The Dower Power Hour

So, when we left off Reuben Sturman had made the valuable discovery that adult magazines and books lead to higher profits. Thus, he increasingly emphasized that aspect of his business, investing all his revenue into expanding his operations throughout Ohio, and then the United States. By the late 1960s, Sturman was the biggest vendor of adult magazines in the country. This attracted government attention, which was slowly losing the war against its loose definition of obscenity.

In 1964, the FBI raided one of Reuben’s warehouses and confiscated thousands of copies of Sex Life of a Cop. Although Reuben won his case, making him a hero in the rapidly expanding pornography business, this made him a permanent government target for legal action. Obscenity charge after obscenity charge floundered in court, however. Reuben Sturman became a master at hiding his identity and his money. He created more than twenty false identities, including passports and other legal documents. He fragmented his businesses and set up Canadian flunkies, who were the owners on paper but in fact received generous cuts for the use of their names. Eventually, Reuben hid most of his money in a variety of Swiss bank accounts which were virtually impenetrable. All the while, Sturman’s business boomed as he expanded into virtually every conceivable corner of the sex industry.

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Chances are you’ve never heard of Reuben Sturman but for a time he was one of the richest, most powerful men in America. What Rockefeller was to oil, Sturman was to porno magazines and erotic novels. What Carnegie was to the steel industry, Sturman was to snuff films and peeping shows. By the time he was busted for tax evasion in the 1980s, Reuben Sturman had a virtual monopoly on the porn industry both in American and in Europe and was pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

In fact, Sturman’s incarceration is one of the reasons that porn is as prevalent as it is; arresting Reuben Sturman had the same effect that trust-busting has on more recognizable monopolies. Profit margins went down and tens of thousands of people entered the business without having to give a portion of their proceeds to anyone else. The United States Government, in all its infinite wisdom, is partially to thank for what Eric Schlosser termed the “democratization of porn.”

This summer I finished the book Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market by Schlosser, who also wrote the higher profile Fast Food Nation. Reefer Madness traces the history and modern forms of the three biggest “illegitimate” forms of business in America: marijuana, illegal immigrants and their effect on the labor market, and the porn industry. FYI, I highly recommend this study. I found it to be a compelling and engaging mix of anecdotes and interviews, economics, and history.

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Just a quick note here.  Paul MacCready, the inventor of the first practical flying machine powered by a human being, passed away on Wednesday.  This modern day Da Vinci was the first American pilot to become World Gliding Champion and founded AeroVironment, a technology company that is primarily involved in energy systems, electric vehicle systems, and unmanned aerial vehicle.  His most notable accomplishment was this:

The Gossamer Condor was the first human powered aircraft capable of more than short uncontrolled hops.  He later invented the Gossamer Albatross which improved the design and crossed the English Channel.  Pretty dang impressive!

Suffice to say, his achievements are worthy of recognition and celebration.  Good for you ol’ chap!  Rest in peace.

So today I received an email asking for help on the creation and distribution of a Stop the Genocide in Darfur petition at my college.  Being the student body president, I politely declined any sort of official involvement because Student Government exists to deal with the issues of the students, not world concerns.  (I did give her some useful tips on how to start a campus organization and get some funding for advertising and possibly an awareness event.)

However this raises another question: should we even bother with petitions that won’t accomplish anything.  Let me explain.  A petition has a noteworthy chance of success in one of the following two situations:

1.)  The petitioner is working within a democratic society within the constituency of the recipient and concerns an issue about which recipient has some direct or indirect control.  For example, a petition to raise the state minimum wage which contains the signatures of 20% of the state’s adult population could directly effect state policy on that issue.

2.)  The petition is directed at a cooperation, industry, or interest group and concerns, again, an issue or policy that this organization has some degree of influence over.  For example, if I petition Target to stop testing their namebrand nasal spray on rabbits and I can get 1,000,000 signatures, Target may well comply because all the negative press and angry costumers is hurting their business or giving them bad press.

Unfortunately, in the Darfur situation, a petition on a college campus to “stop the genocide” is rather ineffective.  The people committing the genocide to not have an interest in keeping American college students happy.  In fact, I feel confidant that they are quite indifferent to the sentiments of our student body.  Now, a petition calling for U.S. military intervention in Darfur is a little bit more likely to provoke some change.  However, this too, I think, exists somewhat outside the effectiveness of a petition.  Not to mention the fact that it may not be an appropriate or practical policy for the US to pursue.  Maybe if we can get the UN to do something, but their peacekeeping (or rather, peace-making) record is pretty poor at this point.

The counter argument is, of course, that a petition may raise awareness on an important world issue, thereby irradiating ignorance  and increasing the likelyhood of a broader movement which could prove more effective than the petition itself.  Education is definitely important and is probably the most persuasive reason to promote a Stop the Genocide in Darfur.  However, a petition is probably not the most effective way to educate people or raise their awareness.  Especially at a college campus, a prominent event or publicity stunt such as a skit or someone in a costume (the Darfur equivalent of bringing a wrecked car on campus to raise awareness of the dangers of DWI) probably be the wiser course of action.

Maybe I’m wrong though.  Do you think a “Petition to Stop the Genocide in Darfur” is more than just an exercise in futility?

(Oh, and if you do want to do more to stop the genocide in Darfur, please check out this site.)

Hey guys.  If you haven’t already heard about it, something related to Owen Wilson happened recently.  However, I urge you not to look it up and if you hear someone gossiping about it, walk away.  From the handful of paragraphs I read before I had the good sense to stop, he doesn’t want people to know about it and it’s nobody’s business but his own.  Sorry for being so mysterious, I know it only makes you want to look it up, but I was so sickened by the article I read and the way the paparazzi is all over the incident that I wanted to intercept as many people as I could before they stumbled across it.  Thanks.

Yes, Gonzales finally resigned. But more importantly, the University of Vermont has installed a gender-neutral bathroom for its transgender and handicapped students. (No, this isn’t meant to imply that being transgendered is a handicap, although I am sure it does make life more complicated.)  “At least 17 colleges and universities have included gender-neutral bathrooms in their new construction or in retrofitting residence halls.” Apparently transgender students are often the subject to verbal and even physical abuse in normal restrooms where their physical differences are met with discomfort and antagonism.

I have two questions:

1.) How many people constitutes a large enough minority to warrant thousands of dollars in construction? Is this a policy that should be pursued elsewhere or is this a waste of student’s tuition to accommodate a handful of individuals special needs? The four single bathrooms that UVM is installing — each with a toilet, sink, shower and lockable door — cost about $2,500 a piece to build.

2.) Will this actually help make transgender students avoid ridicule? My fear is that segregating these individuals might make them stand out negatively and subject them to more targeted attacks in the future. On the other hand, having never had an in-depth conversation with a transgendered individual, maybe a little bit of recognition is a good thing and would help people recognize their differences and stop pretending that this isn’t an issue.

What do ya’ll think?

In the spirit of education, I have decided to start a weekly post about little-known heroes of the past. You won’t see these people lauded in textbooks, but in their own way they were courageous and ahead of their time.

Today’s unsung hero is Henry Taylor Blow. Mr. Blow was born in 1817 in the state of Virginia. His parents, Peter and Elizabeth, were the owners of Dred Scott, the black slave immortalized by the worst Supreme Court ruling in U.S. history. Henry attended St. Louis University in the early 1830s and became a member of the Missouri Senate from 1854 to 1858.

He strongly opposed the Dred Scott ruling, siding with the family slave over his own financial self-interest. Upon Dred Scott’s court defeat, Mr. Blow promptly freed him, allowing Scott to die a free man a short while later. Henry Taylor Blow was eventually appointed the U.S. Minister to Venezuela by President Lincoln and served on the U.S. House of Representatives from 1863 to 1867. During the Grant administration, he was appointed Minister to Brazil and later served as one of the original members of the Washington D.C. Board of Commissions. He died in 1875.

OK, this genuinely blows the mind. This is going to totally change newspaper editing and imaging forever. I don’t want to describe it, because it would take a long time and would be far more ineffective than simply showing you the video. But if you have any interest in graphic design and layout, take a look because it really is quite revolutionary.

Credit for finding this goes to my friend Karen Huang. It seems that someone converted an old water tower into a fully furnished and incredibly attractive home. Check it out!

I’m not sure why this clip hasn’t gotten more publicity but I find it interesting that more than ten years ago Cheney predicted the exact outcome of the current invasion of Iraq. It’s like a Greek tragedy about a clairvoyant king who suffers from chronic memory loss and thus forgets all his predictions… Or maybe I’m giving Cheney too much credit. Maybe it would be more accurate to say it is the story of a king who lets his greed overwhelm his better judgment.