Ill-Advised Parental Discretion

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I think it’s outrageous that a married couple is suing WalMart for calling the cops over what they called “bath time photos.”

A year ago in Peoria, Arizona, mommy and daddy sent 144 family photos to be developed to WalMart.  The developer spotted eight photos of children in provocative positions, with their genitals exposed.  Apparently, the parents say that they “have told our girls that they have freedom to be in their home and feel okay about their bodies and their nudity, but that there is a time and a place for it.”  I couldn’t agree more….and a store photo development establishment is probably NOT the place for it.  You know how cheap it is to download your own photos?  Sheesh!

Obviously, these folks are big into nudity and the carefree expression of such, so their getting angry that the police and child protective services were brought in to investigate should have been an expected consequence of their beliefs. It is the intent of a civilized society to protect the old, infirm, and the young from exploitation and abuse.  The police and child protective services and the WalMart photo developer did the right thing.

After psychiatric exams and a full investigation, it was determined by a judge that these parents didn’t intend any abuse, nor were they revving up for child porn.  Fine.  Happy ending.

But they should have been sensitive and non-defensive enough to understand the idea of protecting children always comes first.

Porn Film Screened on College Campuses

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When I went to college (I was an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Stony Brook), in addition to the police raids on the campus dorm pot smokers, and the demonstrations against the Vietnam war, there were actually serious academic classes which educated students in math, science, philosophy, literature, engineering, physics, business, and social sciences among other disciplines.

The expressed common goal was to graduate informed students who were competent to take on the next phase of their lives in some productive way, contributing to society, in addition to financially supporting their prospective families.

For the longest while, I fear, colleges and universities have minimized that lofty goal in exchange for ideological “brainwashing” and political correctness, threatening those who hold opinions different from the prevailing political persuasion of the faculty.  I think that colleges and universities have become scary places for individuals of a more traditional bent.

Students at the University of Maryland recently attempted to join in with other so-called bastions of higher learning by playing a triple-x pornographic film for entertainment.  The screening was set up by the school’s student union.  The film got yanked when State Senator Andy Harris threatened to pull state funding from the school’s budget.  Evidently, money talks.

Senator Harris said, “Students can’t light up a cigarette in the student union, but can watch a hardcore XXX porn film.  Occasional viewing of porn is more dangerous than occasionally lighting up a cigarette.  If the movie is being shown for educational reasons [yeah, right], someone should be presenting the dangers too.  Porn breaks up lives.”

Of course, those who don’t remember their history (and how the Tower of London was the final stop for those who contradicted the British monarchy), and think that the US First Amendment is just about ANYTHING, complained that this, the most expensive porn movie ever made, was an issue of free speech.  “Off with their heads,” I say.  The production company actively has been seeking college campuses to screen the film since last summer, because they’re looking to breed future audiences for their debasing tripe. 

The University of Maryland’s student union planned to have a representative from Planned Parenthood talk about safe sex.  HAH!  Planned Parenthood makes money by having girls and women kill the babies in their bodies as a form of “after-the-fact” birth control. I can see why they would want to be there to push their wares, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be explaining why they typically don’t call the police when an underage girl, who has been impregnated by an adult male, comes in for an abortion - bad for business, I guess. 

Eventually, the university reversed its position and allowed the screening, as long as it contained an “educational component.”  Four “experts” spoke on freedom of speech, and then screened the first 30 minutes of the 2 1/2 hour hard-core film. 

The film has already been shown at UCLA, Northwestern University, Carnegie-Mellon, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Southern Connecticut State University.

Aren’t the alumni proud.

The Dangers of Teen Sexting

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In the more than three decades I have been on the radio and in counseling practice, the saddest experiences (and the most difficult to be helpful with) are those where parents call to tell me their child is dead.  The child may have been the victim of an accident, war, a crime, an illness, or a suicide.  No matter which, the pain is unimaginable and the duration is infinite.  It is against the “order of things” for our children to die first; and it is against the order of things for us to feel incapable of protecting our children from everything, anything, and anyone. 

The hurt and rage a parent feels is understandable.  A desire to do something with that hurt and rage is also understandable. It is generally difficult to get a sense of closure or justice or revenge.  And so many parents believe that, if they can get one or all of those, the pain goes away.  It doesn’t….not really.

An 18 year old young woman in Ohio sent nude pictures of herself to a boyfriend.  Apparently, this “texting” of private parts is quite the rage in the youth population.  At some point, the relationship ended, and he, I guess, thought it would be amusing to send the photos to other students at the school.

In May, 2008, the young teen went on a local Cincinnati television station to warn other teens against sending personal body part or naked photos to others, lest they also go through the harassment that she got, as students - mostly girls - called her a “slut” and a “whore.”  In spite of her noble efforts to warn other young people, and the gratitude she got from innumerable parents, two months later, she decided to kill herself, apparently as a way to avoid the painful embarrassment.

“Sexting” (as it’s called) is a growing problem that has resulted in child pornography charges being filed against some teens across the country, because sending sexually charged pictures of minors is a crime  One national survey found that 39% or more of teens are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages, and 48% report receiving them!

This young woman was humiliated by the daily snide remarks, and she started skipping school.  Her mother drove her to school to make sure she got there.  Then, after attending the funeral of one of her friends who committed suicide, this young, tormented woman hanged herself in her bedroom.

Of course, the focus for her mother is an attempt to punish those students or the school with lawsuits and criminal charges.  The mother is understandably beside herself and wanting to lash out in rage.  However, the fault doesn’t lie in the stars.  The openly sexual environment that children are exposed to makes these behaviors (like oral sex in middle school classrooms and bathrooms across the country) seem like the norm for the day.  Girls have always wanted to make boys love them, and cell phone texting technology just gives young people another avenue to express their hopeful desperation to be wanted and loved.

It was pathetic and stupid of her to send the picture; it was unconscionable of her ex-boyfriend to expose her to ridicule; it was disgusting for girls (competitive little witches that some can be) to make fun of her; it was brave for her to use her experience to warn others; it was too bad her family didn’t get her mental health support or transfer her to another school; it was a deadly coincidence that her friend committed suicide; it is an unspeakable anguish that she thought this was the best solution for a “temporary” problem.

I hesitate to write “temporary” because, with the Internet, such photos are forever, and those who wish to cause hurt to others relish in exploiting such mishaps for their own pathetic ego gain.

Parents, many of your children have already done this via hand-held video cameras or computer cameras.  Many of your children have already been “embarrassed,” while others have become more popular.  Very few will kill themselves, but even then, something in them does die, as what is precious and private becomes entertainment for the immature and downright mean.  Parents, make sure your kids know not to become either.

Three Internet Providers Agree to Block Child Porn

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Internet providers Verizon, Sprint, and Time-Warner Cable have agreed to block access to child pornography and eliminate the material from their servers, according to Andrew Cuomo, New York State’s Attorney General.

According to the AP, “Investigators said they found 88 newsgroups devoted to child pornography in an 8 month investigation. “   All are being shut down by these cable providers.

“We are doing our part to deter the accessibility of such harmful content through the Internet, and we are providing monetary resources that will go toward the identification and removal of online child pornography,” said Sprint spokesman Matthew Sullivan.  “We embrace this opportunity to build upon our own long-standing commitment to online child safety.”

A Verizon representative pointed out that they can’t possibly scan every user group, but they will work very quickly to deal with the issue when it is brought to their attention.

Ya know, technologically, Internet providers have incredible resources for scanning….they just need the will.  It looks like Andrew Cuomo has made them find the will.

Privacy Issues for Whom?

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I’m amazed at the constipated stupidity of many librarians who believe that privacy issues are more important than national security or the protection of children or the support of laws against child pornography.  Blame it on the extremist positions of the American Library Association, which I have long viewed as a family and values unfriendly bully group.

Case in point:  a recent news report of a librarian who called the police because a fellow was a repeat offender in the library, downloading kiddie porn - a Federal offense.  The first time it happened, the news report tells us that the supervisor told this librarian not to report it.  When she saw him a second time, she called the police.  This heroine was fired.  Why?  Privacy issues!  What??  There is no presumption of privacy in a PUBLIC library - especially when one is breaking a Federal law.

All of which makes it even more weird that Sprint Nextel Corporation has signed up hundreds of thousands of customers for a feature that shows them where their friends are with colored marks on a map viewable on their cellphone screens.  Basically, people would know, all day long, exactly where you are…right down to a restroom or a street corner.

All the folks who use the social-networking websites don’t seem to mind losing their privacy.  So when a librarian protects the children in the library by ridding it of a prospective child molester - who is the bad guy and who is worried about what privacy?

American Values, Google Edition

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Go ahead and guess what came out as Number 3 on AOL’s “Top Searches from Mobile Devices.”  Right!  It’s porn.  The Wall Street Journal’s Carl Bialik (The Numbers Guy) got the original list in a draft press release, and said he “pointed out the surprising entry” to a spokeswoman, who said that normally, such terms are “scrubbed from the list.”  And guess what?  When the final list was released, “porn” was nowhere to be found, replaced by “iPhone,” which was pushed up to Number 3 from Number 4 on the original draft release.

It gets even better….

“…Britney Spears and Saddam Hussein could each top the category of ‘celebrity’ and ‘news,’ respectively, in lists from multiple search engines.  Those search engines willing to share numbers beyond their news releases made clear that, in search land, the troubled pop singer trumped the late dictator.  Searches for Ms. Spears ran six times those for Mr. Hussein on Yahoo!, and nearly 600 times on Lycos.”

How embarrassing for our nation.

[sources:  Bialik article:  you can search it on WSJ.com under The Numbers Guy for December 21.  Title of article is "What Topics Filled (Clean) Minds in '07?  For One:  An Asterisk or use the link here: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119820461738044109-lECMb7qhI7UaxADXmlRkefZGJhI_20081220.html?mod=rss_free  ]