June 26, 2001
6:34 PM Subscribe

Commander Porn, at your service! "...one of Canada's top naval commanders has been suspended from duty and humiliated in front-page headlines for accessing ''Penthouse-like sites'' on a portable computer provided to him by the military. "

Commodore Eric Lerhe, the 52-year-old chief of Canada's Pacific fleet, acknowledged to higher brass that he had on occasions downloaded images of naked women while off-duty and alone in officers' quarters during an assignment in the United States.

Isn't this overkill? A reprimand I could see, but does it make sense to punish this to this degree?
posted by revbrian (9 comments total)

While I don't want to jump on a PC-bashing bandwagon (it's so PC these days to bash PC...), one quote made the hairs on my neck stand up:

Feminist groups were cheering the military's stern measures.

''It's dangerous for women to be supervised by someone who looks at those kinds of Web sites,'' said Geraldine Glattstein, director of the Ontario-based advocacy group Women Against Violence Against Women.

Emphasis my own... that's scary stuff. However, I'd say he hasn't been humiliated; other than those palindromic WAVAW nutjobs, most people probably think this is a stupid punishment and a harmless, perfectly normal "offense". I'll bet his fellow officers and people who meet him on the street and recognize him probably say "Way to go, man, don't let those bastards get you down."
posted by hincandenza at 7:27 PM on June 26, 2001

[Feminist groups were cheering the military's stern measures]

Some times I don't think they'll be happy until all men find women physically unattractive.
posted by revbrian at 8:44 PM on June 26, 2001

These are very extreme, and uncommon feminists. Many feminists are all for pornography.
They all don't hate men.
posted by Doug at 9:16 PM on June 26, 2001

When pornography is outlawed, only outlaws will have have porn. At that point, you can call me Jesse James (apologies to jjg).

This is nothing but the thought police struggling to set their own agenda.
posted by fooljay at 9:23 PM on June 26, 2001

My sister is a civil-service computer specialist for the U.S. Army. Part of her job entails flying around the nation to check Army-issued computers for evidence that they are being/have been used for unsanctioned purposes. The vast majority of such use she finds, she says, is porn. Gee, what a surprise.

While I understand that any organization that issues equipment to an individual retains the right to determine what should and should not be done with the equipment, and while I also understand that use of military computers for personal uses could lead to security breaches, it boggles my mind nonetheless that the Army spends vast amounts of money to send my sister around the nation to check people's hard drive for evidence that they've been downloading porn.
posted by tippiedog at 9:26 PM on June 26, 2001

Fisher-Price just called. They said if Lerhe's been fired, then they want their fleet back.
posted by aaron at 10:28 PM on June 26, 2001

Doug: Oh yeah, meant to put that in my post as well. That's what scares me; folks like WAVAW do not represent either feminism or common sense.

As tippiedog sez, one can get foolishly overzealous with the morality police to the point of vastly diminishing returns. In this particular case the Commander was downloading a few pics during off hours, on a laptop, in officer's quarters, to the harm of no one. I work in IT, and when we get user's laptops back for repair or replacement, it's sometimes stunning the sheer amount of porn on those things (especially with the advertising guys- what's up with that?!?)... but I just delete it and move on, no harm done. I think this is one of those occasional MeFi posts- like most any having to deal with personal or private behavior- where pretty much we're all in agreement here.
posted by hincandenza at 12:03 AM on June 27, 2001

It's also similar to this thread where a few misguided nutjobs at the ACLU are making the entire ACLU look bad.
To echo Doug and hincandenza, these feminists do not represent all feminists - the definition of which is just someone who believes in equal rights for women. To me that means let us have whatever porn we want too.
I took some womens' studies classes in college, but quickly got fed up with being told what to think on this and other issues - that my beliefs were wrong and oppressive. It's so sad to me that a movement purporting to represent freedom for women sometimes becomes associated with these bizarre ideas that are more restrictive than liberating.
posted by hazyjane at 1:34 AM on June 27, 2001

I remember the 'apocalypse now' thread a week or so back. Someone mentioned when Kurtz was saying that kids will drop napalm but the brass wont let them write 'FUCK' on the airplanes. same thing. This guy might have pissed off the wrong crowd or is due to 'retire' or make an example but i dont think so. you make examples of commanders when they ram a trawler or bang some u.s. coast guard ensign. this seems political.
posted by clavdivs at 7:32 AM on June 27, 2001

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June 26, 2001 6:34 PM Subscribe

June 26, 2001
6:34 PM Subscribe