A Million Stories

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Evan M. Lopez

Here's something you might have missed: There's an unprecedented First Amendment case being deliberated right here in Philadelphia, involving naked teenage girls and sexting and an overzealous district attorney from some Pennsylvania county we've never heard of taking it upon himself to make these naughty schoolgirls straighten up and fly right, or else.

So yeah. We're all over it. Of course.

The federal appeals court will decide whether to allow the Wyoming County District Attorney's Office to bring child pornography charges against three teenage girls, two of whom were 12, and the other 16, at the time of their supposed crime. And that crime? Starring in two allegedly pornographic photos, taken a few years back, that later appeared on the peers' cell phones — that's the unprecedented part, the "sexting." As porn goes, these images are fairly tame: one photo of the two 12-year-olds in training bras, and a pic of the 16-year-old coming out of a shower with a towel wrapped below her breasts. But the district attorney, George Skumanick Jr., decided to teach these young ladies and 13 other teenagers caught up in this sexting scourge a lesson. He threatened them with the hoosegow unless they attended a six-month re-education program and wrote an essay explaining why their actions were wrong. Seriously. Most of the kids complied.

But not these three girls. The ACLU of Pennsylvania, which views this kind of thing as constitutionally prohibited " compelled speech," sued on their behalf. In March 2009, U.S. District Judge James Munley blocked Skumanick from bringing the child porn charges. Thus, the case wound up here.

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On Jan. 15, both sides presented their arguments. Skumanick's attorney, Michael J. Donohue, claimed that the photographs endangered the girls by potentially exposing them to sexual predators. Also, Skumanick only coerced them to enter the re-education program — where the girls would've been edified in such topics, according to the curriculum, as "what it means to be a girl in today's society" — to save them from themselves, Donohue said. Again, seriously.

Pennsylvania's anti-child-porn law prohibits the possession or distribution of photographs of minors that contain genitalia, sexual activity or nudity depicted for the purpose of sexual gratification. (We're not quite clear how the photo of the girls in their underwear falls under this legislative rubric.) Skumanick, however, wanted to prosecute the girls for simply appearing in the photos; he never showed evidence that they wanted these photos disseminated to their classmates . The girls say they never sent them to anyone. If anything, "these ladies are the victims under this law," Witold J. Walczak , the ACLU of Pennsylvania's legal director, said at the hearing. "In this case, there's no evidence of abuse."

Except, perhaps, of Skumanick's authority .

There's no telling when the appellate court will rule — could be next week, could be next year. Skumanick, by the way, lost his bid for re-election in November; his successor still wants the right to bring kiddie porn charges against sexting teens. Ah, Pennsyltucky.

PROTEST BEAT

"We're tired of talking!" declares Valeska Garay to the audience of about 150 assembled in the low-lit basement of St. Thomas Aquinas Church on 17th and Morris streets. They're here, on the evening of Jan. 15, for the Reform Immigration for America Rally , one of more than 100 events nationwide designed to galvanize support for comprehensive immigration reform — the same effort that so magnificently crashed and burned in Congress in 2007. Which means that — after health-care reform, climate-change legislation, the summer of tea-baggers , the stimulus, and so on — it's this kind of issue congressional Democrats want to take up precisely never . But that's why they're here, to pressure the gun-shy into action . So Garay, the evening's emcee, leads them in chants, some in English, some in Spanish, all deafeningly loud . And then comes the star of the show: City Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez . "Immigration reform will heal this nation ," Quiñones-Sánchez tells the crowd. The problem, as she tells it, isn't with the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants ; rather, it's the antiquated laws that don't adequately address the broader immigration issues. "We made [illegal immigrants] hide," she says. She's right, in that illegals are relegated to the shadows of society , lest they be discovered and deported. She cited a study from the Center for American Progress that claimed that adding a pathway to legalization would pump $1.5 trillion into the economy.

" Time is of the urgency," Quiñones-Sánchez stresses, while we ignore her, ahem, creative grammar . "We need to make sure [politicians] cannot finish the election without finishing this."

Of course, the counterargument, as voiced by Lou Dobbs and assorted racists, is that illegals shouldn't be here in the first place, so screw 'em. It's simplistic, but effective: We don't exactly see Democrats lining up to make 2010 the Year of the Immigrant.

ANNALS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION

Here at A Million Stories HQ, we were having a little debate last week that went something like this: "Twitter is awesome!" "Twitter is the fucking death of the English language." But hey, whatever, the micro-blogging phenomenon (140 characters or less!) actually does have a purpose beyond informing us that Taylor Swift found her life-size cardboard cutout of Brad Paisley. In this case of Philly playwright Jeremy Gable, it's a stage.

For 60 days, starting Jan. 25, Gable will be "performing" his new play, " The 15th Line " on the social networking medium. (You can follow it at twitter.com/twit_play.) Inspired by personal encounters while taking public transportation in Center City, Gable's play features a collection of strangers who meet through a subway accident that connects them together. It's his second such Twitter adventure: Last year's " 140: A Twitter Performance," was "the first documented full-length fully original Twitter play," according to Wikipedia, the only news source we trust. (Before that, he wrote the script for the " Flying Spaghetti Monster Holiday Pageant," which tells the tale of the FSM — praise be upon his noodly appendage, ramen — which makes Gable sort of our hero.)

"I'm not conceited enough to think that this is the next frontier for playwriting," he says via e-mail, "and as long as I live, I can never keep away from the stage. ... I'm simply interested in exploring new forms of storytelling. And, without gambling a nonprofit's hard-earned money , this is a way to try something new."

ANNALS OF MODERN CIVILIZATION, CONT.

So, OK, maybe a Twitter play isn't the cultural equivalent of the sacking of Rome. But this is. From the state of Pennsylvania's tourism office: "Fans of Punxsutawney Phil , Pennsylvania's world-famous weather-forecasting groundhog, can sign up to be among the first to know if there will be an early spring when he makes his annual prediction on Feb. 2 . For the first time, Punxsutawney Phil's followers can receive his official prediction via their mobile device by texting 'Groundhog' to 247365 between now and Feb. 2." And then jump off the nearest bridge. The end.

This week's report by Jeffrey C. Billman, Lara Coleman, Julia Harte and Kelsey Kats. E-mail us at amillionstories@citypaper.net.