November 26th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
The first time I heard about global warming was in the mid 1990's, walking through my college's Student Union, table after table offering me great rates on student credit cards and buy-one-get-one-free deals at the campus pizzeria. At a table on my left was a student handing out literature encouraging us to help “Save the Planet.– I walked over with a credit card brochure in one hand and a piece of pepperoni pizza in the other, took a quick look, refused the pamphlet that she offered, and walked out with a smirk and a roll of the eyes.
Not a day goes by now without my regretting what I did that day. And not because of the enormous credit card debt that I have been fruitlessly trying to chip away at ever since, nor the extra couple of gallons of “water weight– that has been with me like a loyal dog rescued during my college days. No, I'm embarrassed by my apathy and ignorance. I point this out not to pretend that I'm now a white-wigged, gavel-wielding, high-horse-riding model citizen, but instead to point out that I'm not, never have been, and never will be. We can all do more to protect our environment.
It's more than a decade later now and global warming has become an increasingly hot topic (no pun intended). Much has been written/said/filmed/read about it and one thing is clear; the solution isn't easy. We all need to drive our cars to get to work and the factories aren't going to shut down overnight. But today we're not going to talk about that.
Instead we're going to talk about one of the greatest and yet least talked about contributors to the problem, home energy use. As a nation we spend more than $160 billion a year to power our homes, representing about 21 percent of the total energy consumed. Fortunately, it's also the easiest area for the average person to “get a little greener,– while saving a little green at the same time.
Make Progress:
There are so many things that can be done to improve home energy use that we can't possibly touch on all of them in a single Wednesday. But we can get the eco-ball rolling with a list of the easiest steps that can make the greatest impact.
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Watch:
At this year’s Oscars you saw former Veep, Al Gore saunter up on stage at the Kodak Theatre to collect an Oscar for his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. (Watch the trailer)While we're not big fans of the title (it could depict a little more urgency), We are big, I'm talking 1800's Arctic Ice Cap-sized, fans of the flick itself. It's so important to understand the crisis that we face and An Inconvenient Truth combines a genuine passion and moral imperative with cold, hard science to make an irrebuttable case for global warming and the role mankind has played in it. You can rent it online or in-store, but we recommend purchasing. Why? 100% of Al Gore's proceeds from the film and its print companion go to The Alliance for Climate Protection.
If this year's “Best Documentary– isn't enough to convince you to make progress, take a gander at the documentary from the good people over at PBS, Global Warming: The Signs and Science. This picture features Alanis Morissette narrating, and spends a great deal of time focusing on the impact of global warming on average citizens and communities and the actions they are taking to correct the problem. Unfortunately, this film is no longer available to view online, but you can catch the trailer here. Then rent it or buy it from PBS.org to support PBS' progressive programming.
So you've put those two movies in your queue, but you want to know more right now. Leonardo DiCaprio's environmental organization has put together this three-minute internet movie that concentrates more on our oil addiction but is still a very informative global warming quickie. Give it look now, and then get ready to do something about it. And maybe we can save a little moolah in the process.
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Replace:
There are many things in your house that contribute to not only greater energy use, but higher energy bills, and they are easy and cheap to fix. Here's a helpful little list of items that can be replaced in your home that are an inexpensive initial investment and save a lot of money and energy in the longer run.
1. Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Those light bulbs that you've had in your house since Edison won his patent in court are wasting up to 95% of the energy they use in the form of heat. Replace them with compact fluorescent light bulbs, or CFLs. They're the spiral-shaped ones that are on the shelf right next to the incandescents. These lights use about one-fifth of the electricity to give off the same amount of light, are much cooler when lit, and last up to ten times longer. When it's all added up, you save an average of $30 over the life of each bulb. If you have ten bulbs in your house– ¦ you get the idea. You can find a local dealer here, or pick them up at most local hardware or even grocery stores.
2. Air Filter
You've probably heard about the CFLs before, but here's a bit o'savings that might have slipped through the pleated woven fiberglass media. Heating and cooling accounts for nearly half of the energy used in the home and a dirty air filter can seriously slow down airflow. This makes your system work harder to do the same thing. Energystar.gov recommends that you check your filter monthly and replace as necessary, but at least once every three months. Plus, isn't it great to breathe in clean air.
3. Insulation
Get out that ladder and climb into the attic. What does that insulation say? Chances are it doesn't have a high enough R-rating and heat (money) is escaping all the time. Do you get icicle buildup every winter? That's why. Replacing insulation can be a bit tricky so here's a list of reputable contractors that can help. Can't afford it? Not so fast. Insulation usually pays for itself in a few years plus there are new tax incentives for adding the proper insulation to new or existing homes. Check it out here.
4. Household Appliances
Go out and buy all new energy efficient appliances. Go ahead. Okay, maybe that's not within your grasp right now but we hope to have raised your eyebrows enough that next time you're in the market for a new refrigerator you'll look for the EnergyStar label.
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Turn (off, up, or down) and unplug:
hese are the easiest things we'll ask you to do in the name of Mama Earth. They require little to no monetary investment. They're small dogs with big bite.
- Turn off the lights when you leave a room. Duh.
- Turn down the thermostat in the winter 2 degrees. For every degree you lower it you can save 3% of your total heating energy and 1000 pounds of carbon dioxide. Besides, you never wear that sweater your grandmother knitted you. Turn it down even further at night. Hey, now you have an extra reason to cuddle up and get cozy. (Please keep in mind your newborn or that tropical bird, though.)
- On the other side of the coin, turn that thermostat up in the summer. Hey, we're from Buffalo. We love the cold and hate the heat. But if we can all turn that A/C down in the summer months that'll be energy well-saved. Think of it this way: the less we use A/C now, the less we'll need it later.
- This one knocked our organically-grown cotton socks off when we read it, so here it is according to the Alliance to Save Energy:
Many idle electronics – “ TVs, VCRs, DVD and CD players, cordless phones, microwaves – “ use energy even when switched off to keep display clocks lit and memory chips and remote controls working. Nationally, these energy “vampires– use 5 percent of our domestic energy and cost consumers more than $4 billion annually.
Five percent! We suggest tackling this problem with a power strip or surge protector. Just plug those electronics into a single strip and flip it off (no, not the finger) when you're done. Quick, easy, and efficient.
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Install:
Here are a couple of things that can be added to your home to help reduce the amount of energy your home uses and maybe even put a little energy back where you got it.
Programmable Thermostat
Having a programmable thermostat in the house allows you to automatically adjust the temperature for different times of the day. During the winter months you can lower the temperature during the hours when you are away from home or sleeping, and it will automatically start heating the house again by the time you get home. Along with reducing your carbon impact, this little genie can save you more than a hundred dollars a year. It makes your home comfortable when comfort's important and efficient when it's not.
Water Heater Blanket
Each time you turn on the shower in the morning you're greeted by a steaming hot rush of water. But it's usually eight hours since you last used hot water. That means your heater has to heat and reheat the water that's in there. Installing an insulated blanket around the tank can reduce that standby heat loss by up to 45%, save up to 9% on your bill and release 1000 fewer pounds of carbon gases into the atmosphere yearly. They only cost around $10-$20 at your appliance store and will pay for themselves in about a year. Some utility companies even offer rebates, discounts, and/or free installation, so give'em a buzz. Oh, and while you're downstairs installing the blanket, turn the temperature in the tank down a few degrees.
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Switch
Each year the average American household uses about 9,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. That averages out to about 750 kW-h per month. The cost per kW-h ranges throughout the country from just under 6 cents to almost 15 cents. 57 percent of this energy comes from coal plants and, according to powerscorecard.org:
Coal power plants are responsible for 93 percent of the sulfur dioxide and 80 percent of the nitrogen oxide emissions generated by the electric utility industry.
Few people know that they can get every watt from clean, renewable energy. Many utility companies offer renewable energy to their customers, and there are other national programs, like Utility Green Pricing and Renewable Energy Certificates, for those who buy from a company that doesn't. To see if your utility company offers renewable power, click here.
The cost of buying green power ranges from 3/4 of a penny to about three cents per kW-h, with most programs at about 1 cent per kW-h. For the average American that means about an extra $7/month. That's about the price of a movie or half of a pizza. This is the only thing we've asked you to do that does not immediately benefit you financially. But if you do only one thing, do this.
Why? The baby girl in the picture is my daughter. Do it for her. Do it for the polar bears who have just been added to the endangered species list. Do it for the people of New Orleans who were shown with unprecedented violence what effect the warming of the Gulf can have on their lives. And do it for the coral reefs, 16 percent dead in a single year, bleached by the warmer waters. Do it for my children and yours, for me and for you. Do it because it's right.
November 25th, 2007 by Charles Lamb
It is important to use non-sexist language, but it is also important to be accurate. Let me explain what I mean.
First of all, why inclusive language is important:
When we use male gender words, even when we think we're including everyone, it isn't always understood that way. I know one woman who refuses to be called chairperson of her group; she says she is the chairman; that chairman includes her too. I know, for her, that is true.
However, the best of example I ever heard of the inadequacy of male dominant language occurred in a New Testament class I was teaching at Niagara University. We had a woman lecturer, and she began the class by saying that she didn't always remember to use inclusive language, so she wanted to tell the class in advance that whenever she said “man– or “men– she meant all people.
About half an hour later she asked the class to list great men in the history of Christianity. She received many answers and wrote them on the board, everything from Jesus and Peter and Paul to Pope John XXIII and Martin Luther King Jr. Finally she said, “Hmmm, you haven't listed any women!–
One student said, “You didn't ask for women.– At that point she said, “See, see now why inclusive language is important? Even though I specifically said that by “men– I meant all people, you subconsciously took the word to mean males only.
I do think we oppress women without intending to do so if we don't make sure they are included in our speech, so we need to be sensitive to the issue and work at that.
But there is another side to the issue. I saw a church bulletin the other day in which the “kingdom of God– was changed to the kin-dom of God. I know that Jesus said he would call his disciples “friends,– and I also know that the Bible teaches us to regard one another as brothers and sisters. So, ok, we are kin. But the Sciptures also have a lot to say about God as King. I don't want to lessen the majesty of God or to take liberties with the wording of the Scriptures.
There is also a tendency, in the familiar “Doxology,– to change “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost– to “Creator, Christ, and Holy Ghost.– If Jesus prayed to God as Father, I think we need not be ashamed to do the same. Of course we can also pray to God with other titles as well; we don't have to use “father– exclusively. For instance, we can pray to “God– or “Creative Spirit– or “Heavenly Parent.– We can even pray to “Thou who art Father and Mother to us all.–
If I were going to change anything in that old wording of the Doxology, it would be to change “ghost– to (Holy) “spirit,– which it meant more clearly when first written.
Now, educationally, we can remind people that God is not a human being, that He is not male-sex, but a Spirit. We certainly can teach that Jesus is God's Son spiritually rather than biologically. And we can make sure people know that “Christ– is a title, not a name. It means “the anointed one– or the “special one– sent for God's purpose. And what was the purpose? In the first chapter of Mark, verse 1, 15, we are told that Jesus' message was the “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.–
Sometimes I've even seen the wording of Jesus as “son of God– changed to “child of God.– That always sounds to me as though he is not an adult yet. He was a man, but that isn't the important thing about him. The important thing is that he was the one who made God's love real to us.
I hope I'm hitting a balance here. Let's use inclusive language in our speech. We can say “all people– just as easily as “all men,– for instance. That's the loving and just thing to do. Practice; you'll get used to it. But let's not minimize the fact that even though the Bible was written in a male-dominant society, the concepts of God's reign and Jesus' mission are never obscured by a desire to avoid male language.
I'll be interested in your comments.
Thanks for the pic go here.
November 17th, 2007 by Charles Lamb
I've never liked to plummet downhill out of control. Sledding or tobogganing, therefore, are not my sports. I'm not a good skier, but cross country skiing is a sport in which you maintain your speed. Even in down hill skiing, I was relieved when the instructor said, “If you begin to lose control, sit down!–
I love to swim and hike. But that feeling of heading downhill and hoping for the best isn't for me.
But sometimes you get dared into doing things you wouldn't otherwise do. I was at a conference once at a winter resort, and a group of my friends decided to ride the toboggan. I didn't want to do it, obviously, but everyone else did, and when I tried to make excuses I was accused of being afraid, cowardly, etc. It was all in good fun, but before I knew it I was saying, “OK, I'll go too.–
The platform from which we began our descent was high, and it looked higher once we got up there. One of my best friends, whom I'll call Fred, sat in front. Fred was very much overweight, I should mention. Farther back there was a lady a little older than I, and I sat at the far back just behind her.
As we got ready to push off, I had a moment of panic but it was too late to stop. I closed my eyes and squeezed my arms tightly around the woman and prayed for a safe landing.
Down we went, to the bottom, across a field, into a snow fence, through the snow fence, and finally to a stop. Nobody was injured. Some people said that no toboggan ride before had ever gone that far and wrecked the snow fence. People said it was because Fred was so fat, and he laughed as heartily as anyone.
When I opened my eyes I discovered that my hands were right over the lady's breasts! I had been holding tightly, but I assured her I never felt a thing. She did have on quite a few layers of winter clothing, but it was embarrassing. She thought it was funny, and it gave her something to tease me about from that time on. But she knew my groping wasn't intentional.
Some time later, I was taking a walk with Fred. He said, “You know, when you are fat, your best defense is to act as though you don't care. If anyone laughs, you laugh harder. But I can hardly tell you how mortified I was when we crashed through that fence and people called me “fat.– I was just so ashamed.
Some time later Fred had a stomach stapling operation. He was really unhappy about his weight, but you would never have known it by his belly-laughter following the toboggan ride. I made up my mind then never to laugh at a person's physical problems, even if they seemed not to mind. Pretending not to care can be a defensive mechanism, while inside they are hurting.
I hope we can look at people's eyes, at their body language, and use our “sanctified imagination.– Put yourselves in their shoes. Think how you would feel. And be sensitive.
What did I learn from all of this in addition to that? Don't let people dare you into doing something you really don't want to do.
And watch where you put your hands.
Thanks to this downhiller for the pic.
November 14th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
PLEASE NOTE: In an effort to keep it real, let's just say that this Wednesday entry may include graphic descriptions of sexual acts and links to material that some might find objectionable. Much of the content below offends the heart and mind, and we've included it to do just that. Please proceed with appropriate caution. In other words, you might not want to read this at work (particularly if your boss is a “snooper– ) or at home with your wee ones in the room or at all if you don't want to face the ugly truths about pornography.
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Preamble:
I'm sure my grandmother is going to be thrilled that I'm writing this story, but I'm apologizing in advance to the woman rode a filthy boat for weeks so she could move to this country so that, decades later, I could live, and breathe, and you know, write this story, which I like to call “Everything I didn't want to know about sex because I was afraid to ask.– Here goes– ¦.
My grandmother suffers from some pretty debilitating arthritis, but is still able to walk, though with limitation. Despite our protests, she still drives regularly, and a couple of years ago she was driving along a highway in Niagara Falls, New York, when her car started to ka-thunk. She pulled of at the nearest exit, where the car completely died. The exit is fairly removed from, well, just about anything. As with most octogenarians, she didn't have a cell phone (this incident proved to be a fairly powerful impetus behind getting one). The only building close enough for her to hike to? If you guessed a porno shop, then you guessed right. This one was creatively named “Talk of the Town.–
I couldn't help but picture my sweet, sweet grandmother walking past row after row of pocket vibrators, double-sided dildos, and blow-up dolls, row after row of girl-on-girl, barely legal, and anal adventure videos. It didn't help matters that, after picking her up some said adult establishment, I had the following conversation while hightailing her home:
“I couldn't believe how many cars were in the parking lot,– said my grandmother.
“I bet,– I said.
“I think they show movies in the back or something. Right?–
“Um– ¦ I wouldn't really know, but that makes sense.”
“For twenty-five cents I think the sign said.”
“I suppose if someone had an extra roll of quarters– ¦.–
“I mean, in the middle of the day? Really? Who does that? Who's that horny that they don't want to eat lunch instead?–
“Grandma, that sounds like a trick question.–
What's the moral of the story? I guess it's that a cell phone is your friend, and that if you pick your grandmother up at a porno store when her car breaks down, you might hear her say the word “horny.–
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Problem:
And after that light, ambling preamble, here's where we get as serious as a stroke. Porn is everywhere. And this might not be a problem in and of itself if it weren't for some of the disconcerting side effects. Like the damaging impact on children and teens who don't know a world without pornography available on a whim. Like the damaging impacts on adult sexuality. Like the damaging impact on the performers and the dehumanization of sexuality as a result. Like the damaging desire for more violent pornography.
Our culture tries to hide it's addiction to pornography, which we do amazingly well considering it's a 10-15 billion dollar industry (that's billion with a “b– ) in the U.S. (Feel free to check out that sentence again.)
We have a problem with sex in America, from viewing to educating, and something needs to be done. Why? Because we live in a culture where, increasingly, Americans are watching videos that include fake rape scenes, bestiality, gangbangs, men spitting on women, men urinating and having bowel movements on women, double penetrations, multiple oral sex performances, fisting, unprotected anal sex. We live in a culture where pornographic sex makes women into subordinate, submissive body parts and men into superficial, heartless, violent animals, morphing sex into something violently robotic, clinical and feculent.
Our love of pornography is selfish. It's damaging. And we at Progressive Wednesday now think, after doing enough research, that much of it (maybe most if it) is dangerous.
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Make Progress:
Let's just cut to the adult-entertainment chase.
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Read:
We thought we ought to let porn speak for itself (“porn on porn,– if you will), so here's a series of actual quotations by adult film actors and directors on their experiences, their beliefs, their profession, and their concerns:
“[Wicked Pictures, one of the largest adult video production companies, doesn't] cater so much to the raincoat crowd, your hard-edged, hardcore viewers. There are companies where that's all they cater to– ”the nasty shit. We don't do that. There's still lots of anals, and facial come shots, but it's not usually degrading to women.– — Brad Armstrong
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“I was the first to shoot Rocco [Siffredi]. Together we evolved toward rougher stuff. He started to spit on girls. A strong, male-dominant thing, with women being pushed to their limit.– — John Stagliano
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“I don't have relationships anymore. They make life unstable. The only sex I have is the sex I have on screen.– — Temptress
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“Some girls are used up in nine months or a year.– — Jonathan Morgan
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“But at least if a guy is unhappy with the way his wife is performing, he can watch porno and jerk off maybe, rather than have an affair.– — Brad Armstrong
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“I had actually never had anal sex before the business. I tried it and loved it so much that I went a little crazy. I got hurt doing it. I stopped doing it and we are going to wait a bit until I heal and then go back to it.– — Alicia Alighatti
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“There's tons of girls who think it's way hot and desperately want to make or see a movie featuring– ¦ tentacle rape, gagging on cum, girls getting the shit beat out of them, whatever it is, there is some girl somewhere who is way into it and just wants to be able to get her hands on it.– — Zak Sabbath
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“You're not going to be arrested. You are not going to be hit. You are not going to end up in a car truck somewhere.– — Nina Hartley
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“I got the shit kicked out of me, but that was not in the program. I was not prepared to be roughed up that much. I couldn’t stop crying for the rest of the day. I was traumatized from that video. They did not tell me that they were going to be literally hurting me. This is the worst line ever put out there. It’s right up there with snuff videos. [The actor] choked me while lifting me off the ground. I couldn't breathe. I was being hit and choked. I was really upset, and they didn't stop. They kept filming. You can hear me say, – ˜Turn the fucking camera off,' and they kept going. If they think women are into that, they’re dead wrong.– — Regan Starr
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“Nearly everyone has STDs. I had 10 different venereal diseases during my first year in the industry.– — Chloe
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“The tests we take only test for AIDS. We've contained AIDS in the industry, but what about all the others? You know we're now up to hepatitis G?– — Chloe
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“Yeah, a fourteen year old look.– — Alicia Alighatti, when asked about her glasses and braces.
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“Men take advantage of women in every industry. We live in a patriarchy. But that being said, when you want to do porn, you go to an agent and they ask you what you will do and what you won't do — will you do girls? Will you do boys and girls? It's not like that in the real world. They don't give you options like that.– — Joanna Angel
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“We're prostitutes. There are differences. You can choose your partners, and they're tested for AIDS — you won't get your john to do that. But we're prostitutes: We exchange sex for money.– — Chloe
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“There’s a little bit of Jenna Jameson in every woman out there.– — Jenna Jameson
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“To this day, I still can't watch my own sex scenes.– — Jenna Jameson
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Protect:
If you're a parent and you let your kids have access to the Internet, there are a variety of parental controls available to protect your kids from pornography. Why do we need them? Because according to a study run by the London School of Economics, 60% of children using the Internet happen upon pornography regularly. Most Internet service providers, like MSN, AOL, and Earthlink, have built-in parental controls available, but if your provider doesn't offer these protections or if you'd like to double-up the safety, you can turn to some of the tools listed below:
This is just a small sampling and not an endorsement or a statement of efficacy in regards to any of this software in particular, though Optenet did receive a five-star rating from the reviewers at c|net.
We owe it to our kids to protect them this much more.
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You can also find a ton of free (Did you just say free? We did.) downloads here from, of all places, Download.com.
You can find reviews of parental control software by clicking this sentence.
You can also learn more about protecting your kids on the Internet (in terms of instant messages, MySpace, blogging, etc.) at the NetSmartz Workshop, a informational resource put together by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
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Watch:
“American Porn– is a FRONTLINE documentary put together by the generous and somewhat genius folks over at PBS. When I first watched it in 2003, it left me shocked and a little sick to my stomach. Apparently, I want to spread the acid indigestion. But seriously — this film, given the rise of pornography in both our popular and private cultures, is a must see. Just click the PBS logo to be taken to the film.
Here are three of the highlights (or lowlights, depending on how you look at them):
- AT & T, GE, AOL, hotel chains, and other companies make hundreds of millions of the cash-register cha-ching off adult films every year. The numbers are only rising.
- Some pornography (and we're not just talking about child pornography) appears to break criminal laws.
- September 11, 2001 greatly diminished the way the federal government prosecutes criminal pornography.
If nothing else, check out section five, “A Demand Driven Business,– to witness some seriously screwed up shit (pardon our lack of French, but there's really no other word for it).
When you're done watching, please tell someone else about it. Just click the green “Share This– button in the lower, left hand corner of this post, and then click “E-mail.–
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Stop:
Because we're social libertarians (we believe we have a right, as odd as it might be, to harm ourselves but not others), we can't quite bring ourselves to think that “pornography” should be completely banned (because some consider erotica pornographic, and, well, we don’t). There are valid arguments that porn increases rates of rape, pedophilia, general misogyny and misandry, distorted sexual expectations, and addiction, amongst other problems. But the issue remains too pervasive and complex, too gray around some of its edges. We've at least come to believe that greater governmental oversight is required. If pornography should be shut down, and there is a great deal of research to suggest that the societal damage it creates would permit the government to enact such a ban without being too paternalistic, we really can’t rely on the government to do it.
We are going to recommend, however, that you take one simple action: stop.
Odds are, given the fact you're an Internet user and likely a citizen of a country that spends 10-15 billion dollars each year on pornography, that you have or do watch pornography. But stopping can seriously improve your life and the lives of others.
Why? As the author Pamela Paul argues, “the all-pornography, all-the-time mentality is everywhere in today's pornified culture.– She's painfully right. We live in a culture where stores hock Hello Kitty thongs, a piece of clothing which is “literally a byproduct of the sex industry.– A culture where between 1992 and 2004, “breast augmentation procedures in this country went from 32,607 a year to 264, 041 a year.– A culture where Paris Hilton is celebrated by teens because “she is our mascot.– A culture where a porn star's book tops the best-seller list (a porn star, we should add, that according to her own book, “was beaten unconscious with a rock, gang-raped, and left for dead– ¦her sophomore year of high school– ). A culture where, according to a 2004 study, porno websites get three times the traffic as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Search combined.
But this isn't “a– culture. This is our culture, and not for the sexually better, but for the worse.
In her 2005 book, Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy describes the problem of pornography this way: “porn stars are selling something more than a skill — they are giving up the most private part of their being for public consumption.– Some might respond by saying, “Well, they're choosing to do it.– This, of course, doesn't mean we have to participate in it by viewing and purchasing the material. According to Dr. Melissa Farley, a psychologist and researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, “the vast majority of women in the sex industry have experienced incest or other childhood sexual abuse– (180 FCP). As she points out, “there is something twisted about using a predominately sexually traumatized group of people as our erotic role models. It's like using a bunch of shark attack victims as our lifeguards.–
We think that what we've written in our opening salvo (and the Read, Protect, and Watch sections of this Wednesday topic) do a good job of supporting the simple argument we're making now: stop, people, stop.
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End:
Child pornography is an insult to humanity. It must be stopped. And it's much more pervasive than you might think. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 20% of all Internet pornography involves children. This organization also indicates that the “global sales of illegal pornography that exploits children–including those under 4 years old–are about $3 billion a year.– If that doesn't churn your stomach, we're not sure what will.
Well, maybe this will: according to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, “of the juvenille victims identified in conjuction with pornography crimes, 25% were members of the offender’s family, 59% were teens, 28% were elementary school age, and 13% were preschoolers.– Additionally, “by the end of 2003, the CyberTipline was receiving more than 1,500 reports on child pornography per week.– (Emphasis added.)
Or maybe this info from the NCMEC will do the trick: “according to investigators who handled the cases of estimated arrestees, “most had images of children who had not yet reached puberty. Specifically 83% had images of children between ages 6 and 12; 39% had images of 3 to 5 year old children; and 19% had images of toddlers or infants younger than age 3.–
Need more? Unfortunately, we've got it: “between 1996 and 2004 the total number of child porn cases handled by the FBI's cyber-crime investigators increased 23 fold.–
One of the largest organizations trying to battle the sexual exploitation of children is ECPAT International. According to their website, this stand-up, and unfortunately necessary, organization does the following and more:
We follow what governments are doing, and have done, to combat commercial sexual exploitation of children, and we publish the results. We explore good models for prevention work, and share those models and experiences. We find and develop training modules to help caregivers to do their work better. We develop learning tools for police training curricula. We provide advice and information to groups who are trying to make a national plan for their country, or to implement an existing plan. We carry out research and develop research methodologies. We promote the participation of young people in seeking solutions to the problems and in providing support to victims.
As far as child pornography is concerned, ECPAT “seeks to develop positive cooperative relationships with the ISPs and the software and search engine production industries in order to find answers to the technological problems concerning the transmission of child pornography via computer and the Internet.– But, as they indicate, this battle is an uphill one due to technology changes, definitions of “child,– and legal practices.
What we've learned is that this is an international problem, not just an American one. But all children deserve respect, kindness, and caring, not sexual exploitation and abuse. If there's ever been an organization that needs and deserves your help, it's this one. No child should suffer at the hands of these predators.
You can help. And since you've got more than ventricles and atriums — I'm saying you've got heart, man – “ you will help. Here's how:
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Postscript:
We realize this may have been a disturbing Wednesday to read. But we live in a somewhat disturbing world in need of our help and in need of the progress we can make.
Toward the end of his article about pornography in Talk Magazine, Martin Amis writes: “porno is littered — porno is heaped — with the death of feelings.– In an issue of Walrus, Charles Foran makes the case more specifically. He writes that:
Pornography may be stalking one emotion more than any other. That would be the shared feelings we have for fellow humans, along with the inclination to recognize kindred suffering and even lend aid. Porn may yet be the death of empathy.
Because life is, quite possibly, the thing we desire most of all, life itself is progress. So it might be time we considered a slightly different way of living. It might be time we, as individuals and as a culture, made a different choice.
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