Will this baby rape his girlfriend? An anti-violence crusader says it’s never too early to intervene.

This video — designed to counter a purported anti-women slant in some Super Bowl commercials — has ignited a storm and reportedly sparked death threats against its creator in Dubuque, Iowa—

Although every baby boy is precious and beautiful, some will become misogynists, women beaters, rapists, killers.

“Violence is a learned behavior, people are not born to be violent,” says Josh Jasper, president and CEO of Riverview Center, the anti-violence advocacy group responsible for the video. “What we see [in media] are messages that are degrading and abusive toward women and children.”

Jasper hoped that parents would start a conversation with their children, that while watching the Super Bowl with their children they would criticize messages that are hurtful, such as, “When you saw that GoDaddy ad and you saw those ladies taking off their clothes, you need to know as your father that this isn’t okay, this is not okay how we treat women.”

With that conditioning, hopefully boys will grow up as portrayed in this second video (instead of as depicted above)—

Many of the comments about the first commercial, posted on YouTube and Facebook, were so hostile that Jasper contact Dubuque police.

“One of the 800 comments I’ve received in the last 24 hours is that I’m a Nazi sympathizer and I should be taken out and shot,” Jasper was quoted by WQAD. “I’ve been accused of hating all men, that all men are rapists, that I think babies are rapists.”

Why such a strong reaction?

“There are a lot of men who have a deep-seated hatred toward women,” Jasper said. “I bet I’ve received 150 messages in the last 24 hours that say it’s okay to rape women. If we’re going to end the violence, we have to start with them.”

Here’s Jasper’s first commercial, posted a couple of years ago — it’s certainly pointed, but slower-paced and less incendiary;

As for this year’s Super Bowl commercial, Jasper said, “There are a lot of survivors out there … who are now feeling empowered because people are talking about the issue. That’s exactly why I created the commercial and that’s exactly why the commercial will stay.”

In a blog post on Valentine’s Day, Jasper concluded:

Although a great deal of violence is committed by men, the vast majority of men are NOT violent. The problem is that not enough men are challenging the norm, speaking out against men that are not healthy role models for others.

My thanks to @MichaelLibbie for bringing this story to my attention.

Sex-peddling NY tabs lose their minds: ‘There oughta be a law against being this naughty’

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The New York Post begins its provocatively illustrated cover story about Brooklyn Law School “steaming over sexy undie ads” with these words:

“There oughta be a law — against being this naughty.”

The Post might take its own advice.

Same shame for the rival Daily News, whose “WHAT BOOBS!” cover story refers to “clubs where women shake their stuff to men’s delight.”

Both the News’ Friday lead and the Post’s Saturday wood promoted legitimate stories (the Post reported how Diesel shot provocative ads in a law school library, skewering the school’s already low reputation and angering students and alumni; the News piece, by Juan Gonzalez, exposed tax breaks lavished on strip clubs).

But the titillating, risqué play may be too damn much, and the News allowed a reader to bite back in the next day’s print edition (the comment could not be found online):

My seven-year-old son has recently taken to reading the Daily News every day. On Nov. 12, after perusing your front page, he asked me what a strip club was. Care to lend a hand, Mr. Editor in Chief? By the way, I had no problem explaining the word “boob.” I just showed him your picture. John O’Hare

Predictably, the News used publication of John O’Hare’s complaint as cover to rerun its Boobs cover.

Both tabloids increasingly demonstrate on their covers — and in racy spreads inside — that they have a base assessment of their readers’ tolerance for home-delivered sewer spill. While the pages reproduced here don’t represent an every-day pattern, neither are they aberrations.

And the trend toward extreme front pages is not restricted to sex — the cover of Saturday’s Daily News ghoulishly features morgue workers dragging a body down a stairwell.

Double entendres, long the meat and potatoes of winning headlines, have become a quaint relic, supplanted by sledgehammer-wielding head writers.

New York is not London (a city proud of its racy tabs and the source of so much of New York’s tabloid talent), and newspaper readers are increasingly older, conservative folk, women and well as men.

Some New Yorkers, like John O’Hare, are concerned with leaving trash in plain view of their children (“Billy’s home from kindergarten, dear —  quick, hide the newspaper!”).

The marginal newsstand sales gained by running soft-porn covers can be lost on the home front, where the money circulation lives. Ultimately, they devalue their newspaper’s brand, turning a serious civic and business enterprise into the butt of snarky jokes.

It’s enough to consider whether there might be a broad secular market for a newspaper like Hamodia — a sex-and-scandal-free daily published for Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community that boasts it’s a newspaper you’re not ashamed to bring home.

RELATED STORIES— Newspaper sex: Let’s go to the videotape, ‘Alt’ media’s slimy underbelly

Anderson Cooper crows over Amazon’s removal of pedophile how-to book, demands more book kills

A rant on Wednesday night by CNN’s Anderson Cooper may have forced Amazon’s hand — getting the book peddler to back down on its anti-censorship policy by removing from sale the e-book “Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure.” Last night, Cooper continue his assault on Amazon, demanding that it stop selling a Cooper-drawn list of additional pedophilia-related books (including another book by the Guide’s author that Cooper said had similar content).

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Cooper’s segment tries to dramatize, Michael Moore-style, his program’s attempts to extract from Amazon a comment about the company’s materials acceptance policies — even sending CNN’s Seattle reporter to camp out for two hours in the lobby of Amazon headquarters awaiting an interview that never came.

Speeding up his pace and changing to a somewhat cavalier tone, Cooper zeroes in on the free-speech component of the Amazon question:

Originally, Amazon said they don’t want to censor — and we can all understand that: Freedom of speech is vital in this country and I mean who wants some company deciding what we can and cannot read. However, Amazon does censor some things.

He said Amazon policies found on its Website states that “pornography, X-rated moves, home porn, hard-core material that depict graphic sexual acts, and amateur porn and not permitted” and that offensive material would not be published.

“What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect,” Amazon’s online statement continues. “This includes items such as crime-scene videos, videos of cruelty to animals, and extremely disturbing materials.

Among the Amazon-sold books under attack last night by Cooper is one that makes this claim:

Children exposed to premature sexual experiences with adults frequently turn out to be distinguished  and unusually charming and attractive in their outward personalities.

In a separate segment last night, Cooper was joined by John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. Walsh is a longtime anti-crime crusader with a special focus on missing and abused children; his own child was abducted and murdered.

Anderson Cooper crows over Amazon’s pulling of …, posted with vodpod

Amazon stops selling ‘Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure’, a self-published Kindle e-book

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In the face of enormous pressure, Amazon.com appeared to reverse itself early this morning and pulled a how-to guide to pedophilia from its Kindle e-book store.

There was no official word from Amazon as of 3 am, but the book’s sales page had been removed (pictured above).

The pressure on Amazon to back down on its unequivocal free speech stance was especially acute in view of its announced purchase last week of Diapers.com for $545 million.

BULLETIN (2:30 AM): Amazon appears to cave, removes ‘Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure’

In the face of enormous pressure, Amazon.com appeared to reverse itself early this morning and pulled a how-to guide to pedophilia from its Kindle e-book store. There was no official word from Amazon at this posting, but the book’s sales page had been removed. The pressure on Amazon to back down on its unequivocal free speech stance was especially acute in view of its announced purchase last week of Diapers.com for $545 million.

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EARLIER (12:15 AM):

Amazon stands firm as ‘Pedophile’s Guide’ sales soar 232,264 percent in less than 1 day … boycott threats spread

Amazon.com stood its ground tonight, with boycott fever spreading through the blogosphere as sales were soaring for a Kindle e-book on how to be a pedophile.

Amazon responded to the uproar with a written statement:

Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.

The statement is similar to the one Amazon has been using to defend its sale of “The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion.”

“The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure,” a $4.79 self-published Kindle download, sold at a quickening pace throughout the evening. By midnight, sales had jumped 232,264 percent for the day, closing at number 65 on Amazon’s list of all-time best-selling e-books (President Bush’s memoir, “Decision Points,” was at number 284).

The screed’s author, 47-year-old Phillip Greaves, told The Smoking Gun that when TechCrunch first wrote about his book and attacked Amazon on Wednesday afternoon, he had only sold one copy — and the book stood at number 158,221 on the all-time hit list.

“Even as Mommy bloggers, tech bloggers and Twitter users call for an Amazon boycott over the title [it] is selling like it was just announced as an Oprah Book Club selection,” Gawker reported.

“People want to know what the fuss is about. (Or a surprisingly large portion of Kindle owners are pedophiles.)”

Gawker assures that the book, subtitled “A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct,” “will not convince a single regular person to become a child predator. Nor does it include a pull-out map of secret shops where already-existing pedophiles can buy underage sex-slaves or anything.”

The Smoking Gun tracked Greaves down at his Colorado home and posted an interview in which he said he was first introduced to sex at age seven by a 10-year-old girl, and that he was involuntarily hospitalized about three years ago when he suffered a “mental collapse.”

Asked if he had engaged in sexual acts with children as an adult, Greaves first answered “could have,” before stating flatly that he had not engaged in such illegal conduct.

CNN quotes Greaves: “True pedophiles love children and would never hurt them.”

In describing his book on the Amazon website, Greaves wrote:

This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian rules for these adults to follow. I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter sentences should they ever be caught. [sic]

Further comment from Amazon was not forthcoming during the evening.

Attached to the book’s page on Amazon.com are (as of midnight) approximately 2,500 comments — almost all of them negative. The lead comment, by “onegoldplanner,” states:

This is my SECOND review for this book … my first one was deleted by Amazon. I have contacted NUMEROUS news agencies, as well as the FBI. I have contacted Oprah, John Walsh and Diane sawyer. I will be on this until it is taken down. And As a customer of Amazon I will no longer be one, as soon as this is taken down I will delete my account. And I am going to make sure NONE of my family and friends will buy from you either! SHAME ON YOU for listing SUCH FILTH!!

Greaves via The Smoking Gun