As IF Times

link Scarlett Johansson Threatens to Sue Over Nude Photos – UsMagazine.com.

Of course, the FBI is all over this one.  Apparently dozens of agents have volunteered their own personal time to work on this case.  The amount of time spent poring over evidence will be astronomical.   Staff will be pulled off cases looking for terrorist bombers in order to solve this pressing case.  Removing nude pics from the Internet.  Good luck with that. 

Poor Scarlett is obviously aghast that someone would hack into her telephone and steal private photos of her.  Living as she does in fairyland, she was unaware that just recently, Congressman Anthony Weiner had also suffered the fate of having his tighty-whities displayed on the world’s biggest billboard.  Of course in Weiner’s case, he was targeting a specific audience. but unlike Scarlett, the only ones who may have been interested were probably gay men.

The philosophical issue is that pictures stolen from Scarlett’s phone are equivalent to having them stolen from a locked drawer in her house.  I suppose that makes sense in theory and we won’t argue with the principle.  But here is the essential seam which separates principled types from common sense types: theory is not reality.  I can bake a pie and place it on my window to cool, but if it’s on a busy street, certain unprincipled types are going to take my pie.  If I want to park my convertible on Chicago’s south side, it may not be a good idea to leave the Nikon in full display on the car seat.  

Celebrities who need exposure to further their careers are often the ones to bleat about privacy issues when they know that their lives are lived under a microscope.  At least Oprah and Joy Behar are smart enough not to take nude pics of themselves on their phones.  Imagine the audience for that.  Anyone who thinks cell phones are private are plain delusional.  If Wikileaks can hack into top military secrets, what makes anyone think their Verizon account is safe?   In real life, people regularly have things stolen from their cars, their homes, they may even have nude pics of themselves circulating without their consent, but those are the hazards of real life.  Years and years of indifferent applications of punishments for law breaking has resulted in expectations of a certain amount of criminal behavior in our society.  How many people these days don’t lock their car or house when they leave?  What does it say when years ago, in many cities, it was common to see “no radio” stickers on car windows?   Most petty crimes aren’t even prosecuted any more for the time and effort involved. 

Celebrities should not live under the delusion that they are immune from the vicissitudes of life that normal people deal with.  Celebrity status does not entirely insulate them from the society they choose to live in.  They only benefit is that they get to publicize their moral outrage.

link Frenchman ordered to pay wife damages for lack of sex – Telegraph.

Well what a slippery slope this is.  You can literally hear the stampede of lawyers rushing to the boardrooms as they huddle to quantify exactly what ‘adequate’ is when it comes to conjugal activities between husbands and wives.  When you think about it, there is very little reference to those duties in the normal wedding vows.  Oh sure, “I promise to be faithful” etc etc, but that doesn’t imply any threshold of performance within the marriage.  It’s not as if there’s a line in the wedding registry which the couple signs spelling out the amount or frequency expected in the new marriage.

And of course, there are loopholes.  Let’s say instead of a regularly scheduled amount of sex extending into infinity, the couple chooses the lump sum course of action, sort of like taking the lottery proceedings in a discounted payout.  In this scenario there is guaranteed level of action for a set period of time.  What happens when this threshold gets reached?  I mean really, if the couple  are possessed of more than the normal levels of hormones, they can rifle through the quota within the first 2 or 3 years.  Then what? Is there any further liability or obligation?

What about sex in kind?  An activity can be substituted for sex which accrues a credit.  For example, shopping for shoes can count as a credit…actually that would be more like 3 credits.  Watching any chick movie involving Matthew McConaughey and or Kate Hudson will count for at least 10.  If there’s a constant flow of affectionate but non physical behaviour, can these constitute as credits as well?

Then there are the issues of duration and quality. Do both have to agree that the encounter was satisfactory? You can easily see that this aspect will be open to contentious dispute.  What are the financial penalties involved in non-performance?  Lawyers will be bursting with new business.  But it’s not just lawyers.  When you think about it, there are going to be lots of defaults on ‘contracts’.  The logical action is to protect oneself against financial ruin in the case of non performance .  Enter…Insurance!  In the not too far future, couples will buy rings, take a blood test and buy nuptial insurance to start their futures together.  This will be commonly referred to as “Putout Insurance”. As well as showing off the size of the engagement rings, they can compare the size of their insurance policies.  “Oh you are so lucky, it’s so big!! He must really love you!”

Nothing says romance like a big payout.