January 29

Events

1845 - "And my soul from out shadow lies floating on the floor / Shall be lifted - nevermore!" - The New York Evening Mirror published a brand new work by a local poet on this date. The poem was "The Raven" and the poet was Edgar Allen Poe. The poem is a haunting lament for the lost love of a man who is clearly devastated by loss. Scholars speculate the inspiration for the work could have come from the deep love he had for his own wife, who died tragically two years later. Virginia Clemm, Poe's wife, was only 13 when the two married, and was indisputable the inspiration for other works of Poe's.

2000 - "Earth to Mom! Earth to Mom! Hello?" - A woman, referred to in court documents only as "Kathleen R.," sought an injunction to stop a public library in California from acting as a "public nuisance" after her 12 year old son downloaded images of people engaged in sex acts from library computers. She wanted the library to install filtering software on children's area machines. In rejecting the case, one judge said, "What's a library to do?" noting libraries restrict access can "get sued, and if they don't, they get sued." Another noted the boy hadn't stumbled upon the images, but had deliberately sought them out. Sounds like this mom needed a bit of a reality check on the sexual nature of the average 12 year old.

2001 - Uncle Sam knows best, and he is no "funny uncle!" - In May of 2000, Russian authorities asked the U.S. Customs Service for assistance in identifying the owners and customers of a Russian-based Internet site was selling child pornography. So began "Operation Blue Orchid" and the presence of US law enforcement working in Moscow. In the course of the investigations, Glenn Martikean, a man from Indiana, became a target of theirs. Martikean had arranged to meet a 14 year old boy for sex, but the Moscow police intervened. They could do nothing, however, because the AOC in Russia was 14. So an undercover American cop convinced Martikean it was safe to go back to the US to gather his belongings before moving out of country. On this date Martikean arrived in the US and was arrested for travelling abroad for the purposes of sex with a person under 18. It did not matter the sex was legal in Russia or sex never occurred or the boy was not available as a witness.

January 29, Will McBride the popular American-born photographer and author of the sex education book "Show Me!" passed away.