Let's Be Adults Now

To what childishness does man descend, in his ripe old age, when he allows himself to be held by the leash of sensuousness?

Immanuel Kant
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I;ve been looking over my recent entries here on Vagabond Journeys and noted that many of them are heavy. I've written about the universe, mind, intelligence, consciousness and so forth. I ask myself: "Self? Is that it? Can't you find anything else to write about? Can't you write abut something light and humorous?" Okay. Today I'm writing about everyone's favorite topic, pornography.

One morning, when I was doing temp work between shows, I was assigned to do some proofreading for a very large corporate law firm in New York City. Because it was located in one of the biggest, most prestigious locations in the city I wore my suit. When I arrived the receptionist directed me to a certain room. When I opened the door I saw a very long table and seated around it were about 20 men in suits, some in shirt sleeves, some with sleeves rolled up. But they all had ties. It was clear the meeting had been going on for some time. They looked at me with curiosity. Being a mischievous guy and sometimes a miscreant, I couldn't resist the temptation. I said "Good morning gentlemen,I'm from the SEC." The looked at me as if they were 20 frightened deer caught in the headlights.

I said "Just kidding, I'm the proofreader" left the room, closed the door and found an empty room to sit and wait. Later, one of the lawyers said I really had them scared for a moment. The one person you don't want in the room when you're engaged in the barracuda wheeling and dealing of high finance is someone from the SEC.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is the nations watch dog on Wall Street, you might say it's the financial world's detective force. That's why the major law and investment firms hire proofreaders so that no mistake gets by on the document they file with the SEC that might cause a red flag to pop up.

Now we learn the many high ranking members, the over $100,000 a year types, have been spending all their time watching pornography on their expensive office computers, recording it and keeping it in the locked drawers of their expensive desks.

Think of it, the nations top ranked police force of finance, the protector of home buyers, small businessmen and tax payers from the fraudulent practices of big banks and investment firms, the strong armed bully of DC has been caught literally with it's pants down. Truly, how DELIGHTFUL!!!

Not only that but it has been going on for years. All the time our economy was slowly heading down the thorny path to depression, banks and businesses were closing, unemployment rising, Bernard Madoff was robbing people, the large banks were plundering credit card holders and granting variable rate mortgages to people who shouldn't have them and the shenanigans of Goldman Sachs was going on under the watchful eye of no one, the SEC, in a classic Nero manner, was titillating itself. I can't wait for one of them to say he was only doing research. That should cause a good loud knee slapping guffaw all across America.

The bad side to this huge joke is that now the political right will use it as an excuse for there to be less government scrutiny and control of Wall Street, which is, of course, obviously and absolutely the wrong choice.

If you go into a Jewish restaurant in New York City and order a bagel, you'll get a bagel. If you go to an Italian restaurant and order a pizza, you'll get a pizza. In a Mexican restaurant you'll get an enchilada. There are many things that are called bagels, pizzas and enchiladas that aren't. One year a women's fashion designer was selling a line of clothes for teenage girls. Among the ads was a photograph of a 17 year old girl in some underwear. Some self-moralizing do-gooders sued the company saying that the picture was child pornography (which it wasn't of course, anyone who had ever seen pornography would know that), the judge agreed and the company had to remove the picture. At the same time there was another 17 year old who had a baby. Another bunch of do-gooders sued to have the baby taken away from her because she was too young. A feminist group came to her defense and the judge ruled in their favor saying "The woman has a right to have her baby." She's 17. If she has a baby she's a "woman" but if you take a picture of her in her underwear she's a "child." You untangle that hypocrisy. I can't.

I've seen pornography and I fail to see why anyone would spend 8 hours a day looking at it and surfing the web to find it. Anyone who does that must become aware that he has a problem and needs to check into a clinic for a cure and not go to the Chop Stick Massage Parlor after work to relive his fantasies. After a couple of times porn all begins to look the same. The colors change, the ages change, the genders change and sometimes the toys change, but basically it's how many different ways one can stage the same event.

But to be fair we shouldn't call it "pornography." It has been whitewashed with the name "erotic art" which it isn't. Good erotic art has nothing pornographic about it. No, to be politically correct we must refer to it as "adult entertainment" although what is so adult about it also eludes me.

DB - The Vagabond
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WEEKEND CONTEST

"What's in a name?" Your challenge is to give me a humorous name beginning with the same letters that matches a persons career, work or major activity. For example:

The Russian Cosmonaut - Boris Blastov
The French cabdriver - Henri Honkalotte
The Irish mechanic - Tommy Tinker

Enter as often as you wish, be imaginative, have fun and good luck. The decision of the bucolic judge is final.

DB - The Vagabond
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