I collect pornography . . .I collect pornography . . .
. . . including a Pornography CommissionerThe Arizona Hall of Shame (as opposed to the Hall of Flame, a firefighting museum) has included many members since Arizona became a state. One of my favorites is Charles H. Keating, Jr. who was a principal behind the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, a.k.a. Meese Commission on Pornography. Keating swindled a few thousand people out of their life savings with a self-delusion called the Lincoln Saving Bank. This was after his organization, Citizens for Decency through Law (Keating, of course, proved himself to be indecent and lawless),had been moved by Keating from Cincinnati (where he also had legal problems and maybe had to leave town). As an example of The Jimmy Swaggart Syndrome, he was an anti-pornography crusader — willing to manufacture a reality to match his perceptions of pornography as evil. And it simply follows that his pornography perceptions are based upon his own ownership and use, doesn't it? Thousands of poor people might still have their savings if Keating had gotten the mental health treatment he needed for what must be his own pornography addiction. J. Edgar Hoover againI can make all these assumptions because the Meese Commission on Pornography included a homosexual! And I can bring J. Edgar Hoover into this because this flaming homosexual commissioner had been vetted by the FBI. No news here since we know the FBI couldn't even see suicide hijackers training in our own flight schools, some right here in Arizona. My hundreds of magazinesI had re-started collecting pornographic magazines in the 1970' s in New York City. I'd lost my first purchases, the Young Physique magazines purchased at my neighborhood Rexall Drug Store in Springfield, Mo. By the time I arrived in Arizona in 1980, I had several hundred magazines, including some old After Dark magazines, and an early Playgirl competitor called Viva. My background in book publishing made me believe in the first amendment. I've proved it. Ironic summitOne day in 1985 I achieved the summit of irony when I learned that the Meese Commission on Pornography was coming to Scottsdale for a work session. I learned this because a friend called to ask if I could provide accommodations for my friend and companion, one of whom was a pornography commissioner. I'd made this connection through a tangential connection to an early Gay positive book published by Dell/Delacorte Press in New York in 1978, Word Is Out which was drawn from a documentary film of the same name. How could I have anticipated this obscure connection would result in a Meese Commissioner staying at my house, in a bedroom with a closet containing my own collection of pornography? I had truly reached a summit I did not realize I was scaling: irony. My personal commission reportMy friend, the Commissioner, told me how the Commission was being managed completely by the commission staff, a product of Charles Keating and headed by Alan E. Sears. Despite what the Commission had voted to move past in its deliberations, if a decision didn't jive with the staff's pre-conceptions of the horror of pornography, the staff would put issues back on the Commission's agenda. The Commission work session here in Scottsdale also had occasion to view video pornography from Zorba's Adult Shop which was only a few blocks from the Commission's meeting. Edwin Meese rememberedThe Meese commission was obviously a complete fraud, as is generally accepted today. Thankfully, nothing ever came from its report. Edwin Meese is also remembered for his hubris in the decline of the Nixon administration, firing the Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox when Cox began trying to make reality intrude in Nixon's delusion. But his name is emblazoned on his greatest folly, the Meese Commission. It's a pity that we don't call it the Keating Savings Bank so we could have an infamous institution bearing his name.
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Updated 3-18-2005
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