Compassion demands action even at 36,000 feet

Recently there was a mid-air collision.

On a flight from Salt Lake City to Boston, a passenger in first class brazenly pulled out his laptop and allegedly started watching images of young children in sexual circumstances with adults.

A fellow passenger reported it to the flight crew. The crew then did what was not done at Penn State: reported the alleged offense to the authorities.

Upon landing at Logan Airport, the man was questioned, arrested, cuffed and hauled off to jail. He was later identified to be a college professor.

In a sickening coincident across the Atlantic, it was reported that Ryan Air, the low-cost Irish airline, is now thinking about becoming a low-life airline and offering pornography to paying customers. One would have thought with their own national scandal of abuse of children by priests and the years of painful cover up that the Irish would want to shun vicarious exploitation even at 36,000 feet.

From these tragic stories it is obvious that the sexual exploitation of children is alive and sick. Further proof is the shameful fall from grace of Penn State’s venerable football coach Joe Paterno for not intervening adequately. Meanwhile, another allegation surrounding the Syracuse men's basketball program has become known.

When will it ever end?

Shamefully, misusing children existed long before airplanes and laptops linked to the Internet. However, now the capacity to participate is only a click away.

As with any process of the brain that has been aroused and fortified by repeated use, it is immeasurably easier to not start than it is to stop. The forces of addiction are so powerful that once turned on they are very difficult to extinguish.

The intoxicating allure of porno is demonstrated in the ruin that comes to the devotee, yet they still persist. In the criminal cases their lives are destroyed. Respect, standing in the community, friends and families, reputations, means of living are thrown away.

The shame of being targeted as an aficionado of child porn, however, does not go away. If one flees to escape the punishment of being a sex offender, they will be hunted down and exposed.

Their home addresses will be mapped so parents with children will not live by them. They become a pariah, an outcast. The good that one has done will be lost in the acts of narcissism and self-gratification.