If I didn't listen to my wife's talking about her work chances are she wouldn't listen to me talking about mine. But of course, I married her in order to hear this bullshit. I "admitted" I'm married to a woman who lives largely to protect children from sexual predators. I must be one sick somebody. Get the net. Round up everyone married to a social worker. What the fuck?

Anon., there's really no art to being an asshole. And yet you make it look so...so...artful.

Actually I've been pissed most of my life because my father did take such pictures of me, and they really do make me uncomfortable. That makes me some sort of pervert in reverse, right?

I'll make a call in the morning. Maybe I can get her fired by early afternoon and locked up before the sun goes down.

AJCalhoun:

the "fact" (based on ) is a well-established one: that people (...) who express a singular and prurient interest in images of children almost without exception either will progress to actual accosting and sexual abuse (or worse) or already have.

This is something often cited as fact, but seldom backed up. The problem with this assertation is that the guy renting the German nudist videos will probably not be caught in any survey UNLESS he progresses to doing anything else.

Please give us some pointers to solid studies on this - and anything based on convicted offenders, people in treatment or the like is NOT enough to back up this "fact". Can you say "biased sample"?

And unfortunately, with the current climate re sex and the under-18, even most randomized studies would probably not give a true picture.

But if any studies that adresses this issue even remotely credibly exist I would really like to hear about it.

Please, some of you haven't even read the article, based on your opinions posted here. And if you had, you most likely skimmed it.

If you are too taxed to read the whole article, please go back and read the first two pages, at least.

You will note that there were five kids and two fathers.

You will note that the author says he forgot his digital camera and picked up a disposable camera at the gas station on the way to the camp area.

You will note that he says the pictures on the roll of film were from the entire camping trip.

You will note that the author says that after the kids were in bed, the two adults sat around and had a beer.

You will note that the father took pictures on the trip and he allowed the children to also take pictures and was not sure what pictures they took.

You will note that he took his 3 yr old skinny dipping.

You will note that his 8 yr old was "hamming it up" for the camera as he dried his underwear over the fire with a stick.

You will note that he took a group photo of everyone peeing on the ASHES of the fire as a "camping tradition" between both families. You will note that he does not indicate anyone was completely naked for this photo, something one does NOT have to be.

You will note that he left the camera in his best friend's car, forgotten. You will note that it was the best friend's wife who took the roll of film to Eckerd's to be developed.

You will note that the officer on the scene told his best friend's wife that he didn't think the photos were offensive.

And, you will note that the clerk in the Eckerd's photo lab reported that the pictures "looked like a child's head had been cut off, one with children drinking beer and pictures of naked kids..."

You will note that a picture of a child's head had been cut off FROM THE BORDER OF THE PICTURE.

You will note that the the child with the broken beer bottle was a found item by the child who was to use it for her makeshift xylophone.

You will note that the pictures of naked kids were children of the fathers as stated and described earlier.

You will note it takes a rather ignorant, immature, hysterical - and perhaps repressed - personality to view the pictures, in full context of a family camping trip on ONE roll of film, and come up with murder, underaged alcohol consumption, and sexual titillation, and not be laughed at by anyone from DCF OR the police department.

And that it took nearly a year of disruption and suspicion for this case to be closed is the injustice that the author struggles with and writes about.

Oh, and p.s. - please note that these unfounded accusations will be on the parents "record" for THREE years, and that it will be on the CHILREN'S record until they reach the respective age of TWENTY-ONE.

So much for innocent until proved guilty; so much for baseless, hysterical charges.

Both families will never get over this. The law and the misguidance as to reporting such "crimes" did more damage to those five children than frolicking like, well, children on a camping trip, ever did.

Yes, the poor choice is the choice to have children in this culture. I'm amazed that anyone does it.

I know this sounds awful but I wonder how much of this poor family's trials have to do with the fact that they were in Georgia? I live in the South and the culture of fear pervades every aspect of life down here. We are constantly told by the fear-mongering media that there's a boogy man around every corner ready to steal your children, white women, your possessions, etc. The constant drum-beat of hysteria down here leads to some really bad judgment on the part of people like an Eckerd's employee.

Conservative = Crook

Conservative = Crook

oops, sorry wrong thread

I'm a lawyer. I drafted most of our state's child protection legislation in the 70's. I represent parents, and children, in child protection cases. What Mr. Jenkins describes is all too typical. The amorphous "standards" used by actors in the system, the pervasive bias against parents, the oppressive tactics are common, and hardly designed to truly protect children, let alone help parents raise them - which was the stated aim of such legislation back then. Indeed, in that era, sexual abuse and exploitation of children was thought to be rare, and state intervention limited. What has changed is primarily political. Going after sex perverts makes good politics. And since most of us are uncomfortable about sex in the first place, hysteria overtakes reason, whether in the law, or in the confines of the office of an undertrained, overwhelmed child welfare caseworker. I fear we have created an atmosphere in which parents are afraid to cuddle their own children - as Mr. Jenkins so aptly describes. The remedy lies not with tinkering with our current legislation, but wholesale reform, and narrowing the scope of the law, with the clear understanding that in our democratic republic, the home of a family is not to be invaded by the state without clear and compelling reasons.