To a Reggae beat, "let's blame the teacher and feel all right"

Two stories on opposite sides of the world:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/02/13/teacher.porn.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/02/05/gorbachev.gates.reut/index.html

In the first, an American teacher's computer was infected by an email with spyware that spread links to pornographic sites which some of her kids found while she was temporarily out of the classroom.

The school had not paid a bill therefore Internet protection wasn't working.

In the second story, a Russian principal faces Russian jail (including prison rape and widespread AIDs and TB in these jails) because his school's network had unlicensed Microsoft software.

Although former Soviet premiere Mikhail Gorbachev, and even the current leader Vladimir Putin (not known for compassion) have questioned the Russian teacher's railroading, Microsoft has issued a statement in which it has REFUSED TO DEFEND the teacher, because, I guess, business is business.

What's happening in both cases? What's the Structuralism?

In both cases, a widespread abuse is winked at. In fact, kids are always being exposed not only to inappropriate sexual content, but in failed states, owing to the deliberate actions of superpowers, kids are also exposed to, and are the victims of, the next step: physical ultraviolence: in Baghdad yesterday, a six year old Sunni kid was found WITH HIS EYES PUT OUT because Shi'a thugs couldn't find his father, and deliberate United States policy destroyed a society in 2003 which for all its failings had cops, and in which a kid's eyes weren't put out as a rule.

And, of course, no kid under the age of 14 should today use a computer, in my opinion, without a (rare) adult willing to not only arm the kid with the latest in Internet protection, but also, and far more important, be willing to sit next to that kid. Of course, for most wealthy and powerful people, actually sitting next to a kid and helping him is nothing more than a photo op.

But because of the failings of people who are having their feasts on the backsides of beasts while tutors and ahmahs watch the kids, we must have a scapegoat.

Mustn't we.

And systematically, this is the teacher without power, at the bottom of the heap.

The American teacher was a substitute. Most substitute teachers in fact would prefer full time jobs, but these jobs are treated as PROPERTY and as SINECURES by teachers' unions, and I'd speculate whether the permanent teacher, mentioned in the CNN story, hadn't played a foul trick on the fall girl.

Russian teachers recently starved unpaid.

And neither Bill nor Melinda Gates can give a damn because what we do today, in order to preserve the profit-seeking holy damned Corporation, is we set up a Foundation in which we do our good things because we represent Power and Goodness.

Hard working computer consultants have put it on the line for the American teacher. They've testified that this infection with pornographic spyware can happen to anyone. They risk being tarred by Puritans as soft on child abuse.

But an ambitious prosecutor sees an opportunity to grandstand.

As an author, I've been offered free copies of Microsoft Visual Studio under the table, and these are used as currency by Microsoft in order to favor people who will say nice things about them. Under our system, this is business as usual. But one possible name for it is corruption.

Therefore, a Russian teacher faces Russian jail for having software he can get for free if he only could visit Redmond.

In view of what's going on today, let me be blunt. I was exposed to all sorts of sexual content at a vulnerable age, not by a teacher or Uncle Fun, but by the promotion of James Bond films alone. I'd never seen a bikini before.

Instead of being scarred for life, I waited until I was 19 and then went out and found a girl who looked nice in a bikini, and lost my cherry.

I think some kid being exposed to non-violent pornography is not good, but in place of the peep show today, we have movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl, in which the sex is removed, Kiera Knightely is covered up, but the violence is disturbingly UNRESTRAINED.

And we sacrifice teachers and the powerless to the Beast we have made ourselves to be.

If global warming didn't affect first the Wretched of the Earth while Americans simply crank the A/C and destroy states for oil priced in dollars, I'd say bring it on, G-d.