The next French civil war

Those of us who are socially traditional tend to think that there really isn't much to be discerned between nudists and swingers. Both participate in a non-traditional lifestyle that's totally foreign to us.

But this just shows how naive we are. It turns out that, in France, anyway, the nudists are at war with the swingers (échangistes). In fact, the nudists have firebombed three swinger clubs, burning them to the ground. Yes, you read that right. In French terms, the town has been "plunged into anxiety," not to say ennui.

The normally peaceful Cap d’Agde, a magnet for nudists in the south of France, has been plunged into anxiety. Investigators suspect “fundamentalist” naturists of harbouring a grudge against the échangistes, or swingers, who are drawn to the town by the promise of sex.

A so-called boîte échangiste, or wife-swapping club, called Glamour, where couples engage in group sex, was the first to be razed, in April. The next day the Palme Ré, another orgy venue, went up in flames. In September the Tantra club and Zen, its neighbouring bar, were destroyed in blazes.

The tensions appear to be based on the resentment by traditional nudists of the swingers who show up looking for sex. "'What goes on in certain places is not naturism,' said Guy Delfour, former head of the French federation of naturism. 'Nudity is just one element of naturism. There are other values to recognise, such as the protection of nature.'"

I see. Who could possibly object?

But even if this article were not as inherently entertaining as it is, I would still commend it to you for its quotation of the phrase "mullahs of chaste nudity":

Some in Cap d’Agde attribute the fires to fundamentalist “mullahs of chaste nudity”, as one magazine called them, who have often harangued holiday-makers venturing onto nudist beaches in bathing costumes. Others denied that naturists could have been involved.

“We don’t want to put the échangiste places out of business,” said Gilles Beaumont, a naturist and regular at Cap d’Agde. “It’s true that we don’t like being mixed up with the swingers. But we respect other people and their right to behave as they please.”

I'm really tickled by the concept of naked Taliban. I suspect things would have developed far differently in Afghan history if the Taliban had been nudists.

And now, it's time to handicap this war. I place my wager on the swingers for these reasons:

1. Concealed weapons. Swingers can hide their weapons under clothing. Where are the nudists going to hide theirs? (Don't answer that.)

2. Cooperation. Swingers are used to working in groups.

3. Underwear. It's easier to get around when your personal regions aren't swaying in the wind.

4. Surrender. The nudists are French. (OK, so are the swingers, but I had to get that crack in somewhere.)


UPDATE: Thanks, Ace, for the link.

Click here to read more . . .

Pre-election linkfest

Here's a short linkfest to keep you political junkies from having to hit the refresh button at your favorite news sites and blogs in the hope that you'll get some useful information.

1. Here's an argument against early voting. (via Instapundit) For what it's worth, I'm voting NO on the early-vote ballot issue in Maryland. What could possibly go wrong with early voting?

2. Contrary to some expectations, it seems younger Jews are more likely to vote for McCain than older ones. (via Volokh)

3. If you vote, you might be eligible for, er, sex toys. (via HotAir) If you vote early, you need to work on your technique.

4. Speaking of which, the feds may be moving closer to running a strip joint. Insert your own joke here. (hat tip: fee simple)

5. Headline of the day: "Nudist group wants clothing-optional polling site."

6. Obama salutes McCain.

7. Taxman. (via HotAir)

UPDATE: 8. The six most insane people to run for President. (hat tip: Right Hand Son)

Click here to read more . . .

Tuesday linkfest

1. Joe the Plumber is more concerned about Israel than two-thirds of American Jews. (via HotAir)

2. Ouch. "That Colin Powell. What a great judge of character."

3. A federal judge is caught having made a campaign contribution to Obama. She describes her occupation as government lawyer. Well, I suppose it's literally true, but can you say "misleading"?

4. Hillbuzz confident about Pennsylvania?

5. Headline of the day: "Near-nude man runs down street firing crackers from head." (via BOTWT)

6. Bonus from the previous link: A photo gallery called "The Joy of Streaking." Really.

7. Quotation of the day about the incident in #3 #5: "'He was new in town, I think,' Mr Annas said." Mr. Annas?

8. This is 7-1/2 years old, but it never loses its charm: "Hi-tech toilet swallows woman / Temporarily." Even with the qualifier it's pretty good.

8. With evil toilets on the loose, maybe this isn't such a problem: "Japanese officials fret about toilet shortage in event of big quake."

Click here to read more . . .

Sunday evening linkfest

Passover has (finally) ended, and now, once again, it's time for a linkfest of links that have been forming plaque on the walls of my intertubes for the past two weeks or so. Some of them are seriously OLD, but I want you to have them, anyway. Please stay with me till the end, because way at the bottom of this post, I have a couple of future classics from the Sunday New York Times that are almost worth the price of the paper.

1. In the past couple of weeks, the biggest issue in politics, in case you're a Japanese World War II fighter who's been holed up in the Pacific until yesterday, has been whether Obama flipped the bird at Hillary while speaking to his supporters following the final debate in Pennsylvania. The Hillarosphere demands to know. And Baseball Crank has another photo that may provide circumstantial evidence.

2. The Democrats' Nightmare Scenario (via Instapundit)

3. More popcorn, please!

4. McCain goes to NOLA, and an African-American participant at a town-hall meeting says this: "I want to inform you that everybody in the camp here is not a Republican." Does he mean (a) literally no one is a Republican, or (b) colloquially, not everyone is a Republican? Who cares, anyway, besides anal-retentive grammar wackos like me?

5. As Warner Wolf might have said, if you studied math in school since about 1961 . . . YOU LOST! On a related topic, Hillary Clinton does some math trolling for delegates and votes from Michigan.

6. Gov. O'Malley calls a special session of the legislature to pass a law declaring the official state dessert of Maryland. (Only kidding about the special session. Beats the hell out of raising our taxes, though.)

7. The man-cave: "Like most stories that end up with a man mowing his friend's lawn in a dress, it started out innocently enough." (via Fark, of course)

8. Sometimes it pays to test your personal machinery before reporting its theft by voodoo to police. As the police chief himself put it: "'I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke,' Oleko said.
'But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, "How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it",' he said."

9. Public Service Announcement: Be careful when eating in Canadian restaurants.

10. "Le Petit Singly is a farm that specializes in making cheese from women's breast milk." (via Ace)

11. This one's so old, it's already been overtaken by events. You remember the McLean school that banned tag in the schoolyard? Well, tag's back, but not before a week of "reorientation lessons on playground safety." I swear I'm not making that term up.

12. Patch (for women) aims to make you (not you, you) feel sexy. (via Ace)

13. Rick Monday saves the flag. In 1976. But now, there's a video.

14. American expat in Paris whines about the falling dollar. My heart bleeds.

15. False advertising from Moron Pundit: a very non-moronic defense of the tax deduction for child dependents.

16. Doubleplusundead on more misery with McCain. For me, if you want to know why McCain hasn't sealed the deal with conservatives -- I'm going to vote for him, anyway -- read George Will's column this morning. Two words: campaign finance.

17. The Children of Israel were enslaved in Egypt by a Pharaoh who took great pleasure in persecuting gays, who were brutally forced to arrange flowers for the Egyptians. Hence, the orange on the seder plate. Funny, I had always heard that it was supposed to represent Pharaoh's fear of the vagina.

18. And finally, the moment you've been waiting for -- the two classics from today's New York Times: (a) In the travel section: "In 2007, nude recreation represented a $440 million industry — up from $400 million in 2001 and $200 million in 1992." (b) In Sunday Styles: A family adjusts to the father's sex change -- "Through Sickness, Health and Sex Change."

Click here to read more . . .

Coffee au naturel

When I saw this headline -- "Marlborough man orders his coffee in the nude" -- I naturally figured this guy had wandered into Starbucks. Without his shirt and jeans.




It's a strange image, really, because a tough he-man like that doesn't belong in Starbucks even with his clothes on.

Starbucks doesn't allow smoking.

Click here to read more . . .

Letting it all hang out

I used to run an occasional feature called "Naked News," in which I'd link to stories involving naked people who were doing strange things, given their state of undress. I always said that I was doing this in a shameless effort to increase site traffic. For quite a while, I've been trying to go straight, but this news story from Amish country, Lancaster, PA, just couldn't be passed up.

It turns out some naked dude went berserk at the Willow Valley Resort in West Lampeter Township on Friday. Someone called the police to report a "naked male tearing up the hallways and lounge at the hotel." But the rampage continued for over a half hour after the call came in.

Before the end of the rampage by the unclothed man, identified by police as Nicholas Hadzick, 28, of Freeland, some office space at the resort would be trashed and a forklift would be driven into an interior wall, damaging some overhead sewer pipe as well. Hadzick would then cross the street to run amok at Darrenkamp's in the Willow Valley Shopping Center, causing more destruction.

"He was under the influence of something," said Blaise Holzbauer, Willow Valley executive vice president and general manager. Holzbauer said Hadzick was a guest at the resort, and apparently went on his spree after attending an off-property party before returning to his room, falling asleep, and waking up.

Hadzick's rampage "really went undetected," Holzbauer said, until the forklift striking the wall set off a smoke alarm, which alerted security. The forklift was on the premises as part of an ongoing renovation at the resort, Holzbauer said. Police said at least one witness saw Hadzick gain access to a maintenance garage under some guest rooms to get the forklift.

The timeline is a little unclear to me. The story says that the police learned of this at 10:52 p.m., but the rampage continued until Hadzick drove a forklift, naked, into a wall and set off a smoke alarm. Even then, he was able to cross the street, naked, to trash a store called Darrenkamp's at a shopping center. Apparently, in Eastern Pennsylvania, a naked guy crossing a commercial street on a Friday night attracts little attention.

Hazdick wasn't arrested until after 11:30.

But as police searched Willow Valley for Hadzick, it quickly became apparent the incident wasn't over. Units were dispatched to Darrenkamp's for reports of Hadzick causing damage in that store.

After apparently gaining access through a rear loading dock door, he accomplished a lot in a short time, said Joe Darrenkamp, company president, who was called into the store around 11:30 p.m. The store is open 24 hours.

"He wasn't in the store long," Darrenkamp said. However, "he was on a mission."

Darrenkamp said Hadzick threw chairs in the market's cafe area, tossed a 300-pound pizza oven to the floor, as well as three scales, valued at about $7,000 each. "One was totaled," Darrenkamp said. Also damaged was a $90,000 meat-wrapping machine, Darrenkamp said, several soda coolers and the windshield of a delivery truck.

There's actually a security video you can watch. I would give you a content warning, except that the video uses an ovoid shape to cover the man's ovoid shapes, so you can be pretty sure you won't accidentally be confronted with any thingie-dingies. (There's also a short news video here.)

Meanwhile, I have to highlight two amusing aspects of this story. First, the female aspect.

Becky Bednar, front-end supervisor at Darrenkamp's said she didn't see Hadzick at first from her office, but saw chairs flying across the floor. "That's when I called 911," she said. Bednar said customers remained calm, moving out of line when Hadzick told them. She added that staff remained calm as well, knowing not to agitate him. As for her own recollection of the incident, Bednar joked, "It was more fun than a girl should have."

Second, the journalist aspect.

Telephone messages left at three separate listings for a Nicholas Hadzick in the Freeland area were not returned by press time.

In other words, the editors felt it was important to note that at least two totally innocent Nicholas Hadzicks in the area (and the third was possibly innocent, too) didn't return some dopey reporter's phone calls, as if this proves that the actual naked dude was given a chance to respond to the story. Really. The reporter would have been a lot better off contacting the naked dude's lawyer. He would have been the guy in a three-piece birthday suit carrying a litigation bag.


Marginally related: On a grimmer note, a naked dude with a knife threatens some folks in Camden, NJ. The results aren't good: "Camden cop shot, nude man dead." (hat tip: Soccer Dad) There's a news video at the link, too. How is it that people on the street who are interviewed always manage to say things like, "I don't know what transpired prior to that," which is an actual quotation from the news video? They probably watch too many cop shows on TV.

Click here to read more . . .

Headlines of the day

1. Man Found Naked, Intoxicated, Urinating From Lookout Tower In Park (Bonus: there's a video at that link.)

2. Nude burglar in video cock-up

3. Toilet break to last five days

(first two via Fark; third via BOTWT)

Click here to read more . . .

Visitor of the day -- 11/28

Gee, I sure hope not!

Click here to read more . . .

Another Wednesday linkfest

Some days are good days for drive-by links. Some days are bad days. Today was a good day.

1. If you really want to become a millionaire, don't bother following these rules. You'll become a millionaire in about 40 years, which doesn't really count if you adjust for inflation. Better advice: To become a millionaire, start with $2 million.

2. Why Heidi Klum fell for Seal. (via HotAir, with lots of comments) Hmmm, I wear bike shorts when I ride, and this never happens to me. Back at my high-school reunion, some people were talking about padded bras -- you know, the usual topic of conversation at high-school reunions -- and the gay "partner" of a classmate of mine explained to me that gay men often pad the areas that others are interested in. Not that this explains the Heidi Klum situation.

3. The math of teenage sex: "If you do the math—worthy of an SAT prep course, with fractions and large numbers—you'll find that early sex plus the Pill equals sexually transmitted disease and maybe even pregnancy."

4. There's something peculiarly Japanese about this: "Cell phone message warns train gropers." Huh? Well, read this: "The application flashes increasingly threatening messages in bold print on the phone's screen to show to the offender: 'Excuse me, did you just grope me?' 'Groping is a crime,' and finally, 'Shall we head to the police?'" The only thing more Japanese would be robots.

5. Does this campaign photo of the month remind you of this one -- I mean, the evil grin? (via HotAir, where Allah says, "Mitt should fire his advance team")

6. With the World Series finally underway, we have this year's best baseball injuries from Ken Levine (via Ace). Line of the day: "Somehow in June Washington reliever, Jesus Colome suffered an 'abscess on his right buttock'. The team's General Manager, Jim Bowden is quoted in the Washington Post as saying, 'We pray for his buttocks and his family.'" There's no link to the Post, but I've verified the Bowden quotation here. My own personal favorite baseball injury story was related in Lindsey Nelson's book from the mid-60s called "Backstage at the Mets." Grover Powell, a young left-handed pitcher who'd made a great splash for the abysmal Mets, injured his pitching arm while combing his hair. Casey Stengel quipped: "Greasy kid stuff."

7. If you're a kid who lives in Boston, they want to teach you how to duck to protect yourself against gunfire. (via Fark)

8. You might not want to meet this Australian barmaid in a dark alley, although rumor has it that she's very entertaining in the bar. (via about a million sites)

9. Yiddish makes a comeback in Lithuania, as demonstrated by this syntax: "I feel a very rich person by knowing this language." (via Fark)

10. I just had my 100,000th visitor at Pillage Idiot this evening. Needless to say, it was someone who had been searching for images of the Thai transvestite pageant, which I wrote about two years ago. Somehow that seems appropriate.

Click here to read more . . .

Naked before God (dyslexic version)

There's a very old joke about the dyslexic agnostic who stayed up late at nights unsure about the existence of dog.

I tell you this because I regaled you last month with the tale of "Naked before God," a convention of religious nudists meeting in Tennessee. Today, I want to tell about "Naked before Dog," which has to do with a naked dog-walker.

This headline actually sounds like a "Help Wanted" ad: "Police look for nude man walking dogs." (via Fark)

LITCHFIELD, Conn. - Police say they are on the lookout for a nude man who was spotted taking a stroll with two dogs on Monday. Police say the man was seen by a female jogger in the woods of the White Memorial Foundation.

Mary stolle, athletic director at nearby Wamogo Regional High School, said the school's cross country teams were diverted from the woods where they had been training into White Memorial's museum as a precaution.

The suspect is a tall white man with thin hair who is believed to be in his 50s.

According to the Litchfield Republican-American, which obviously you can't trust, because it's probably sitting in a public toilet tapping its foot, the naked dog-walker "went au natural in the woods of the White Memorial Foundation Monday, stunning a female jogger and forcing high school cross country teams to take or consider taking precautions." The use of the word "stunned" is interesting. Was she stunned by the man's, uh, natural beauty, or was she stunned in any of the following senses of the word:

1. To daze or render senseless, by or as if by a blow.
2. To overwhelm or daze with a loud noise.
3. To stupefy, as with the emotional impact of an experience; astound.

Personally, I suspect she was horrified, not stunned, but that's only because I should know. It won't be too long before I fit the description of the dog-walker, at least when he has his clothes on.

The other interesting facet of the story is why the cross-country teams were diverted from the woods "as a precaution." As a precaution against what? Were the dogs dangerous? Or was it a precaution against being stunned by a naked middle-aged dude who had a couple of dogs with him?

One final thought: This clearly wouldn't have happened in California, where they actually have "Naked Dog Walks" in a place called, oddly enough, "Los Gatos" (which means "the cats" in some metric language or other). If you think I'm kidding about naked dog walks, see this announcement and this one.

And it's a damn good thing they specify "naked" dog walks, because otherwise people might dress their dogs up in those silly little sweater things.

Click here to read more . . .

Visitor of the day -- 9/18

The internet is a truly scary place.

Click here to read more . . .

My boss

With apologies to Christians whose bumper stickers read, "My boss is a Jewish carpenter," I have the next, biggest thing in bumper stickers: "My boss is a nude carpenter."

The carpenter explained last year in an interview, "The primary reason is so I won't dirty my clothes and have to get into my truck with dusty clothes on." "It's more comfortable," he said.

Click here to read more . . .

Yet another nude geezer calendar

I was beginning to wonder about it, when I got a bunch of visitors today looking for something about naked geezer calendars, if you can imagine such a thing.

I can, actually. I wrote about semi-naked geezer calendars twice (here and here), which is why Pillage Idiot showed up in the search results.

Today's installment in the continuing saga of "Old Folks Coyly Displaying Everything You Don't Want To See Except For The Things You Really Don't Want To See" takes place in Madrid. That's Madrid, New Mexico, not Madrid, Spain, which actually might be more interesting. I understand there are a lot of bulls there.

A group of 60-something men who live in Madrid are peddling something that may sound like it would not have much of a market.

The group, which calls itself the Geezers, is publishing the Nude Geezers calendar featuring nude pictures of themselves.

"There are some people who are offended at naked old men," said Doug Wesley, one of the participants.

"All clothes does is cover up the beauty," chimed in Len Self.

"Well, that's what our theory is, actually," said Wesley.

Just in case you thought this was some kind of way to raise money for charity, the article makes sure to disabuse you of that notion: "Unlike other beefcake calendars of firemen or police officers, the money raised by selling the Naked Geezers is not going to charity. It's going to the Geezers."

Now, in any project of this sort, one of the most important things you can do is to issue a press release: "Nude Geezers Weenie Roast Launches Funny Calendar." A weenie roast for a semi-naked men's calendar. That's funny, now!

I'm happy to report, however, that the press release is false in a very important respect. It opens by stating:

Santa Fe, NM, August 17, 2007 --(PR.com)-- A veteran fighter pilot, a cowboy, a doctor, a retired stock exchange floor trader, a lawyer, a miner, a biological consultant, an impresario, an engineer, and other men over sixty have bared all for a Nude Geezers Calendar in this former old west ghost town, turned hippie haven.

That's a -- well, it's a fib, which the press release doesn't correct until near the end. If you mosey on over to the geezers' own website, what they bare is all the photos on the calendar. I promise you I haven't looked at all of them, but the two or three I've checked out aren't really baring all. There are some delicate props covering the naughty bits -- a book, a cat, and, if the press release is correct, in one case an attractive, fully clothed young woman.

That's really not so bad, though. We don't really need any more of a weenie roast than they give us.

Click here to read more . . .

Naked before God (and naked without Him)

Why is this called "Cover Story," anyway, is what I want to know? The Christian Nudist Convocation: Naked before God.

He has joined more than 20 others for the Christian Nudist Convocation, a semi-annual gathering of salt-of-the-earth folks whose dedication to being nude whenever possible is rivaled only by their love for Christ. “May the Lord protect our nudity from the sight of those who will not benefit, and may He allow us to be seen by those who will.... Amen,” goes the prayer from one of the nudist’s websites.

If that's your taste in religion and clothing, I guess.

Then, of course, there's Naked without God, which is perhaps more common, at least in Massachusetts:

"Your underwear are probably soaking wet," said Hall, 61, to a visitor.

Wet underwear is just one of many reasons why Hall prefers the nudist lifestyle of Sandy Terraces, the Marstons Mills campground where skin is in.

On the other hand, as far as I know, having done no research, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has not yet ruled that a woman has an equal-protection right to go topless in Boston, as the New York Court of Appeals has ruled with respect to New York.

Bonus: My wife occasionally clips advice columns to discuss with her Russian students, and she'd left this on the table. She was interested in the first letter, but I was more curious about the third one:

Dear Amy:

You answered a letter from a "naturist" in your column and made some disparaging comments about gardening in the buff.

Actually, Amy, nude gardening is an extremely enjoyable exercise, something my wife and I have been doing for more than 50 years.

There is a formal "World Naked Gardening Day" each year in the first part of May.

Our garden is beautiful.

A Happy Gardener, Richmond, Calif.

Responding to this letter, I made a comment about nude gardening and hedge trimmers. Based on the responses to this letter, however, many people enjoy nude gardening, despite what I perceive as its obvious risks.

Not to mention the risks that your neighbors have to face -- of being mooned without their consent.

(first item via Drudge, second via BOTWT)

UPDATE: And more "Dear Amy" via Fark:

Dear Amy: I am a 40-year-old divorced father of 14-year-old twin sons.

Recently, a new neighbor moved in next door. She is a very nice, charming and easy to get along with 30-year-old single woman whom I'll call "Martha." A problem has arisen, and I need some advice. On weekend afternoons when my sons play baseball in our back yard, Martha sunbathes topless in her back yard (always while lying on her stomach, as far as I know).

The tall wooden fence between our yards provides her some privacy. However, when the boys hit a foul ball into her yard, she allows one of them to come over to retrieve it.

Even though the fence is tall enough to prevent the boys from peering in at her, and even though she stays lying on her stomach whenever she is topless, the boys seem to hit more than their fair share of foul balls over the fence. This past weekend while they were retrieving a ball from her yard, Martha allowed one of the boys to apply sunscreen lotion on her back.

I found her behavior inappropriate, because my boys are at the age when they notice girls, and because she doesn't always keep her arms tightly at her side when sunbathing.

When I spoke to her about this, Martha said that it isn't a big deal and that the boys are perfect gentlemen.

Now what do I do? Am I making a big deal out of nothing? Should I prohibit my sons from backyard baseball and make them go to the playground field a few blocks away?

- Concerned Dad in Pa.

Dear Concerned: The lotion spreading is not good at all.

If your sons were daughters, and if your neighbor was a 30-year-old man, you would see this behavior as worse than inappropriate. You might see it as predatory. Of course "Martha" doesn't think this is a big deal. But she is in no position to judge.

Your sons should not have any physical contact with your neighbor.

As their dad, you should make this extremely clear to all parties, and then you should be vigilant to make sure that their contact remains nothing more than a neighborly "howdy" over the back fence.

Really. If you have to ask....

Click here to read more . . .

De minimis non curat lex?

(Note: Thanks, Allah, for the link at HotAir. Ace, too.)

The New York tabloids are having a field day with a settlement between an East Village artist and the City over her arrest for going out topless on the street.

• New York Post: "'Bust'ed Gal Payoff."


• New York Daily News: "Bra-vo! $29G in topless suit"

The artist, Jill Coccaro, "who now goes by the name Phoenix Feeley" (no immature jokes, please), relied on a 1992 decision of the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, which held that prohibiting women, but not men, from going topless violated equal protection.

In case you think I'm making that decision up, it really exists. I found a copy of the decision at a nudist "naturist" website, and it's totally for real.

The majority per curiam opinion tries to avoid the constitutional issue by making an analogy to a different statute that was intended to address the problem of topless waitresses (and I know many of you don't think that's a "problem" at all). So it holds that ordinary toplessness by ordinary women is not covered by the statute. Did I just say "not covered"?

The concurring opinion proceeds to get all funky.

Appellants and the five other women who were arrested with them were prosecuted for doing something that would have been permissible, or at least not punishable under the penal laws, if they had been men--they removed their tops in a public park, exposing their breasts in a manner that all agree was neither lewd nor intended to annoy or harass. As a result of this conduct, which was apparently part of an effort to dramatize their opposition to the law, appellants were prosecuted under Penal Law § 245.01, which provides that a person is guilty of the petty offense of "exposure" when he or she "appears in a public place in such a manner that the private or intimate parts of his [or her] body are unclothed or exposed." The statute goes on to state that, for purposes of this prohibition, "the private or intimate parts of a female person shall include that portion of the breast which is below the top of the areola."¹ The statute thus creates a clear gender-based classification, triggering scrutiny under equal protection principles (see, Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 97 S.Ct. 451, 50 L.Ed.2d 397).

OK, now comes the fun part. The concurrence says that "the State has the burden of showing that the classification is substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental objective," which probably isn't too hard to meet if you accept the idea that women and men have different "intimate parts," but if you're a lawyer, that's way too simple. And it didn't help that the State failed to mount any defense of the statute.

So here's the concurrence:

Although protecting public sensibilities is a generally legitimate goal for legislation (see, e.g., People v. Hollman, supra), it is a tenuous basis for justifying a legislative classification that is based on gender, race or any other grouping that is associated with a history of social prejudice (see, Mississippi Univ. for Women v. Hogan, 458 U.S. 718, 725 102 S.Ct. 3331, 3336, 73 L.Ed.2d 1090 ["(c)are must be taken in ascertaining whether the statutory objective itself reflects archaic and stereotypic notions"]). Indeed, the concept of "public sensibility" itself, when used in these contexts, may be nothing more than a reflection of commonly-held preconceptions and biases.

This is totally hilarious. Treating biological differences between men and women differently is a reflection of bias? I have a friend who took an employment discrimination class with the famous Catherine MacKinnon, who was insisting that all distinctions between men and women were socially constructed. At the break, he asked her whether this applied to male voice changes after puberty. Her response was that we are acculturated (I can't remember the exact word she used) to believe that post-pubescent males have lower voices.

So according to the concurrence in the New York Court of Appeals, the fact that female breasts are significantly different from male breasts (vive la difference!) bears no relationship to whether it's permissible to require them to be covered.

Next question for the Court of Appeals: Does a law requiring that male and female genitalia be covered violate equal protection because women aren't required to cover their penises and men their pudenda?

And as long as we're raising questions, why did the New York Post, which obviously thought it was just great for Phoenix Feeley to go out topless on the streets of Manhattan, show a photo of her with her hair covering her breasts? Paging Daniel Henninger.

Click here to read more . . .

Another geezer pin-up calendar

I had to emit a loud yawn when I read this headline: "Elderly Pa. Women Pose For Risque Photos." (via a commenter at Ace's)

Giving sultry looks and sexy smiles to the camera, 12 Pittsburgh-area women recently posed at Monongahela historical sites, baring it all -- or almost all -- to create a charity-driven calendar. The catch?

The nearly nude ladies are all in their 70s and 80s, driven to adventure by a desire to raise money for a historical society in Monongahela, a small community 17 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Well, I really did emit a yawn, which was followed by a vague sense of unease about the imagery. But I had to be very careful about it. Knowing women, if my wife had noticed my sense of unease, she would have assumed I was criticizing her appearance several decades in advance.

But surely, if geezer men can do pin-up calendars, so can geezer women. And besides, it seems that everyone is doing calendars these days.

And consider this:

"One of the advantages of being old is that you can do anything you want and get away with it," said 80-year-old Lois Phillips, who as Miss September was photographed in the back seat of a 1968 Mercury convertible.

Hey, that sounds just about right: Get away!

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Visitor of the day -- 5/16

No jokes, please.

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A favor to my visitors

I've been surprised to find a huge number of visitors over the past day or so, many from the Far East, who've arrived from searches for "Naked News." I used to have a feature called "Naked News," in which I wrote about news stories involving naked people. But that's not what my visitors are looking for.

They're looking for information about a real news show by the same name, in which the news readers disrobe. Hey, what a concept! (What morons!)

So, as a favor to my visitors, approximately 100% of whom will never return, here's what you're looking for: Two news items about the choice of a new naked reader for the show. Don't thank me. It's all in a day's work.

Extra: From the first of the two items: "rigorous audition process" and "she knocked off fellow finalists" -- the stupid jokes are just too easy. It's like picking off the "low-hanging fruit."

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Meat market

Not News: New York Times sends its food critic to review a steak restaurant.

News: The reviewer is rapturous, citing "char, richness, depth and a more pronounced degree of aging, an unmistakable tanginess that accentuated and stretched out the beef’s flavor."

Pillage Idiot: The restaurant is located at the Penthouse Executive Club, where the reviewer's party is attended to by strippers. For dessert: "It’s called a buttery nipple, and it involves one of the women straddling your lap, tilting your head back, pouring a combination of Baileys Irish Cream and butterscotch schnapps down your throat, and squirting Reddi-wip into your mouth. It costs $20 in cash. Note to the newspaper’s expense auditors: I don’t have a receipt."

Female Times staff lodge their complaints in 5..4..3..2..

(with apologies to Fark, from which I did not get this item)

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Bowling balls

Every time I try to stop writing about people doing strange things while naked, some article appears that makes me postpone my plan to go straight.

The latest is a piece in the Bangor Daily News entitled "Nude bowlers breaking no laws in Old Town."

Some nudists who have been renting the Old Town Bowling Center for private parties don’t appear to be breaking any laws or ordinances, but they are having fun candlepin bowling and playing pool.

"Hey, you can’t go skinny-dipping at this time of year," said Hessa, who organized the events and wanted to be identified only by her first name.

During the three events the Bare Nekkid Mainers have held in the center since September, the one-story building at 185 Center St. was closed, its windows and doors were covered in paper, and signs announced that a private party was in progress.

"I have absolutely no problem with it, and I hope nobody else does," Charles "Chip" Carson, the center’s owner, said Monday. "They just happen to like having a good time without their clothes on."

The trouble occurred recently, when "a man apparently ignored the signs and entered the center with his 8-year-old son." He called the police, who investigated (heh). They "found no violations, and after checking with the city attorney and municipal officials, they concluded there has been no wrongdoing."

And, yes, those of you who found my site through a search looking for a photo, there's a moderately SFW photo (with naughty bits blacked out) at the link above. I actually recommend that you look at it, because, after doing so, you won't necessarily feel like hopping the next plane to Bangor, if you know what I mean.

(Via Fark)

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