Kiddy Porn - It's just not cool

I reread my blog this morning. I am happy with the way it is shaping up, but I realize it has gotten quite serious; I am happy to share, but I think it's time for a break from the more emotional posting.

To that end, I am taking a stance against kiddy porn. A controversial stance you say? Well I stand by my decision. So let's take a look at my thoughts on the subject.

This subject was on my mind because some dude from my parent's quaint town was recently busted for the aforementioned crime. Now I consider child pornography to be vile, reprehensible, and horribly destructive to a poor child's psyche. That said, it seems that some patrons of kiddy porn are not very smart individuals. The person who was recently busted, let's call him Mr. Porn because I don't know his name, was arrested because he brought his computer in for servicing, and the pictures were found. Now if one is going to collect such illegal pictures, it seems to me that you might not want to have other people (such as a tech-savy computer repair type guy) look at your computer. Did he think the technician would not check the folders called "Aaron - Age 8" or whatever that contained memoery intensive graphic files?If your computer is broken, write it off man. Or back-up your files. Is that so hard? Who doesn't have a CD burner in this day and age. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Mr. Porn was arrested, and that he will undoubtedly have a fun time in prison, where they don't take kindly to child molesters (according to what TV has taught me anyway.)

Now my own computer is getting on in years, and my mom asked me to donate it to the non-profit she runs. I think I am going to pass on that option, not because of any illegal pics obviously. But, like any healthy guy, I have tons and tons of pornography, mostly of the nude or semi-nude 20-something very fit dudes in all manners of friskiness, in both picture and video form. Obviously I would erase all of the porn before I gave it to her, but why run the chance that I miss something, and end up traumatizing my mother with two guys kissing while falling out of their jockstraps? As my friend G.J. and I joke, we both agree that we will simply have to burn our respective hard drives when we are done with the computers. Ah well. Apparently, it's not all that hard to restore erased files, so why take a chance?

Let's look at some other cases of child pornography. How about that guy from Ferris Bueller (Jeffrey Jones who played the principal, Ed Rooney)? He pled guilty to paying a 14 year old boy to take his clothes off, and let Mr. Jones take naughty pictures of him. Taking a brief and non-comprehensive survey, most people seem to think that, in the scale of things, paying a 14 year old for naked pics is not too terrible. After all, that is pretty close to the age of consent, I think, and there are certainly some fairly mature 14 year olds. It does seem somewhat less disgusting than forcing an 8 year old to disrobe and pose. Now, it is definitely sad and pathetic, and Mr. Jones obviously has a disease that he needs help with. It is depressing that he would throw away his career, such as it is (I did really like his performance in Amadeus), and destroy his family to get some horrible cheap thrill. It seems like a compulsion or addiction that he cannot control.

Next on my list of C-list celebrities is the Frugal Gourmet. I don't know if everyone knows who he is, so I will elaborate. His name was Jeff Smith, and he passed away recently. Basically, he had the most popular cooking show on PBS in the 1980s, and he was the kind of fussy guy who made fancy dishes. My mom and her friends loved the show, and often tried to replicate his complex recipes. Turns out that, besides complex foods, Jeffy also enjoyed fondling his young male staffers. Eventually allegations came out that he abused those young interns that worked for him on the show, and photographed some of them spread out, sometimes with salad tongs on their genitals, on his meticulously arranged kitchen counters. I guess they were old enough to not be considered kiddy porn, but it's in the same vein. Apparently, on breaks during taping, he would use the hands that he had just used to dice vegetables to reach in and play around with young mens' "meat and 2 veg" if you will. What a creepy old guy. Gives me the shivers. That abuse of young men, from a gross old guy in a position of power, is reprehensible. He was eventually forced off the air.

I guess British rocker Gary Glitter was arrested for having child pornography on his computer. Apparently he was also busted when he brought his computer in. I don't have all of the details, but I'm sure my friend G.J., the consummate anglophile who is now living in Normandy, or Shropshire, or something, will fill in the details.

Well this post is already plenty long, so I think it's time to call it quits. I could launch into a diatribe about Michael Jackson - Wacko Jacko- and his assorted craziness. I read an interesting article about his die hard fan base, who refuse to accept that he is in anyway guilty. Can you imagine what his kids will have to say when they grow up? I have a feeling that they will give Christina Crawford, of "Mommy Dearest" fame, a run for her money. I'm also curious to find out what Macaulay Culkin knows about Jacko's shenanigans. He had a ringside seat to the debaucheries at the Neverland Ranch, and I wonder why he doesn't come forward. Maybe he feels a certain loyalty to Jacko, who was his friend while Macaulay was dealing with his own insane stage-parent father.

OK, absolute last thing: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/tech/billgate/gates.htm

That's a 3-D tour of Bill Gates' enourmous house. It's not relevant, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Later,

Ben