Ah, but you don't actually need someone to watch all of the cameras, all of the time. It's the theory of the Panopticon...have enough cameras, and the paranoia that results from never knowing exactly when you're being observed is just as effective as 24 hour surveillance.
Yep. You're totally right. Because sex workers frequently accost young children on the street in an effort to corrupt their innocence and lure them to a life of vice and debauchery.
Stupid. Sex workers don't ply their trade to children---there's no money in it.
That's funny. I'm studying Ulysses right now for a graduate course, and I can't imagine how it was "tame" for the time. Although the anti-obscenity laws were, of course, stupid, they were clearly violated when Joyce wrote about masturbation, poop, and the way one's penis tends to float in the bath. What other licentious novels passed unchallenged during this period?
I have never, not once, found reference to a study that suggested child sex offenders (not generalized run-of-the-mill rapists) had a recidivism rate that low. Perhaps you could give me some good old MLA documentation. As it is, I'm assuming that you're referring to the population of sex offenders as a whole, not child rapists in particular, which I understand have extremely high rates of reoffense when not successfully treated, as you had the opportunity to be.
"As for the poor bastards who get themselves in a predicament with a kid..."
I know! Those poor guys. Tut tut. Now their social lives are over.
Jesus Christ, you just made me physically ill.
"The recidivism rate for successfully treated offenders is staggeringly low."
I just want to point out that your climactic statement, upon which your plea for understanding and compassion was apparently based, is probably the most misleading thing I've read all day. You said, "successfully treated." That's the rub, isn't it? Most sex offenders are not "successfully treated," although most go through a system of court-ordered treatment that ultimately fails. Unfortunately, most sex offenders are not "successfully treated," and so go on to commit further acts of violence against the most helpless members of society. In fact, it seems that upwards of 50% of child rapists such as yourself (and remember, those are the ones who are actually caught and convicted--quite a minority among pedophiles) are not, in fact, "successfully treated," but are instead repeat sex offenders.
So why not rephrase your statement, make it a little less tautological, and say something like "the few child molesters out there who are caught, incarcerated, treated, released, and aren't caught having sex with 12-year-olds probably aren't commiting a sex crime at any given moment"? Then you could follow it up by saying "unfortunately, most child rapists hop right out of the prison system and into a little girl's panties." That would be a little more accurate, I think.
Except there's no real way to ensure that he wasn't planning to distribute his burned CDs. If burning sexually explicit images of children onto a previously blank CD isn't "making child porn," then what is? If I photocopied print images of kiddie porn, would that count?
In one sense, burning the CD is as bad as raping the kid--subscribers are the ones who pay for and support that kind of child abuse, making it profitable as well as pleasurable for the rapists themselves. If there weren't any child porn consumers, there would be very few child porn marketers.
He probably didn't think that stealing less than $300 worth of merchandise was going to merit serious jail time, either. Personally, I think Target needs to chill the heck out, the kid's probably been scared straight already. No need for any prison rape, slashdotters!
The ethical considerations have been raised because, apparently, the team of surgeons attempted this risky procedure without exhausting all the other options. Now, I'm not going to say that this woman shouldn't have a face transplant if she's aware that the face might rot and fall off, leaving her even more damaged, and that even in the best of all possible outcomes she'll be on drugs that will drastically increast her chance of cancer for the rest of her life, but if the doctors talked her into a face transplant without trying other solutions first, it's possible that they were in it solely to enhance their own reputations.
Um, forgive me if this has already been pointed out, but since when does releasing a calendar filled with completely generic, scantily-clad women randomly labelled as "geeks" make the genre cool? If I didn't know any better, I'd venture to say that those calendars were for the benefit of geeks, not comprised of their female counterparts.
Now, in the long run, a mathematical model would prove much friendlier to our individual pocketbooks if we car-pooled when we could, rode bikes over short distances, and kept a stable of oxen and a few extra wagon wheels for those long trips down the Oregon Trail.
Unfortunately, she wasn't necessarily all that invested in the project. The article called her a "lab worker." Those are often the folks who clean the poop out of the rat cages and wash the floors after everyone else has gone home. Now, this might not be the case, but you can't assume that there wasn't a power differential.
Coercion came in the same way that it would come in when a high-powered executive tells his female secretary that, for the good of the firm, she should put on some nice red lipstick and give him a messy blowjob. A woman's job should not involve her sexual organs, apparatus, or cells in any way, damn it!
Stephen King used to be a good writer. Then, sometime around _Dreamcatcher_, he realized that he could market self-serving, incoherent trash. As an aspiring writer myself, I can't help but sympathize with him--I'd certainly publish my grocery list, if a large, renowned publishing house offered to issue ten million copies in hardback!
Unfortunately, his decline into authorial arteriosclerosis coincided with the climax of his excellent "Dark Tower" series, and by the time he reached the final book, there wasn't much left to save. You're right--the ending was terrible. I wept.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but you don't actually need someone to watch all of the cameras, all of the time. It's the theory of the Panopticon...have enough cameras, and the paranoia that results from never knowing exactly when you're being observed is just as effective as 24 hour surveillance.
Yep. You're totally right. Because sex workers frequently accost young children on the street in an effort to corrupt their innocence and lure them to a life of vice and debauchery. Stupid. Sex workers don't ply their trade to children---there's no money in it.
That's funny. I'm studying Ulysses right now for a graduate course, and I can't imagine how it was "tame" for the time. Although the anti-obscenity laws were, of course, stupid, they were clearly violated when Joyce wrote about masturbation, poop, and the way one's penis tends to float in the bath. What other licentious novels passed unchallenged during this period?
I have never, not once, found reference to a study that suggested child sex offenders (not generalized run-of-the-mill rapists) had a recidivism rate that low. Perhaps you could give me some good old MLA documentation. As it is, I'm assuming that you're referring to the population of sex offenders as a whole, not child rapists in particular, which I understand have extremely high rates of reoffense when not successfully treated, as you had the opportunity to be.
"As for the poor bastards who get themselves in a predicament with a kid..." I know! Those poor guys. Tut tut. Now their social lives are over. Jesus Christ, you just made me physically ill.
"The recidivism rate for successfully treated offenders is staggeringly low." I just want to point out that your climactic statement, upon which your plea for understanding and compassion was apparently based, is probably the most misleading thing I've read all day. You said, "successfully treated." That's the rub, isn't it? Most sex offenders are not "successfully treated," although most go through a system of court-ordered treatment that ultimately fails. Unfortunately, most sex offenders are not "successfully treated," and so go on to commit further acts of violence against the most helpless members of society. In fact, it seems that upwards of 50% of child rapists such as yourself (and remember, those are the ones who are actually caught and convicted--quite a minority among pedophiles) are not, in fact, "successfully treated," but are instead repeat sex offenders. So why not rephrase your statement, make it a little less tautological, and say something like "the few child molesters out there who are caught, incarcerated, treated, released, and aren't caught having sex with 12-year-olds probably aren't commiting a sex crime at any given moment"? Then you could follow it up by saying "unfortunately, most child rapists hop right out of the prison system and into a little girl's panties." That would be a little more accurate, I think.
Except there's no real way to ensure that he wasn't planning to distribute his burned CDs. If burning sexually explicit images of children onto a previously blank CD isn't "making child porn," then what is? If I photocopied print images of kiddie porn, would that count?
In one sense, burning the CD is as bad as raping the kid--subscribers are the ones who pay for and support that kind of child abuse, making it profitable as well as pleasurable for the rapists themselves. If there weren't any child porn consumers, there would be very few child porn marketers.
Or maybe they could just start with your post! Grammar, friend, and sentences end with periods. Man, I'm a LiveJournaler, too...Ouch.
He probably didn't think that stealing less than $300 worth of merchandise was going to merit serious jail time, either. Personally, I think Target needs to chill the heck out, the kid's probably been scared straight already. No need for any prison rape, slashdotters!
The ethical considerations have been raised because, apparently, the team of surgeons attempted this risky procedure without exhausting all the other options. Now, I'm not going to say that this woman shouldn't have a face transplant if she's aware that the face might rot and fall off, leaving her even more damaged, and that even in the best of all possible outcomes she'll be on drugs that will drastically increast her chance of cancer for the rest of her life, but if the doctors talked her into a face transplant without trying other solutions first, it's possible that they were in it solely to enhance their own reputations.
Um, forgive me if this has already been pointed out, but since when does releasing a calendar filled with completely generic, scantily-clad women randomly labelled as "geeks" make the genre cool? If I didn't know any better, I'd venture to say that those calendars were for the benefit of geeks, not comprised of their female counterparts.
Now, in the long run, a mathematical model would prove much friendlier to our individual pocketbooks if we car-pooled when we could, rode bikes over short distances, and kept a stable of oxen and a few extra wagon wheels for those long trips down the Oregon Trail.
Unfortunately, she wasn't necessarily all that invested in the project. The article called her a "lab worker." Those are often the folks who clean the poop out of the rat cages and wash the floors after everyone else has gone home. Now, this might not be the case, but you can't assume that there wasn't a power differential.
What everyone seems to be missing is that, if there's a power gradient, there's implicit coercion involved.
Well, a prostitute knows what she's selling, doesn't she? A lab worker, on the other hand, probably expects to use her mind, not her ovaries.
Coercion came in the same way that it would come in when a high-powered executive tells his female secretary that, for the good of the firm, she should put on some nice red lipstick and give him a messy blowjob. A woman's job should not involve her sexual organs, apparatus, or cells in any way, damn it!
Stephen King used to be a good writer. Then, sometime around _Dreamcatcher_, he realized that he could market self-serving, incoherent trash. As an aspiring writer myself, I can't help but sympathize with him--I'd certainly publish my grocery list, if a large, renowned publishing house offered to issue ten million copies in hardback! Unfortunately, his decline into authorial arteriosclerosis coincided with the climax of his excellent "Dark Tower" series, and by the time he reached the final book, there wasn't much left to save. You're right--the ending was terrible. I wept.