Maybe It’s The New Jersey Water. . .

 

Every state has official moles touting their hills as mountains, but New Jersey is often specially blessed.

 

The latest gift comes from Passaic County, where authorities were able to tear themselves away from prosecuting murder, theft, corruption and other routine stuff to save public morals by arresting a 14-year-old Clifton girl.

 

She posted “explicit” pictures of herself on MySpace.com to impress her boyfriend. You know – “explicit” as in “naked.” It’s not clear whether or not her boyfriend was impressed, or even noticed, but the Associated Press reported that word reached the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office, which arrested the teen and charged her with possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography.

 

Which makes perfect sense if you realize that she is, after all, a child – and if your IQ and the caliber of your sidearm have the same number. The AP quoted a Bill Maer, identified as a sheriff’s spokesman, as saying “We consider this case a wake-up call to parents.”

 

It is a wake-up call. It should alert parents that dumb as the things their teens do might be, elected officials stand ready to do things even dumber. Those charges are felony charges. They carry the possibility of serious prison time and having to register as a sex offender.

 

The behavior in question is called “sexting,” a variant of “texting.”  Texting is what’s going on when you see kids courting serious thumb injury by conversing via cellphone text with friends three feet away. Sexting’s main focus isn’t the thumbs. Similar cases have popped up in other states.

 

If you subtract the high-tech novelty aspect, you’re left with an example of teen girls and boys discovering that their bodies are mutually interesting and really nifty playgrounds. That usually comes well before the discovery of playground rules and consequences.

 

Which is where parents come in. Or at least they did in the past, when teens deprived of high-tech venues had to get along with spin-the-bottle, skinny-dipping, strip-poker, and other chances to swap hormones, at least until caught by parents who raised the roof and lowered the boom.

 

But letting parents ground kids without internet or cell phone connections is a common-sense response, which means it won’t be considered by the crusaders of the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office.

 

Besides, they’re probably busy organizing a squad to bust toddlers playing doctor.

 

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