Stupid Campaigns and Stupid People
Has peace broken out and we just didn't get the memo? Even the spam we're getting (from Pakistan no less) is about "peace and harmony" and how we have to "pray for one another" and "think of love, compassion and peace always". At least we assume it's spam, because if they read MR and that's the message they came away with... seriously. And now we just got this email about a new blog called Light a Million Candles:
Hey, The innocent victims of Internet child abuse cannot speak for themselves. But you can. With your help, we can eradicate this evil trade. We do not need your money. We need you to light a candle of support.
Ironically, the "Hey" part of this email was probably the high point. First of all, we have no idea what Internet child abuse is. Neither, it seems, does Wikipedia. So we did some digging on Google, and came up with this:
Deputy Assistant Commissioner and Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) spokeswoman on internet child abuse Carole Howlett said: "A significant proportion of people involved in child abuse online are themselves actual abusers."
Apparently, "internet child abuse" is the reverse-euphemism for "looking at kiddie porn". Which is awful, but is not - read to this closely - is not child abuse. The production of the pictures is child abuse, the purchasing of the pictures is a financial incentive for child abuse. It is not actual abuse. And the way we know this is because Carole Howlett distinguished between "actual abusers" and "people involved in child abuse online" (read: not actual abusers). We wouldn't normally care, except clarity is important when talking about sickos so that we can know what kind of sickos we're talking about. Also: because this Light A Candle So You Can Feel Less Guilty About Not Knowing Who's On Your Kid's MySpace Friends List campaign is like what effective action against international child pornography would be, if it was exactly not what it is. The campaign slogan is "We Do Not Need Your Money, We Need You To Light A Candle Of Support". Because god forbid you begin to feel like you're not doing anything productive to stop child abuse.
In other news, Ron Fullwood is an "activist from Columia, MD" and author of a book about how "Military Industry Executives" (all caps, natch) are controlling the Bush administration (and we didn't even know there even were Jewish military industry execs... learn something new every day). He's got a not very good editorial up titled Do We Bomb Iran Now To Teach North Korea A Lesson?. We know he was trying to be sarcastic, but now that you mention it, we think it kind of seems like a decent idea. At the very least, it couldn't hurt anything.
Hey, The innocent victims of Internet child abuse cannot speak for themselves. But you can. With your help, we can eradicate this evil trade. We do not need your money. We need you to light a candle of support.
Ironically, the "Hey" part of this email was probably the high point. First of all, we have no idea what Internet child abuse is. Neither, it seems, does Wikipedia. So we did some digging on Google, and came up with this:
Deputy Assistant Commissioner and Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) spokeswoman on internet child abuse Carole Howlett said: "A significant proportion of people involved in child abuse online are themselves actual abusers."
Apparently, "internet child abuse" is the reverse-euphemism for "looking at kiddie porn". Which is awful, but is not - read to this closely - is not child abuse. The production of the pictures is child abuse, the purchasing of the pictures is a financial incentive for child abuse. It is not actual abuse. And the way we know this is because Carole Howlett distinguished between "actual abusers" and "people involved in child abuse online" (read: not actual abusers). We wouldn't normally care, except clarity is important when talking about sickos so that we can know what kind of sickos we're talking about. Also: because this Light A Candle So You Can Feel Less Guilty About Not Knowing Who's On Your Kid's MySpace Friends List campaign is like what effective action against international child pornography would be, if it was exactly not what it is. The campaign slogan is "We Do Not Need Your Money, We Need You To Light A Candle Of Support". Because god forbid you begin to feel like you're not doing anything productive to stop child abuse.
In other news, Ron Fullwood is an "activist from Columia, MD" and author of a book about how "Military Industry Executives" (all caps, natch) are controlling the Bush administration (and we didn't even know there even were Jewish military industry execs... learn something new every day). He's got a not very good editorial up titled Do We Bomb Iran Now To Teach North Korea A Lesson?. We know he was trying to be sarcastic, but now that you mention it, we think it kind of seems like a decent idea. At the very least, it couldn't hurt anything.
