Disclaimers or Full Disclosure or "What the hell?"

It may seem incongruous that I offer suggestions on children's books, followed by posts on Capt. Kirk doing space chicks and Bono of U2 singing about his boner. Well, I view most of the web as a place for adults, adults communicating with one another. Thus, I will write like an adult and broach adult topics. I do not and will not allow children on the web unsupervised. When MPC (most precious child) does get to use the web, she's confined to kid, reference, science, and merchant sites. She will never have a computer in her room. All computers will be in the common room.

Filters will never work entirely and p0rn spam is ubiquitous. We really need some laws at the federal level halting pornographic email spam. It wouldn't be as difficult as some make it out to be, as in "define pornography first," which is nearly impossible. No, there is a practical approach. The law could be that no unsolicited nude pictures or any email containing any term from a specific list of words for body parts and sex - not including non-obscene, informational terms like "breasts," "penis," etc. - could be sent via email; the penalty for doing so being threat of fines and prison, which would include "ass poundings" as described in Office Space. The key term is "unsolicited" so that friends mailing friends dirty/fun stuff would still be OK. Just this morning I accidentally opened up a p0rn spam with a large, full-color picture of active boinking. The "from" name was someone I know, so I was pretty pissed when it turned out to be hard-core p0rn, because not only did I open it at work - a firing offense - but now the p0rn meisters have my email and IP address from the graphics that loaded, so I will now be inundated from that site. Those bastards.

I am also a Christian, so some other Christians will no doubt question my use of various vulgarities. From my understanding of the Bible, it doesn't have anything to say directly about what we currently call "profanity," a.k.a. cussing. There are a lot of general things about living a pure life, keeping your thoughts pure and so on, which are all good goals. I maintain that cussing, discussing sex, telling blue jokes and such aren't necessarily impure, and depend on context. Am I having pure thoughts when, ahem, "knowing" my wife?

I have a buddy who can say "fuck you" with such affection, it feels as if he had used the other word commonly associated to that particular deed (that being "love" for those of you in the cheap seats). Intent behind words is much more important than the words themselves. If I tell a dirty joke I've read on the net to my wife, is that really bad? I don't think so.

That doesn't mean I'll walk around talking, or writing, like a Quentin Tarantino character all the time. But once in a while I'll be crude, because crude can be fun. Harmless fun. We are here to have fun. To fart around, as Kurt Vonnegut puts it.

True story: Once a charming, wonderful Catholic Priest was telling me a story, and at one point he'd used the term "move it over a blond" as his instruction on how far to nudge a board he was trying to nail down. After the story, I asked what he meant, and he said, "Oh ... well ... YOU know, um, a pubic hair from a brunette is thicker in circumference than one from a blonde, and a red-head's is the thinnest of all." So he meant move it about two pixels instead of one or three. "Oh," I said, in response. And immediately made my escape so I could laugh myself silly. I think even that Priest would agree that crude is often fun, and not a sin.

The commandment "do not take the Lord's name in vain" is actually about claiming to believe in God or to belong to God when neither is true. In other words, don't pretend to believe in God if you don't. Lip service is not welcome. It can also mean don't curse someone in the name of God - that's a big no no. But, it's not about cussing, damnit.

Though, using the names of, titles, or references to God, Jesus, Mary, etc. is disrespectful - to say the least - and a sin. I do avoid using names and terms for God and other holy people, with the sad exception being a habit I can't break where I tend to bellow Jesus' name and title when drastically startled. Much like that fabulous moment in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where King Arthur bellows the same when a bunny bites a knight's head off - mind you he does this whilst on a search for the Holy Grail. (I don't think a lot of folks get that joke during the movie.) However, besides asking forgiveness, I justify it in that if the thing that startled me were to actually kill me, I would be saying Jesus' name as I met him. Hopefully he'll find that amusing and not make me do some time in fundie heaven.