"I have to thank Ed Meese for saving my life"

Blogs are great, but don't drop those magazine subscriptions just yet. Before I continue with an excerpt from National Review On Dead Tree, would you care to guess who said the above?

Maybe no one remembers the fall of 1984, when Vanessa Williams was Miss America, and a photographer released some earlier nudes of her to Penthouse magazine. At the time it was widely distributed and quite a scandal, involving as it did "America's Sweetheart" nude with another woman. One picture in particular had Ms. Williams squatting and the other woman's face to her buttocks - someone at the construction site where I was working at the time photocopied and distributed this picture with the caption "Miss America Duck Call".

What's less well known is that there was another controversial pictorial in that same issue. The centerfold's name was Nora Kuzma, and she was not yet 18 years of age when the photos were published. She posed under her nom de porn, "Traci Lords". She also starred in a number of porn films too, where she capitalized on her jailbait looks. When she was discovered to be underaged it caused some consternation. Ms. Lords left the porn biz but has continued her acting career.

And now, on to the NRODT cite:

The 1986 "Meese Commission" report on pornography is notorious, a catalyst for First Amendment hysteria from liberals and civil libertarians -- "chilling effect" and the like. But Traci Lords, former child-porn star, has a different take. In her new memoir, Lords recounts how a federal raid ended her "career" at age 18 and turned her life as a junkie and "prostitute" (what she considers life as a porn star) around. In an interview about the book, Lords recently said, "I have to thank Ed Meese for saving my life." We know vindication when we see it.

I'll admit that there are probably better sources of news about your favorite former porn stars, but see what you're missing? So subscribe to NRODT today, and maybe they'll get rid of some of those @#$!# ads.