Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

Over millions of years of human, and prior pre-human, evolution, some things became so important that that they’re not optional, they’re built into human DNA. They’re reflexes, things that happen involuntarily, without any conscious thought beforehand. Breathing is a good example. People breathe all day every day without thinking about it. In fact, you have to consciously make the decision to stop breathing. Oxygenating blood is so important that breathing is not optional.

Protecting your eyes is another important built-in function. When something comes toward your eyes, you blink without thinking about it. It is so important that your eyes not contact other objects that your eyelids close immediately. You have no choice.

Who am I to argue with millions of years of evolution?

Utterly terrifying.

[Julie Amero] was substituting for an English class. She went to the restroom, and when she returned, students were gathered around a computer that was displaying porn pop-ups. Amero, who describes herself as a total computer novice, couldn’t make them stop, and she eventually ran to the teacher’s lounge to get help. In court, school officials admitted that the antivirus software installed on the PC was out of date, and antispyware programs were not installed. A school official did tell parents, however, that the school district had comprehensive filtering and firewall software in place at the time.

Although it’s hard to conjure up a simple explanation for why a substitute teacher would show middle-school students porn pop-ups on purpose, Amero was prosecuted on the ground that she had done this intentionally. She was eventually found guilty and faced the prospect of 40 years in jail because of the incident.

The idea that circumstances beyond my control could cost me the rest of my life in prison because of some superheated sexual paranoia that fuels illogically indignant parents and abusive prosecutors makes me want to surround my house with razor wire and land mines. Considering that in Ohio, you can be declared a sex offender without any criminal conviction whatsoever, I wonder if there is any truly safe place to live where children and their parents can’t potentially ruin your life at a whim.