What seems to be really creepy is that Foley was chair fo the Missing and Exploited Children Committee. Yuck. As for pages, I was a page in the Washington House in the early 1970's (that's before your time PM). Basically we ran errands for legislators but one day I got to walk the flag in for the opening pledge, and I even had my pic taken with the gov, an honest-to-god nearly liberal republican, especially by today's standards. Ah, the good ole days. But yes, blogs better than email for getting the word out on cool stuff.

bradley || bleckblog.org

I've always been suspicious of folks who get a little too carried away about certain social evils. I just heard a psycho-analyst lecturing about homosexuality in football, for instance, and how it's the only socially acceptable place for guys to see each other naked (in the locker room and showers), pat each other on the butt, hold hands (in the huddle), etc. Yet these are the same jocks that terrorize every other boy in the school, calling him "faggot," and so on. If I had a dime for every time one of these padded up nincompoops accused me publicly of being gay, I'd make Bill Gates look like that dude that drives around in a rusty pickup begging to mow your lawn when it's obvious that it's just been mowed like...just last month.

It's also pretty well known that when a spouse starts going "nuts" and accusing you of cheating, it's probably because they're feeling guilty about their own indiscretion. How many times have we seen that same drunk jerk hitting on every woman in the bar, just to go home and beat his wife for "cheating" on him?

Furthermore, it's probably likely that at least some of those folks who strive to become "child porn detectives" or whatever is just so they can see this porn themselves without having to worry about being stigmatized for it, legally or otherwise. Same things goes for preachers who keep harping about porn and the like. "Oh, I'm just studying all this porn myself just to get a better understanding of the gravity of the issue," and so on. Yeah, right.

Question is, how do we know the difference between someone who is seriously committed to protecting kids, and some freak who just wants a cover to perpetuate his own abuses?

Just out of curiosity, is their a good psychology term for describing this phenomenon?

Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.

In Spokane, we had the perfect example of this, a closeted gay mayor who, when he was a state senator, proposed some of the harshest anti-gay legislation, such as barring any gay or lesbian from teaching/working in the public schools, that sort of thing. It seems men of this sort, Republicans in particular, need to provide the strongest possible cover for the turmoil of their inner lives. Now, of course, they can act out using the modern technology of the internet, which our recently deceased (from cancer) ex-mayor did as well. It's a trouble ethos they seek to construct if nothing else (see how I brought this back to rhetoric?).

I'd add, we really can't do this sort of stalking in a blog, when we have to keep our "true" selves secret. If nothing, blogs might be a better forum for communication because they don't allow for such sleazeball behaviors to remain hidden behind closed doors.

bradley || bleckblog.org

because they don't allow for such sleazeball behaviors to remain hidden behind closed doors.

No doubt! It's much better outside. So, I was wondering, did you ever get that platypus dislodged from your apple tree?

Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.

It would appear that Representative Mark Foley--or former representative, since he resigned yesterday--was done in by explicit IM, more than email. The emails (at least those quoted by ABC and published in facsimile by Americablog) were skeevy but not explicit. The IM is another matter. ABC publishes the transcript under this head and disclaimer:

READER DISCRETION STRONGLY ADVISED: Foley's Exchange With Underage Page

BRIAN ROSS AND THE INVESTIGATIVE TEAM

September 29, 2006 — The following is an instant message exchange a former page says he had with Rep. Foley in 2003. Warning: sexually explicit language, reader discretion is advised.

I'll post the link (with some ambivalence), but in case you missed the message: Reader discretion is advised.

Interestingly, while material on the Internet has a certain Macbeth's wife quality (the stain that never goes away), there are also vanishing acts. For example, Rep. Foley's homepage, which was ostensibly "all about child sex offenders" according to John in DC on Americablog, has disappeared. I wasn't even able to find it cached on Google. Instead, there's the Congressional equivalent of an IM away message under the rather obscurant headline, "CURRENT VACANCIES."

Those of us in Florida who've followed Foley's career recall his indictment of Bill Clinton for indiscretions in the Oval Office, his moralistic comments about Newt Gingrich's marriage-ending relationship, and his irking of the gay community by denouncing allegations that he was gay as "revolting and unforgivable." They'll also remember his ministrations to Big Sugar, in the guise of the powerful Fanjul family. Somehow it seems relevant, in this tangled weave of web-recorded utterances, that it was Alfonso Fanjul who phoned Clinton in the midst of his "break up" with Lewinsky. To some minds, the subsidies to Big Sugar have their own obscenity, given the damages that industry has wrought over the decades--to the lives of the caneworkers (now replaced largely by machines) and to the Everglades.

Hmm...So I wonder how many people won't read the transcript after seeing THAT warning? Geez, I guess this is fitting revenge after all the grief he gave Clinton. I mean, suddenly that whole thing with Monica looks tamer than Gram the One Eyed Monster.

Check out Barton's gaming blog at Armchair Arcade.

He was recalled by voters not qutie a year ago, last December I think.

bradley || bleckblog.org