O. J. Simpson died. Seventy six years old. From cancer.

His life strange. Marked with success and failure.

His criminal trial for allegedly killing his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boy friend Ronald Goldman was exciting to observe. Captured world wide attention. 

I was living at 1800 Atlantic on a yearly lease at the time.  I watched the trial every day for months. Since it was being tried in California, it began around noon or in early afternoon in Key West. I used to wake in the morning. Walk first along the ocean to the airport and back. Then a dip in the pool. Followed by a short nap on a lounge by the pool.

Then to the barcalounger and TV in the living room and the “show” of the season. For the lawyer in me, the trial was exciting.

Simpson had a multitude of top attorneys. His key attorney was Johnnie Cochran. A brilliant lawyer. His best move was the glove: “If it don’t fit, you can’t convict.” The cross examination of the liar police officer Mark Fuhrman outstanding. Barry Scheck’s DNA questioning innovative and spectacular. 

Simpson’s acquittal exciting. If there were sins he had to pay for, he did in the subsequent civil trial and later an unelated criminal case in Nevada which resulted in his spending several years in jail.

School districts confronting a major problem nationwide. One they are doing little to deal with. Involves normal photos of middle and high school clothe girls being transformed with A.I. apps into nudes showing breasts and genitalia.

A.I. is artificial intelligence. Relatively new. Male students take normal pictures of female classmates dressed appropriately and then apply the A.I. intelligence to the photos to expose bare breasts and pubic areas.

The problem a national one. Parents complaining. Most school districts slow to respond.

After the boys take photos of their female counterparts dressed, they then apply A.I. apps to “nudify” the photos. The exposed breasts and genitalia pics are then placed on walls in lunch rooms, in school buses, and group chats on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. These digitally altered images are known as “deepfakes” and “deepnudes.”

The photos have a tendency to harass, humiliate and bully young women. They harm their mental health, reputations and physical safety. 

The transformations are done by the boys without the knowledge, permission or consent of the girls involved.

The FBI has warned distributing such photos is illegal. 

The use of A.I. apps in schools is so new that most districts claim they are not prepared to deal effectively with the problem. Many school districts do not even report the situation to the police.

There can be no question but taking a normal clothed photo of a female student and then using A.I. apps to expose breasts and genitalia is wrong. What I find difficult to understand is why school districts are being so slow in correcting an obvious wrong. School districts that have been acting immediately and forthwith to ban a book if one parent considered one word or thought to be sexually explicit. Values are misplaced. The “denuded photo” is more harmful to a female student than one sexual  word or thought.

Is it because banning a book is less personal than punishing a today student? Is it because the shame of it all falls on a live student and his parents rather than another who wrote something years ago?

A disgusting situation that needs immediate and prompt correction.

If one of my daughters were so involved, I would have raised holy hell. Some parents are doing so today. The problem is correction/solution is slow, minimal or non-existent.

Fred Klein writes a weekly blog which publishes on friday. This week’s is titled The Chart Room.

As with me, Fred discovered the Chart Room many years ago. He refers to The Chart Rom as close to The Twilight Zone: “The center of the universe.”

He is correct. Or was so. Our group is the last to have experienced the Chart Room as it was for so many years. Now changed. Few of “our group,” if any, still go. Unfortunate.

My day yesterday a slow one. A smoothie at Date and Thyme. Followed by a haircut with Lori. Then a couple of hours on the beach.

Enjoy your day!