Squicky Bernie Ward & the View From Atalantis

[mallorys_camera]

I spent much of the past week agonizing over Myanmar.

Why Myanmar?

Well, because back when it was Burma, it was the one place I always really, really wanted to go. The idea of a medieval Buddhist kingdom sharing the Tibetan border high on the Shan plateau was very appealing. A little piece of my imagination broke when I was twenty-two and the (inevitable) Socialist revolution took place.

I wanted to see Mandalay, the pagodas of Bagan, the pigeon blood rubies – maybe the Buddhists had rubies that matched the blood hue of every animal that had ever evolved, locked away in some kind of super, secret Buddhist underground vault. I wanted to see the fast inland Lake Inle. I was certain that the color of the sky was different in Burma – it was some place very strange.

The enormity of a hurricane that wipes out 100,000 people staggers the mind.

One has to assume, of course, the death toll is due not so much to the intensity of the storm as it is to the inadequacy of the infrastructure. If that same storm happened here it might have a death toll in the dozens.
And a hundred thousand is just the proximate death toll. The secondary mortality stats from famine, disease, civil unrest could well top a million.

It's hard to wrap my mind around that kind of misery.

I wonder why I feel compelled to do so

I suppose it's this… sense. Like I'm a citizen of Atlantis. One morning I woke up and heard a sucking sound: the waves along the shoreline were receding. Everyone around me was behaving as though nothing was happening. But I knew something was. Only there was no high ground to run to, Atlantis being an island. So all foresight was gonna do for me was prolong the margin of panic…

The other current events story I've been obsessing about all week long is the Bernie Ward case. Ward changed his plea on child porn distribution charges to guilty this week.

I listened to Bernie Ward quite a bit when I was working at ICM, commuting between Monterey and San Francisco on a regular basis, usually late at night. I was perpetually sleep deprived in those days and of course, I've always hated driving at night – I have lousy night vision. It's a wonder that I never got into an accident. I survived by thinking of the various milestones as Stations of the Cross and Ward's raspy voice as some kind of guided tour through them.

I didn't like Ward though and it kind of pissed me off that I agreed with so many of his politics. The guy was just unpleasant. It had tickled me initially to find a leftwing talk radio guy using the same tactics as Hannity or Limbaugh. But the thing is Limbaugh is funny. Like him or not, Limbaugh's very amusing. Ward was just strident.

Still, my first thought when the Ward charges came down: The guy is being railroaded.

A couple of months later, the Smoking Gun published transcripts of Ward's online chats with a Stanislaus County dominatrix. It kind of boggles the mind to think of a dominatrix living in Stanislaus County in the first place – I'm not sure whether Larry McMurtry or Annie Proulx should write that novel. Be that as it may, the transcripts are squicky indeed, almost physically nauseating.

Ward was clearly not doing "research."

But the other thing he was clearly not doing is molesting an underage child.

Of course the distribution of that one photograph through any means is what constitutes the crime. It's a crime that can carry a twenty-year prison sentence.

Isn't this a bit of an over-reaction? Twenty years for a single photograph?

The larger issue though to me is that the distribution of this photograph is a crime without reference to intent. So, I have in my possession many naked pictures I took of my kids in the bathtub when they were little tots as well as several naked pictures of me my mother took. Can I get busted for showing them around under the existing statute? Apparently I can.

What's most disturbing to me about this case, though, is that Ward is essentially going to prison for a thought crime. I mean – no one is alleging that he ever touched an underage child in a sexual way. However disgusting those transcripts – and they are disgusting – these are fantasies.

I wonder what would have happened had the image Ward distributed been a highly realistic computer graphic?
For years when I was still in the Internet business, I used to ponder what the Killer App would turn out to be. The Killer App – I figured – would be something that allowed you to act out porn fantasies involving movie stars. Or, I suppose if your tastes run that way, underage minors. The Sims comes close – particularly because users can design all sorts of mods for the Sims. I've actually seen a Sims rape mod.

Would it be illegal to playact sexual fantasies involving children with the Killer App? I mean sure, yeah, it's disgusting – at least to me. But is it illegal? Should it be illegal?

I would answer, No.

Comments

[quiet-life.livejournal.com]

if you're really bored-or-interested in reading the govt. position on the child internet porn legislation, there's this brief, and I'm not sure that the supreme court has decided it yet.
it discusses some of your concerns much more comprehensively and properly than I can.
it does a good job explaining the evolution of the law.
this law review article does a nice run through on the complicated issues and legislative history.

after the ashcroft/free speech coalition case, i gather that the virtual stuff is no longer illegal- but i think i wish it was. seems more harmful than harmless, but i know 'seems' isn't enough justification.

anyway, hope business is great today.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

seems more harmful than harmless, but i know 'seems' isn't enough justification.

Well, they're very squicky. Morbid curiosity compelled me to skim the first few pages of the Ward transcript. I wish I hadn't: I felt physically nauseated.

I know the clinical profile of addiction -- drug addicition, sexual addictions, food addicitions, whatever -- points to a pattern of escalating use. What I don't know is how accurate that profile is. I mean the sample is not the population of all addicts; it's the population of addicts who've been apprehended somehow. What I wonder about is the population of addicts who have not been apprehended, who manage to maintain. I think it's just possible that the virtual stuff may allow a pedophile to "maintain" as it were at a level where he/she is not a physical threat. At the very least, I'd like to see some research done on the topic.

Burma

[redcupper.livejournal.com]

I worked with a family who had just moved here (in the dead of winter)from Thailand. They had lived in a refuge camp there for 23 years. This Burmese family was kind, gentle and clearly very out of their element. We worked with one of their several children who was born with Down Syndrome and at nearly 3 did not walk or talk or even eat solids. She moved along very quickly. Their only crime was they were of a religious sect that was not accepted in their country. All of their children were born in the camp. I wish I had learned more about their lives, but they moved to another state before I could do so. I have thought about them many times since the hurricane and hope their family and friends were not touched.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Twenty-three years in a refugee camp! Wow. We are so, so lucky to be where we are and when we are. And it's so, so easy to forget that.

[flaxendandelion.livejournal.com]

I think we talked about Ward elsewhere because I remember being taken by the fact you also listened to him.

Question: in those transcripts where he talks about wacking off in the San Mateo adult theater, and getting off on his children and their friends...do you think all of that was true, or just part of his fantasies too? Cause that was some fucked up shit.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Same transcripts, yep. I think part of it may have been true -- lots of guys wacked off in adult theaters. I doubt the stuff about his kids was true, but of course that's because I don't want it to be true. It's absolutely impossible for me as a parent to conceive that a parent could have predatory sexual feelings about his/her offspring.

[flaxendandelion.livejournal.com]

"It's absolutely impossible for me as a parent to conceive that a parent could have predatory sexual feelings about his/her offspring."

Oh but they do. Probably more often than we think. My friend's father abused her. She refuses to tell her brothers, though she told her sister and mother. Mom knew what was going on, didn't do anything because she was scared to leave.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I know they do. My own father molested my sister. Half-sister actually (though I don't make that distinction in my own mind.) We were brought up in different households, and one of the last things my mother said to me on her deathbed was, "Well, at least I got you away from that man."

Which she did. And for which I'm grateful.

Parents sexually molest children all the time, but it's so far outside my own mindset as a parent that I have an incredibly hard time wrapping my head around the fact as anything other than a phenomenon, if that makes any sense to you.

My father, by the way, was a hideous, horrible man. Dead too now. What's insane is that Jeanna, my sister, has "forgiven" him and entertains considerable affection for his memory. I refuse to talk about it with her.

[flaxendandelion.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, that's awful, I'm so sorry to hear.

And even more awful about your sister's mindset...I guess that's how she's gotten peace from it? Like my friend has nothing to do with her dad, doesn't even refer to him as her father, but by his name. She's totally dissociated herself from it, and still has nightmares and wakes up in a sweat.

[flaxendandelion.livejournal.com]

Also, doesn't Ward get out this year? I recall him getting 7 years or something

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Dunno. Stopped following the case long ago.

Did you listen to the other KGO hosts too? Found out recently that Gene Burns died. He was my favorite host, and his the news of his death made me feel sad.

[flaxendandelion.livejournal.com]

If I couldn't sleep I'd listen to Ray Taliaferro. I'm friends with him on FB too, though he's never on. He's a bit wacky sometimes, but I have major respect for him. That was about it. KGO was night owl music for me while I read or did music. Oh, I also liked Brian Copeland and John Rothmann.

I had no idea about Gene Burns, very sad. Who else did you listen to?