h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are hundreads of Hamilton's images in existence. His book "25 Years of an Artist" contains a selection of them. He does landscapes, nudes and still life. Some of his models appear to be under 16. This arguably makes the images 'child pornography' under British law. Hamilton didn't take any of the photographs in Britain, as far as I know, so he's OK here. His books can be purchased here, however, presumably lawfully.

toxx

At your own risk, you can go here to get some idea of his work: http://www.ocaiw.com/catalog/index.php?catalog=foto&author=114
I am not a lawyer, so I can't comment on the legality of following this or any other link!

>>There are hundreads of Hamilton's images in existence. His book "25 Years of an Artist" contains a selection of them. He does landscapes, nudes and still life. Some of his models appear to be under 16. This arguably makes the images 'child pornography' under British law. Hamilton didn't take any of the photographs in Britain, as far as I know, so he's OK here. His books can be purchased here, however, presumably lawfully.<<

And did you download the landscapes, the still life, the adult nudes, or the just the images of under-age children?

Just so that we understand completely how unfairly you were treated?

Jez

>><><.>

>> hi jez, too give young people a better start out look in live ,there are youths 16 leaving school are running about the street doing nothing not even wanting to look for work , now 2 years service could learn them a trade, learn them to drive ,etc learn them to be young men and women with respect .

>>

>>well there is a school unit near me that has kids that can't cope with mainstream school ,now i don't mean handicaped kids with specail needs , iam talking about kids who don't want to learn , eg a group of kids where in the unit they could not spell there names etc , but the same kids could write there names etc on walls of houses shops etc THEY DON'T WANT TO LEARN IT DIFFERS FROM KIDS WHO CAN'T LEARN , THATS WHAT IAM ON ABOUT <<

Yes, I gathered that, there was no need to shout

But the point I am making is the one my father made when National service was abolished - that all it did for that particular group was turn them into well-trained thugs...

And he went through the original National Service, a World War.

I have to admit that after educating young people for a couple of decades, I agree with him - and my own viewpoint is that in fact young people disillusioned with education should be allowed to seek a job at an earlier age, while keeping an entitlement to free education at a later time in their lives when they know more about themselves and their needs.

A voucher system, where 13 years of educational courses are free for everyone, but where the last four, for instance, can be deferred until adulthood, and taken as modules or evening classes, sabbatical years etc.

But National Service? There are few virtues that I can see in that. By all means, allow young people to join the Armed Forces, if that if the way they are inclined. But to force a young yob into an environment where he can exercise his strength of body to bully others - which is what happened during National Service to many less 'assertive' young people - is to enshrine a past mistake in a modern setting.

Jez

yes tha'ts, true ,, look at school leavers just now , some are lucky enough to find work ,but some aint there bored nothing to do they get turned away . now some of the things we are paying taxes for ,eg to keep some in jail etc , now like something like a service to learn kids how to be adults , theres a load that cant afford to say learn to drive etc how to look for work ,give them a chance etc , now would you not like to see the tax you pay going to something worthwhile ,than people in jail , if they learn better it might keep them from ending there .

Oh, irony and condescension *before* you get the reply, Jez! I didn't claim to have been treated unfairly. In fact, the lawyers were fairer the higher one got. The law itself is unfair, as it picks on photographers while ignoring painters, for example. Most unfair have been my neighbours - who have attempted to burn down my house with me in it a couple of times!

As to your question: although I'm on means-tested benefit, I have a couple of Hamilton's books; expensive though they are. They include a selection of his work over which I have no control. The material on the net requires payment unless one goes via the 'back door' as it were. You might guess that those who provide it for free don't tend to specialise in the landscape and still-life stuff.

I've downloaded whatever I could find; sometimes duplicating images in the books I have.

toxx

Jez >>

toxx >>Oh, irony and condescension *before* you get the reply, Jez! I didn't claim to have been treated unfairly. In fact, the lawyers were fairer the higher one got. The law itself is unfair, as it picks on photographers while ignoring painters, for example.<<

You mean because a painter can use imagination to get their images, while a photographer has to actually have a young child there, in the correct pose, for long enough to take photographs? Seems pretty fair to me. Painting can depict a crucifixion, a fantasy scene of horror, a terrible mutilation, a scene of sexual torture - and all without harming a hair of anyone's head, even without having a model. A photographer needs a live subject, of the correct age and sex, in the correct position...

>>Most unfair have been my neighbours - who have attempted to burn down my house with me in it a couple of times!<<

I wonder why? If all you have done is download a few landscapes and nudes? How would they know? Have you been doing other things they found out about? Why not call the police? It is, after all, harrassment. Like emailing people and chasing up their home address and their father's websites, and using IM to contact them when they are underage...

The idea of a custodial sentence must have been terrifying, in that you would have been put in an ordinary prison. Not nice, is it, for people that the rest of the prison population see as a menace to young children? What exactly /is/ Grade 1 and 2 child pornography? If it is so innocent, how come it is against the law to possess or download it?

>>As to your question: although I'm on means-tested benefit, I have a couple of Hamilton's books; expensive though they are. They include a selection of his work over which I have no control. <<

Everyone has control over what they choose to spend their money on. If you had found the imagery disturbing, you could have got rid of the items.

>>The material on the net requires payment unless one goes via the 'back door' as it were. You might guess that those who provide it for free don't tend to specialise in the landscape and still-life stuff. <<

You might have wondered why it was 'back door'? You don't come across as an innocent, toxx.

And the police, despite allegations to the contrary, have a great deal more to do than find innocent members of the public to hound about a few nudes and landscapes. You may have found one or two people on here who believe otherwise, but really, toxx - do you think anyone is going to accept that you were innocently in possession of child porn and didn't know how to delete it?

So the best case scenario is that you only wanted the landscapes, and were forced to have the child pornography? Oh, how terribly unfair life is, isn't it?

>>I've downloaded whatever I could find; sometimes duplicating images in the books I have.

Why? If there was even the slight danger that you would download images which exploited children in a sexually explicit manner?


Jez

Actually, I had in mind the paintings of Balthus and, in particular, The Guitar Lesson. An actual 11 year old model was employed. In contrast, the law prohibits pseudophotographs too - where, indeed, there may have been no young model involved. In short, the law seems to make the wrong kind of distinction, to the detriment of photography.



I know who originally set the police on me and started various rumours. I don't know why she took against me all those years ago. I have involved the police on many occasions, but the main effect is to encourage unlawful behaviour against me, so I stopped informing them other than retrospectively. I know if they come charging round, it will just start up the trouble again.



These involve partial or complete nudity, but not sexuality or adults. The most severe grade is #5. Some items at grades 1 & 2 have recently been ruled not to be 'indecent' - which is the test. One has no way of knowing in advance what such rulings will be, hence the law is, in practice, 'retrospective' - and needs to be challenged in the Court of Human Rights.



I find the images to be extremely beautiful, as do thousands of others. There has never been a prosecution based on the books - only on images from the net, where it is easier to get a conviction.

>I've downloaded whatever I could find; sometimes duplicating images in the books I have.

Why? If there was even the slight danger that you would download images which exploited children in a sexually explicit manner?>

I don't accept that any of the images are pornographic, or even 'indecent'. I accept that I've downloaded Hamilton's work as accomplished art. I don't accept that his models were exploited - and if I could be convinced otherwise, I would be appropriately distressed. The guy has always worked in the full glare of publicity, and marketed his work openly.

toxx

<>
I was just reading about this issue last night, in a book about the Da Vinci code, and I learned a lot I hadn't previously known. Despite insistence that the Council of Nicea altered the Bible, the Council never even discussed it, and the Canon was essentially complete 250 years before it. So, I still feel justified in asking for clarification about alterations and additions...

I am glad to hear, toxxin, that you didn't get a custodial sentence... obviously the court didn't think you had done anything too horrendous! I am sorry to hear your neighbours have over-reacted so badly.

well i disagree with the fact of taking photos of young kids naked bodies ,there is ill people out there why feed there minds .

Hi Apple. Pain that you're in pre-mod.

Yup, the neighbours only saw the cops raiding my place and exiting with bags labeled 'Evidence'. Then the stupid tart who called them spread rumoured details, it seems.

I was origially arrested for an offence that they dropped shortly afterwards. They continued to keep my computer and examined it later - which seems arbitrary! There were some items on it that they could make a fuss about. The judge seems to have thought that they were barely justified in charging me. It's far to easy to accuse guys of sexually-based crimes. We're made to be afraid of our own natures. It generates an atmosphere of inhumanity.

As you can see from the correspondence I'm prepared to enter into, I'm willing to defend myself even though doing so, in itself, generates suspicion!

Here's an illustration of what I mean. On my way back from the court on the bus, a little girl of about 3 got on and tried to climb up to the luggage rest as there was nowhere else much to sit. She couldn't do it and the young lad next to her was obviously afraid to lift her up to it. Perhaps it would have been OK for a woman to help her. In the end, mum got the pushchair on board and the kid sat where she wanted.

So it is not only art, but also normal human behaviour that is suspect by those with this nasty, tabloid mind-set. I think that the majority of guys have an evolved need to help and protect women and children. Arguably, the feminist lobby has turned normal male behaviour into some kind of perversion. A friend of mine has written a book about this. It is to be published early next year. Details then.

toxx

<>

I'll be interested in that...

< I'm fifteen and female, just to set the record straight.>
"And probably cute, too "

Hi, Dr J - I know Echo will have made her own reply to this but, whilst it might be a relatively mild sexist comment of the sort which makes most girls/women smile politely and ignore in other circumstances; when there's at least one other poster on this list who might take such a mild comment as an opportunity to enlarge upon the subject, thus risking actual discomfort to the person being discussed, it's probably better to avoid such comments.

"A voucher system, where 13 years of educational courses are free for everyone, but where the last four, for instance, can be deferred until adulthood, and taken as modules or evening classes, sabbatical years etc."

that makes sense to me.

"But National Service? There are few virtues that I can see in that. By all means, allow young people to join the Armed Forces, if that if the way they are inclined. But to force a young yob into an environment where he can exercise his strength of body to bully others - which is what happened during National Service to many less 'assertive' young people - is to enshrine a past mistake in a modern setting."

It also teaches them how to handle themselves in a fight, as well as knives and firearms, and not to fear doing so. Not, I think, a good idea. Normally there is a 'hesitation point' which deters people from getting involved in any of these. Once you do it the first time, it becomes progressively easier. National Service makes it routine. Definitely not a good idea.

<>

not nowadays in the uk the laws are changing there already banned hand guns some knifes and working on most firearms , old saying if the world had no guns no one would get shot .

<...when there's at least one other poster on this list who might take such a mild comment as an opportunity to enlarge upon the subject, ...>

Well, just for the record, here's one poster who has never enquired concerning the appearance of anyone here - apart from a passing mention of dentistry! This is, of course, largely checkable if anyone wishes to bother. How odd that things get out of proportion on the basis of nothing whatsoever!

toxx

"A voucher system, where 13 years of educational courses are free for everyone, but where the last four, for instance, can be deferred until adulthood, and taken as modules or evening classes, sabbatical years etc."

Seems like a reasonable solution to me.

<< All it's truths are based on writings people wrote 500 years after Jesus died...>>
No, I am sorry, that's just incorrect, it was not 500 years, in fact though there's no general agreement, some say it was less than 100, around about 70 that the first books of the New Testament were being distributed.

I have to agree with Della / Adalie / whatever (sorry, haven't been here for a while, can't keep track) said--it agrees with what I've read in _The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason_ (can't recall title). I think they were assembled abnd edited later, though.

"God's been mugged"

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1500076,00.html

"Spirituality, the latest subject of reality TV, is religion minus the difficult bits for feckless consumers"

"Spirituality has become the acceptable face of religion. It offers a language for the divine that dispenses with all the off-putting paraphernalia of priests and church. And it's not about believing in anything too specific, other than in some nebulous sense of otherness or presence. It offers God without dogma. Spirituality is just the sort of religion suitable for one of Michaela's dinner parties with her "lots of friends". It takes the exotic and esoteric aspects of religion and subtracts having to believe the impossible, having to sit next to difficult people on a Sunday morning, and having to make any sort of commitment that might have long-term implications for her wallet or lifestyle. Yes, spirituality is religion that has been mugged by capitalism."


Spriritual shopping trip?

az

>><...when there's at least one other poster on this list who might take such a mild comment as an opportunity to enlarge upon the subject, ...>

>Well, just for the record, here's one poster who has never enquired concerning the appearance of anyone here - apart from a passing mention of dentistry! This is, of course, largely checkable if anyone wishes to bother.

>How odd that things get out of proportion on the basis of nothing whatsoever!

No, not on this thread. Enquiring about appearance on IAM, in emails, or making comments about 'cute little butts' on other threads wouldn't count, would it? Of course not.

And maybe /thi/s thread should get back to the nature of god, as digressions into the nature of 'grooming' or where innocent equiries cross that soft, flesh-coloured line into the unacceptable should probably slide into a different thread, or, better still, be lost in the mists of your communtiy sentence. Which, as you pointed out, was for an offence serious enough that it usually carries a prison term.

At least they only have one of your computers, since you clearly still have access to the web to post here. Just be sure your little hobby doesn't spread to that machine as well, or we will have to manage without you for a while...

So.

Back to the gods. Yahweh, of course, has interesting attitudes to young girls and sexuality in the old testament, which are largely removed by the time the new testament gets written down. Lots daughters spring to mind, being offfered to the crowds as young virgins.

Maybe, toxx, you would like us to discuss that?

I, however, am back at work, so have a lot less time for your replies.

Jez

PS anyone new to the discussion might care to refer back to posts 24851, 24856, 24858, 24860, 24861, 24862, 24865, 24866, 24867

I would especially like to point new readers to 24851, where toxx expresses his delight that his criminal conviction for downloading Level 1 and 2 child pornography has resulted in a sentence that he regards as 'practically nothing'.