From the Washington Post, “Recruits Sought for Porn Squad”: The FBI is joining the Bush administration’s War on Porn. And it’s looking for a few good agents. Early last month, the bureau’s Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as “one of the top priorities”
September 20, 2005
September 20, 2005
PETA-tition
From wwltv, New Orleans: Animal rights group PETA has written to state Attorney General Charles Foti asking that LSU officials be charged with cruelty for abandoning 8,000 animals in the university’s labs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to a spokesperson for the group. State law defines cruelty for abandoning as “completely forsaking and deserting an animal previously under the custody or possession of a person without making reasonable
September 20, 2005
The swirly cone of Allah and the Flight 93 Memorial, redux
My earlier post on the real-world implications of linguistic notions of interpretation raised some interesting questions, which I’ll attempt to address in short order as a way to move the conversation to a more manageable thread. Quickly: The Piss Christ, which some of you have offered as an example of a hypothetical wherein the piece is offensive regardless of the artist’s intent to offend, is an inapt example, I think—first,
September 20, 2005
Grieving Mom Cindy Sheehan and 70s Kung-fu expert and counterculture icon Billy Jack discuss strategies for twenty-first century anti-war activism while ostensibly maintaining their commitments to fighting global terrorism, 6
“My White House vigil is coming up, Billy. And this time I’ll be joined by Katrina survivors. Because in Bush’s America we are all victims—from those of us who’ve lost a child to the Presdident’s illegal war to those of us who’ve lost, like, a mattress, to Bush’s illegal hurricane. Which is why it’s time for us to stand up and be counted: to show the media, Congress, and this
September 20, 2005
Another Tequila Sunrise
A couple weeks old, this piece on the Minuteman project by the Weekly Standard’s Matt Labash is nevertheless worth highlighting. From “North of the Border”: IF GUYS LIKE CHRIS SIMCOX seem a bit tightly wound about our border being in crisis, it’s because he lives there, and it is. This he demonstrates by taking me out one night on patrol in the Huachuca Mountains and San Pedro River Valley. With
September 20, 2005
red pills found behind the sofa cushions, prolepsis 10
In the patrician worldview of sea monkey royalty, each piece of leftover pizza or cold, tinfoil-wrapped Asada chicken is a refrigerated tribute owed the Sea Monkey King, his presumptousness a fair trade, I figure, for the colorful, malt liquor-fueled tales he spins of deep sea intrigue—vivid, rambling stories that invariably end with a couple of decapitated manatees and a trio of mermaids engaged in shimmering acts of nasty, flippered gratification.