The snow hitting the east coast is causing a lot of problems...

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If I were behind the wheel, I would do the same thing...

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This might be a little disturbing to some of you...

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This is why I miss the snow in the Pacific Northwest...

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Your Franktube today incorporates shaving with another extreme sport...

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Scateboarding...fun or dangerous? You decide...

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Very few subjects have burned up the lines like this one. Last night (Thursday) we talked about the case in Lacey.

Some little 14-year-old girl was dating a 14-year-old boy, both students at Chinook Middle School. The girl decided to sext her boyfriend.

So, she stood in front of a mirror naked and took a picture of herself with her cell phone. Then, she sent it to her special guy.

Shortly thereafter- What a shock!- They broke up. So, the teen boy then forwarded the picture to another girl and she forwarded the picture again. By last night, the picture was all over the school district, showing up on cell phones at three different schools.

The girl-who-sexted's mother was outraged. Authorities were contacted. The county prosecutor got involved, as did the school district. Today, we expect the former boyfriend and at least one other girl to be charged with distributing child pornography. A class C felony, this carries a penalty of up to 30 days in the juvie and the kids would have to register as sex offenders.

There's so much wrong here, my mind boggles. Let me make a list:

1. I can't believe that the girl friend's parents gave her a cell phone and a data plan that allowed her to sext (send a sexual picture by texting) in the first place. If they did, you'd think they'd have the good sense to put strict limits on the phones use. You'd hope they'd sit the little darling down and explain to her that anything put on the Web is there FOREVER.

2. Actually, the first person to break the law would have been the little girlfriend, the one who first sent the pornographic photo. How strange is that? The alleged victim is also the first perpetrator. All this wouldn't have happened if she hadn't sent out her sext in the first place.

3. The Thurston County prosecutor needs to back away from this case big-time. Sure, forwarding the picture was wrong. The kids caught doing it need to be punished. But, putting them in juvenile detention for 30 days and forcing them to register as sex offenders is ridiculous. That's not the purpose for which the registration law was written.

4. The mom of the alleged victim needs to kill all of this now. She can, by telling the prosecutor to let it go and insisting that she won't cooperate any further. Look what she's done. She went on local TV and got interviewed. The story's gone viral, showing up all over the world. If you think her daughter was traumatized before, think how she's doing now that her stupid behavior is being discussed ALL OVER THE WORLD!

5. The school district needs to end this, too. Sure, suspend the kids involved, (including the girl who first took her own nude photo and sent it off.) Sure, give all the kids holy Hell and even ship them down to the prosecutor's office and the county jail to scare them straight. But, then, LET IT GO! We're talking about amped-up hormonally-challenged middle school kids here. All they think about is SEX!

6. Tragically, as bad as forwarding the original nude photo was, everything was made much worse by the ADULTS involved. If the mother of the alleged victim had not gone public, if the school district and the prosecutor and the cops all not overreacted, everyone would be a lot better off.

Except for me and the rest of the country's talk show hosts, of course, we end up with a great topic. Too bad for the kids, though.

Frank

Adding insult to injury...

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I just realized that I haven't any of my editorial cartoons with you in a while, so here's one from a week ago:

Here's a little something from a couple of weeks ago:

And here's the first cartoon that I sent out after the holidays:

Your comments, as always, are welcome.

Frank

Today's video...the new 'business casual'?

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