Jack Elfrink Dot Com

Does the size of a crowd indicate the importance of the social movement?

An offhand comment I heard claimed that the crowd in DC to attend the Obama inauguration was not only the largest ever for the capital, but the largest gathering of people together at one spot ever in the history of the world. I was a bit skeptical of this so I loaded up google and went a hunting for stats and data on the actual largest events in history.

Didnt take long to find the wikipedia page on it. The 1.8-million estimate for Obama doesn’t even come close. The biggest is a Hindu pilgrimage at 70 million. However, another item on the list surprised me, even though it shouldn’t be surprising at all.

Its the Gay Pride parade in São Paulo, Brazil. It has three entries on the list at the time I write this. 2005-2006-2007. Not included is 2008 but that’s probably just a lag. Other sources claim 5 million people for 2008.

This would make the gay pride parade the largest annual event globally. The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca would come in a distant second with 1-1.7 million each year. The Olympics are bigger but don’t happen each year. And the Tour de France is bigger but dosen’t happen in one spot. The gay pride parade is therefore in the same league as ‘once in a lifetime’ events like Boston Red Sox’s 2004 world series victory parade or the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Year after year after year it draws the largest gathering of people in history. Its bigger than Brazilian Carnival.

Im constantly infuriated by people who claim that people fighting for sexual freedom are a poor helpless underdog of a minority just trying to fight for their rights under the oppressive and powerful religious monolith that is out to destroy sex for everyone. But a gay rights parade being bigger than the Muslim Hajj kind of indicates to me that the ‘underdog’ and the ‘oppressive dominate culture’ are probably not corresponding to the groups they think they are.

A BBC article on the 2005 gay pride event quoted the event organizer as saying “Brazil had a long way to go in overcoming homophobia.” Long way to go? When you are already the largest event of any kind of any event of any sort in any country at any time in all of history what is the next step? How much longer do you need to go anyway?

“Ah! But wait!” calls out the voice of the cynic. “Your talking about Brazil here. They are a lot more open minded. Here in the united states, in evil oppressive united states, in close minded homophobic intolerant united states, in prudish Victorian minded united states, HERE things are different. HERE gays are the minority and are under the boot of the powerful christian lobby! HERE we must fight tooth and nail for acceptance”

The largest gay pride event in the united states is in NewYork. In 2008 it drew 1.5 million (one mil watching, half mil marching). How does this compare to other annual events?

• Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 3,500,000
• Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo 1,802,158
• San Francisco Gay Pride 1.2 million
• New Year’s Eve in Times Square 1,000,000
• Tournament of Roses Parade 1,000,000
• Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta 899,446
• Mardi Gras 800,000
• US Open 720,000
• St. Patrick’s Day in Boston 500,000
• Chicago Pride Parade 450,000
• Indianapolis-500 400,000
• Sturgis Motorcycle Rally 400,000
• Folsom Street Fair400,000
• L.A. Pride 375,000
• Spring Break at Panama City Beach 350,000
• Boston Pride 300,000
• Capital Pride 200,000
• Kentucky Derby 157,770
• GayDays 150,000
• National Finals Rodeo 140,000?
• Super Bowl 125,000
• Southern Decadence 120,000

Ok, so NY Pride isn’t the single largest annual event in the nation. But third place ain’t that shabby. And looking over the list there are several other 100K+ events that are also gay pride events.

Oh yeah, and just by way of comparison, the largest ever turnout for a Billy Graham event, not an annual year-after-year event like the ones above but the largest EVER, was 160,000. One ninth the size of the New York Pride march.

And people still play the roll of the victim? Acting like the gay movement is this poor helpless oppressed minority being crushed under the mighty giant of the christian powerhouse?

The Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend has been canceled. News is still breaking and I haven’t fully read up on things but I needed to get down a few of my first impressions …..

First of all, it didn’t help any to advertise the thing as ‘Obama Inauguration Pig Sex Orgy’. The group mostly responsible for the shutdown was the AFT. They have been active in trying to ~expose~ the fact that the gay rights movement is not really about gay rights but is a political front group. Seems a silly taks considering that the political nature of the gay rights movement is common knowledge. There are lots of other leather events around the nation that never get targeted, mostly I suspect because they don’t title the event in a ‘Yippie for the democrats!’ tone. Makes me wonder if there would have been any action against them if they had just left out any mention of Obama.

The second thing that is running through my mind is the issue I have talked about before in other articles. And that is the feedback loop. The christian right and the homosexual left are not opposites. They rise together. They fall together. From what I have been able to piece together so far, the event wasn’t instantly canceled once the AFT made their press statement. In fact, I read one report where the event organizer was giving praise to the hotel for not backing down. (The final word on cancellation came from corporate headquarters, not local hotel management).

But as soon as this became an issue, the gay leathermen threw a fit, calling up the AFT with harassing phone calls. Ranting about how evil they were. Screams of ‘hatemonger’ and ‘homophobe’. The ATF, far from being intimidated by these actions, only became more infuriated and increased their attacks against the Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend. The Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend, far from being intimidated by these stepped up attacks by the ATF, only became more infuriated and increased their accusations against the ATF. Feedback loop. Growing at every step until the thing collapsed.

Sexual revolutions are not a zero sum game. It is not the case that the louder the christian right becomes the quiter gay-activists are forced to be. Nor is it the case that the louder gay activists become the quieter the christian right is forced to be. Ultimately the efforts of each side to ’shut down’ the other only cause the opposition to grow. Quins first law is that politics always generates the exact opposite of its stated intent.

These kind of things always remind me of an old article on TheOnion.com Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years

…..”I’d always thought gays were regular people, just like you and me, and that the stereotype of homosexuals as hedonistic, sex-crazed deviants was just a destructive myth,” ….. “Boy, oh, boy, was I wrong.”

In the end, acting like sex starved perverts and then throwing it in the face of the christian right only gives them the fuel they need to point and say ‘See! Homosexuals are all sex starved perverts’. Play with fire and you are going to bet burned. Taunt the AFT and you will be just as burned.

News of cancellation broke at pamshouseblend.com and several comments in the follow up echo this mindset.

There is one last nagging thought, however, that I just cant get rid of. Follow the money. Want the truth behind anything all you have to do is ask who would profit from it. With the event canceled, the hotel now has a whole block of rooms that it was only going to get the discount rate on all suddenly becoming available again. Just in time for the inauguration. With all hotels in a 50 mile radius sold out, Im sure they could sell that room block at substantially higher than even the rack rate. I wonder if the call from cooperate headquarters had less to do with the AFT attacks and more to do with number crunching with the hotel chains finical advisor. The hotel could easily play the role of the victim saying ‘we tried to support gay rights, but those evil nasty prudish Christians just wouldn’t let us’ while behind the scenes they were laughing all the way to the bank.

Well the United Kingdoms CJIB went into efect this past week. The paranoid are comming out of the woodwork with all sorts of theoritical cases where this law might get used againt someone otherwise totaly iniocent.

Usualy this is through some streching and misinterpetation of ’serious injury’. I wrote about this before and pointed out then that ’serious injury’ does have a spicific meaning. So the idiots sprouting off ‘Why a red mark from an OTK spanking might be considered seriosu injury’ are demonstratabaly wrong.

There is actualy a fairly good pamplet put out by Spanner Tust on the issue. It says in part

• FIRST OFF – DON’T PANIC! Images of bondage, fetish wear, role play, watersports, sexual intercourse and domination/submission are not “extreme”.

and also

• For a start just viewing an image or video on a web site does not constitute “possession”. So you can browse the Internet quite legally.

… but this dosent stop the paranoid from deaming up situations where you accedently stumbled uppon a tickling fetish photo while surfing the web and instantly hit the back button but yet the evil porn squad broke down your door 3 seconds later and hauled you off to jail for the rest of your life. After all, ’serious injury’ is so vague and overly broad that it could apply to tickling fetish pics. And ‘in position of is so vague and overly broad that it could apply to the cache of your web browser.

Vague and overly broad. Vage and overly broad. The whole thing reminds me of that old George Carlin bit where he would ask about theoritical situations in sunday school trying to catch the priest in a ‘vague and overly broad’ definition of some sin.

Your on a boat in the middle of the ocean. A model is with you and its her 18th birthday. You take some nude pics but the only notary public on the ship has sliped into coma. So you cant have the paperwork verified that the modfel was over 18. But you WANTED to. Then the ship crosses the international dateline! The model goes back to being 17. The notary public wakes up out of coma and certifies the modeles age …. would it then be child porn?

There is always going to be SOME kind of theoritical situation where the law might be applied incorectly. This is true regardless of how well the law is writen. The old ‘vague and overly broad’ argument theirfore looses all meaning and just becomes a soundbite sized moral panic on par with ‘wont someone think of the children’.

Supreme court justice Antonin Scalia once said “What renders a statute vague is not the possibility that it will sometimes be difficult to determine whether the incriminating fact it establishes has been proved; but rather the indeterminancy of precisely what that fact is.” If there exists some hypethotical situation where ther law could be misapplied dosent make the law vague and overly broad. Wether or not that hypethotical situation has a snowballs chance in hell of actualy realy happening is what makes it vague and overly broad.

One thing thing more than any other has me convinced that all these hypethotical situations folks are sprouting off where someone could get wrongly acused under the CIJA are only hypethotical and will never happen. Everythign in this new law was already againt the law in the first place under the OPA of 1959. Its just that the OPA baned the creation of snufffilms and the CJIB baned the position of snuff films. Now as far as I know, there hasent been any proscutions under the OPA. And if a 50 years of the OPA dosent result in kink as we know it comming to a screaching halt, I dount the CJIB is going to have any difrent an impact on us kinksters as the OPA did.

More spicificly. Frans van der Hulst is still out walking the streets. He hasent been charged with any crime and isnt due in court under any charges. He was the producer that first made the ‘extreme porn’ that was mentioned in the longhurst trial that lead to the creation of the CJIB. In fact, he still runs several websites making the same kinds of images. If the law againt making ‘extreme porn’ cant be used againt Frans van der Hulst, I highly doubt that the law againt owning ‘extreme porn’ is goign to successfuly be used willy nilly to atack kinksters at random.

Well, the christmass sales season over at kinkyropes is all wraped up now. It was a very big success overall but the thing Im most proud of is getting everyone to call it a ‘christmass’ sale instead of coping out with some lame ass PC crap like it being a ‘holoday sale’ or ‘winter festival’ sale.

Oh sure, some might claim that the ‘war on christmass’ is overblow tripe by the paranoid. But in my charactic way where I explain how the invention of the potato chip is related to the gor novles or how changing atatudes of sexual privacy were caused by global climat change, I think I can easily prove that there is a war on christmass by examining the colapse of the Itilian banking system in 1982.

The key player in the colapse was the Banco Ambrosiano. Founded in 1896, it spent nearly a century operating in a rather quiet and ordnary way for a bank. Then in Roberto Calvi became the banks new general manager. He had worked his way up through the management ladder with charm and style. Everyone found him to be quite a smooth talker and he was able to instantly win the trust of others.

Suddenly Banco Ambrosiano began rapid expantion. Mutiple overseas holdings. Stocks the bank bought into became suspiciously inflated. Masive amounts of unsecured debt began to rack up. Warnign signs that you woudl think would get people suspicious. But Roberto Calvi was such a smooth talker he was able to iron over anyones fears and concerns.

As early as 1978, the Bank of Italy was producing repoerts saying that they were VERY suspicious where all this money was comming from and warned that the bubble wouldent last forever. Sure enough, in 1981 a police raid of the home of Licio Gelli turned up very incriminating evedence againt Roberto Calvi (they were both part of the same faternal lodge). The whole of Banco Ambrosiano came crashing down when 1.5 billion dollars turned up unacounted for. Roberto Calvi fled the country under a false pasport and the next year his body was discovered in london hanging by the neck under a bridge.

So what does any of that have to do with the ‘war on christmass’? Well its obvious. The main shareholder of Banco Ambrosiano was the Vatican Bank. Ya see, Roberto Calvi was totaly iniocent and the whole banking colapse was all a setup by the holoywood lect in order to frame the Vatican to make the church look bad so that the church can be taken out of christmass.

Not believing it? Good, cause you shouldent. Its probably more likely that archbishop Paul Marcinkus who headed the vatican bank just fell victim to Roberto Calvis smooth talking than to believe there was some kind of grand consparicy and that the whole thing was planed. The subplot of Godfather III not withstanding.

But now consider another ’shady business launders money for the mob’ story …..

Consider the case of the flordia company Cash Titans. Basicly it was an affiliate program / porn studio that somehow wound up making over $10 milion dollars in just a five year span. All this at a time when porn-for-free was majorly cvutting into the sales revenues of the porn industry. Police sharges included racketeering and prostitution. In the end, the charge that actualy caused them to go to jail wasent obscenity, but money laundering.

Laundering money for the mob? “Oh no no no” cries the BDSM activist, “It was all a setup as part of the War On Porn”

Look, there admitidly was a lot of BAD things to come out of the Cash Titans / Ray Guhn trial. Most frightning was that google gave private search information to law enforcement and the kink comunity cheered them on for doing so. “Yeah for google for violating our privacy” we all screamed like the uninformed idiots we are. But on the other hand, it may not be the ‘poor helpless victim who did nothing wrong getting railroaded by a bunch of close minded prudes’ either. There are rather convincing arguments that what they were doing WAS prostitution and not just porn filming. But eityher way, the main point of the whole trial was Follow The Money.

If its silly to claim that the scheeming of Roberto Calvi causing the colapse of Banco Ambrosiano wasent abotu Folow The Money but was actualy part of the War On Christmass, shouldent it be just as silly to claim that the activity of Cash Titans wasent abotu Folow The Money but was actualy part of the War On Porn?

Time to go all consparicy theory. Now california in the last election baned gay mariage. But in flordia in the same voting cycle, gay mariage was baned along with all other institutions resembling mariage. No civial unions. No domestic partnerships. No common law mariage. Nothing. So if the flordia law is more opresive to gay rights than the california law, why is the california law getting all the attention?

Well, to understand whats going on, you have to understand prepayment regulations on home morgages.

Or to be more spicific, the court case National City Bank of Indiana et al. v. Turnbaugh. To summarize, the home loans that National City were backing had a prepayment peneality clause in them. A rather standard practice. But someone in the Maryland state government got the idea that this wasent ~fair~. Those mean ol nasty banks were exploiting poor helpless homeowners. Beautifuyl loving soothing government steped in to wipe away every tear and sooth every brow. They pased a law putting a cap on what prepayment fees could be.

Now think about this for a second. National City is headquarted in Indiana. The law was passed in Maryland. What we have going on here is a kind of backward violation of the tenth adnment. The federal government, aside from spicificly numerasted powers, cant override state law. Thats what the tenth adnment is. But here it wasent the federal government telling Indiana what they could do. It was some other state government telling Indiana what they could do. This is nothing new. I have writen before about one state trying to enforce their laws over the top of some other state. The court however found that since National City had a federal charter through the National Banking Act of 1863, only federal level laws applied to it. State law cant overturn some other state law.

Anyway. States rights. Got it? Good. We will be comming back to that in a moment.

So back to the california same sex mariage ban. Political activists say this is totaly unacceptable because gays should have ~equal rights~.  But the thing to remember is that california already DOES have equal protection under the law for gay couples. Its the The California Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2003. It gay all the rights of mariage to gay couples (and some straight coupls too) as the ability to regester as a domestic partner. Not some rights. Not most rights. ALL rights. Every last one of them.

So why the much quoted stastic that civial unions only grant 140 rights but marriage grants 1049 rights?  Or was that 300 for civial unions and 1138 for mariage?  Well whatever the numbers are, everyone ~knows~ that civial unions are only a scaled down bastardized subset of mariage rights and theirfore the only way to gain ‘equality’ is to push for gay mariage.

Well no so fast there. Those thousand or so missing rights are all federal level laws. To take just one example, visitation rights for prisioners. For state prisions, either gay spouces or straight spouces are permited visitation. But for mederal prisions, visitation rights are a federal law controled at a national level and no amopunt of state law can impact it. As far as STATE law goes, mariage and civial unions are identical. Theirfore, california with its domestic partnerships has pushed as far as they are able to as a state and all others have to be aproched on a federal level.

In fact, the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 (damn this evil bush dictatorship) spicificly blocked state law from overriding federal law and/or laws in difrent states. Just like the court case againt national city, one state does not have the power to rule over another state.

But wait! There is a loophole. Instead of going after equal protection under the law by creating something LIKE mariage, instead do it so that it IS mariage. Like Dr Seasues star belly sneeches, if you paint a star on everyones belly then nobody will know how to tell the two apart. That way it wouldent matter if federal law dosent recognize gay mariage. You could still force federal law to apply by claiming that whats going on isnt ‘gay mariage’ but simply just ‘mariage’.

And thats why flordia law dosent matter either. Flordia can ban gay mariages and gay civial unions and gay domestic partnerships and everything else that even remotly blocks extending rights to gays and it woudent matter. As long as flordia accepts ANY marige licens from another state, you can use that as an pathway to captlize on their laws. Flordia lawmakers can go fuck themselves. California gets to write the law for flordia.

Ok, so I (suualy) dont like to directly quote the goings on of another bloger, but this one is too good to pass up.

The basic story is that some news station runs a smear piece againt the CSPC was ‘getting taxpayer dollars’. Dominic Holden corectly pointed out that the CSPC wasent actualy GETTING money. There were no dollars originating from the government that eventualy wound up in the pocket of the CSPC. A tax break isnt the same as ‘reciving government funding’.

Well, back in august, thats exactly what I was saying. A tax break isnt the same as ‘reciving government funding’.

A long time ago I heard a radio interview with a guy who thought the moon landings had been faked. He was on with one of those debunks-consparicy-theory proponets and I was rather startled by how the conversation turned out …..

It all started off with the usual acuzations. The debunker launched in screaming and yelling at the consparicy theorist handing out the usual acuzation ‘You are just so set in your ways that you would never change your mind no matter what evedence you were presented with that proved the moon landings took place’. The consparicy theorist, with much calm and dileberation, took this point up and ran with it.

“Ok, before we get into wether or not I woudl change my mind given the right evedence, woudl you answer the same question? It seems only fair that we be held both to the same standards’ the consparist said. The debunker, with an egotistical self asurdness agreed. The race was on.

“12 men have walked on the moon. 9 of them are still alive. Now if all 9 of those men all got together at once and held a press confrence saying that they faked the whole thing, woudl you then believe the moon landings were faked?” The debunker, not suprizingly, refused to answer the question. He babled on about how such a situation wasent even posible so he wasent going to deal in hypethoticals. Then when presed switched tactics claiming that what the astronots say is irivelent because there is so much other evedence. Then when pressed again, begrudgingly gave in in an effort to appear ‘the rational one’ and said if it happened he would at least look into it.

‘Ok, what if it was just 3 of then instead of all nine?’ the consparicist asked in a very calm yet probing way. The debunker was absoutly livid at this point. Foaming at the mouth he launched into character assanation acusing the consparcist of being a liar and a fraud and was only continuing this line of questioning because he was doing some sort of sneeky underhanded backdoor atack. He demanded to know what the consparcist was up to and why he was even asking these questions.

“Well, you said that I would never be convinced by the evedenc and I would always come up with some excuse to dismiss any evedence I disagreed with. Im just wanting to find out if you are the same. But hey, just to be fair Im willing to drop the issue about the astronuts statements. Lets move on to some other evedence. If some forgin nation sent an unmaned probe to the moon and landed at the same spot as one of the previous moon landings and when they got there they discovered that there were no leftover machenery or footprints at the site, woudl THAT then convince you the moon landings were faked?’

Well the debunker nearly twisted himself into a pretzel trying to dodge this one. You could tell in his voice the abject terror he felt suspecting that the consparicist woudl pull out just such evedence as soon as he said ‘ok, that woudl convince me of a hoax’. So he launched into an absoutly stunning list of preemptive strikes. The forgnin government might be lying about what their probe found in an effort to discredit america. The probe might have toched down at the wrong spot. The footprints might have been obscured and covered up by metior impacts and acumlating space dust in the inbetween years.

“Well gee” the consparicst calmly noted “You acuse me of coming up with wierd leaps of logic to dismiss any evedence that contridicts my belief. Yet it appears that your doing the same. I havent even presented the evedence, just asked hypethoticals, and already your comming up with excuses on why that evedence is wrong”

Time was out and the interview ended.

The whole thign got me thinking. What woudl it take for ME to change my firmly held beliefs. Woudl evedence sway me, or would I come up with excuses. I believ the earth is wrong, but if I personaly were to come across the ‘edge’ of the world, lay down on my belly and peek over the edge, and see a stack of turtles all the way down, woudl I then be convinced the earth is flat because I had seen it with my own eyes? Or woudl I come up with some excuse to dismiss the evedence like ‘I must be halucinating. Someone must have sliped me a psychoactive drug into my drink’

If you have read this blog for any length of time, you will know that one of my reoccoring themes is ‘the 70-80 year loop’. The idea being that the history of sexuality cycles between revoultion / public / burnout / private / next revolution. This is in sharp contract to the liniear voew of history that assumes progress is always in one direction.

Take for example the notion of ‘being kinky today is like being gay in the 60s’. This is the linear view. Group A fights for their freedoms, then group B fights for theirs, then group C and group D untill eventualy we will have liberation for all.  If you believe this, then what evedence would it take to change yoru mind?

The testomny of someone who actualy lived through the era? Or would that get dismised with something like “Well, they are just looking back on it with rose clored glasses. They want to hog all the glory for being a partoit and a rebel so they just dismiss the battles that us kinksters face today. You cant depend on just their word, you have to look at the documents and news that was recoreded at the time’

Ok, so your given those old writings and news clipings and those disagree. Would that get dismised with “Well those are just indvidual examples. You can always find some counterpoint. Thats just the exception that proves the rules. To understand you cant just look at one item. You have to colect the agragate date and look at group trends.’

Ok, so your given those staticis. Would you then change your mind or would that get dismised with ‘Well what does some egghead number cruncher know? Those guys in their ivory towers are so disconected from the real world that nothing they say is accurate. To get to the truth you need to ask the people who lived through it. The oldsters with personal experence who a few of witch are still around today to tell their story.’

Now to backtrack to the moon landing hoax interview, I sould point out that consparicy theorists DO dismiss evedence exactly as they are accused. Photos? Faked in a studio. Moon rocks brought back? Retreved by an unmaned probe. Etc etc.

But it does rais the issue, what WOULD it take for you to change your mind on somethign you firmily believe? And woudl you accept the evedence, or just come up with some excuse as to why the evedence is invalad?

I recently watched a lecture by Steven Levitt (auther of Freakonomics) that gave a fairly convincing argument on why putitng children in car seats is a bad idea. As he points out in his lecture, many people are unhappy with this idea. Especialy car seat manfacturers.

His theory on why there is so much restance to this idea is because of a ‘bells and whistles’ mindset. The larger, more complex, and more expensive the solution will be the one favored by people. “why go through all this rigermaroll” they ask themselves “unless there was a huge benifit at the end?” I would argue that its actualy the simpler solution people go fo, not the more complex one. but the simplicity would be in education, not in actual action.

Safety education relies on quick, easy to explain, precautions. Danger : car crash. Precaution: carseats. We use this formula whenever there is a danger springing up. Danger : motercycle crashes. Precaution : helmets. Danger : food born bacteria Precaution: cook to a certian tempature. Danger: sexual transmited desease. Precaution : use a condom.

For kinksters the list is ever longer. Danger : electrical play. Precaution : dont play above the waist. Danger : bondage. Precaution : EMT sissors. Danger : Wax. Precaution : hold candel high. Danger : nipple clamps. Precaution : ten minute time limit. Of corse none of these are nearly that simple. There are forms of electrical play that can be done below the waist that still stops the heart and forms of electrical play done on the chest that are perfectly safe. There are situations where cutting away bondage actualy increases the risk of injury.

There are sexual transmited deseases where a condom, even a properly used condom, has no change at all in the risk of transmition. Do you know what one it is? Or do you just blindly folow along the path of ‘use condom = less risk’?

An over dependence on these precautions can actualy lead to more danger. If you rely on them totaly you will get complacent and think your in the clear when your actualy not. When the first reports of mad cow desease came to light, the danger was scofed at. “Yeah yeah, just tell us what tempature to cook the meat to so we can be safe.” A liftime of fighting salmanaila by cooking and e coli by cooking had left the population unparpared to a desease (mad cow isnt a desease, its a chemical) that couldent be brushed aside by folowing a spicific set of cooking instructions.

Danger : meeting stranger over the net. Precaution : set up a safecall when you first meet ….. Taylor Summers had a safecall. Lot of good it did her.

The best path to safety is to educate yourself. Become aware. If you want to avoid car crashes, then paying attention to your suroundings and defensive driving habits do a heck of a lot more good than growing dependent on car seats. If you want to avoid sexual transmited deseases, a relationship of trust and honesty with your partner does a heck of a lot more good than growing dependent on condoms.

Danger : tyranny. Precaution : vote.

Please dont grow complaciant and think that if your folowing the quick and simple precaution that your totaly free from any danger.

So there is this funny little case going on here localy to me. This guy John Ondrik has to go before the zoning board because neighbors are complaining he is running a business in a resedental zone. But wait, there is a loophone in the law. A church is free to operate in a resedental zone, so all he has to do is to prove that his ‘home based business’ is actualy not a business at all but a church.

The catch? the ‘business’ is a swingers club.

So lets join in with our pal John Ondrik as he attempts to convince people that it realy is honest injun cross my heart hope to die actualy a church.

Well to begin with, the fee for atending is a flat rate per couple, with single males being charged more and single women getting in free. His comeback : All churches take donations, whats wrong with that?

Church serves usualy are held latenights on the weekends. But hey, church services are usualy on the weekend so whats the big deal?

You are carded at the front door and have to be 21 or older to attend. Why there is nothing sexual about that at all. Its just that the teaching and doctrine of the faith are so complex that he feels only mature adults would be able to understand the holy teachings.

And speaking of teachings, what are the doctrines of faith of this church anyway? His answer is simple. They ‘worship nature’.

Not so fast, the church has a website. On it they will ordane anybody as a minister to run their own church as they see fit all by sending in a fee and clicking on an ‘Ordane me’ button. But he insistes the ordnation he has is serious and not just a scam in order to take advantage of the legal loophole.

But isnt it strange that he got his ordination just about the same time that the legal trouble over zoning started? And what about his aplication for non-profit status that is currently going through the paperwork. If he actualy were a church wouldent he have taken care of all that long before this zoning issue started? Why no! He just procrastinated is all.

Also turns out that there are swingers who have spoken to the media who confirm that when they went to his place for swinging parties. Im not sure what his rationalization for that one is.

So what about the website and the myspace page saying that it was a swinger club? It had his picture displayed with braging words abotu how his swinger club was better than any other swinger club in the area? Well, there is a perfectly logical explination to this. Ya see, someone broke into his house, robed one of his pictures, scanned it, and then created a whole phoney website about being a swinger club in order to frame him.

• NOTE: The previous paragraph is not a joke on my part or an attempt for me at over-the-top snarkyness. He actualy did claim that. A previous news article quoted him as saying “They even, in fact, broke into my house, they stole mine and my wife’s wedding photo and put it on the Internet and created a fictitious Web site on MySpace.com,”

Just how did the regestration for the website wind up with his same billing address as him? Thats easy to explain also. Credit card fraud and identy theft.

And his wifes outburst at the zoning hearing when she screamed ‘there is no law againt safe sex’ before he managed to shut her up? Implying that she herself thought the goings on were sex-related SOMEHOW and not actualy a church? No explination from him on that as far as I can tell, but Im sure its somethign totaly loginal and understandabal.

Leaving only one question. Why is the zoning board going after him? Well thats easy to explain too. Ya see, the politicians are just using ‘zoning’ as a cover story. Yep, its all a lie by those closed minded politicians who hate sex. They just came up with the ‘no business in a resedential zone’ story as an after the fact justification and the REAL truth is that they just are a bunch of prudes who are offended by the existance of a swingers club.

This week Hilary Duff came out with her newest music video. In it she tries desperatly to dump her goodie goodie image left over from her roll as Lizzy McGuire. The daily telegraph reports the video …..

• features her caressing herself, a man’s leg and a lawn statue while wearing a plethora of low-cut dresses - and bondage gear while blind folded at one point.

In response, evangelical christian and family values organizations said about the video

• …

The days where even a passing mention of somethign naughty could bring down the rightious rath of the christian right are long since past. Long term readers where who have seen me sprouting off about the 7080 year loop are already aware of this. We are in a generation of sexual burnout where rampit protests againt sexuality no longer make splash headlines.

Recently I have been putting together a history of ‘oops they found naked pics of me’ scandles and the public reaction. This hillary duff thing isnt exactly one of those, but its a good a time as any to go over how things have changed over the past 20 years

Vanessa Williams : September 1984

Oh crap did shit ever hit the fan on this one. It was supose to be all historic and stuff being the first black Miss America. But then old raunchy photos from her past turned up. Corporate sponcers threated to pull advertising from the next years padgent unless somethign was done. Williams quickly got tossed out on her ear.

Madonna : July 1985

Old photos from years ago turn up. But the public already knew she was kind of a slut. Once again corperate sponcers threatend to yank away advertising dollars, but madonna went on the atack, even going so far as to joke about the whole incident at her next concert appearence.

Vanna White : 1987

Such a fall from grace. The squeeky clean public image got tarnished when old photos surfaced. The public was outraged but there were no calls for her to be fired from the show.

Rob Lowe :1988

Hopping from photos to video. There was a lot of crude humor and jokes flying around. Certinaly embarasing but there wasent that much fallout from the event despite one of the people in the video being underage.

tonya harding : September 1994

Yeah yeah. Shes white trash anyway so like who didnt see that one comming?

Pamela Anderson : 1998

Hubba hubba! Far from being a source of contrversy, this video was welcomed with open arms by the public (well one arm at least, the other hand was busy) Far from hurting her carrer, it actualy helped.

Laura Schlessinger: 1998

Not much contrversy over the photos. Just some pointing of fingers and acuzations of hyprocacy.

Jessica Biel : 2000

In a last ditch effort to escape her contract, she decided to pull the old trick of ‘lets do something to piss off the christian right and they will demand I be fired’. There was no demand she be fired. She wasent fired. Despite the fact she was underage at the time the pics were taken

Paris Hilton : 2004

At this point there is no contreversy over the pics at all. Rather there is contreversy that we all just wish the ditzy skank woudl shut up and go away.

Vanessa Anne Hudgens : 2007

Nude pics turn up. Diseny dosent fire her. Wholsome family values disney. Not only do they not fire here, they dont even realy condone the act. Their atatude was perty much ‘Oh well, we all do stupid thigns’.