LOS ANGELES - While mainstream media stories on Judge Alex Kozinski's "porn Website" have tapered off, the effects of its revelation by the Los Angeles Times continue to resound in federal court, where the topic was once again raised by shock artist Ira Isaacs and attorney Roger Jon Diamond in a hearing before the new judge in Isaacs' case, George King.
"It's government intimidation that created this problem," Diamond charged, referring to Kozinski's decision to remove himself from the trial after reports of the material on his Website surfaced. The government "took advantage of Judge Kozinski on his recusal motion," Diamond added.
But for the most part, the only information the public has had about the contents of Kozinski's site has been interpretations of the material by reporters, some of whom saw some of the material and some of whom didn't - but lack of direct knowledge didn't stop many from repeating the most lurid "details" of the character of the material in ways reminiscent of the mainstream press's usual inability to bring objectivity to reporting on sexual matters.
One commentator who's been persistent in searching out the facts of Kozinski's Web postings has been a blogger named "Patterico," a Los Angeles prosecutor(!) who also clerked for one of the judges in the Central District of California, which may explain his continued interest in the Kozinski matter. (Well, that and the fact that he refers to the LA Times as the "Los Angeles Dog Trainer"...)
Patterico recently posted that he had received a CD from attorney Cyrus Sanai, the long-time Kozinski opponent who "outed" the alex.kozinski.com Website to the Times. The CD contained about 400 items that Sanai had downloaded from the Kozinski site - and as far as adult entertainment material goes, to call the stuff Kozinski (or his kid; reports are unclear) actually posted on the site "disappointing" would be giving it way too much credit.
"If I had to pick a phrase to describe most of the humor, it would be 'beer commercial humor'," Patterico wrote. "And indeed, there are a lot of beer commercials. A lot. Some are pretty funny. There is [also] a sizable percentage of sexual-themed humor, including cartoons, photos, videos, and the like."
Patterico then tracked the (somewhat exaggerated) descriptions in the Times of the material on the site and juxtaposed them with either his own evaluations of the material referred to, or has supplied a link to reproductions of the material either on his site or elsewhere on the Web. (Kozinski's own site has been taken down.)
For instance, where the Times charged that Kozinski's site contained "images of masturbation, public sex and contortionist sex," Patterico found one 87-second video containing about 30 seconds of what may be a British woman giving a handjob to the passenger in the front seat of her car; 60 seconds of what appears to be a gymnasium full of nude Asian couples, each woman riding her partner cowgirl style but with no hardcore visible; a distant shot of a clothed couple in the top row of seats at a stadium, with the woman apparently having reverse cowgirl sex with her partner, helping him zip up after they're done, and putting on her own panties - again with no hardcore or sexual organs visible; and 24 seconds of a couple performing 69, but with the woman sucking off the guy upside down - that is, with her back towards his front. Links to all of the above vids are on the Patterico site.
Also reportedly present on the Kozinski site was a short video slideshow of various women's "cameltoes" played to a parody of the Beach Boys' tune "Kokomo"; a PowerPoint presentation of a woman shaving her pubic area; a 20-second video of a familiar-looking woman with very large tits taking a shower; the face of Homer Simpson superimposed over a woman's pussylips; Canadian currency with naked woman added to the designs; a photo of four clothed 20-somethings, one of whose dress is hiked up enough to see her pussy (dimly); a photo of a woman's shaved pussy (un)covered by a dental-floss thong, with the legend, "Democrats New Slogan: Read My Lips ... No More Bush"; an animated .gif of a woman undressing, labeled "wall-mart-greeter"; and a few more equally innocuous photos and vids - certainly nothing they haven't seen at the local Moose or Kiwanis lodge meeting.
"I doubt this post will change anyone's mind about this controversy, but it does provide a fuller picture of what Mr. Sanai claims he found on the website/server," Patterico concludes. "I think that providing this extensive description, with a number of examples, provides fairness to all sides by giving a fuller picture of what generated this controversy."
That it does - but to the adult industry, it provides even more: It shows how mainstream reporting, with its journalists virtually ignorant of both the adult industry and of most Americans' real feelings about sex and sexuality, can blow essentially innocuous material out of proportion and sully if not ruin the life and occupation of one of the more judicious jurists this reporter has ever met.
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