Two books featuring pictures a local judge called child porn aren't going anywhere but back to their library shelves - because a committee of experts reviewed the pictures and deemed them "culturally and artistically significant," and not child porn. Twenty Five Years As An Artist by David Hamilton and States of Grace by Graham Ovenden were called child porn by Superior Court Judge William Kennedy in April because pedophile Charles Davis possessed photocopies of some of their images - and said he had them so he would not molest actual children anymore. The San Diego Public Library told the San Diego Union-Tribune they'd had no complaints about the books filed with them, but formed a committee to re-evaluate them anyway. The committee also consulted local police and the San Diego City Attorney's office while reviewing the books. The books were available for sign out only - meaning they could be read in the library itself but not taken home.
POWERS, Ore. - She lost her title of valedictorian for showering nude with five male classmates; now she wants it back - and she's ready to go to court to get it. Eighteen-year-old Leslie Shorb told reporters she'd never been involved "in anything like this," and cares more about having the honor back than whether she actually speaks at her June 2 graduation. And she has a representative, David Schmidt, who said he'd bargain one more day with the school district before taking Shorb's case to court May 9. The nude shower cost her more than valedictorian status, though - she was suspended from Powers High School for ten days and banned from both the senior prom and senior trip to Mexico. The incident that started it all occurred on April 11, when she went into the boys' locker room after gym class and showered with five male friends. Shorb insists it was a prank, but the publicity about it triggered an uproar in the small town, with parents fuming to the school board about lack of supervision. "I wasn't concerned," Shorb said about the shower. "We've been skinny dipping and stuff." The five boys were banned from extracurricular activities.
LEBEC, Calif. - How would you like to be an eighth grade student dialing a number you find in a state achievement test booklet, and getting an offer of telephone sex at $ .98 a minute? It happened to Daniel Barnes at El Tejon School - he thought he was calling a number in the Stanford Achievement Test 9 booklet which would lead him to information about a boom box described in a test question. He told his mother, who works as a school aide and redialed the number, hanging up after hearing the first few sentences of the phone sex offer. First she thought her son got the wrong number but it proved no mistake, according to the Bakersfield Californian. The SAT-9's publisher hasn't commented yet, but a California Education Department spokesman in the standards and assessment division - which oversees such testing - told the paper he never heard of any similar incident occurring with the controversial SAT-9 tests. And the wrinkle is that even if the publisher takes the number out of next year's tests, blacking out the number on those which remain is a problem - especially since not even teachers or school administrators are supposed to see the test booklets before the tests are given. The state education spokesman speculated the publisher assumed the phone number's 555 prefix was non-working - but the prefix actually ties to a variety of information services. Even so, there was one bright light - at least one teacher told the Californian the fact that Barnes called the number in the first place showed he recalled test facts and took it seriously. The paper itself called the number - and discovered no proof of age was required to hear graphic sexual encounter descriptions and live conversations, for up to $5 a minute.
--- Compiled by Humphrey Pennyworth
