Joe Francis cries as he goes to jail

Joe Francis is the guy who started and owns the "Girls Gone Wild" business. He's off to jail. He cried in court. Boo-hoo. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

From what I've seen, Joe seems little more than a typical 20-something doofus who can't get a real girlfriend, and gets overexcited at the prospect of seeing a woman topless. But he is more than that. For one thing, he's 30-something. For another, he's a very successful porn entrepreneur who has figured out how to get his chicks for free. Apparently he gets very young women to appear in his videos for little more than a hat or T-shirt.

Then Joe sells the videos on tv. He has made millions. If you ever watch cable tv after 11:00 pm, you can't miss Joe's ubiquitious infomercials.

Joe and his gang go out and solicit young women on the street or at bars. These are not girls who have made a decision to seek out the chance to publicly appear nude or have lesbian sex for the camera. It's an impulse buy. Usually they are drunk. A lot of these young women are under 21 so this fact comes into play. The girls lift their tops, or shed all their clothes, or make out with each other, or hop into bed together.

There's something that smells evil about this particular business plan, and I don't like it.

What seems evil to me about it is this picture of an older adult tempting young people into degrading themselves. Here these young women, 18 or 19 years old, (younger in the Florida case) are induced into exposing themselves and more by the lure of being the center of attention, validation of their attractiveness, the promise of a little bit of fame, and the idea that getting a little crazy is what young people are supposed to do.

Of course it's all a bunch of bullshit. It's embarrassing to see these girls acting like airheaded bimbos yelling "Whoooo!" while they lift their tops. I wonder how that goes over at job interview time. Or at the family holiday dinner. Just wait until their 10th class reunion.

So these young women end up on videos being purchased by losers who sit around the tv set and masturbate to the images of these "girls gone wild."

See how cool it all is? Party! Whooooo!

But what is really wrong about it is the prospect of Joe Francis and his gang walking around the streets looking for young, gullible women to approach. It seems so predatory. Looking for youthful innocence to corrupt.

I know these girls are "women." But I think of them as our youth. Our American youth. And this is how we treat them. It's just bad.

Now the feds are onto Joe for tax fraud. Now that's entertainment!

Al G and the I-Man

The Attorney General of the United States testified to the United States Senate yesterday. That sounds pretty official and kind of pompous, but that's what was going on. I'm a small town lawyer, so I follow this stuff. Also, it's important.

So, some thoughts.

First of all, Alberto Gonzalez is the Attorney General of the United States. He works for us, the American people. His loyalty and is duty are to the United States, not to the President, not to the Administration, not to George W. Bush, and not to the Republican Party. I am starting to feel like a fool for believing this.

But I have hope. Arlen Specter, the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania. Boy, he ripped Al a new one, as we used to say in my Navy days. And a well deserved one at that. How did this knucklehead get to be the Attorney General of the United States? Senator Specter, hats off to you.

Specifically Sen. Specter was grilling Al on his attempt to tap dance around lying about how he fired (or compelled to resign) the 8 United States Attorneys (the Big Al 8.) Big Al claimed that he testified accurately before Congress, but "misspoke" at news conferences. In answer to the Senator, Al said that yes he did make sure he was prepared before appearing before Congress, but tried not to answer when pressed about whether he prepared before appearing at a news conference. In what sounded to my ear like a child whining , Al said, "I already said I misspoke."

If you're still reading, you may be thinking, "So what? What's the big deal?"

The big deal is this. Al lied directly to the American people. Directly. That's who he is talking to when he speaks at a news conference. Our Attorney General is speaking directly to us. And he lied.

But he's not under oath at a news conference. So it's not perjury, so it's not illegal. That makes it no big deal. See? He just "misspoke."

That's not how I see it. And that's not how Arlen Specter sees it.

By the way, Al has now apologized to the 8 fired U.S. Attorneys for falsely stating that their firings were for performance related issues. Huh.

The Attorney General is our lawyer. Lawyers have duties to their clients. Lawyers have ethical rules that they must follow. Legal ethics are not some pie in the sky, doing what you think is the right thing sort of conscience guidance. Legal ethics are written rules. And they are based on the concept of each individual lawyer having an independent duty to follow them. "I was just following orders" won't excuse unethical behavior by a lawyer.

Or at least it shouldn't.

United States Attorneys operate somewhat like independent prosecutors in their jurisdictions. They are very important positions. Al's defense to this whole scandal is that he didn't participate in the decision to fire them and didn't really know how they were selected or why they were fired. Yet he was the one who fired them.

So his defense is that he was not doing his job illegally because he was not doing his job at all.

Sigh.

The President supports him.

Sigh.

So what has this to do with the I-Man? When the I-Man "misspoke" he was fired. Twice. As far as I know the President did not offer any support.

But when the U.S. Attorney General "misspoke," also slandering people who didn't deserve it, he holds on. With Presidential support.

Is Alberto Gonzalez being held to a lower standard of professional behavior than Don Imus?

I'm glad we have people like Arlen Specter in our government. Somebody has to take reponsibility for rooting out corruption. Too bad our Attorney General isn't doing it.

Tragedy Anonymous

Yesterday 198 people were murdered and over 500 injured by terrorist bombs in Baghdad. 3 American soldiers also were killed.
I'm looking at all the news channels and I can't find out who killed these people or who the dead are.
The information coming out of the Virginia Tech murders is pretty comprehensive.
I'd like to see the same resources and results in reporting from Baghdad.
We (American people - voters) need more information.
I often get the impression from our own news organizations that if the dead people were not American then their deaths are not important, and certainly not newsworthy. Something's not right about that.
I thought we were trying to help these people. Maybe if we acted like we really cared about them, even just by paying attention, it would help us find the right path.