I think we all know where that "undisclosed location" can be found. These are dark days indeed.

I can't get the song out of my head! "She Caiman through the bathroom window."

There was also this column from another issue of the Everett Herald, Sunday, August 23, 1998.  Enjoy.

JULIE MUHLSTEIN
Herald Columnist

Matthew Ramsey takes a seat at a computer terminal at the Snohomish Library. "This Terminal Offers Filtered Access to the Internet," a sign above the screen says.

Ramsey is no child. The 34-year-old Snohomish man, a self-described computer freak, sits at the filtered terminal to show me something.

Quickly, he pulls up a World Wide Web site. Bold letters come on screen: "ARYAN NATIONS." Next, he finds a Web page called Anarchy Archive, with a "terrorists handbook" and instructions on hot-wiring cars and counterfeiting money.

The home page of the Montana Testicle Festival includes a warning, "Adult Content on This Site!" and several photographs of nude adults engaging in lewd acts.

At the bottom of these pages is a logo with a cute doggie and the words: "Bess, Internet retriever for kids, families and schools."

In May, the Sno-Isle Regional Library System Board of Trustees approved the use of filtering software on Internet terminals in children's areas at its branches. The Everett Public Library this year also began offering Internet access with filters on children's area terminals.

Sno-Isle and Everett libraries use the Bess filter, a product of Seattle-based N2H2 Inc. And both offer other computer terminals with full access; children aren't restricted to filtered terminals.

Since Bess was installed in Snohomish, Ramsey has spent several hours finding Internet sites he believes should be blocked.

During my library visit Thursday, Ramsey said he has found what he calls "the chinks in their armor."

The filter maker's Internet home page lists categories of "blockable Web sites." They include nudity, adult content, sex, violence, drug use, gambling, bad language, discrimination, crime, tastelessness, chat sites and high risk.

"Mostly all of the sex stuff is blocked," said Ramsey, demonstrating how the filter won't allow access to sites containing words like "sex," "hard core" or explicit names for several body parts.

When it is censored, the message "Web site you requested cannot be accessed from this workstation" pops up. Ramsey is astounded by sites he can get, such as a Hail Satan site and a page selling mail-order ammunition that can "blast away doorknobs, hinges, dead bolts, etc."

"It gives the illusion of protecting children," Ramsey said. "No IDs are checked for those using the unfiltered terminals. The 6-year-old can still access bomb-making sites. In the name of protecting children, optional filtering for children eliminates a computer adults can use."

Jane Appling, the managing librarian in Snohomish, explained that the library's role isn't to police children.

"The way we public libraries view it, we provide information to people, but it is always up to people to decide what they like," she said. "We're not making any promises.

"Bess does not screen out everything you as an individual would agree with. We're trying to give people another tool to use, we're not making any promises that we will protect their child. It's certainly not a guarantee, and we're trying hard to make that clear to people."

Sno-Isle gives parents plenty of help. At the libraries, there's a brochure, "A Parent's Guide to Online Safety." The library home page, www.sno-isle.org, has a Kid's Place link that lists appropriate Web sites for children. Classes on online safety are also planned.

And filtered terminals don't allow computer chat or e-mail use.

"We're all in the middle of this technology," Appling said. "We're trying to provide guiding tools."

Most library users haven't had much to say about filters.

"We've had no complaints either way," said Mary Kelly, at Sno-Isle's office in Marysville.

Filters have been installed at all branches except Mill Creek, which still needs another terminal, and Granite Falls, where a new library is in the works, Kelly said.

At Sno-Isle's Marysville branch, head librarian Eileen McDonnell hasn't heard much feedback either.

"We certainly haven't heard anything from parents," she said. "So far, I haven't noticed a lot of difference in who's using what machines."

I have mixed feelings about libraries' Internet filters.

Something about the controversy makes me think of "Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov's tale of Humbert Humbert's midlife sexual obsession with a young girl. I read the book as a young teen -- checked it out of the library, in fact.

Now, it's No. 4 on the Modern Library's recent list of 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Forty years after its U.S. publication, the story still ruffles feathers, what with U.S. distributors' refusal last year to release a new "Lolita" movie. The film is now airing on cable TV's Showtime and will play in theaters in September.

The book's spot on the 100-best list and the movie flap make plain that one person's view of obscenity or indecency is another's idea of a masterpiece.

A philosophical debate doesn't change Ramsey's mind.

"The filters don't work. A kid's going to sit here, click, click, click. These kids aren't stupid," he said. "What a joke, my tax dollars in action."

"The filters are here," Appling countered, "but they're a limited tool."