Some atheists are not content to believe what they choose.
They're not satisfied with exercising their freedom not to worship God.
They demand that others be prohibited from exercising their right to worship. They want references to God be completely stripped from the public square.
They refuse to tolerate others' free exercise of religion.
Atheist groups are so intolerant that they are making an issue out of a Brooklyn street named in honor of seven firefighter heroes who died on 9/11, "Seven in Heaven Way."
To honor seven dead 9-11 firefighters, a portion of Richards Street has been ceremonially renamed “Seven in Heaven Way” — prompting tributes to the heroes and complaints from critics who say that the government should not be in the business of advancing one religion’s notion of the afterlife.
“It’s improper for the city to endorse the view that heaven exists,” said David Silverman of American Atheists. “It links Christianity and heroism.”
Local atheists also insisted that public signs should be non-sectarian. “It falls under the umbrella of Church and state,” added Ken Bronstein of NYC Atheists.
The new street sign — which city officials hung last Saturday at Seabring Street — honors seven firemen assigned to Engine 202 and Ladder 101, who were killed after at the Twin Towers.
Teary-eyed widows, dozens of uniform-clad firemen and civic leaders paid respects outside the firehouse at the intersection, explaining the men were killed while pulling victims from burning rubble.
“They are heroes and should be rewarded in a place like heaven,” said Tom Miskel of Community Board 6, which unanimously supported the name change in December 2009.
“Almost every religion has some form of heaven,” he added. “It’s not just specific to Christianity.”
The “Seven in Heaven” firemen — Joseph Gullickson, Brian Cannizzaro, Salvatore Calabro, Thomas Kennedy, Patrick Byrne, Joseph Maffeo, and Terence McShane — were among the first firefighters called to the towers, making it there before the second airplane hit.
“They gave up everything to help — and that’s what sets them apart,” said Ralph Gullickson, Joseph’s brother.
...First Amendment caselaw suggests that government must allow both religious and non-religious speech when it opens a forum for expression — provided it’s clear that religious references are attributed to the individuals making the expression, not the government.
New York City Atheists’ president Kenneth Bronstein told reporters, “There should be no signage or displays of religious nature in the public domain,” adding that it was “insulting” to use the word heaven in the street sign. “We’ve concluded as atheists there is no heaven and there’s no hell,” Bronstein explained.
As common sense and U.S courts have pointed out, however, merely feeling insulted does not a constitutional argument make.
...As for the sign constituting a government endorsement of religion, applying the same scrutiny to other publicly named places would necessitate renaming streets, towns, and cities across the country, a multitude of which have religious connotations.
Secularists’ insistence on eradicating any allusion to religion or religious beliefs from the public sphere distorts the foundational American idea of freedom of—not from—religion. Atheists’ argument in the Brooklyn sign situation, like the National Day of Prayer case and Pledge of Allegiance case, misunderstands the First Amendment’s intent to allow robust religious freedom in the public sphere, not hermetically seal it within the walls of churches, mosques and synagogues.
These people are so intolerant.
They've concluded that there is no heaven or hell.
Good for them.
Others have reached a different conclusion. Why don't atheists respect that?
They are attempting to infringe on the right of individuals to exercise their religious beliefs, as well as the right to freely express their beliefs.
Is that simple street sign really so offensive to the atheists that they can't bear to live with it in place?
I find the atheists' dismissal of the First Amendment to be extremely offensive.
The atheists are offended.
So what?
It's not insulting to use the word "heaven" in a street sign. But if they are insulted, too bad.
They have to learn to embrace diversity and show religious tolerance instead of forcing their will on others.
I don't think they understand what it means to be an American.
Eugene City Councilor Mike Clark, who was elected in 2006, says he always wondered why the council didn't start its meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance.
He says he'll ask his seven colleagues and the mayor on June 20 to begin starting their meetings with the pledge.
The Register Guard reports many levels of government such as the Legislature, the Eugene School Board and Springfield City Council regularly say the pledge.
Clark's suggestion to begin meetings with the Pledge was met with hostility.
A majority of the council would not agree to regularly reciting the Pledge.
Echoes of patriotism resounded at the Eugene City Council on Monday as councilors hotly debated and passed resolutions calling for the domestic redirection of federal “war funds” — and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance before four council meetings each year.
After a lengthy debate on how the city should spend any money it might receive as a result of a redistribution of federal funds, the council voted 7-1 to endorse a resolution “expressing the City Council’s desire that funds to continue the Iraq and Afghanistan wars be directed to domestic priorities, including the pressing needs in the city of Eugene.”
...Earlier, councilors returned to an ongoing debate over whether future meetings should commence with the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance.
In a revised compromise, the council agreed to recite the pledge at four meetings a year closest to the patriotic holidays of Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Flag Day and the Fourth of July. The council also agreed that excerpts from the U.S. Constitution or Declaration of Independence could be read aloud at the council meeting nearest the Fourth of July holiday.
The first opportunity to recite the pledge will come at the council’s July 11 meeting.
An earlier proposal to also recite the pledge at the annual State of the City address will now be left to the discretion of the mayor.
The issue surfaced several weeks ago when Councilor Mike Clark suggested that the pledge be recited at the start of bimonthly council meetings. But Clark agreed to a compromise put forth by Councilor Alan Zelenka when it seemed clear that a council majority was not prepared to endorse reciting the pledge on a regular basis.
Monday’s vote on the pledge was 6-2, with Councilors George Brown and Betty Taylor in dissent.
Clark said part of his motivation was to respond to constituents who often cite the fact that some Eugene traditions — namely, the eccentric Eugene Celebration in late summer — do not sit well with some residents but are nonetheless tolerated by them.
And, with the resistance to the idea of a public body reciting the pledge, Clark said he feels they are not being given the same liberty.
“Something they value in that way is met with hostility,” Clark said. “Tolerating those differences is an important part of the community that we live in. It has become an issue of tolerance to a certain degree.”
But Brown disagreed.
“This whole notion that we need something for the ‘not-weird’ seems very weird to me,” he said.
It's mind-boggling to me that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before a government meeting would be a source of controversy.
The idea that a compromise was necessary, only saying it four times a year, is sad.
In Oregon, the Eugene Town Council voted 5-2 against a motion to recite the pledge at the opening of every town meeting. There was a compromise allowing the pledge to be said 4 times a year but only on certain holidays. One council member who voted for the ban said reading the pledge was like reading the Communist Manifesto before every meeting.
The Communist Manifesto?
The Pledge should be relegated to being recited only in one's own home but not in a public forum?
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
A Park High School student who thought he might have a shot at being prom queen could still get crowned king.
School officials have said they won’t allow Uriel Gomez, 18, to stay on the girls’ ballot for prom court, which could have put him in the running for queen.
Park students started voting for prom court early this week. With a little encouragement from Gomez and his friends, he ended up getting enough votes to get on the girls’ ballot.
Classmates had nominated Gomez for prom king, too. He might have to settle for a crown instead of a tiara.
“Right now it’s kind of confusing. All I know right now is, I’m on the guys’ side,” Gomez said.
Gomez, a senior at Park, insists the push to keep his name on the list of senior girls who might be chosen prom queen has nothing to do with grabbing “15 minutes of fame.”
It seems like a classic "15 minutes" grab to me.
When Gomez learned he had enough votes that he might get elected to the prom court — on both the boys’ and girls’ sides — he asked a teacher if he could stay on the girls’ side.
The teacher told Gomez, and his friend Matthew Harris, to talk with Jim Kerkvliet, the school’s activities director.
...“The school is standing with the regular policy,” Kerkvliet said. “It’s the same for everything. Boys are boys. Girls are girls.”
Gomez, who is gay, said that isn’t the biggest reason why he asked to stay in the running for prom queen. He was never really given a good reason why he couldn’t, he said. If his classmates voted for him, why not, he figured. Friends agreed.
Whether school officials change their stance, Gomez has support from friends and classmates.
“I don’t think the student voice should be shushed just because (the school) doesn’t agree with it,” said Amanda Peterson, a Park senior and one of Gomez’s friends. “Prom is supposed to be fun, anyway. I don’t see what the problem is.”
Kerkvliet said earlier this week that he did not know anything about Gomez’s sexual orientation.
Gomez did not tell the school’s activities director that he was gay when he asked to keep his name on the girls’ ballot.
Oh come on.
Schools do have rules and policies.
They can't be dismissed by using the excuse that the student voice is being "shushed." Freedom of speech isn't a free-for-all.
I don't think Gomez's civil rights are at issue here.
In 2005, Lake Geneva Badger High School student Kerry Lofy was suspended and fined because he went to prom dressed in drag.
Lofy said he thought it would be funny to show up at his senior prom Saturday wearing a dress. Lofy went to the prom with Victor Anderson, a friend. Lofy says the school did not have any problem letting two males attend prom together, but school officials who had heard of Lofy's plan to wear a black dress warned him that he would not be allowed in the dance if he showed up dressed as a woman.
Lofy says he is not gay. He says he agreed to go with Anderson, who is gay, because Anderson is his friend and he wanted to go to the prom but didn't have a date. Anderson confirms this. Lofy concedes that he was uneasy going to prom with another male, and wearing a dress was a way to deflect other people's suspicions.
In 2006, Kevin Logan was denied access to his prom because he wore a pink dress.
A male student who has worn women's clothes to school all year was turned away from his high school prom because he was wearing a dress.
Kevin Logan, 18, went to the West Side High School prom on Friday in a slinky fuchsia gown and heels. He believes officials discriminated against him by not allowing him inside.
This year's prom controversy is a little more complicated than wardrobe choice.
RACINE -- Uriel Gomez didn’t set out to run for prom queen. He’s a young man, and Park High School might not be ready for that.
A star football player in a skirt is one thing. An honor student and thespian in a tiara at prom is something entirely different.
Earlier this week, enough of Gomez’s classmates nominated him to a short list of seniors who might get on the prom court. His name landed on the girls’ side, which meant he could be voted prom queen.
School administrators were less than thrilled by the prospect and wouldn’t let him proceed.
This is Racine, after all, subject of the documentary film “The World’s Best Prom.” The spring formal is serious business in this part of the globe.
Gomez, 18, didn’t expect it. He now finds himself in a strange battle. He wants to be on the ballot and hasn’t heard a good reason why he shouldn’t be included.
If former Park High and current University of Wisconsin football standout John Clay could dress in women’s clothing and win the school’s “Miss Legs,” a homecoming tradition, Gomez and his friends don’t understand why he can’t be prom queen, especially if his classmates vote for him.
“It’s not like I’m forcing myself on the ballot,” Gomez said. “I did it legitimately and I did it fairly.”
...Gomez is going to prom with his friend, Madeline Thompson, a Park graduate. He has a nice suit in mind. He is renting a bus to go to prom with a large group of friends, including Harris, who has stood by his friend’s side for four years.
“Uriel’s not doing this to ruin anybody else’s prom. He’s not doing this to make girls cry,” Harris said. “If anything, he’s doing this to make his prom more memorable.”
So openly gay Gomez plans to dress like a man and his date will be a female. No problem so far.
His classmates voted for him to be on the list of potential female prom court candidates.
Rather than crying harassment and complaining about being demeaned by his fellow students, Gomez is embracing his chance to be prom queen.
He wants to be included on the ballot with the girls. That's a problem.
Gomez is gay. He's not a girl.
Traditionally there is a prom king and queen; a male student and a female student is honored by their classmates.
Call them whatever you want, king or queen or most popular kid, but I do think there should be a male and a female chosen to head prom court.
Like it or not, Gomez is a male. If students want him to be on prom court, let them vote for him to make it as a male.
I don't think he belongs on the girl's side of the ballot.
There's no discrimination. Gomez isn't being kept from attending prom. He's not being kept from being on court. He's being kept from getting there as a girl.
It's not legitimate and it's not fair for him to be considered a female for the voting.
I don't think this is a wise choice of battles by Gomez.
School officials should put him on the ballot with the male students.
The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. This year’s event will be held in memory of Lawrence King, a California 8th-grader who was shot and killed Feb. 12 by a classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. Hundreds of thousands of students will come together on April 25 to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior.
Wisconsin's own U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin introduced a resolution to honor the National Day of Silence.
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin today called on colleagues in the House to recognize this year's National Day of Silence to be held on April 25th. The annual National Day of Silence is a day in which students take a vow of silence to bring attention to the anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) name-calling, bullying, and harassment faced by individuals in schools, including students, teachers, and other school staff. The National Day of Silence is coordinated nationally by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). An estimated 500,000 students from nearly 5,000 junior and high schools in all 50 states and Puerto Rico have participated in the National Day of Silence in past years and more than 6,000 schools have registered this year.
In remarks on the House floor this morning, Congresswoman Baldwin told her colleagues, "This year's event will be held in memory of Lawrence King, a California 8th-grader who was shot and killed Feb. 12 by a classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. Larry's death is an unnecessary reminder of what we already know: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students continue to face pervasive harassment and victimization in schools. As students use their silence to demand schools are safe for all students, it is my hope that we in Congress will use our voices to ensure that it be so.
GLSEN reports startling statistics:
- More than 80 percent of LGBT students have been verbally harassed;
- Nearly 20 percent of LGBT students were physically assaulted by their peers at school because their sexual orientation or gender identity/expression;
- Almost 40 percent of LGBT students reported that faculty and staff never intervene when homophobic language is used in their presence;
- Nearly 30 percent of LGBT students reported missing at least one entire school day in the last month because they felt unsafe.
Reps. Baldwin (D-WI), Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Lois Capps (D-CA) have sponsored a resolution (H Con Res 328) supporting the goals and ideals of the National Day of Silence. Baldwin said Congressional support sends a strong signal that harassment and hate crimes will not be tolerated in our schools and in our communities.
Harassment of LGBT students is inexcusable.
Baldwin wants the Congress to send a strong signal that the harassment of these students will not be tolerated in our schools.
Hear, hear.
Too bad this day only focuses on LGBT students.
There should be a National Day of Silence for all kids who are bullied and harassed for reasons other than their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
Senior Aliza Shvarts' controversial piece still could be included in the student show, which runs through May 1, Yale officials indicated.
"Her exhibit is not on display, but it's unresolved as to whether it will be," said Yale spokesman Tom Conroy, suggesting discussions were in progress between the university and Shvarts.
Discussions?
This is ridiculous. Maybe Jimmy Carter can help resolve the matter.
Shvarts kept mum through the weekend and early this week despite the school's calls for her to confess that she lied in describing how she constructed the project. She didn't respond to repeated calls or e-mails requesting comment.
Yale officials warned that unless the art major agreed to say in writing that she hadn't told the truth about artificially inseminating herself and then taking herbal drugs to try to induce miscarriages, they'd yank her piece from the student exhibit, which opened Tuesday morning and closes May 1.
Does this mean she gets an A on her project? ___________________
Aliza Shvarts' senior art project is turning into quite a battle.
The University will not allow Aliza Shvarts ’08 to display her controversial senior art project at its scheduled opening Tuesday unless she confesses in writing that the exhibition is a work of fiction, Yale officials said Sunday.
The University, meanwhile, acknowledged that it has disciplined two faculty members for their role in allowing Shvarts to proceed with a project that she claimed included nine months of repeated artificial inseminations followed by self-induced miscarriages.
As news of Shvarts’ project swept across the Web last week and attracted the ire of students and private citizens alike, Shvarts and the University engaged in a match of he-said/she-said: Shvarts stood by her project as she described it earlier last week in a news release, while the University — claiming Shvarts had privately denied actually committing the acts in question — dismissed it as a hoax that amounted to nothing more than “performance art.”
And with the scheduled opening of her exhibition rapidly approaching, the University only intensified its criticism this weekend.
“I am appalled,” Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said in a statement Friday. “This piece of performance art as reported in the press bears no relation to what I consider appropriate for an undergraduate senior project.”
School of Art Dean Robert Storr also condemned the project in a written statement Friday.
“If I had known about this, I would not have permitted it to go forward,” Storr said in the statement. “This is not an acceptable project in a community where the consequences go beyond the individual who initiates the project and may even endanger that individual.”
...Meanwhile, Salovey said in the Friday statement that he and Storr would reassess what constitutes an “appropriate” senior project and the process through which such projects are overseen by faculty.
Two days later, Salovey and Storr announced that an investigation had found “serious errors in judgement” on the part of two unnamed individuals — ostensibly her thesis adviser, School of Art lecturer Pia Lindman, and School of Art Director of Undergraduate Studies Henk van Assen — who had been involved in her project before it incited mass condemnation across campus and across the country and that “appropriate action” had been taken against them.
“In one case, the instructor responsible for the senior project should not have allowed it to go forward,” Salovey said. “In the other, an adviser should have interceded and consulted others when first given information about the project.”
...In his statement Sunday night, Salovey called on Shvarts to produce a written confession admitting that her project did not actually include the graphic acts that she had first described. He added that Shvarts will not be allowed to install her project unless she admits she did not try to inseminate herself and induce miscarriages and promises that no human blood will be displayed in her exhibit.
...If the exhibition does go ahead, it will likely require heavy security. A Yale official said last week that the incident has drawn more press inquiries to the University than any episode since the controversy over the admission of former Taliban diplomat Rahmatullah Hashemi in 2006.
But if the art opening does not continue, the University is likely to face criticism that it has restricted freedom of expression.
In his statement, Storr emphasized that the University “has a profound commitment to freedom of expression” and that he, personally, supports the legality of abortion.
“That said, Yale does not encourage or condone projects that would involve unknown health risks to the student,” Storr said. “Nor does it believe that open discourse and inquiry can exist in an educational and creative community when an individual exercises these rights but evades full intellectual accountability for the strong response he or she may provoke.”
Exactly.
Shvarts is exhibiting intellectual dishonesty.
Yale is not banning her project, disgusting as it is.
The university is demanding that she simply be honest and not misrepresent the truth of her art project.
This isn't a case of trampling on Shvarts' freedom of expression. And certainly, members of Yale's faculty are strongly pro-abortion. It's not a matter of School of Art Dean Robert Storr acting in support of anything as controversial as respecting life.
Shvarts can display her project, but she can't profess it to be something it's not.
With freedom comes responsibility.
Yale is not going to be complicit in Shvarts' irresponsibility. She can't claim that the university signed off on an assignment that would have endangered her physically.
To those of you claiming a ban of Shvarts' project would be an assault on free speech: I say, "It's not. Duh."
Senior Aliza Shvarts' controversial piece still could be included in the student show, which runs through May 1, Yale officials indicated.
"Her exhibit is not on display, but it's unresolved as to whether it will be," said Yale spokesman Tom Conroy, suggesting discussions were in progress between the university and Shvarts.
Discussions?
This is ridiculous. Maybe Jimmy Carter can help resolve the matter.
Shvarts kept mum through the weekend and early this week despite the school's calls for her to confess that she lied in describing how she constructed the project. She didn't respond to repeated calls or e-mails requesting comment.
Yale officials warned that unless the art major agreed to say in writing that she hadn't told the truth about artificially inseminating herself and then taking herbal drugs to try to induce miscarriages, they'd yank her piece from the student exhibit, which opened Tuesday morning and closes May 1.
Does this mean she gets an A on her project? ___________________
Yale student Aliza Shvarts insists that she really did inseminate herself and then abort her pregnancies as part of her senior art project.
A Yale University student who touched off a campus firestorm with her shocking claims of repeatedly artificially inseminating herself and then inducing miscarriages as part of an art project stood by her story Friday, despite statements from the university that her version of events is "creative fiction."
In a guest column that ran in Friday's Yale Daily News — which first reported her claims in Thursday's edition — senior art major Aliza Shvarts maintained that she had conducted artificial inseminations and carried out what she characterized as self-induced miscarriage procedures, though she never actually knew whether she was pregnant.
"For the past year, I performed repeated self-induced miscarriages," Shvarts wrote in Friday's column. "Using a needleless syringe, I would inject the sperm near my cervix within 30 minutes of its collection, so as to insure the possibility of fertilization.
"On the 28th day of my cycle, I would ingest an abortifacient, after which I would experience cramps and heavy bleeding. ... Because the miscarriages coincide with the expected date of menstruation (the 28th day of my cycle), it remains ambiguous whether the there (sic) was ever a fertilized ovum or not.
"The reality of the pregnancy, both for myself and for the audience, is a matter of reading."
She reiterated that the display, which she herself drew attention to with a press release circulated Wednesday, was meant to provoke discussion about the link between art and the human body.
"This piece — in its textual and sculptural forms — is meant to call into question the relationship between form and function as they converge on the body," she wrote.
..."The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body," Helaine S. Klasky, associate dean and vice president for public affairs at Yale, said in the statement sent to FOXNews.com.
"Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art."
Shvarts' campus phone has been disconnected, and she did not respond to e-mailed requests for an interview. While she did not explicitly mention Yale officials' version of events in her Friday column, Klasky told various media that Shvarts had indicated what she would do if the university contended her story was false.
"She said if Yale puts out a statement saying she did not do this, she would say Yale was doing that to protect its reputation," Klasky told The Associated Press.
The public affairs official also wrote an e-mail to the Yale Daily News late Thursday night saying that Shvarts "denial is part of her performance. We are disappointed that she would deliberately lie to the press in the name of art.”
Shvarts shot back at the school, claiming her project was “university sanctioned,” according to the paper.
“I’m not going to absolve them by saying it was some sort of hoax when it wasn’t,” she told the Daily News. “I started out with the university on board with what I was doing, and because of the media frenzy they’ve been trying to dissociate with me. Ultimately I want to get back to a point where they renew their support.”
Shvarts said her project had the backing of Yale's Davenport College Dean Craig Harwood, as well as at least two faculty members within the School of Art.
Blah, blah, blah.
Pull the curtain on this one. The performance is over.
Senior Aliza Shvarts' controversial piece still could be included in the student show, which runs through May 1, Yale officials indicated.
"Her exhibit is not on display, but it's unresolved as to whether it will be," said Yale spokesman Tom Conroy, suggesting discussions were in progress between the university and Shvarts.
Discussions?
This is ridiculous. Maybe Jimmy Carter can help resolve the matter.
Shvarts kept mum through the weekend and early this week despite the school's calls for her to confess that she lied in describing how she constructed the project. She didn't respond to repeated calls or e-mails requesting comment.
Yale officials warned that unless the art major agreed to say in writing that she hadn't told the truth about artificially inseminating herself and then taking herbal drugs to try to induce miscarriages, they'd yank her piece from the student exhibit, which opened Tuesday morning and closes May 1.
Does this mean she gets an A on her project? ___________________
Pull the curtain on this one. The performance is over.
My review: Despicable. GAME OVER, SHVARTS.
_________________
Let me get this straight...
Aliza Shvarts' senior art project was "performance art." She didn't actually do what the Yale Daily News reported that she did. Apparently, she duped the newspaper and many people across the country, outraged over what she professed to have done.
Don't accuse Shvarts of lying. It was art.
Here's how Shvarts' project was described in the student newspaper on Thursday:
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.
...The "fabricators," or donors, of the sperm were not paid for their services, but Shvarts required them to periodically take tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.
Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself.
...The display of Schvarts' project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts' self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.
Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.
School of Art lecturer Pia Lindman, Schvarts' senior-project advisor, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.
Both pro-life and pro-abortion proponents reacted with horror.
Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.
She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.
Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.
Born in Espoo, Finland, Pia Lindman received her MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Finland, and then as a Fulbright scholar received a Master of Science in Visual Studies from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She now lives and works in New York City.
Lindman takes the site-specific art tradition as a point of departure. Her work evolves around the themes of social context and space, as well as the performative aspect of making and experiencing art. By engineered social contexts like the Hybrid Sauna at M.I.T. in 1999 and Public Sauna at P.S.1 in 2000, Lindman aims to provoke members of the audience to perform and experience a particular social practice, forcing a re-evaluation of notions of corporeality and public sphere. Lindman’s approach to drawing is informed by the tradition of performance art. After videotaping herself re-enacting gestures of mourning captured in photographs in the New York Times, she traced these gestures from video stills with pencil. By exhibiting both the tracings and the enactments, she tries to illuminate some of the relationships between a photograph, its mediation, and the idea of original content, in this instance human emotional reaction to terrorism.
Lindman has mounted solo exhibitions and screenings at “the lab”, N.Y.C., Galleri Leena Kuumola in Helsinki Finland; the Institut Finlandais in Paris, France; Artist-in-Akiya in Tokyo, Japan; Kluuvi Gallery in Helsinki, Finland; and Galleri FABRIKEN in Gothenburg, Sweden. She has been included in group exhibitions and screenings in New York such as: “Premieres” at the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y.C., “BLIND DATES” at Sculpture Center L.I.C., "The Suburban Backyard" at Socrates Sculpture Park L.I.C., "Lobby Projections" at Museum of Modern Art in Queens; "New Views, World Financial Center", with Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the World Financial Center Arts & Events; and "Greater New York" at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, L.I.C. Her video series Thisplace is in the MoMA collections. She has shown internationally in galleries and art institutions such as: Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna, Austria, Millais Gallery at the Southampton Institute, U.K., San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, SF, FIAC with Luxe Gallery, Paris, France, Kunstbunker in Nuremburg, Germany, Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, Finland, and Beaconsfield in London, UK. She has lectured widely, among other at Yale University School of Art and Architecture, New Haven, New York University School of Visual Art, Institut Française d’Architecture in Paris, France, and the Rhode Island School of Design. She has received numerous awards, including those from AVEK (The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture in Finland, FRAME (Finnish Fund for Art Exchange), the Council for the Arts at MIT. Lindman’s work has been reviewed in many periodicals and journals including: Times Higher Educational Supplement, PRINT Magazine, Rethinking Marxism, Artforum.com, Brooklyn Rail, Art Press, The New York Times, The Village Voice, ARTnews, Technikart, Thresholds, Time Out New York, and Time Out London.
I suppose Yale didn't want to diss the distinguished Lindman by reprimanding her for overseeing Shvarts' disgusting "art."
Cullen MacBeth, the student newspaper's managing editor, declined to comment Thursday.
Shvarts could not be reached for comment. Her telephone number was disconnected and she did not respond to e-mails or a knock on the door at the address listed for her in the campus directory in New Haven.
Why no comments?
I would think that the newspaper's managing editor would have a lot to say about being exploited by Shvarts.
And Shvarts-- she wanted to spark discussion, yet she's not talking.
Groups both for and against abortion rights expressed outrage over the affair.
Ted Miller, a spokesman for NARAL Pro-Choice America, called the concept offensive and "not a constructive addition to the debate over reproductive rights."
Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, an anti-abortion group, said his anger was not mitigated by the fact that Shvarts was never pregnant.
"I'm astounded by this woman's callousness," he said. "There are thousands of women in this country who are dealing with the pain of having had an abortion, with the trauma of having suffered a miscarriage. For her to make light of that for her own purposes is just beyond words."
I, too, find Shvarts' callousness astounding. As her advisor, I don't think Lindman should have signed off on such a cruel hoax.
Yale's Klasky says that Shvarts "is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art."
True. Shvarts has the right to do unconscionable things and call it art.
I have the right to express myself.
Shvarts' project wasn't art. It was an exercise in heartlessness and soullessness, an assault on an audience without their permission. She's not a performance artist. She's a liar.
Senior Aliza Shvarts' controversial piece still could be included in the student show, which runs through May 1, Yale officials indicated.
"Her exhibit is not on display, but it's unresolved as to whether it will be," said Yale spokesman Tom Conroy, suggesting discussions were in progress between the university and Shvarts.
Discussions?
This is ridiculous. Maybe Jimmy Carter can help resolve the matter.
Shvarts kept mum through the weekend and early this week despite the school's calls for her to confess that she lied in describing how she constructed the project. She didn't respond to repeated calls or e-mails requesting comment.
Yale officials warned that unless the art major agreed to say in writing that she hadn't told the truth about artificially inseminating herself and then taking herbal drugs to try to induce miscarriages, they'd yank her piece from the student exhibit, which opened Tuesday morning and closes May 1.
Does this mean she gets an A on her project? ___________________
The assignment was to create a social commentary piece for a class with assistant art professor Kate Randall.
Starting about 6 a.m., students and employees walking through the student center [at University of Maine at Farmington] had to decide to either step around or step on the five, four-by-five-foot flags and the 3,000 small, handheld flags scattered over the floor. As part of her project, Crane videotaped people's feet to record their response.
"This is very emotional for me because it goes against a lot of my own beliefs about the flag," Crane said, her eyes tearing up, after holding her own against a verbal barrage.
"But I feel strongly that people should have the choice. That is what our country is all about. I expected controversy but not like this," she said.
It's not surprising that veterans and others found Crane's "social experiment" to be disrespectful.
In terms of eliciting a strong response, Crane's project pales in comparison to what a senior at Yale did.
Aliza Shvarts' senior art project is beyond shocking.
Art major Aliza Shvarts '08 wants to make a statement.
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.
The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts' project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock . saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.
But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for "shock value."
"I hope it inspires some sort of discourse," Shvarts said. "Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it's not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone."
The "fabricators," or donors, of the sperm were not paid for their services, but Shvarts required them to periodically take tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.
Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself.
Art major Juan Castillo '08 said that although he was intrigued by the creativity and beauty of her senior project, not everyone was as thrilled as he was by the concept and the means by which she attained the result.
"I really loved the idea of this project, but a lot other people didn't," Castillo said. "I think that most people were very resistant to thinking about what the project was really about. [The senior-art-project forum] stopped being a conversation on the work itself."
Although Shvarts said she does not remember the class being quite as hostile as Castillo described, she said she believes it is the nature of her piece to "provoke inquiry."
"I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity," Shvarts said. "I think that I'm creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be."
This is so degrading and repulsive that I am absolutely sickened.
How could this sort of "project" be sanctioned by Yale?
Not only did Shvarts put herself at great risk by repeatedly becoming pregnant and inducing miscarriages, she showed no respect whatsoever for life. ZERO.
The display of Schvarts' project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts' self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.
Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.
School of Art lecturer Pia Lindman, Schvarts' senior-project advisor, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.
That is horrific.
Again, how could Shvarts' project advisor have signed off on this?
Shvarts "did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages."
How could her advisor have been aware of what she was doing and not demand that she be monitored by a doctor?
Few people outside of Yale's undergraduate art department have heard about Shvarts' exhibition. Members of two campus abortion-activist groups . Choose Life at Yale, a pro-life group, and the Reproductive Rights Action League of Yale, a pro-choice group . said they were not previously aware of Schvarts' project.
Alice Buttrick '10, an officer of RALY, said the group was in no way involved with the art exhibition and had no official opinion on the matter.
Sara Rahman '09 said, in her opinion, Shvarts is abusing her constitutional right to do what she chooses with her body.
"[Shvarts' exhibit] turns what is a serious decision for women into an absurdism," Rahman said. "It discounts the gravity of the situation that is abortion."
CLAY member Jonathan Serrato '09 said he does not think CLAY has an official response to Schvarts' exhibition. But personally, Serrato said he found the concept of the senior art project "surprising" and unethical.
"I feel that she's manipulating life for the benefit of her art, and I definitely don't support it," Serrato said. "I think it's morally wrong."
Shvarts emphasized that she is not ashamed of her exhibition, and she has become increasingly comfortable discussing her miscarriage experiences with her peers.
"It was a private and personal endeavor, but also a transparent one for the most part," Shvarts said. "This isn't something I've been hiding."
It wasn't a "private and personal endeavor." Her multiple abortions were meant for public exhibition, artistic expression for public consumption.
Clearly, Shvarts is a disturbed individual. She is in dire need of medical care. Her body and mind needs to be thoroughly examined.
The official reception for the Undergraduate Senior Art Show will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on April 25. The exhibition will be on public display from April 22 to May 1. The art exhibition is set to premiere alongside the projects of other art seniors this Tuesday, April 22 at the gallery of Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall on Chapel Street.
This exhibition is going to be a circus. Shvarts' ghoulish freak show display is sure to dominate the Undergraduate Senior Art Show.
I feel sorry for the other seniors. Their works will be held hostage by Shvarts' submission.
I don't see how a project requiring the "artist" to have been in such physical peril would be displayed. The utter moral bankruptcy of the "artist's" project is jaw-dropping.
Does Yale have no rules or guidelines for the senior art project? I can't get over the lack of judgment shown by Shvarts' advisor.
I wonder if an art student would have been allowed to do a project like this:
The display will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. The student will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from the dogs and cats the student killed mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.
The student will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show the student killing the dogs and cats in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.
Imagine the outcry, and rightly so. Of course, Shvarts couldn't get away with killing dogs and cats. Animal cruelty laws would kick in.
The fact that what Shvarts did was legal should give everyone pause.
Shvarts' art project sounds like a horrible Nazi experiment, an atrocity committed by a brutal regime.
Susan Crane thought she was prepared to handle the reaction from students when she constructed five, large American flags on the student center hallway floor at the University of Maine at Farmington as an art class project. What she didn't expect was the level of emotion her experiment ignited.
Agitated students and veterans called it an insult. UMF maintenance workers placed cardboard signs at either end with the word "disgrace" printed in black.
And a member of the American Legion from Farmington was ready to be arrested by police when he started pulling up the flags made of tape and vinyl, calling it a "desecration."
Veteran Charles Bennett, the Legion commander for Franklin County, eventually was convinced by UMF President Theodora Kalikow to desist in the name of freedom of speech.
The assignment was to create a social commentary piece for a class with assistant art professor Kate Randall.
Starting about 6 a.m., students and employees walking through the student center had to decide to either step around or step on the five, four-by-five-foot flags and the 3,000 small, handheld flags scattered over the floor. As part of her project, Crane videotaped people's feet to record their response.
"This is very emotional for me because it goes against a lot of my own beliefs about the flag," Crane said, her eyes tearing up, after holding her own against a verbal barrage.
"But I feel strongly that people should have the choice. That is what our country is all about. I expected controversy but not like this," she said.
"I am on their side and I agree with what they are saying but they were also not hearing what I was saying," she said.
"Veterans have fought for our freedom and died for our freedom. This is what our freedom is all about," Crane said.
Crane, 40, an education major, described herself as a conservative Republican whose father is a 25-year military veteran. She said she had talked about her project with him and that he supported it.
"He said he respected what I was doing because he had fought for these rights," she said.
...The overwhelming majority of passersby circumvented the flags. Only a few chose to step on them, Crane observed.
As the peaceful but loud crowd increased, [Director of Public Safety Ted] Blais called for backup. Officers from the Farmington Police Department and UMF arrived as did Kalikow, Provost Alan Berger and Celeste Branham, vice president of student affairs. Kalikow took Bennett aside to explain the college's position.
"The U.S. Constitution touches everybody and the flag is a symbol of our rights. We have to protect that," Kalikow said later.
"(Bennett) feels very strongly and I feel very strongly," she said. "I didn't like this either because I was brought up with flag etiquette. But (Crane) has the right to do it. Is that not what America is about?"
...Iraq war veteran Travis Hill, 28, of Salem Township, called the display "infuriating" and "insulting" and told Crane to take it down.
"She made her point. Why keep going?" he said.
...The project was approved for 24 hours. That plan was shelved, however, when Farmington Fire Chief Terry Bell, after consulting with State Fire Marshal Tim Fuller, determined the flags presented a tripping hazard.
By late afternoon, he ordered them moved to one side of the hall but Crane, exhausted, decided to remove them completely.
Susan Crane, this is your 15 minutes!
Certainly, putting American flags on the floor to test whether people would step on them is a project that would get noticed. It's as if Crane wanted to garner national attention.
She succeeded.
Crane, the "conservative Republican," had to know that she would upset veterans. She had to know that she would greatly offend them, as well as many other Americans.
...She said the confrontations were upsetting, especially since her 11-year-old son and husband were there. But she is proud she stood up for what she believed.
"The best thing about all this was that it sparked discussion," she said afterward.
Crane is proud of herself. She stood up for the right of free speech.
That's her prerogative.
Personally, I wouldn't be proud of using free speech rights to provide cover for a terribly disrespectful display.
American flags can be plastered on the floor of a university. That's acceptable. That's art.
Of course, something like images of aborted babies are often considered too offensive to be viewed.
Would the unversity agree to an "art project" that had graphic pictures of aborted babies lining the walls of a campus cafeteria, as a "social experiment"?
I wonder if that sort of free speech would have been supported by the university. I doubt it.
We may not know what a Scotsman wears under his kilt, but the town officials of Clinton, Louisiana, say what they see is too much.
Jay Herrod mows lawns in a skirt.
He says he wears the garment because he gets heat rash and "it allows that area to breathe and, uh, wearing a skirt on the mower allows the sweat to evaporate."
"He cuts the yard in a hurry. He does a good job," Carline Kimbro says. "I don't have any problems. That's what I was interested in. I don't pay attention to what he wears."
But the town alderman in this southeastern Louisiana town do.
The municipal authorities have cited Herrod for indecency in violation of a "no sagging pants" ordinance. He says the rule shouldn't apply to him because of his medical condition and has a doctor's note to prove it.
"I've had some women say I have nice looking legs, "Herrod says with a laugh. "For a man, I know, I'm the only guy in East Feliciana Parish that wears a skirt. That's a known fact."
Wearing a skirt is not the same as wearing sagging pants.
Herrod has a medical condition and he has the cojones to manage it by wearing a skirt. I don't see why he should be cited with indecency.
The Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, headed by Fred Phelps, gained notoriety for staging protests targeting such solemn occasions as the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. They hold signs saying, "God hates fags" and "God hates America."
The protesters claim that tragedies and deaths can be blamed on homosexuality.
They're crazy. That's a given. Beyond their outrageous views, it's positively despicable that they show such disrespect while people are grieving.
On Thursday, the nuts planned to protest at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. The previous weekend, three students died in a house fire.
MENOMONIE, Wis. -- Hundreds of people at the University of Wisconsin-Stout staged a counter-protest against members of a Kansas church who demonstrated on campus after three students were killed in a house fire.
Several people from Westboro Baptist Church picketed at the Menomonie campus, stating the three students "died for Wisconsin and Minnesota's sins."
Church members held signs saying "God's Wrath is Revealed" and "America is Doomed."
Nearly 1,000 students demonstrated against the church members Thursday outside the Memorial Student Center.
Students carried signs saying "God Hates No One," and "Hate is Sin in God's Eyes."
Although some of the students protesting the protesters can be heard using vulgar language, they did the right thing.
They sent the group fleeing from the campus only 15 minutes into their scheduled protest. They could have stayed, but apparently they weren't comfortable being challenged by throngs of people.
The students united in the counter-protest appropriately exercised their right to free speech. Free speech is best answered with more free speech.
Smoke Free Wisconsin is "a single issue organization whose mission is to promote effective tobacco control policies that will protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke; prevent the initiation of smoking, especially among children; and ensure that there is a well-funded, comprehensive and effective statewide tobacco prevention program."
Naturally, the group supports Governor Jim Doyle's push to strip private businesses of their right to determine whether or not to allow smoking in their establishments.
Governor Doyle has called on the Wisconsin State Legislature to pass a comprehensive statewide smoke-free air bill that would protect all Wisconsinites from secondhand smoke. We support Governor Doyle's proposal for a smoke-free workplace law that would prohibit smoking in all indoor public places and workplaces, including restaurants and taverns. It’s Time…to Breathe Free Wisconsin!
Gov. Jim Doyle has wisely made a statewide smoking ban a priority. A statewide ban would create a level playing field for all establishments. This would prevent the potential negative and unfair financial impact on bars that must compete with neighboring bars located across municipal borders in communities that still allow indoor smoking.
Unfortunately, Democrats who control the Senate and Republicans who run the Assembly refused to send a bill to Doyle 's desk before the Legislature finished his regular business for the year.
That 's why more local communities are expected to approve local bans, creating an even wider and unpredictable maze of regulation across the state.
Wisconsin needs to follow the examples of neighboring Minnesota and Illinois, both of which have banned smoking in bars and restaurants.
Madison has shown that a ban on smoking inside bars isn 't a big deal for smokers, who have accepted the easy courtesy of stepping outside when they want to light up. Many Madison bars also cater to smokers by providing outside patios -- some with heaters in winter -- where smoking is still allowed.
More importantly, non-smoking patrons and especially bar employees inside can enjoy clean air and better health.
If the Legislature needs even more evidence that a statewide ban is overdue, a study last week helps make the case. Researchers including Scott Adams at UW-Milwaukee discovered higher numbers of fatal vehicle accidents involving alcohol in areas with local smoking bans.
Greg Gutfeld acknowledges this research that suggests local smoking bans cause deaths rather than save lives, but he lends a different interpretation.
He writes:
So I was reading the Economist — ha, just kidding, I am barely literate. Actually someone read it to me and told me how American smoking bans have actually killed people.
How so? Well, researchers think smokers are driving farther to places where smoking is allowed — like places with outdoor seating or my intricate system of tunnels near the overpass. And all that somehow leads to more drunk driving and death. To which I add: Phooey!
I read of a far more intriguing theory: That smoking bans make restaurants more attractive to nonsmoking shut-ins — smarmy geeks who can't handle their booze, much less conversation. Finally, they take off their drawstring sweatpants, shave their pimply backs and hit the town, where they get drunk and kill people. See, it's the callous and unthinking nonsmokers who are to blame — those stupid, fat nonsmoking jerks.
Look, I've always hated the smoking ban. I think the health threats from passive smoking are fabricated and books have been written on the faulty data behind the research. Plus, smoking on the street blows: As a worldwide celebrity it's hard to puff when you're constantly kissed and hugged by adoring fans.
It's all just a scam to legislate behavior that people don't like and has nothing to do with science.
Fact is, if you let smokers smoke only smokers die. That's it. Everyone else is fine — which is a shame, because I'd really like to take a few vegetarians with me.
And if you disagree with me, then you sir are worse than Hitler.
Interesting analysis, as always.
I don't think the results of that UWM study should be used to promote a statewide ban. Drunk driving is a separate matter. Are we to believe a statewide ban on smoking would prevent drunks from getting behind the wheel? Why?
I'm not a smoker. Smoke bothers me. Sure, I suppose I would be more comfortable if a statewide smoking ban passed.
The thing is I'm getting along fine without the ban. I choose to avoid places that are smoke-filled.
I think others should have the choice to go to places that are smoker-friendly.
If a restaurant owner wants to allow patrons to smoke, what's the problem? It's a private business.
REEDSBURG, Wis. (AP) -- An elementary-school event in which kids were encouraged to dress as members of the opposite gender drew the ire of a Christian radio group, whose angry broadcast prompted outraged calls to the district office.
Students at Pineview Elementary had been dressing in costume all last week as part of an annual school tradition called Wacky Week. On Friday, students were encouraged to dress either as senior citizens or as members of the opposite sex.
A local resident informed the Voice of Christian Youth America on Friday. The Milwaukee-based radio network responded by interrupting its morning programming for a special broadcast that aired on nine radio stations throughout Wisconsin. The broadcast criticized the dress-up day and accused the district of promoting alternative lifestyles.
"We believe it's the wrong message to send to elementary students," said Jim Schneider, the network's program director. "Our station is one that promotes traditional family values. It concerns us when a school district strikes at the heart and core of the Biblical values. To promote this to elementary-school students is a great error."
Schneider co-hosts "Crosstalk," a nationally syndicated call-in Christian radio show, along with Vic Eliason and Ingrid Schlueter.
"We became aware of this from constituents in your area. Anything that concerns the populace is important enough to talk about," Eliason said. "This is tax-funded - this is not a dress-up party in somebody's house. There are parents, taxpayers who do not appreciate the imposition of a particular lifestyle being portrayed as a normal lifestyle for the kids."
After the program aired, both the school and Reedsburg School District office were flooded with calls complaining about the event.
The response surprised Principal Tammy Hayes, who said no one had raised any objections beforehand. She said a flier detailing Wacky Week had been sent home with children the prior week, and an announcement was also included in teacher newsletters.
"Nobody contacted me," Hayes said.
The dress-up day was not an attempt to promote cross-dressing, homosexuality or alternative gender roles, district administrator Tom Benson said.
"The promotion of transgenderism - that was not our purpose," Benson said. "Our purpose was to have a Wacky Week, mixing in a bit of silliness with our reading, writing and arithmetic."
The theme for Friday's dress-up day came from students, Hayes said. The Wacky Week schedule was created by Pineview's Student Senate with the guidance of secretary Shari Miller.
"It's different every year. They basically present the ideas, and they vote on what they would like from Monday through Friday," Hayes said. "I feel awful for the kids and Shari. They did not mean anything by this day. They were trying to have fun and come up with a fun dress-up day."
Good grief.
The people who flooded Pineview with calls objecting to the costume day need to get a grip.
Dressing up as the opposite sex in this context is funny. When did it become a promotion of an alternative lifestyle?
Back in the 1950s, was Mr. Television Milton Berle urging people to be transvestites? I think that was comedy.
The Three Stooges donned women's clothes plenty of times. That was supposed to be comedy, too.
On I Love Lucy, Lucy and Ethel disguised themselves as men on more than one occasion. It was funny.
And what about the classic movie Some Like it Hot? Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis weren't campaigning to get men to dress like women. Again, it was a comedy.
Robin Williams' Mrs. Doubtfire is another example.
Are these examples of threats to family values? To the contrary, they're examples of family entertainment.
I don't consider any of these instances or the dress-up day at Pineview Elementary to be an "imposition of a particular lifestyle being portrayed as a normal lifestyle for the kids."
The kids were participating in WACKY WEEK. That's WACKY WEEK, as in silly.
This wasn't about cross-dressing as a lifestyle. It was about wearing a costume.
About 40 percent of the student body dressed up Friday, Hayes estimated, with half portraying senior citizens and half dressing as the opposite sex.
"I can assure you we will not be having this day (again)," Hayes said.
Instead of getting bent out of shape over dressing as the opposite sex, why weren't people offended by the kids being encouraged to dress as senior citizens?
That could open up a can of negative stereotypical worms, potentially mocking the elderly.
It's obvious that the Christian radio group targeted Pineview because of its agenda against alternative lifestyles such as transgenderism or transvestism.
I don't think the outraged listeners had any reason to be troubled by the dress-up day at Pineview.
Their argument that tax dollars were being used to support something that attacked traditional family values is really a stretch.
This dress-up activity for the kids was meant to be a harmless, fun event, not a social or cultural statement. It wasn't an assault on family values. It was not a lesson in the rejection of traditional roles. It was a WACKY costume day.
The outrage of the complainers was uncalled for. They should be embarrassed about their inappropriate reactions to something so innocent.
WESTMINSTER -- Adams School District 50 [Colorado] is defending its decision to punish a third grader for sniffing a Sharpie marker.
Eight-year-old Eathan Harris was originally suspended from Harris Park Elementary School for three days. Principal Chris Benisch reduced the suspension to one day after complaints from Harris' parents.
Harris used a black Sharpie marker to color a small area on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A teacher sent him to the principal when she noticed him smelling the marker and his clothing.
"It smelled good," Harris said. "They told me that's wrong."
Eathan's father, John Harris, says the school overreacted for treating Eathan as if he was huffing, or inhaling, marker fumes.
"I think it's outlandish," John Harris said. "It's ridiculous."
Eathan shyly shook his head "no" when a reporter asked if he knew about "huffing."
This reminds me of when really little kids are accused of sexual harassment. It says more about those in authority than the behavior of the children. A perfectly innocent action is interpreted and framed as something perverted or threatening and the children are clueless.
Poor Eathan didn't know that smelling a Sharpie and his shirt was akin to drug abuse.
For one thing, IT'S NOT.
If my 8-year-old used a permanent marker to draw on his sleeve, I would be really ticked off because he wrecked his shirt, not because he was engaging in some sort of illicit behavior.
Benisch stands by his decision to suspend Harris, saying it sends a clear message about substance abuse.
"This is really, really, seriously dangerous," Benisch said.
No, it's not.
Benisch completely overreacted.
Principal Chris Benisch: Really bad judgment
In his letter suspending the child, Benisch wrote that smelling the marker fumes could cause the boy to "become intoxicated."
A toxicologist with the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center says that claim is nearly impossible.
Dr. Eric Lavonas says non-toxic markers like Sharpies, while pungent-smelling, cannot be used to get high.
"I don't know whether it would be possible for a real overachiever to figure out a way to get high off them," Lavonas said. "But in regular use, it's just not something that's going to happen."
"If you went to Costco and bought 50 bags of Sharpies and did something to them, maybe there's a way to get creative and make it happen," Lavonas said.
See?
One Sharpie. One sleeve.
That's not "really, really, seriously dangerous."
Benisch and faculty could discuss with the children the dangers of huffing, but to suspend Eathan for smelling a Sharpie is ridiculous.
Their concern about the issue of substance abuse is legitimate.
However, this case was not substance abuse. Eathan should not have been suspended for his "offense."
Adams County School District 50 leaders were unfazed by the poison control center's medical opinion.
"Principals make hundreds of decisions everyday based on our best judgment. And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, 'Wow, that's a very serious marker,'" Benisch said.
Despite the medical evidence, Benisch promised to draw an even clearer line on markers.
"We've purged every permanent marker there is in this building," he said.
This guy is a real piece of work.
EVERY permanent marker has been "purged" from the building?
What about cleaning products or paint or glue or hairspray? Will those all be purged from the building as well?
Eathan Harris says he's happy to be back in school after his suspension, but he did confide he worried the school's disciplinary action might hurt his dream of one day becoming a professional football player.
That's so cute. I don't think the NFL would hold Eathan's suspension against him.
I'm really wondering what Benisch has been sniffing.
"Principals make hundreds of decisions everyday based on our best judgment. And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, 'Wow, that's a very serious marker.'"
A Tomah High School student was punished by his teacher because he had the audacity to include an image deemed objectionable in a drawing he made as an assignment for an art class.
A copy of a drawing by a Tomah High School student, provided by the Alliance Defense Fund, features religious images.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference.
The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw "demonic" images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional.
"We hear so much today about tolerance," said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. "But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To tell a student his religious beliefs can legally be censored sends the wrong message."
...According to the lawsuit, the student's art teacher asked his class in February to draw landscapes. The student, a senior identified in the lawsuit by the initials A.P., added a cross and the words "John 3:16 A sign of love" in his drawing.
His teacher, Julie Millin, asked him to remove the reference to the Bible, saying students were making remarks about it. He refused, and she gave him a zero on the project.
Millin showed the student a policy for the class that prohibited any violence, blood, sexual connotations or religious beliefs in artwork. The lawsuit claims Millin told the boy he had signed away his constitutional rights when he signed the policy at the beginning of the semester.
The boy tore the policy up in front of Millin, who kicked him out of class. Later that day, assistant principal Cale Jackson told the boy his religious expression infringed on other students' rights.
Jackson told the boy, his stepfather and his pastor at a meeting a week later that religious expression could be legally censored in class assignments. Millin stated at the meeting the cross in the drawing also infringed on other students' rights.
The boy received two detentions for tearing up the policy. Jackson referred questions about the lawsuit to Gaarder.
Sometime after that meeting, the boy's metals teacher rejected his idea to build a chain-mail cross, telling him it was religious and could offend someone, the lawsuit claims. The boy decided in March to shelve plans to make a pin with the words "pray" and "praise" on it because he was afraid he'd get a zero for a grade.
The lawsuit also alleges school officials allow other religious items and artwork to be displayed on campus.
A Buddha and Hindu figurines are on display in a social studies classroom, the lawsuit claims, adding the teacher passionately teaches Hindu principles to students.
In addition, a replica of Michaelangelo's "The Creation of Man" is displayed at the school's entrance, a picture of a six-limbed Hindu deity is in the school's hallway and a drawing of a robed sorcerer hangs on a hallway bulletin board.
Drawings of Medusa, the Grim Reaper with a scythe and a being with a horned head and protruding tongue hang in the art room and demonic masks are displayed in the metals room, the lawsuit alleges.
A.P. suffered unequal treatment because of his religion even though student expression is protected by the First Amendment, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Friday.
A.P. was out of line when he ripped up the policy in front of art teacher Julie Millin, even if she may have taunted him by claiming he had signed away his constitutional rights.
In any case, that was not the proper way for A.P. to handle the dispute.
At least from the information provided in this article, my criticism of A.P. pretty much ends there. It sounds like Millin and assistant principal Cale Jackson weren't willing to give an inch. This notion that the cross infringed on other students' rights is absolutely ridiculous.
Why would they care about A.P.'s drawing? Are they so fragile that they can't handle viewing a landscape that includes a cross?
Of course not.
I think it's ludicrous to claim that the image of a cross in any way infringed on other students' rights.
Does anyone really think that a student's drawing of something that benign in art class would be treading on the rights of others?
That's nuts.
Art is about creativity and personal expression. While I can understand the school's prohibition of violent, bloody images, I can't understand getting bent out of shape over a cross, or a Star of David, or symbols of other religions.
If as the lawsuit claims religious items and artwork are displayed at the school, then the school's reaction to A.P.'s drawing seems far too heavy-handed and terribly inconsistent.
It appears to be very selective religious censorship. Moreover, there's a problem with a school policy that equates graphic depictions of violence with religious symbols in artwork.
With such a rigid policy on religious symbols it would be nearly impossible for students to tour an art museum.
The main goal of the Art Department is to provide a variety of visual experiences for the student to relate art to his/her own experiences and culture.
If that's the main goal of the Art Department, then Millin is failing as a teacher. She's actively preventing A.P. from relating his artistic expression to his "own experiences and culture."
I wonder how Millin would have reacted if A.P. drew inspiration for his project from Piss Christ, Andres Serrano's photograph of a crucifix submerged in his own urine.
In that case, would she have defended A.P.'s right to express himself and relate his art to his own experiences and culture?
UPDATE, March 28, 2008: LiveLeak was forced to pull the film due to "threats to [their] staff of a very serious nature," but you can still see a copy of "Fitna" here.
The quality isn't great, but it's clear enough to view.
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*WARNING* GRAPHIC IMAGES
(If player doesn't load, view here.) ________________
Hundreds of angry Muslims marched Friday in Pakistan and denounced a Dutch legislator's film that portrays Islam as a ticking time bomb aimed at the West. Dutch Muslims were more restrained, saying they had expected worse.
The 15-minute film — titled "Fitna," or "Strife" in Arabic — was made by anti-immigrant lawmaker Geert Wilders and was posted on a Web site Thursday.
...Wilders told reporters he made the film because "Islam and the Quran are dangers to the preservation of freedom in the Netherlands."
He argues in the film that Islam's objective is to rule the world and impose an Islamic order without Western freedoms, where gays would be persecuted and women discriminated against.
The Pakistani Foreign Ministry summoned the Dutch ambassador to deliver an official complaint against what it called a "defamatory film which deeply offended the sentiments of Muslims all over the world."
Small groups of demonstrators, mostly followers of hard-line religious groups, rallied in Pakistan's major cities, demanding Pakistan cut diplomatic relations with the Netherlands. A banner at one demonstration read: "We hate the uncivilized West."
Militant Qari Mohammed Yusuf warned before the film's release that revenge attacks were being planned.
"I am telling you now that after this maybe you won't be able to come to Peshawar like this. Foreigners will not be able to come so easily anywhere in Pakistan," he told The Associated Press last week in an interview in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Condemnations also came from the government of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, Iran and Jordan.
"It is not Islam that should be stopped, it is fear-mongers like Geert Wilders who should be stopped from spreading their hatred," said Zakaria al-Sheik of the Rassoul Allah Yajmana, a Jordanian group formed to protect the image of Islam.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the movie.
"There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free expression is not at stake here," he said in a statement. "The real fault line is not between Muslim and Western societies, as some would have us believe, but between small minorities of extremists, on different sides, with a vested interest in stirring hostility and conflict."
The Council of Europe said the film was a "distasteful manipulation" that exploits fear, and three U.N. rights experts said it showed a distorted vision of Muslims.
The World Council of Churches said the film failed to distinguish extremism from mainstream Islam.
...Dutch Muslims said the film misrepresented Islam, but that Wilders had largely stayed within the bounds of acceptable political discourse. Wilders praised their civil reaction.
Mohamed Rabbae, leader of a group representing the Netherlands' large Moroccan immigrant community, said the film was "less bad" than expected from Wilders' prior comments. Rabbae called on Muslims abroad to be calm and let Dutch Muslims deal with Wilders, adding: "Harming Dutch people harms us."
"I wasn't personally offended," said Imad el Ouarti, a worshipper at El Umma mosque in Amsterdam. He said Wilders had taken Quranic texts out of context and had reused images that have been seen thousands of times since Sept. 11, 2001. "It's just tasteless and non-creative, as if a child had pasted it together."
Kurt Westergaard, the artist who has lived under police protection since the Muhammad cartoon was published two years ago, objected that Wilders had violated his copyright. "I won't accept my cartoon being taken out of its original context and used in a completely different one," he told Denmark's TV2.
A Rotterdam court said it would rule April 7 on a petition by the Dutch Islamic Federation seeking to gag Wilders and order him to publicly apologize.
Wilders' lawyer Serge Vlaar said the federation "wants to ban a point of view," which he said was not possible under Dutch law.
Federation lawyer Ejder Kose countered that "my clients are not attacking freedom of speech. This is about ending the unjustified insulting of Islam."
