Obscenity

Five years after he was first indicted and after two prosecutions ended in mistrials, a Los Angeles-based maker and distributor of niche fetish films was convicted Friday of federal obscenity charges. Ira Isaacs, who produced, sold and sometimes acted in films depicting scatology and bestiality, was convicted on five counts of selling and distributing obscene material, based on films he sold through a site he advertised as "the Web's largest fetish VHS, DVD superstore. " The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated for less than two hours Friday after a weeklong trial, the bulk of which was made up of the screening of four films, two of them Isaacs' own creations.

Five years after he was first indicted and after two prosecutions ended in mistrials, a Los Angeles-based maker and distributor of niche fetish films was convicted Friday of federal obscenity charges. Ira Isaacs, who produced, sold and sometimes acted in films depicting scatology and bestiality, was convicted on five counts of selling and distributing obscene material, based on films he sold through a site he advertised as "the Web's largest fetish VHS, DVD superstore. " The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated for less than two hours Friday after a weeklong trial, the bulk of which was made up of the screening of four films, two of them Isaacs' own creations.

Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who beat obscenity charges more than 20 years ago, was indicted in Cincinnati on more serious charges of selling obscene videotapes to a 14-year-old boy. The 15-count indictment against Flynt and his brother Jimmy includes charges of pandering obscenity. Flynt was convicted of that charge in 1977 for distributing Hustler in Cincinnati. The conviction--detailed in the 1996 movie "The People vs. Larry Flynt" --was thrown out and Flynt was never retried.

The night before New Orleans played at San Francisco in an NFL divisional playoff game in January, Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams gathered his players for a pep talk at the team hotel. In a 12-minute, obscenity-laced diatribe, Williams instructed them to injure specific 49ers, urging them to aim for the head of quarterback Alex Smith and the surgically repaired knee of Michael Crabtree, saying the star receiver "becomes human when you [expletive] take out that outside" ligament.

In its editorial "Adult Choices" (May 8), The Times correctly observed that "Los Angeles is a megalopolis of incredible diversity." It also correctly observed that "millions of Americans have joined the audience for explicit materials." The Times is most assuredly not correct, however, in concluding that all sexually explicit material featuring and/or sold to consenting adults ought to be decriminalized or that "the marketplace . . . will best determine the limits (of pornography)." It is not "best" for devotees of bestiality and torture films to determine the "limits" of the marketplace.

Calendar recently highlighted an article dealing with "hate" shows like the Ku Klux Klan's "Race and Reason," a talk show seen on public-access cable channels around the country ("Hate on the Air: A Question of Access," by Judith Michaelson, Aug. 10). The proponents of these points of view, which in general focus on racism, have found a delightful window (cable's public-access channels) in the media through which to spew their filth. I applaud the City Council of Kansas City in its attempt to shut down its public-access channel rather than allowing the Ku Klux Klan the use of the facility.

Re "L.A. Officers Kill Suspect as Viewers Watch on TV," Feb. 24: I arrived at my mom-in-law's to pick up my 7-year-old daughter and observed them watching the local news as a wrong-way driver being chased by the cops was unceremoniously riddled with bullets and left to fall out of his vehicle, dead. My daughter, after seeing that, asked me, "Is that guy dead?" Where are you now, FCC Chairman Michael Powell? Oh, I forgot, ratings for "news" stations are more important than obscenity rules.

The Federal Communications Commission's most far-reaching action in 1987 promises to be its most unresolved issue in 1988. On April 16, the FCC announced that three FM radio stations--KPFK in Los Angeles, KCSB in Santa Barbara and WYSP in Philadelphia--had violated broadcast decency standards. The FCC asked the Justice Department to prosecute KPFK's owners--the nonprofit Pacifica Foundation and its officers--for obscenity.

"This is a case between two ancient enemies: Anything Goes and Enough Already." Those are the opening words of an unprecedented 62-page decision handed down Wednesday in which a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., federal judge ruled for the first time in the history of recorded music that popular songs can be considered obscene. When U.S.

Many, many thanks to Ray Powell of Garden Grove for his great letter to The Times (May 13) regarding the new family section seating at Anaheim Stadium. It is too bad that a family cannot enjoy the nation's favorite sport without being subjected to obscene drunks. Now if we could just take this one step further, I would appreciate it if the TV directors of sport would keep the camera off of Tommy Lasorda's mouth. I realize that the gentleman comes from Brooklyn and possibly has a limited amount of street grammar and that the dugout is just for the guys, but maybe those guys would have more respect for a manager who had some respect for himself.

Making his first turn on NBC's "Tonight Show" this election cycle, Mitt Romney mostly played the straight man Tuesday — but allowed himself a jab at his rival Rick Santorum for losing his cool over the weekend. Santorum created a kerfuffle by scolding New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny in Wisconsin on Sunday after the journalist asked him to clarify his remark during a speech that Romney was "the worst Republican in the country" to run against President Obama. The former Pennsylvania senator lashed out with a curse word — telling the reporter to "quit distorting my words.

  "Borat" does it again, but this time it was organizers of a sports event in Kuwait and not Sacha Baron Cohen who slipped up. The obscene anthem from the 2006 satirical film rather than the country's true national anthem was played Thursday at an awards ceremony for a Kazakhstan athlete who had won a gold medal for shooting at the 10th Arab Shooting Championship, according to media reports....

The federal obscenity prosecution of Los Angeles fetish film producer and distributor Ira Isaacs ended in a mistrial Tuesday after jurors deadlocked on charges that the filmmaker produced, sold and transported obscene material. The panel deliberated for about a day after watching four films created or distributed by Isaacs, whose Internet-based business specialized in a niche of the pornography industry that included scatology and bestiality. The films, two of which Isaacs directed and appeared in, made up the bulk of the three-day trial last week.

Coach Rex Ryan of the New York Jets on Monday was fined $75,000 by the NFL for screaming an obscenity at a spectator. Ryan made the foul-mouthed remark during halftime of the Jets' loss to New England on Nov. 13 at MetLife Stadium after a spectator suggested that Patriots Coach Bill Belichick is superior to Ryan at his job. As Ryan walked into the tunnel minutes after the Jets gave up an 80-yard touchdown drive, a spectator yelled, "Hey,...

The rude and crude world of professional boxing reached a new low recently. Or was it a new high? It is boxing. Nothing quite defines it. Certainly not good taste. Right there in your living room, had you been watching the "24/7" infomercial that HBO camouflages as a documentary in promoting pay-per-view sales, occurred one of the more startling scenes of public family dysfunction you will ever witness. Floyd Mayweather Jr. was throwing Floyd Mayweather Sr. out of his gym. The longer it went — and it was a good two or three minutes — the more you got the impression that he was also throwing him out of his life.

Four decades ago, fisherman Kim Seong-do came to this tiny outcropping known as the lonely island in search of solitude and a good catch. He moved into a cave here in 1971, scratching out a desolate existence on what South Korea calls Dokdo, whose two treeless islets rise from the water like shark's teeth, battered by fierce winter storms. Scaling its seaside cliffs, Kim found a freshwater spring reachable only by a rope strung up a 250-foot-high rock face. At night, his cave came alive with strange creatures.

Prosecutors dropped obscenity charges against Larry Flynt after he agreed to stop selling hard-core videos at his Cincinnati bookstore. As part of the plea bargain, the shop was fined $10,000. The deal came during jury selection in a trial that could have sent the Hustler magazine publisher to prison for 24 years. Prosecutors allowed Flynt, 56, and his brother, Jimmy, 52, to substitute their bookstore for themselves in a plea of guilty to two counts of pandering obscenity.

Broadway has had a good year by most accounts. Box-office receipts have just been tallied, and it turns out that this has been the highest grossing season on record. Attendance is up, and artistic moods have justifiably brightened. A broad spectrum of drama, old and new (some of it genuinely challenging), has helped counterbalance the commercial froth. And "The Book of Mormon," which has the Tony for best musical in the bag, has given New York its first runaway hit in some time that actually received stellar reviews.

Andre Ethier has learned how to control his temper when striking out. What he hasn't learned how to do is ignore the click of a camera. As a result, Ethier had to stand in front of his locker Thursday and explain why pictures of him flipping off credentialed photographers appeared on a sports gossip site earlier in the day. "It was an inspirational piece," he said. "They asked me what I thought of Dylan Hernandez . " He was kidding. Or so we would like to think.