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• Sunday, October 5, 2008 11:13 PM

  @ Canuckistan Bob

  I thought that, because AKA said so, sometime ago during the great Hillary/Obama flame wars, she said something to the effect that she didn't want to talk about that stuff because she couldn't even bring herself to watch the news. If not, I stand corrected, and no snark was intended.

  I don't watch television at all. I listen to the radio. However, why you would assume that that means that I don't care about torture is a puzzle to me. Is there some sort of contest going on that I don't know about concerning who cares the most about torture?

  But, in the past, AKA has never wanted to make those kind of comparisons, has never shared the same sense of urgency and outrage over them as I do, because the urgency and outrage she feels over the abuse of children and women is about as much as she can bear. And I respect that, if I don't share it.

  How do you know how I feel? Are you a mind reader now, Bob?

  Have you ever noticed that they don't show people raping children on the news but they do show people getting shot and they do show dead bodies and that here in this thread Glenn has showed a man being abused with no thought to that man's privacy?

  As someone who can instantly call up images past, why would I want these things in my head? So that they can trigger the child abuse of my past for me? So that I can suddenly be back in PTSD-ville?

  Do you know what I can still see in my mind as clearly as if it were yesterday: Lisa Steinberg sitting at her school desk with her hair uncombed. The expression on OJ's face when he was found not guilty. The Twin Towers falling over and over again.

  I don't watch television, Bob, and I avoid all dramatic violent images that are real. That's because I get where I can't sleep. I start flashing on other people's pain.

  You surely have made lots of assumption about how I feel.

  Perhaps you feel that I should have a ghoulish fascination with brutality in order to validate my care-about-torture-creds.

  I am sorry but my mind and my stomach are not strong enough to want to make myself depressed and suicidal again. I really resent your assumption that you somehow care about torture but I don't?

  But if AKA wants to talk comment about the porn censorship conviction side of the case, I'm still trying to figure out what she is getting at, what the bun-fight she is having with two or three people is actually about. Because honestly, I can't figure out what is under dispute.

  If you will go back to my original post, you will see that I only asked questions and people assumed from my questions things that I do not think. Few people bothered to verify what I do think.

  Kind of like you just did.

  The only person whom I found interesting enough the really engage with is ondelette. I was interested in what she had to say.

  I believe that the type of porn that Paul Little was producing was violent porn with young girls (18 but still young) dressed and as part of the "plot" intended to be underage.

  I think that there is a relationship between all violence and am interested in trying to explore/figure out what it might be.

  I have sort of figured out who I shouldn't bother discussing it with. For instance, I was never interested in discussing torture with you during the primary because you seemed to have some sort of partisan political litmus test -- which you thought I failed by supporting Clinton.

  Sad, isn't it? You might have taught me something if you weren't so into blaming.

  Goodnight to you.

  —AKA Smith Read AKA Smith's other letters
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