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10/04/2006: "Predators Have Always Been Among Our Children --- More than We Know"

The Mark Foley scandal, which threatens to destroy the GOP, is bringing up an ugly part of our culture. Twisted people, mostly men, have been among our children forever.

My mother is dead or I would not tell this ugly story. I never told her because she would have killed for me. No one hurt her child.

When I was about twelve-years-old my mother sent me to a local typesetting shop to learn to set type. The owner was a middle-aged man whose wife worked in his office. I went to the shop each week and took a young friend so I would have someone with me.

My mother thought I was safe since the wife worked there and a friend went with me. My mother was wrong.

The man made sexual advances at both my friend and me. I wouldn't tell mother. I was ashamed and embarrassed. I didn't understand it. I thought it was because of something I did wrong.

When I was in my early twenties I put an ad in the paper offering to do freelance photography along with my writing. I got a call from a well-placed man in the community who offered me a project. My female friend and assistant and I went to his house and discovered that what he wanted was for us to take photos of him in sexual activity.

Here was a highly regarded man in the community. A church-going family man. I was a young kid. Who would the authorities believe? I said nothing again. And, of course, I did not accept the job and left as fast as I could.

Those things were raw when I was young. Now I've been in the newspaper business and related businesses for forty years plus and nothing shocks me. I know people and I know that what you see is not often what you get.

As I said in my previous post, I could tell many horror stories about people in politics and business --- people in general. These sick people have always been with us. They prey on the vulnerable. They prey on the least able to defend themselves.

If they're powerful --- and many are --- they abuse that power. They know that people won't tell on them and if they do, no one will believe them. It's the word of the powerful against the powerless.

In the current Washington scandal let us not think it is just the Republicans or the Gays or the men. Predators come in all stripes, all colors, both sexes, all parties, all sexual orientations. Most are straight men, however, if the studies are to be believed.

Perhaps it's time we take a look at our society, our culture. Perhaps we need to discover who these people are and effect laws to put them away from society. They should not be a part of it. I know first hand what these people can do to your outlook on life and how it affects your relationships; how you lose your innocence and trust forever.

These people should not be among us. They certainly should not be near young people. They should not be running our country. And those who knew about Foley should fall with him for they too are guilty. They put politics --- a seat in congress --- before the safety of the young they were sworn to protect.