We have learned that many of our teenaged girls in Glen Cove, including a 10-year-old, have received pornographic solicitations on their computers through the Internet. Over the last three days, more than a dozen pornographic images and lewd literature have been received by the girls whose families are America Online subscribers. Let's make it clear that the girls are in no way responsible for receiving this trash. It seems that traffickers of pornography are able to visit chatrooms, including the Nickelodeon website, check out the screen names of chatroom visitors, look up their profiles and proceed to email this filth. According to AOL, they can't stop this from coming into the house but they say there is a way to give it back to AOL. Open it, go to "forward" and then punch in "toss" and then "pam" followed by "send mail." A message will appear on your screen- "your mail has been forwarded" and then you can delete it without actually reading this material. This throws it back to AOL instead of keeping it on your computer.

There's no way to prevent these solicitors from coming in through the computer. The young ladies have been reluctant to tell their parents because they were embarrassed and thought they received this stuff because of something they had done wrong themselves. The girls' parents want others to know they are not alone if they are also experiencing this situation. If your child has been receiving this vile trash please contact D.A. Denis Dillon and Attorney General Dennis Vacco. Vacco and Dillon have just announced the arrest of an East Meadow man in connection with a major crackdown against traffickers of child pornography in the Internet. The defendant allegedly transmitted child pornography images to more than five dozen America Online subscribers last July from his home computer. He was charged with seven counts of first degree Promoting a Sexual Performance of a Child which carries a maximum penalty of seven years in state prison. Defendants who are convicted of trafficking in child pornography over the Internet also face "Megan's Law" registration for at least 10 years.

If we parents in Glen Cove join together and alert the authorities, we can get this person or persons out of our children's lives.

Apparently there are a number of people who are disturbed by a newsletter which was sent to the parents of North Shore High School students. In the newsletter, sent by the principal of the high school, there is an unsigned article entitled, "Lessons in Learning for All of Us from Asian Students." One of the taxpayers in the district, expressing his concern, wrote an open letter to the school principal in which he pointed out that, "the article is worse than intellectually worthless....and should be entitled "Lessons in Intolerance and Bigotry." The taxpayer claimed that the document appeared to be extolling the virtues of an Asian culture that results in academic excellence in stark contrast to an American culture that produces academic deficiency. Pointing out that the article could be viewed as having an unintended undertone of bigotry, the taxpayer suggested that the word, "Asian," be substituted with "white" and the word, "American" be substituted with the "Hispanic." In doing that, an illustration of how the article might read would be the following, "White students spend far more time on homework than their Hispanic counterparts. This starts in first grade and continues until graduation."

We called the high school principal for comment on the open letter and she said, "The open letter was distributed on tables at our back to school night. No one spoke to me prior to that evening. I learned about the letter in the middle of the evening. I was upset that the person, whoever he is, didn't have the courtesy to speak to me first to voice his concerns. I included the article in the newsletter because I thought it had helpful tips for parents about encouraging their students to work hard and do their very best in school. Ethnicity has nothing to do with it. He seems to feel I included the article to extol the virtues of one over another."

When the taxpayer was advised the principal was upset he hadn't called her first, he said, "It doesn't appear to me that the principal called anybody first before she distributed this article to all of the parents of high school students. I merely responded in the same way. If calling her first would have produced an explanation or a retraction, she is still free to do that."