My new band, Mermaid Bones, has been toiling away in the studio. Our first four-song demo is now available for download: myspace.com/sfmermaidbones

Did a cool webterview with some German Dick-head scholars.

Update: Myspace hates the link:

http://masscommunication-blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/interview-mit-david-gill.html

Cut and paste...

I wrote up a review of Christopher Miller's new novel The Cardboard Universe: A Guide to the World of Phoebus K Dank. Check it out here

Sorry the link was busted. Try it again, now.

Just learned how to do more sophisticated searches for magazine articles and uncovered this rare interview with King Buzzo from a 1996 issue of Guitar Player magazine. Bout time for another article I'd say...

Abstract:
..
Osborne, who admits he does not read music, is unconcerned with
dazzling guitar techniques. He frequently uses alternative tunings such
as his trademark dropped-D tuning in recording, but eschews them in
concert in order to keep the show moving.
..

Full Text :COPYRIGHT 1996 Miller Freeman Publications


A self-proclaimed songwriting band member first and guitar player second, Melvins guitarist Buzz "King Buzzo" Osborne argues that solid composition-not gratuitous complexity - is what makes skilled guitarists engaging and marginal players millionaires. He cites Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" riff as a classic example.

Possibly the simplest thing Ritchie Blackmore ever did is the most
popular thing he ever did," Buzz raves from the Los Angeles offices of
Atlantic Records, which recently released the Melvin's latest LP, Stag.
"Dont you think that's amazing? He wasted all this time playing wild
guitar solos, only to have 500,000 and play that riff in their garage.
It's the ultimate rock riff: big, dumb, stupid-looking and totally
beautiful. I can play will guitar stuff as well, but let's not forget
the simple end of it - that's what I'm good at."


In many ways, the Melvins parallel
that ultimate rock riff: big, dumb, stupid-looking and totally
beautiful. In 1984 the trio lumbered out of Aberdeen, Washington, part
knee-jerk reaction to the harder-Faster aesthetic coursing through the
underground at the time, and part homage to 8-track arenasaurs like
Black Sabbath and Kiss. Sucker-punching the budding Seattle scene by
being the first aids on the block to play punk-tinged rock at a stoned
crawl, the Melvins' seminal sludge
has been claimed as an influence by fellow Aberdeen native Kurt Cobain
and Soundgarden's Kim Thayil, leading some wags to anoint them the
"Godfathers of Grunge."

"Don't blame me," Osborne cracks when asked about the "Godfathers"
tag. "That's fine, I guess - don't sit around thinking about it too
much. People say, ..How do you feel about Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl
Jam selling all these records?' I can understand it; they're a lot more
commercial-sounding than we are. I wasn't trying to write ..Black Hole
Sun' or ..Smells Like Teen Spirit.' Those songs are fine and those bands
have done well. I'm really happy for them, but none of that stuff
concerns me in the least. If it did, we wouldn't be making the kind of
records we make. It's our duty to push the limits."


The Melvins revel in testing
boundaries: scuzzy guitar-noise sprees, Melvinized covers of anything
from Kiss to the Cars, marathon drum solos and the occasional set
consisting entirely of one note. Early Melvins
releases like Gluey Porch Treatments and Ozma contained some of the
most ponderous sloth-rock ever committed to tape, prompting
pigeonholers to classify them as "the slowest band on Earth." While
once deserving such a crown, the Melvins
have diversified their sound over the years, with more recent releases
like 1994's Stoner Witch equally likely to contain accessible mid-tempo
anthems and bizarre experimental forays. That same year, the band
released an infamous EP entitled Prick [Amphetamine Reptile], a
ludicrously over-the-top noisefest that challenged even the boldest
listener. "If it were solely up to me, we'd probably end up doing a lot
more thing like that," Buzz says. "And we'd probably be in a worse
position than we're in as a result of it."


Launched by Buzz - with school buddy Dale Crover pummeling drums - the Melvins
have hosted a cavalcade of bass players, including Matt Lukin, who
later joined Mudhoney. The low-end position seems to have stabilized
with the 1993 recruitment of London resident and former Texan Mark
Deutrom, who doubles as the band's producer. While not quite a
household name, the doggedly persistent Melvins
have steadily built their notoriety and fan base over the years, with
the occasional helping hand from friends like Nirvana, who once
appeared on Saturday Night Live sporting Melvins T-shirts. But the latest Melvins boost came from an unlikely source: Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon.


"We were really surprised when we got a call from Sean," Buzz recalls.
"He said, ..I'm a big fan of your band, and my mom likes your music
too.' I'm like ..Oh, Jesus.'" Lennon invited the Melvins
to play the L.A. date of IMA, his and Ono's group. Buzz and Dale
eagerly accepted, joining IMA for two songs at the close of their
sold-out Roxy show. They subsequently recorded one of those tunes with
IMA, the Melvinesque "How Do You Feel." For Buzz, such acknowledgment
is a vindication. "I'm glad I stuck to my guns, though I wish my bank
account showed it. I"m not working at a regular job, but I'm not
putting a down payment on that little dream house either. I can't
really put a price tag on things like the IMA show. I'm just really
happy that these things happen."

Buzz freely admits he's not the world's most technically adept
guitarist, nor does he desire to be. "I can't read music at all. In
fact, I can barely remember the names of the strings. People get hung
up on that kind of stuff. It's the Guitar Center syndrome: You go in
there and see 500 kids who could blow me away on guitar, but they're
just going to sit in their rooms and play the sole to ..Walk This Way.'
So what? I don't want to have some guitar-off with any of those kids.
That ain't what it's about to me. But I can hold my own. My guitar
playing is better than it's ever been."

While drummer Crover and bassist Deutrom have been contributing more
guitar work lately, Buzz is still their principal 5-string slinger.
That's right, five. "I never use the high string." he explains, "so I
never have to worry about breaking it. I use high strings on my guitars
at home, but not when I play with the Melvins.
I just realized I didn't need it." He often uses dropped-D tuning to
get a heavier, Sabbath-like sound [see July's Soundgarden feature for
Kim Thayil's testimonial to Buzz's dropped-D influence] and isn't
afraid to experiment with alternative tunings in the studio, though
onstage he tends to avoid weird tunings in the interest of expediency.
"I like our shows to clip right along, so I play the same guitar and
let the tuning be dammed. A lot of times it'll get so far out of tune
that I'll have to switch to the other guitar, but I don't really mind.
It adds to the chaos."

It's rare to see Buzz live without one of this four trademark
late-model black Les Paul Customs. "They're nice solid guitars that
sound good and can take a lot of abuse - I have a totally ham-fisted
guitar technique." His home stash includes a '69 Les Paul, a '60s
Fender Mustang, a Silvertone, and Rickenbacker and Mosrite basses, all
of which get played through "a little tiny Peavey Classic 20, because I
don't like loud music when I'm at my house." Buzz recently revamped his
live rig, firing up an SVT bass cab and two Hiwatt cabs with a pair of
Carver 1200-watt power amps and a Sunn pre-amp. A Rat distortion pedal
and MXR Blue Box handle clipping chores.


During the recording of Stag in Los Angeles, engineer Joe Barrisi, a consummate vintage collector, kept the Melvins
awash in goodies like '70s Maestro effects and a '60s Supro amp. "I
don't own a lot of effects, but I'm certainly willing to borrow them
from other people," quips the man with a namesake pedal, the DOD Buzz
Box, a massively distorted octave divider based on the MXR Blue Box
Osborne often uses. Incidentally, Buzz says he hasn't used a Buzz Box
since he destroyed the one DOD gave him on tour last year: "I'll be
damned if I'm going to go out and buy my own goddamned box!" he laughs.
"In the studio Joe was bringing in new stuff every day, and we'd just
dive into it. I'll do anything in any fashion, through any and of amp,
if it gets the kind of sound I like. There could be 10 or 11 different
effects on any given song, and I can't remember exactly which ones were
which, because we tried so many different things."


Stag is quite a departure for the Melvins.
While chock-full of the bands trademark blunderbuss riffage and
inscrutable experimentation, the album tosses out a few left-field
surprises, from trombone and keyboards to chiming pop songs with
chipmunk vocals. Though aware that it's a bit child to say so, Buzz
asserts that Stag is the best Melvins
recording to date, due in part to generous four-track preproduction,
weird sonic twists and a dynamic spectrum that sprawls from "extremely
wimpy" to "obnoxiously hideous." He takes particular pride in a track
called "Goggles." "I managed to record absolutely the most hideous
vocal I've ever done," Buzz brags. "We ran my voice into a cassette
deck and buried the record levels. Then we ran the output into the
mixing board and abused it there as well. It doesn't even sound human.
It's the most distorted lofi vocal you could ever imagine. Now I've got
to do something worse."

Recently unearthed article on Hog Lady written by our friend Chris Auman.

http://www.nerdnetworks.org/pcr/Psionic-20081213.mp3

From the Columbia Chronicle
March 22, 1993

Rowdy crowd pigs out on frenzied Hog Lady

At a loft party somewhere in Wicker Park, in a sea of long hair, tattoos and pierced body parts, Hog Lady sets up shop. Kids are sitting high up on wooden partitions clutching plastic beer cups and bottles of booze. Guitars are picked up, a bass pedal is tested, a cymbal crashes, amps are turned up to 11, the show is about it start. A skinny kid wearing a Kermit the Frog t-shirt and a funky guitar, steps up to the mike to make an introduction. "This song is called Painkiller and it's all about how I fucked all your moms last night." The crowd laughs, some of them nervously, hoping he's just kidding. The song starts. The pit swarms, boots stomp, someone in the crowd is pushed to the ground then helped back up only to be pushed down again. The music is frenzied, apocalyptic, strangely hypnotic: guitar, bass, drums, and a scream. Halfway through the song the whole gig is shut down by the Chicago Police Department. Everyone is asked to leave and given a courtesy shove towards the exit. Another Hog Lady show has involuntarily been ended because cops don't know how to boogie. If you've never heard of Hog Lady, you are not alone. If you've never seen them live, you are missing out. Seeing them live is like climbing an angry wall of sound, slightly satanic, but heavenly for the reality impaired. The band consists of Columbia student Dave Gill; drummer Bob Gregory; bass playing Nick Sondy and of course the lady herself, Tye Coon. The group has been together for a little over a year and a half and has been playing out for about seven months. Small shows, small crowds, but that has been changing, gradually, with a growing reputation. For Gill, playing live demands that you "get out of the way of yourself." It calls for assuming a different persona. It requires leaving yourself for just a little while in order to get "it" out. "It" is whatever it is that is keeping you down. For Coon, Hog Lady is just that, an outlet. "It's not like I'm this raging maniac 24 hours a day," Coon said (although the rest of the band would disagree). "But I do have my sessions. That's what Hog Lady is for me, getting the shit out." Don't be frightened and don't get the idea that they're only self-serving. It's more than just therapy for the band. Coon encourages people who come to see their shows to get their aggressions out too. She wants people to "bust heads, stage dive, spew, drool, do whatever it takes, then you walk away a lot saner, a lot happier person. You're better for the world." Hostility isn't the only form of release. Sondy insists that Hog Lady shows "aren't that angry all the time." And according to Gill, that isn't necessarily the image they want to project. "We're so in your face all the time, we don't want to give that kind of impression all the way, that we're totally insane," Gill said. "People want to have a good time (at our shows), but sometimes we're just too demanding of attention." It's all about attitude. It's all about making a hog of yourself and going to the extreme on anything. Hog Lady is just one of the seemingly infinite number of new underground band surfacing in the wake of an alternative music revolution, which tens to exclude the completely abrasive sounds in its more commercial ventures. But Hog Lady would like to distance themselves from grunge and the rebirth of punk rock. Call them grunge and they'll laugh. "I guess we're down with that," Gill said. "We're definitely not clean, but we're a rock'n'roll band and almost all grunge bands are rock'n'roll bands. It's not anew thing, it's an old thing." Punk rock? "I used to be a hardcore skater kid, and if it wasn't punk rock, I wouldn't listen to it. Now I've listened to it so much I just don't need it anymore." The group draws inspiration from a wide variety of music. Anything from Ice Cube to Coltrane, Sun Ra to Black Sabbath and Miles Davis to the Melvins, it all gets in there somehow. Their sound? "Somewhere between Texas and New York." Their shows? "A sweaty cool time." Their songwriting techniques? "Someone will say, hey, I did this thing and then we all do our own thing with that thing and it becomes one thing." Favorite character on M*A*S*H? Doesn't really matter, but in essence what is Hog Lady, really? "An enema, a cleansing of the soul," and "a really sore throat," Coon says. Hog Lady, along with other Chicago underground darlings such as Trenchmouth, Wickerman and Godbox will be appearing on "Pressure Cooker," a soon-to-be-released compilation of local bands, "a thumbnail guide to the Chicago Underground" from Furball Records. You can purchase the Hog Lady tape at Ear Wax, Reckless Records or at their shows. They will play with Godbox and Stumbleblock this Thursday, March 25 at Lounge Ax, 2438 N Lincoln Ave.

Exciting news, I will be interviewed on a radio show tomorrow night (Friday 11/2/08 10pm-Midnight PST - my interview is scheduled to start around 10:45)! Every week the show, Longplaya, devotes two hours to listening to and discussing a single album. This week DJ Yuri G will be discussing Sonic Youth's amazing album Sister and I will be the featured guest, discussing Philip K Dick's influence on Sonic Youth. I don't have to tell you Sister is dedicated to PKD and its title is a reference to PKD's twin sister Jane who died when PKD was an infant. It'll be on the Bay Area's coolest readio station, Pirate Cat Radio 87.9 FM, or online here. The show should be available as a podcast almost immediately after it airs right here.

Awesome Can-D/Chew-Z from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch t-shirts made by my friend Karla.
Limited time offer, handmade and high quality. I wear mine everywhere!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=2831

As someone who teaches literary interpretation, I try to stress the role that our own perspectives play in our interpretations. We must not choose to see what we wish in a text, just because it reinforces a political or cultural viewpoint we support.

Conservatives have been touting the latest Batman film as vindicating Bush and his Global War on Terror, even going so far as to say the film endorses torture and warrant-less spying. But, as we would say in the Grad School, they's hermeneutics is straight fucked!

Exhibit A, from World - O - Crap: Read it here or , well, here:

Last night Scott and I went to see The Dark Knight. Whew. That's a brutal movie. A very good movie, but it is brutal. Heath Ledger gave a remarkable performance, obviously taking himself to some very dark place in order to reach the depths of Sick and Psychotic that personified his Joker.

Now, here's the thing. I've heard the trite-wing pundits all rush to claim this movie as their own, declaring that The Dark Knight is just like George W. Bush.

Did they even see the same movie I saw? Did they just watch the trailer and assume that it brazenly supported the Administration's "feed a crony, starve a constitution" strategy in the GWOT?

Let's look at the two incidents which in this movie that seem to echo Bush Administration tactics: torture and unlawful surveillance.

[NOTE: For those who are interested in the film but are waiting for the condensed version to come out on a Burger King collectible cup, Spoiler Alerts are in effect.]

Torture: During questioning, the Joker manipulates the Batman into breaking his own rules, when Batman realizes the Joker has put two people Bruce Wayne cares about in imminent danger. He bars the door to the interrogation room (to keep out Gordon, who wants to stop Batman) and begins to beat the Clown White crap out of the Joker. Eventually, the Joker gives up the information. And guess what? The only info Batman got was the info that the Joker wanted him to have.

The movie's conclusion: torture doesn't work.

Illegal Surveillance: Batman has the technology to turn every cellphone in the city into a "camera" of sorts, allowing him to see all the activities of all people, good and bad, alike. Does he give himself control of this awesome technology? No.

Does he give it to his loyal butler Alfred, or to Gordon (who would presumably love to see who is taking drugs, having sex with a prostitute, etc.)? No. He doesn't.

He gives it to Fox (Morgan Freeman), the one man who says to him, "This is awful. This is wrong. You cannot do this." Fox agrees to help "just this once," meaning he will allow the technology to look for one man, the Joker, who has already, shall we say, given the good guys Probable Cause. The Batman trusts that Fox (much like the original FISA court) would not allow him to abuse this power, but would give him only enough information to help him find only The Joker, and you know what? It still worked!

The movie's conclusion: The old FISA rules for court ordered surveillance worked just fine, even in a world of ever-advancing technology, thank you very much.

So, Dark Knight = Bush? Ehhhh, not so much. At least not in Christopher Nolan's film. Wonder what Dark Knight the wingers saw?

Maybe it was the "Mexican Batwoman", or the "Filipino Batman and Robin"! Wait! I've got it! It was "Bedmen - yarasa adam", the Turkish Batman! (Google them, watch the vids and weep, whether with laughter or pain, I leave to you).

When they say we need to 'drill here, drill now,' you should ask why not sell our oil here at home rather then sending it abroad to sell for higher profits. Oh and you might ask why nobody ever brings this up (I'm looking at you OBAMA!)

This article is not from some liberal blog or otherwise unreliable source, but rather UK Reuters and it should PISS YOU OFF!

Click here to get the article and send it to your friends. Nobody else seems to care enough to educate our country to ask these questions:

Oil Firms Ask For More Drilling Access As Exports Soar:

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON, July 3 (Reuters) - While the U.S. oil industry wants access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.

A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

"We can help alleviate shortages by drilling for oil and gas in our own country," President Bush told reporters this week. "We have got the opportunity to find more crude oil here at home."

"As a nation, we can have more control over our energy destiny by supplying more of the oil and natural gas we'll be consuming from resources here at home," Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a letter last week to U.S. lawmakers.

But environmentalists and other opponents to expanding drilling areas could seize on the record exports to argue Congress should not open more acres if U.S. refineries are churning crude oil into petroleum products that are sent out of the American market.

"It doesn't look good to say: 'We need more oil.' But then export the refined products that you're getting. It doesn't seem to be consistent," said Jim Presswood, energy lobbyist for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But many energy experts say oil and petroleum products are traded globally, and it may make economic sense to export gasoline refined along the U.S. Gulf Coast to Latin America and import European-refined gasoline to U.S. East Coast markets.

"The fact is that the (United States) participates in global markets for both crude and refined products, and there are any number of variables that impact supply and prices in those markets," said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the National Petrochemicals and Refiners Association.

The White House said it was against requiring U.S. oil products to stay at home.

"Forbidding exports of U.S. petroleum reduces the incentive for domestic suppliers to produce, and could potentially lead to higher prices if U.S. production or refining declined," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.

The 1.6 million barrels a day in record petroleum exports represented 9 percent of total U.S. refining capacity of 17.6 million barrels a day.

However, with refiners operating at 85 percent of capacity during the January-April period, the shipments represented a much a larger share of total U.S. oil products produced.

The exports were also equal to half the 3.2 million barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products the United States imported each day over the 4-month period.

The biggest share of U.S. oil products exported went to Mexico, Canada, Chile, Singapore and Brazil.

U.S. consumers are paying record prices for gasoline and diesel fuel, which the Bush administration blames in part on tight supplies.

While the administration argues that more supplies would help to bring down prices, U.S exports of diesel fuel in April averaged 387,000 barrels per day, up almost seven-fold from 59,000 barrels a day in the same month a year earlier.

U.S. gasoline shipments in April averaged 202,000 barrels a day, the most for the month since 1945, when America was sending fuel overseas to ease supply shortages in other countries during World War II. Gasoline exports in April 2007 were almost half at 116,000 barrels per day.

Residual fuel exports in April were 377,000 barrels per day, the fourth highest level for any month, and up 10 percent from 344,000 barrels per day a year earlier.

John Felmy, the chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, said a portion of the oil products exported, especially diesel, was fuel that did not meet U.S. clean air requirements and therefore could not be sold in America. "You may have some that you're not able to use," he said.

Also, while U.S. gasoline demand is down due to high prices and a weak American economy, there is "strong economic growth outside the United States" where fuel is often subsidized and demand is high, said John Cook, director of EIA's Petroleum Division.

However, both the EIA and API admitted they did not know why daily U.S. gasoline exports to Canada skyrocketed to 41,000 barrels in January-April this year from 9,000 barrels in 2007.

The EIA said more U.S. diesel is going to Latin American to fuel power plants because of a shortage of natural gas in the region, and China has switched to diesel from coal to run some of its generating facilities in order to reduce smog ahead of the summer Olympics next month in Beijing. (Editing by Christian Wiessner)

I think it helps 'humanize' a teacher when students see them on myspace or facebook; it reminds them that we are part of their world, not locked up in some stuffy ivory tower (at least I a'int)

Read it in context here

(CNN) -- Randy Turner knows there's a huge gap in age and technology between him and his adolescent students.

So when the 52-year-old set up a MySpace page and his students began asking to add him as a friend and sending him questions about assignments, he realized he was on to something.

"Just the very fact that I have MySpace makes them think, 'Well, maybe we can talk to this guy and open the lines of communication,' " said Turner, who teaches English at South Middle School in Joplin, Missouri. "I realized this is a major way of communication for them."

MySpace had 72.8 million national users in June, versus Facebook's 37.4 million, according to a ComScore Media Metrix study. Once available only to students with college e-mail addresses, Facebook opened its virtual doors to everybody two years ago.

Despite perceptions, the sites aren't populated just by teens and 20-somethings. A 2006 ComScore survey found that half of those registered on MySpace were 35 and older, while a similar study last year found that almost 40 percent of Facebook users were above 35.

Teachers such as Turner believe sites like MySpace help them connect with their students about homework, tutoring and other school matters. But others fear the social-networking sites are breeding inappropriate relationships between teachers and students.

In Missouri in particular, a rash of student-teacher sexual relationships have spawned crackdowns on social-networking friendships. Web site badbadteacher.com, which keeps track of teachers disciplined, arrested and convicted of inappropriate behavior with students, lists 11 such teachers from Missouri within the last two years.

Which is why state legislator Jane Cunningham is sponsoring a bill in the Missouri House of Representatives that would ban elementary school teachers from having social-networking friendships with their students.

Turner said he understands the reasoning for the bill. He acknowledged that in some cases, teachers have become the public face of inappropriate Facebook and MySpace relationships with kids.

"I see where they are coming from," Turner said. "You can't argue with people whose intentions are trying to protect children. But the simple fact is, you take these people who prey on children and they are going to find a way to do it, whether it's over Facebook or not."

Those teachers are ruining it for the ones legitimately trying to help children, Turner said.

"There are so many kids who are stubborn against anything teachers say, who are struggling in the classroom and refuse to ask for help," Turner said. "When it's so hard to reach these kids, why would you remove any of the weapons at your disposal to make a difference?"

Facebook does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register, according to its Web site. Users must be at least 14 to register on MySpace, although such age restrictions are difficult to enforce.

In addition to the bill in the Missouri legislature, other school boards, teacher unions and parent-teacher associations across the country are drafting policies and issuing advisements about which online or text-messaging relationships are acceptable.

The Lamar County School Board in Missouri recently implemented a policy forbidding teachers and students from having any text-message conversations or social-networking friendships.

Jim Keith, an education lawyer who represents several school boards in Missouri, has been giving talks to teachers in which he explains that most of the inappropriate student-teacher relationships start out on a friendship level.

Keith spoke of one instance where a parent thought her child was spending extra time with a teacher who was trying to help her child overcome shyness. At Keith's urging, they checked the child's phone bill and found 4,200 text messages between the teacher and student.

"As an educator, there is a line of demarcation between you and your student," Keith said. "It's a line that you cannot come close to, let alone step over. You've got to establish it from Day One and say, 'I'm not your buddy; I'm not your friend; I'm just your teacher.' "

Keith agrees that teachers sometimes need to communicate after school with students about educational matters, but he said that's why teachers in Missouri have their own class pages hosted by their school districts. Those pages eliminate the need for Facebook or MySpace, he says, and allow the schools to monitor all student-teacher communication.

Many students, including Dixie Johnston, a senior at Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri, said that although their teachers have school-sponsored pages, most students rarely check them.

Turner insists that Facebook and MySpace aren't the evils that regulators should be after. Instead Turner wishes the focus remain on vetting the teachers being put in charge of the nation's youth.

"It's a sad thing, but with teaching you are going to have people who are attracted to the profession because of easy availability of kids," Turner said.

"Those predators are going to be there. But most of the time there are warning signs, and that's what we need to be working on, getting those people out ... not stopping teachers who haven't caused problems from reaching those who need [help] most."