclusions on their own. This could be the reason why 16 million people travel to San Francisco annually to tell the locals how horrid their city really is.
The $5 billion the tourists bring with them is probably used to inform people of the truth about San Francisco. That is of course minus the $143 million spent on hotel taxes.
Again, I want to express thanks to those elected officials working so diligently to make South Bend such a grand place to live and nothing like San Francisco.
These officials with authority and ability to make changes in the South Bend area should implement a self assessment test before projecting their views upon others in their community.
Richard Riddle
junior
off-campus
February 12, 2001
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, February 13, 2001
