Newt, please, STOP

I confess I confess
I shot lincoln
I stole the pentagon papers
I tossed George Washington's dollar back into the potomac
I confess

el hombre tiene tortillas in la cabeza.

Can't critic see camp is nude, but not lewd?
By JAN GLIDEWELL
Published June 22, 2003

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Shaky economy? Erosion of civil liberties in the name of national security? War? Terrorism? A health care system that is such a shambles that many sick people can't afford doctors and many doctors can't afford to take care of them?

Think these are issues a busy member of Congress ought to be thinking about?

How about kids getting naked at a nudist camp?

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, who is running for the U.S. Senate, wrote a letter to Gov. Jeb Bush and Attorney General Charlie Crist saying he found a New York Times article about a summer camp for kids 11-18 at Lake Como in Land O'Lakes to be "truly disturbing."

While admitting he doesn't know that anything illegal is going on, he says he thinks the issue is whether the camp is "exploiting nudity among minor children to make money."

Would that be something similar to exploiting a 10-year tradition of closely supervised recreation for children, who already come from nudist families, to make political hay?

It's ridiculous," Lake Como manager Van Bradley said of Foley's complaint, adding, "It is a well-supervised, well-structured camp. Children are as safe here as any child can be. This is just way off base."

Bradley enrolled his own 12-year-old grandson in this year's camp. "He had a great time and came away more grown up and with a better outlook on life in general. He can't wait to go back."

What seems to bother Foley is that Florida's laws make nudity legal as long as no lewdness is involved.

Believe it or not, people can get naked without getting lewd, and, for that matter, they can get lewd without being naked.

As a nudist myself, I don't come to this situation with an unbiased attitude, but neither do I come with an uneducated viewpoint.

I have been spending time every summer for the past six years at a clothing-optional campground in Colorado. Children are always around, and so are plenty of adults to make sure they are safe.

The one thing you don't see is many adolescent children because, their parents tell me, they go through a phase of feeling uncomfortable with the changes in their bodies.

I think anything that allows them to get over that in a structured environment under adult supervision is much healthier than having them think they are the only ones going through it.

Lake Como, founded in 1947, is the oldest of Pasco County's five nudist resorts, and nudism is big business in Pasco with tens of thousands of visitors every year making a major economic impact.

Criminal behavior is extremely rare. In 30 years I can remember one murder at Paradise Lakes 13 years ago, the result of a marital conflict, and one drug raid, 26 years ago at Lake Como, that was conducted with much media hooplah and that turned up a marijuana plant and a handful of pills that later proved to be vitamins.

One guy was convicted 12 years ago of videotaping children in lewd poses at the Riverboat Club.

In each instance it was the management and guests of the resorts who brought the criminal activity to the attention of authorities - quickly.

The average Wal-Mart requires more police service than all of the nudist resorts combined and more children by far, maybe Foley should note, have been sexually exploited in their homes and in schools than at nudist resorts."

Foley has long been an advocate of missing and exploited children, an admirable effort in cases where children really are exploited.

Recently, in response to public questioning about his sexual orientation, he has also been an advocate of people's rights to live their private lives without government or media interference.

That includes people involved in the legal activity of patronizing nudist resorts.