Today's Stories

March 25, 2009

Robin Blackburn
Media Revolution or Mirage?

Conn Hallinan
Europe in Crisis

Jonathan Cook
Turkey's Fallout with Israel Deals Blow to Settlers

Russell Mokhiber
Corporate Liberals vs. Single-Payer

Ron Jacobs
Karzai on a String

March 24, 2009

Robert Sandels
Obama and Cuba: Real Change or Minor Tweaks?

Harvey Wasserman
People Died at Three Mile Island

Franklin Lamb
Who Tried to Kill Palestinian Ambassador Abass Zaki and Why?

Michael Donnelly
Obama's Team of Losers

Norman Solomon
Denial and Evasion on Afghanistan

Elizabeth Schulte
The Stark Facts About Violence Against Women

John Goekler
The Most Dangerous Person in the World?

Nicole Colson
Is Justice Finally in Sight for Sami Al-Arian?

Global Balkans
NATO's 78-Day Bombing of Yugoslavia: Ten Years On

William S. Lind
Cat-and-Mouse Off Hainan Island

Website of the Day
Video: IDF Fired on Medics in Gaza

March 23, 2009

M. Shahid Alam
Capitalism From the Standpoint of Its Victims

Uri Avnery
Israel's Most Revolting Law?

Mike Whitney
Zombie Economics: Judgment Day for Geithner

Ralph Nader
Bush the Teacher

Brian Cloughley
Tilting at Afghan Windmills

Dave Lindorff
Toxic Bailouts

Amira Hass
The Rules of Engagement in Gaza: Open Fire on Rescuers

Chris Irwin
When Nonprofit Groups Go Bad

Binoy Kampmark
The Celebrity of Celebrity

Michael Dickinson
Tollbridge Over Troubled Waters

Website of the Day
State of the Birds

March 20-22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Edge of the Volcano

Paul Craig Roberts
When Things Fall Apart

P. Sainath
Slumdogs vs. Billionaires

Robert Weissman
Lessons From AIG

Saul Landau
Sliding Down in Anger: If We Bail Out the Banks, Why Shouldn't We Own Them?

David Michael Green
Obama and the Altar of Greed

Greg Moses
Winter Soldiers Come to Texas

Ron Jacobs
Pakistan in Turmoil: an Interview with Farooq Tariq

Michael D. Yates
A Nation of Immigrants

John V. Whitbeck
Happy New Year, Iran!

Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Zuhair

Linn Washington Jr.
Supreme Test: the Latest Twist in the Mumia Case

David Ker Thomson
Actions: Things to Do Instead of Hailing the Chief

Laurent Jacque
Is the Euro Doomed?

Rannie Amiri
The Middle East's Jittery Monarchies

Reiko Redmonde /
Larry Everest
The Cold-Blooded Murder of Oscar Grant

David Macaray
The Myth of the Powerful Teachers' Union

Kenneth Couesbouc
Where has the Consumption Gone?

Martha Rosenberg
Meltdown in the Drug Industry

Alan Farago
The Recession, the Developers and Baseball

Missy Beattie
Still Waiting for Change

Richard Rhames
Invisible But Not Completely Insolvent

Stephen Martin
Barack and the Jets

Charles R. Larson
Impeach Obama!

David Yearsley
On Bach's Birthday

Lorenzo Wolff
Manic Levity

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Gary Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Teachers for CEO Merit Pay!

March 19, 2009

Dave Marsh
Sir Bono: the Knight Who Fled From His Own Debate

Paul Craig Roberts
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?

Mike Whitney
Why Business is Hysterical About Card Check (And Why America Needs It)

Sam Smith
The Economy in Two Eras of Democrats

Harvey Wasserman
The Crash of France's Nuclear Poster Child

Binoy Kampmark
Back Into NATO: the End of French Exceptionalism

Kathy Sanborn
Broken Culture: the Desecration of Iraq's Art Treasures

Christopher Brauchli
Taxing Problems

George Wuerthner
Permanent Damage From Temporary Logging Roads

Diann Rust-Tierney
New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

Website of the Day
Bailout Plan: "Cross Your Fingers and Hope"

March 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Real AIG Conspiracy

Paul Craig Roberts
Israel's American Chattel

Nelson P. Valdés
Why Obama's New Cuba Rules Violate the Constitution

Jonathan Cook
Bedouin Villages Left in the Dark Ages

John Ross
The Death of the American Newspaper

Yifat Susskind
Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?

Dave Lindorff
Who's Calling the Shots Now?

Frances Moore Lappé
The City That Ended Hunger

Richard Grossman
Beware the Madoff Diversion!

Rev. William E. Alberts
On Being Whole Not Holy

Website of the Day
Three Weeks in Cuba: a Painter's Perspective

March 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire

James G. Abourezk
Show Business: AIG and the Posturing Democrats

Harry Browne
Ireland's Blast From the Past

Joanne Mariner
U.S. Human Rights Abuses in the War on Terror

Alan Farago
The National Ponzi Scheme

Dean Baker
Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong ... Again

Peter Morici
Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Obama and the Empire

Richard Gott
Victory for the Left in El Salvador

Walter Brasch
Dog Mutilations vs. Cosmetics

Website of the Day
Single-Payer Action

March 16, 2009

Pam Martens
Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Uri Avnery
The Rape of Washington

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Witness Protection Program

Ralph Nader
Americans Want Justice for Wall Street Crooks

Nikolas Kozloff
Down But Not Out: the Latin American Right

John Walsh
Redbaiting on the Left

Ron Jacobs
A Call for Common Sense

Binoy Kampmark
The Case of Tim K

Stephen Fleischman
Coxey's Army Will March Again!

Christian Christensen
A 25-Year Misunderstanding: Springsteen's "Born in the USA"

Scott Handleman
Shooting Tristan Anderson

Website of the Day
Clean, Green, Sustainable

March 13 / 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Parable of the Shopping Mall

Peter Lee
What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

Diana Johnstone
NATO's Global Mission Creep

David Harvey
Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?

Petrino DiLeo
Inside Obama's Housing Plan: Will Millions be Left Out in the Cold

David Ker Thomson
Tender to the Earth

Eric Ruder
Massacre in Slow Motion: an Interview with Haider Eid on Gaza

Fred Gardner
Cannabidiol Now!

David Yearsley
Music Torture

Saul Landau
How Israel Gives Jews a Bad Name

Laura Carlsen
Drug War Doublespeak

Robert Weissman
We Told You So

John Goekler /
Merle Lefkoff
The Struggle in Saffron

Tom Barry
Imprisoning Immigrants for Profit

Kathy Sanborn
Money Out of Thin Air

Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty
Criminalizing Poverty: the Jail Seattle Doesn't Need

David Michael Green
The Perils of Being Right and Wrong

Alan Maass /
Lee Sustar
A Socialist Moment?

Christopher Brauchli
Pity, the Poor Tax Collectors

Richard Morse
Clinton in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Taking It From the Streets: From Springsteen to the Wu-Tang Clan

Poets' Basement
Springate and Johnston

Website of the Weekend
Hear the Buffalo

March 12 , 2009

Sharon Smith
Bottom Feeders at the Trough

Christopher Ketcham
Full Spectrum Penetration: Israeli Spying in the United States

Mike Whitney
Haircut Time for Bondholders

Ray McGovern
Obama Caves to the Lobby

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF

John Ross
The War is Not Over

M. Reza Pirbhai
Men in Black: Another View of Pakistan

Chris Floyd
Lost Liberty Blues: Prisons, Profits and the Banality of Evil

Steve Early
Why Labor Doesn't Need a "House of Lords"

Quentin Gee
Hiding the Costs of Coal

Website of the Day
Amadee Coral Reef: a Spherical Panorama

March 11 , 2009

Mike Roselle
From Birmingham to Coal River: Why is the Environmental Movement So Timid?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Criminal Injustice System

Henry A. Giroux
Academic Labor in Dark Times

Nikolas Kozloff
The Death Cries of the Salvadoran Right

Norm Kent
I am Patient Number 380206011

Mitu Sengupta
Reforming the World Bank: Different Image, Same Tune?

Ludwig Watzal
The Structure of Israel's Occupation

David Macaray
The Battle Over EFCA Has Begun

William S. Lind
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Martha Rosenberg
A Merger From the Folks Who Brought You Vytorin

Website of the Day
American Indicator: One in Fifty Kids are Homeless

March 10 , 2009

Franklin Spinney
What Israeli Peace Process?

Vijay Prashad
What Did Hillary Clinton Do?

Stan Cox
There's No Free Lunch on Your Browser: the Internet's Energy Drain

Zoltan Grossman
Coffee Strong: Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis

Reuven Kaminer
Pure and Unadulterated Racism

Jonathan Cook
Memoricide in the West Bank

Dave Lindorff
Business Rules

Brian McKenna
How Anthropology Disparages Journalism

Harvey Wasserman
Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?

Corey Pein
He Told You So

Website of the Day
AIG and Systemic Failure: $1.6 Trillion in Insured Deriviatives

March 9 , 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the Sorkin Affair

Ralph Nader
Too Big...Period

Peter Lee
Meet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: the US's Worst/Best Hope for Afghanistan?

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Charade

Peter Morici
Fixing the Banks: Treasury's Doomed Strategy

Dean Baker
Why Do We Need a Private Health Insurance Industry, Anyway?

Steve Ault
Kiss Thailand's Tolerance for Gays Goodbye

Stephen Lendman
Guantánamo Under Obama

Farooq Sulehria
Tennis Without Spectators

Belén Fernández
Chávez, a Cockfight and the Caracazo

Website of the Day
How Lincoln Learned to Read

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Daniel P. Wirt, M.D.
Remove the Handle From the Health Insurance Misery and Death Pump

Carl Finamore
The Recovery Plan: Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Ben Sonnenberg
No Forgiveness for the Bourgeoisie: Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel"

David Yearsley
Sonic Fakery in "Slumdog" From the Mozart of Chennai

DC Larson
They're Writing Those Depression Songs, Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Live Truth: Music Sans Headphones

Poets' Basement
Dominquez, MacNeil and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Environment & Obama: a Conversation with Jeffrey St. Clair

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

March 25, 2009

Obama's First Amendment Challenge?

Sexting: the Latest Innovation in Porn

By DAVID ROSEN

Two teens in Mason, OH, were recently charged with first-degree misdemeanors after police found nude photos of classmates on their cellphones. Last fall, two teenage female cheerleaders from a suburban Seattle high school were suspended from the team after nude photos of them circulated throughout the student body via cellphone messages. In Falmouth, MA, six middle school teen boys, along with three teenagers from Mansfield, MA, were caught sending sexually explicit material via their cellphones. A similar episode involving six students, three girls and three boys, recently took place in the Pittsburgh suburb of Greensburg-Salem.

These are but a few examples of a new and growing social phenomenon known as sexting. Adolescents are sending and receiving explicit snapshots or video clips of themselves or other teens from their cellphones or handheld PDAs like a Blackberry. The original image is then often resent to an ever-expanding universe of viewers.

Sexting is a post-modern form of flirting, a game of sexual show-&-tell; so far, it hasn’t involved sexual predators. A recent study indicates that one in five teens have either sent or received such images. [see “Nails in the Coffin: Last Gasps of the Culture Wars?,” CounterPunch, January 30-February 1, 2009]

What makes these incidents most troubling, especially the ones on the Cape and in Greenburg-Salem, is that the participants can face felony child pornography charges. The Greenburg girls, who are 14- and 15-years and allegedly took nude or semi-nude photos of themselves, face charges of manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography; and the boys, who are 16- and 17-years and distributed the images, have been charged with possession.

Each generation re-imagines the erotic. In this process, notions of the pornographic or the obscene are challenged and changed. And in the process, the generation is changed, its erotic sensibility remade, thus shifting the sexual landscape. The eroticism of today’s teens is not that of their grandparents, let alone their parents.

Today’s popular culture is based on aesthetically rich, Web 2.0 digital connectivity. This digital culture engenders a new erotic sensibility. CDs and streaming video extend traditional forms of erotic representation of a book or a film-TV program. Web 2.0 social networking opens communications to two-way exchanges, group associations and shared experiences. Sexting extends the functionality of mobile communications by adding images and, in the process, expands popular erotic sensibility.

* * *

Sexting is the first innovative form of pornography to organically emerge in the 21st century. Those who first plugged a camera into a cellphone or PDA probably never imaged they would create a new form of pornography. Sexting not only subverts corporate technology, but democratizes it. 21st century media technology makes everyone a moviemaker, distributor and presenter. Sexting makes everyone, including teenagers, pornographers.

Modern pornography begins with the photography. Paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures and books long offered erotic and pornographic representations. Photography, however, is the first mechanical means of image capture and display applied to the erotic.

The first pornographic photos were displayed in the 1830s and engendered the aesthetic sensibility of the modern age. Photography fashioned a new way of seeing and a new form of erotic expression. By the late-19th century, the relatively inexpensive Kodak camera created a new class of art (and artist), user generated content (UGC).

Early photographers borrowed from still earlier painterly and lithographic visual styles when they approached the portraiture of the nude, particularly the female nude. However, as the art historian Abigail Solomon-Godeau observes, the creative breakthrough that distinguishes the photography from earlier art forms of erotic depiction is the invention of the "beaver shot," the complete exposure of the female genitalia. (The “creative breakthrough” of moving image technology is the cum or money shot, male ejaculation onto a woman or into her mouth.)

The beaver shot, a captivating, if humiliating, form of representation, initially acknowledged the shame experienced by both the subject and the viewer; this shame is the bad taste that underlies what is “pornographic.” Many of the surviving early beaver shots show the female subject with her face covered, be it by a petticoat or a veil. There was no eye contact, no recognition, between the subject and her anonymous audience. Unfortunately, modesty is one of the casualties of technological development.

Nevertheless, unless one was technically competent, the photograph, like the later 8mm film, suffered from one fundamental drawback. While it freed the user to create an original (and perhaps pornographic) work, it did not empower him/her to freely reproduce and distribute the work. Duplication required a commercial service provider who, if disturbed by what was processed, could inform the police.

The next phase in the development of UGC came with the introduction of instant photography in the late-1940. Homevido and the prerecorded cassette followed in the late-70s, extending UGC into full-motion imaging. The 21st century is further extending UGC with digital video production, streaming and downloads.

Web 2.0 creates Internet-based social networking combined with wireless mobile communications. Web 2.0 media culture merges the personal, intimate experience of “friendship” with the social, anonymous experience of instantaneous global connectivity. The old Web 1.0 world was based on one-to-one connectivity; the new Web 2.0 world is one-to-many mashup networking.

This change is reflected in the mass adoption of Facebook and MySpace; with, respectively, 136 million and 116 million active users. It is expressed in the phenomenal appeal of YouTube videos, especially its UGC; at yearend ’07, YouTube had 9.5 billion online videos viewed by 138 million people. It is also expressed in peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing; the appeal of virtual worlds like Second Life; and the playing of “pornographic” videogames like Red Light Center, Virtual Hottie and Cherry Doll. This is a powerful technological and social development as well as a further transformation of erotic culture.

User generated content is the art form of the 21st century. YouTube fulfills the original promise of photography: Everyone can be a producer as well as a distributor and, hopefully, a celebrity with their own audience. Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame. With sexting, however, the 15 minutes of fame shrinks to 15 seconds of exposure.

* * *

The Obama administration has been silent on the issue of “pornography.” Against the background of a global economic crisis and a stalled foreign policy mired in two wars, such silence should not be unexpected.

Each administration confronts critical First Amendment issues in its own way. The shift from a Christian conservative Bush administration to a secular technocratic Obama administration may usher in a different legal and aesthetic “value” system, particularly with regard to what is considered pornographic.

Obama’s moderate or pragmatic outlook is particularly evident in his stance on the First Amendment. During the presidential campaign, he spoke out eloquently for free speech:

We know that with the pervasiveness of mass media today — the existence of so many means of communication that are so easily accessible all over the world — it’s very difficult to regulate our way out of this problem. And for those of us who value our First Amendment freedoms — who value artistic expression — we wouldn’t want to.

However, in 2005, Senator Obama came out in favor of legislation proposed by Senators Ted Stevens (R-AL) and Daniel Inouye (D-HI) to impose greater “indecency” regulation on broadcasters and cable television. As he said,

It’s one thing to discuss sex and violence on television within the larger context of the culture wars — as a values debate between First Amendment crusaders and those who believe government should decide what we can and cannot watch — but it’s another thing altogether to be faced with these issues while you’re sitting in front of the TV with your child.

Employing a false dichotomy, Obama effectively reframed the debate so that the single most important mediating factor, age-appropriate programming and scheduling, is removed from the discussion. Such reframing of the debate only serves to promote more repression. Sexting might force Obama to define his commitment to First Amendment principles.

An insight into Obama’s possible stand is reflected in his appointment of David Ogden as the Justice Department’s deputy attorney general, second to Attorney General Eric Holder. Ogden was a former Clinton Justice Dept. player, a subsequent partner at a prestigious DC law firm, WilmerHale, and served as head of the Obama’s Justice transition review team.

His appointment raised the ire of the religious right. Anticipating the coming of Sodom, the conservative group, Fidelis, condemned Ogden:

Ogden is an absolutist on pornography and obscenity. He opposes common sense restrictions on the ability of pornography peddlers to sell their products. He believes pornography users have a constitutional right to view pornography at a public library.

Like Obama, Ogden is more complex.

In the Clinton DoJ, Ogden was not only the point-man defending COPA against the ACLU, but defended Federal copyright protection cases against hackers, serving (as some critics say) as a front for the record industry. However, in private practice he has represented Playboy Enterprises, Penthouse Magazine, the ACLU and adult video distributors. He also successfully fought efforts to regulate Internet use in public libraries. A lawyer’s pedigree.

The Obama administration’s stance on sexting and other Internet obscenity issues will surely be influenced by January’s Supreme Court rejection of a last-minute effort by the Bush Justice Department to enforce the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The Act, originally signed by Clinton in October 1998, attempted to restrict Web sites from posting "material that is harmful to minors" and providing for up to 6 months in jail and a $50,000 fine.

Due to repeated challenges by civil liberties group, the Act was never implemented and, for all purposes, is finally dead. The Court’s action speaks directly to the shift from a Web 1.0 to a Web 2.0 world and points out the profound challenges facing Obama’s Justice Department over the future of freedom of speech.

* * *

The first battle over sexting emerged in early March when Ohio prosecutors and legislators began to update state pornography laws. Under current state law, the teens arrested for sexting in Mason, OH, should have been charged with felonies and labeled sex offenders. The local prosecutor, however, opted for a less severe charge. Nevertheless, the prosecutor, Rachel Hutze, pointed out the inherent contradiction she faced: “I don't believe that these teenagers are felons or sex offenders, but these are illegal and dangerous actions and must be stopped."

Unfortunately, others in Ohio and throughout the country do not share Hutze’s apparent sensitivity to the complex challenge sexting represents. In Ohio, the current effort to revise state laws comes less than a year after a teenager hung herself after being taunted by classmates over a nude photo she'd sent to her boyfriend. Like so much of post-modern flirting, whey the relationship ended, the photo circulated widely. The Ohio attorney general, Richard Cordray, took advantage of this sad story to push for the updating of state laws regarding teen dating violence to cover sexting.

The traditional battle over “adult” pornography has been lost; adults, in the privacy of their homes, are free to watch any “appropriate” material; “appropriate” is all that but “child” pornography. A huge $10-plus billion porn industry exist to address adult erotic desire. In the face of the commercial marketplace’s triumph over moralistic censorship, the battle over acceptable sexuality has shifted to what is (intentionally imprecisely) identified as “child” pornography.

This category is very flexible, determined not only by the actual age of the “child” but by the political purpose it serves. There is nearly universal agreement that the depiction (and, thus, exploitation) of a real child, those from the age of birth through their early adolescence, should be prohibited; those who get sexually turned on by a child suffer a profound paraphelia.

However, “children” who are young adults, adolescent teenager, represent a very different population. They are in the flush of their earliest erotic experience, often overwhelmed as much by the wildness of hormones, a greater sense of personal power and the titillation of commodity culture. Over the last decade, moralists have attempted to contain this powerful force through a combination of abstinence-only sex education and technological interventions that have included filtering devices, password-enabled blockers and V-chip-style parental controls to thwart teens from accessing “adult” content.

These interventions have failed. No one was prepared for sexting and teenage sexual self-realization through mobile Web 2.0 connectivity. The telephone has long been a medium for the sex trade. In the 1920s, it transformed prostitution from street trade to the “call house.” Today, phone hookups remain a principal means of commercial sexual encounters and 976 porn lines still draw millions of users. Sexting transforms pornography into a 21st century art form.

David Rosen is the author of the forthcoming, “Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming” (Key, 2009); he can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.

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