I know of at least one smart-aleck scientist who better hope his car never breaks down on Highway 99 between Bakersfield and Stockton

I don't know where Charles Murtaugh is from, but he's taken to writing posts like this one where he's been referring to the place I live as the "child porn belt." I know he's referring to Fresno because one of the child porn "suspects" lives in Clovis, which we in Fresno like to think of as a cowboy suburb of Fresno. [People in Clovis like to think of Fresno as that big city with glittering lights where the streets are paved with gold and opportunity abounds.] Nothing ticks me off more than when some big city know-it-all makes fun of my hometown. That's my job.

Here's what Mr. Murtaugh writes:

There's news today of an appalling child porn ring bust. What sets it apart from the "average" child porn ring is it was being perpetrated by the parents (mostly the fathers) of the exploited children. But did anyone else note this geographical twist: of the nine American men arrested in the case, seven are from counties that voted for Bush in the 2000 election. (The exceptions being West Palm Beach, FL, and Kansas City, KS.) While I'm at it, here's another recent story about a child pornographer from Bush country.

Shortly after the election, the Wall Street Journal's Pete Du Pont penned a risible column declaring that Al Gore carried "the porn belt," since his states correlated with areas of high adult video sales. The term has since been (characteristically) done to death by Best of the Web's James Taranto, in his "Dispatches from the Porn Belt." Maybe people in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks.

I like that. They go and arrest the only Democrat chiropractor in all of Clovis and it's suddenly George Bush's fault. Heck, I don't know if Lloyd Alan Emmerson is a Democrat, but I do know that the last place that someone accused with that crime wants to find himself tried is before a jury in Fresno county, where it's composed of Bush supporters who don't spend a lot of time wondering if they should be "non-judgmental" about "intergenerational intimacy" and polyamory and all the other things that folks in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City think are all the rage. I know Tarpey Elementary, where Mr. Emerson took photos, and I suspect that Mr. Emerson won't be walking that neighborhood ever again. I also know that when Mr. Emerson is convicted before a Fresno jury, he will do real time.

Mr. Murtaugh followed up that post with this one quoting from The Economist Lexington column:

But is the heartland really such an embodiment of self-reliance? Sadly, its true characteristics are not vigour and independence but economic decline and government handouts. The small communities that are supposed to embody the American spirit are, in fact, haemorrhaging jobs, people and wealth.

The worst poverty in America is probably not in the inner cities but in the countryside—in places like Mississippi, Arkansas and Kentucky. Six of the country's ten poorest counties can be found in the area stretching from Texas (where Mr Bush is so hard at work) to California's central valley.

Yes, surprise, California's Central Valley is one of the most impoverished areas in America. It also historically had one of the highest crime rates in America. [Number 2, after Little Rock, Arkansas, I used to proudly say when I was in law school.] The unemployment rate has always been in double digits. The Valley is entry point number one for the migrant workers who come to this country. In some ways, Fresno is the Ellis Island of the 21st Century. We also have a large Hmong population drawn here because of the agriculture that they are culturally proficient at. [Growing strawberries, surprisingly.] Not surprisingly this mix drives the net income down, and the migrant population drives the crime rate up.

Rural areas have always been more impoverished than cities. That's one reason why the great trend of the last three centuries has been migration toward urban areas and away from rural areas.

So, what does all this have to do the "child porn belt" dig? Not much. The Wall Street Journal's reference to the "Porn Belt" was obviously intended as ironic counterpoint to the appellation "Bible Belt," which is used for that other part of the country. The "Porn Belt" has resonance because it underscores the loose, flexible, post-modern attitudes found in certain groups that give a particular flavor to certain parts of the country. Heck, that part of the country prides itself on its "do your own thing" ethos. I could be mistaken but I think it's in the "Porn Belt" where certain folks work themselves into a lather about whether this law outlawing child porn, or that law prohibiting access to pornography in public libraries, involves censorship and violates the First Amendment.

Outside the "Porn Belt," on the other hand, no one gets real excited about the issue of whether criminalizing child porn constitutes censorship. We just think its immoral, and should be illegal, whether it involves your own child or someone else's. You big city types can rest assured that we here in the "child porn belt" will take care of Mr. Loyd Alan Emerson, who right now is probably wishing that he had set up his chiropractic practice in San Francisco or New York City.