The Silent Majority Walk and the Naked Bike Ride.

Today at the Capitol Square. Video shot and edited by me. Small glimpses of genitalia from 6:03 to 6:30. Breast alert.

The event I came to see was the Silent Majority Walk, an event planned to show appreciation for Scott Walker and the Republican legislature that passed the Budget Repair Bill this week.



0:00 — The pro-Walker walkers congregate a block away from the square and receive instructions to walk completely silently, confident in the rightness of their position, without response to "any of the mud that going to be slung at us today."

0:28 — The group walks by a sidewalk café (Graze) and an old man on a bench who says "Boo from me. Boo from me. You get a boo from me. You get a boo from me. Hold that flag up straight."

0:57 — More walking, past various street musicians and people enjoying the lovely day. Zero heckling.

2:40 — A young man — wearing capris over leggings — registers some objections.

3:02 — An older couple on bikes call out, naming some accomplishments of the labor movement —"Let's hear it for minimum wage" — then switch to a fairly polite "shame, shame, shame." The woman smiles. I suggest they catch up with the group since they are on bikes. The man says, "No, we're not going to harass them any more." I say, "People haven't really been heckling them at all. I'm surprised how civil people are being." The man says, "For some reason, we just got turned on." I laugh and say, "You're the only ones."

4:28 — A bagpiper gives them the thumbs down.

4:38 — "That's brand new. I'm shocked as shit," says a black man, laughing. I ask him some questions about why he's shocked and try to find out if he might perhaps actually be a Walker supporter himself.

5:54 — We hear a hubbub and I realize "These are the naked bike riders!" They ride by chanting "Less gas, more ass." I continue my discussion with the shocked-as-shit guy, who declares "That's America! That's America! That's the freedom!"

7:48 — An old guy in a protest contraption with pinwheels and palm trees.

8:04 — I talk to a young man who is tending a table marked "Madison Objectivists." "Is there much interest in Ayn Rand here?" I ask.

Oh, no! It's Weiner's naked...

... torso. Please, make it stop. He went for the full Chris Lee!

To some other other woman.

So hum(a)iliating.

UPDATE at 2:12 Central Time: CNN is saying that Weiner will be making some kind of statement "from a Sheraton Hotel" in NYC at 4 ET.  My prediction — and you heard it here first! — is that he'll announce he's entering treatment for sex addiction. Possibly with a grim/stoical Huma Abedin at his side.

"When Patti Davis posed nude for Playboy in 1994, she was twice as old as the typical Playmate."

"Now 58, she’s posing for us — and telling the naked truth about her motives."

"Us" = More, which is a magazine. So is Us, but this is More. If you want Less, maybe that's also a magazine. Or should be.

They had to shoot Osama bin Laden because he was not naked.

"Being naked was the only way Osama Bin Laden could have avoided being killed, it emerged today. The elite U.S. Navy Seals team that killed him was told to assume he was wearing a suicide vest if he was clothed, according to a briefing given to a congressional aide."

But he was in his pajamas, so, no matter what he did, he was doomed.

ADDED: Instapundit links, saying: "OTHER NIGHT I SHOT OSAMA IN HIS PAJAMAS. How I wound up in his pajamas I’ll never know...." That flickered through my head too.

Why did Congressman Christopher Lee give up so easily?

It's weird, isn't it?

Lee resigned less than four hours after Gawker posted the emails and photo.

His office first claimed his email account had been hacked - which didn't really explain the topless photo of himself flexing his biceps in a mirror.

About two hours later, Lee told Fox News he couldn't discuss the issue because "I have to work this out with my wife."

At 6 p.m. Wednesday, Lee issued a brief statement saying he was resigning the seat he won in 2008. "I regret the harm that my actions have caused my family, my staff and my constituents," he said. "I deeply and sincerely apologize to them all. ... I promise to work as hard as I can to seek their forgiveness."

There must be a lot more below the surface, and the quick resignation was to get us to move on. I'd like to know what inspired the desperation. Or was it that he got no support from his GOP colleagues in Congress. Perhaps he was told, quite clearly, that they didn't want to burn any political capital defending him. If so, I think that was probably an excellent choice. They can't want him as the torso face of the party for the next month.

"You know... some people get shocked about sex. I was shocked that everyone was so shocked."

What a fuss everyone made about "I Am Curious (Yellow)," back in the 1960s. The star, Lena Nyman, has died at the age of 66.

Just 2 days ago, we were talking about the death of Maria Schneider, another woman we knew through a movie that shocked us with sex long ago.

Where are all the other women, who shocked us with mere sexuality back then, when naked actors simulating sex got everyone's attention? They are all old now, almost 60 years or more. We notice their obituaries and we remember the olden days, when it was possible to shock people with nothing more than nudity and sexual intercourse.

The U.S. Supreme Court had to deal with the fuss over "I Am Curious (Yellow)."  There's an opinion by Justice Douglas where — it's hard now to understand why — he saw fit to quote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

It is time to remember that the first thing we belong to is humanity. And humanity is separated from the animal world by thought and speech, and they should naturally be free. If they are fettered, we go back to being animals. Publicity and openness, honest and complete - that is the prime condition for the health of every society, and ours too.

Justice Douglas said: "If 'obscenity' can be carved out of the First Amendment, what other like exceptions can be created?"

There seemed be be a lot at stake back then. It seems so creakily irrelevant today, as the once-naked, once-beautiful bodies are buried in the earth, but free speech is on the line today too. Do you notice? Do you care?

Humanity is separated from the animal world by thought and speech, and they should naturally be free.

Jared Loughner shot 35 mm film of himself "posing with a Glock 9mm pistol next to his naked buttocks and dressed in a bright red g-string."

He dropped the film off at Walgreens the day before the massacre.

Perhaps the most surprising part of that is the use of film. Don't most people use digital cameras now, and doesn't anyone taking naked/embarrassing pictures of himself go digital? It must be that Loughner wanted to involve real people in the process of discovering these photographs of the killer clowning with the gun at the very time he was using the gun on a murder spree. It was another way to inflict pain, and he went to some trouble to do it.

Isn't this evidence useful to the prosecution? It shows elaborate planning, I think, including perhaps a plan to appear crazy. Why go to the trouble and expense of using film? Did he not try to time the development of the photographs with the massacre? Or do you think posing with the gun like that makes him seem more crazy and is useful to the defense?

"Am I the only person left in the world who worries about spilling his coffee on his laptop?"

2 years ago.

ADDED: I ran across that after reading the colloquy between AllenS and Meade in the comments to the post about Brett's fuzzy penis:

AllenS: Jenn Sterger (the woman) was hired because of some sexy pictures of her in Sports Illustrated mag, that Brent Musberger thought would be a good matchup for the male dominated football sports sceen. Jenn and Brent are just as much at fault here. I'm thinking of sending the woman a picture of my penis also. Could I borrow the fish bowl lens?...

Meade: It's a fish eye lens. Fish eye. It's for taking shots of massive objects or scenes which a normal lens can't take all in. A fish bowl lens would be for taking shots of tiny things. Like Brett Favre's... ability to make good judgments.

AllenS: Ok, ok. Can I borrow the lens that makes stuff look bigger?

But, in fact, the fisheye works really well to make something look large if you get the camera lens right up at it. Lots of other stuff is including in the picture, arrayed all around and looking comparatively small. Frankly — and this is not an offer to AllenS — it would be really interesting to take pictures of naked men and get the extreme closeup on the genitalia with a well-composed and interesting background. I went looking through my old posts with the "fisheye" tag to find some that prove my point.

The second picture here of the fisheye dog makes this point very well. Get right up to the nose. The scenery in the background isn't as interesting as I'd want for my proposed compositions, but you can see how tiny Meade looks in the background (when in fact he was quite close by). Here's another photograph that illustrates the point, albeit with the female body:



That's from the Khmer Dynasty room at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. Here's the effect of the lens looking at the room from the other side:



Here's some male and female nudity, to be fair:



That's the Museum of Natural History — not Brett and Jenn. You may recognize that couple from the movie "Election" — which is a great cautionary tale about the inadvisability of cheating on... many things (including your spouse).

And then — searching through the fisheye pictures — I found something that was extremely important to me: the purple tree, which had this.

"Do you guys TRY to not get laid?"

"I don't think that the government has any business seeing me naked as a condition of traveling about the country."

Don't get snippy. It's either see you naked or feel you up. Just kidding. You also have the option not to travel by plane.

What will you do?
	Go through the "naked" screener thing.
	Submit to the quick feel-up.
	Not fly.
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: "The 'don’t touch my junk' guy speaks."

"'I go around and I talk about abstinence and then I'm here in my underwear doing a dance about sex and stuff, so hopefully it goes well -- hopefully I can pull it off."

Oh, Bristol.

By week four, we can pretty much say that Bristol has never looked happy to be here and we're beginning to suspect that somebody else talked her into doing this gig to serve, well, somebody else's ambitions. Bristol keeps bringing up the Big Contradiction in the Room, and she does it again tonight, in a rerun clip from Monday: "I go around and I talk about abstinence and then I'm here in my underwear doing a dance about sex and stuff, so hopefully it goes well -- hopefully I can pull it off," she's heard to say as we see her, wearing only a large white shirt and opaque stockings, preparing for Monday's dance. We can see her future speaking engagements: "Don't be like me girls. Don't get pregnant -- and don't go on celebrity dance competitions!"

I'm here in my underwear...  hopefully I can pull it off...

By the way, I really wish I'd titled this post "Let's take a closer look at that fleshy display."

"If billionaire Alki David is an honest man, the man who streaked in front of Barack Obama at the president’s rally today in Philadelphia will be paid $1 million for his stunt."

The Weekly Standard scoops:

As the The Sun reported on August 17: "A WACKY billionaire has offered $1million (£638,700) to the first person who streaks in front of US President Barack Obama... providing the streaker writes the name of his website... across their chest"... within “eye-shot and ear shot of the president, they have to scream the name [of the website] six times, and they have to be nude.”

Not sure if I hope he got the 6 screams or not.

The University of Wisconsin had "to weigh the many benefits of a visit by a sitting president against the naked political purpose of that visit."

Analysis by Dan Barry of the NYT.

But first, the necessary quotation from Bob Dylan: "But even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." In context:

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Yes, wait while we blast political polemic that drowns out the classrooms....

Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates

Hope you made it through security...

But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

And you know that Bob Dylan wouldn't be "all cheesin' and grinnin'" with the President.

Now, back to the Dan Barry analysis:

[T]he event would be a kickoff rally for Democrats as they approach the midterm elections, and Barack Obama would be appearing as a party leader more than as a president....

[H]is visit wasn’t an easy call. Before the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and the Democratic National Committee signed a contract last week, in which the committee agreed to pay $10,500 to cover expenses, [UW Chancellor Biddy] Martin had to satisfy herself that it was the right thing to do.

$10,500! Where did they pull that number from?

“There was never a question whether we wanted President Obama to come to our campus,” Ms. Martin said. “That was clear. But the question was how to do this in a way that was fair to everyone in the community.”...

Ms. Martin, who has been chancellor since September 2008, was thrilled by the chance. You couldn’t buy this kind of educational experience, or, quite frankly, this kind of publicity; it’s an honor. 

Ah, yes! The publicity. That's what seals it, don't you think?

But she worried about the fairness of having campus life disrupted by a political event. A day or so of fretting followed.

Then, amid the many documents and manuals that provide guidance in the administration of a campus of 42,000 students and 21,000 faculty and staff members, someone uncovered a written policy called “The Use of University Facilities for Political Purposes.” Among other things, it said that each major political party can hold one event on campus during an election period.

If there's one thing I love it's a written policy. Good thing "someone uncovered" it!

And don’t forget: Library Mall, where the Democrats wanted to hold their rally, is a vibrant nerve center for the university and the city, with a rich tradition of political events and free speech.

And the great thing about a vibrant free speech forum is the way a political party can block every entrance but one and then require you to go through a "security" process that includes taking away any signs you might have.

Ms. Martin and the Board of Regents signed on, then received validation of that decision in the plans of students and faculty members to gather after the political rally to debate everything from the economy and the wars to the political process itself. 

That explains this sign we saw:

"Jean [Harlow] did not like to wear bras and was advised by her mother to ice her breasts to keep them firm."

"Similarly, she did not like to wear underwear because she disliked lines and she also preferred to sleep in the nude. Although these clothing practices were considered racy, especially due to her sex-symbol status, she actually approached them with a child-like freedom from confinement."

That all makes sense to me. Except the part about ice!

I ran across that by accident after searching — unsuccessfully — for the old Clairol ad with the tagline "If I have only one life, let me live it as a blonde." While it made being blonde seem awfully important, I always thought it was bizarre to remind us that we're all going to die. How much compensation for that calamity could we get out of blondeness?

Another commercial from the same era tried to encourage us to use the product (Schlitz) with: "You only go 'round once, and you've gotta grab for all the gusto you can."



Wow. They really rub it in with the sharks that ate the guys in the shipwreck. Must drink beer! I guess it takes a heavier hand to use death as leverage against guys.

Anyway, what's this post about? Freedom, commerce, death as an incentive to live, an icy brew and... for the adventurous: icy breasts!

"It gave me pecs, gave me definition, it gave me confidence."

Spanx for men.

Fabulous, for the unnaked man.

The Sistine Chapel.

An amazingly complete photographic view.

(WARNING: some nudity.)

"Apparently Massa claimed that Rahm came up to him one day in the House locker room, stark naked, started screaming obscenities at him — to which I say, welcome to my world."

President Obama at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.

"The guys who run these places can't control themselves. They're around beautiful naked women all night..."

"... but they don't understand they have to keep the hands off."

Says Matthew Blit, the NY lawyer who's been successful with sexual harassment lawsuits brought by the dancers who work in those places that are called "gentlemen's clubs."

Naked man.

Not guilty.

"The lesbian sex was between a Spanish teacher and a French teacher..."

"... which begs the question: Where was the field hockey coach?"

The late-night talk-show comics scrambled to concoct jokes about the 2 high school teachers who were discovered by the janitor. I've highlighted the Conan O'Brien effort. How awful it must be to get caught naked at work! That's bad enough. But then to be vaulted — naked! — into the national spotlight and to becomee the biggest joke target in the country — even with Tiger Woods begging for more.... What a nightmare!

The Carrie Prejean "sex tape."

Ah, what a world we live in.

Carrie Prejean, some might remember, is the California beauty queen who gained instant ignominy in some circles by agreeing with President Obama's ridiculous notion that marriage is a union between one man and one woman....

The story is well-told at the link. Go there. I'll just highlight this:

[T]he high-powered, celebrity website TMZ claimed to have a sex video of the beautiful Prejean that was so outrageously explicit it hasn't posted it yet. But people can feel free to keep clicking back there every few minutes to check.

It's all about the page views...

Prejean replied -- insert teasing pause here -- yes, there was a tape she had done as a teenager. She made it for a distant boyfriend whom she loved at the time. She said TMZ can call it a "sex tape" if it wants. But she was alone on the video and no one else was in the room.

Teenager? Is TMZ threatening to post child pornography? In any case, what is it? Embarrassing topless nonsense?

Prejean said it was the "biggest mistake" she'd ever made in her not-yet-lengthy life. She regretted it. She felt mortified talking about it, but it was her own fault. And that as a Christian she'd never claimed to be perfect.

You know, what is even imperfect here? I don't see anything unChristian about displaying your breasts to a boyfriend that you love. It's just foolish to allow photographs to come into being. But it's not unChristian to be foolish. (Saint Paul said: "We are fools for Christ.")

Now, trying to destroy the young woman over political disagreement and tormenting her by threatening to invade the intimate space between her and her lost young love... I'll hazard to guess: That's not Christian.

But TMZ — I don't read it much, but, again, I'll guess — does not itself parade as Christian. Prejean does, and so she will be held to the high standards of Christianity, while TMZ can say and do whatever it wants. ("When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. ")

TMZ is following Rule 4 of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals":

Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian Church can live up to Christianity.

That's true. It's difficult as hell to live up to the standards of Christianity. But if the issue is living up to Christianity, let's talk about what Christianity really is. I'll start: It's not about teenage girls showing their breasts to their boyfriends.