The second annual
National Go Topless Protest Day will be held this Sunday, August 23, in various American cities. It happens to be run by
Raelians, members of
a UFO religion founded by Rael, a former French sports-car journalist and test driver born
Claude Vorilhon. (
Coverage of last year's protest in New York City, which is, as one might suspect, NSFW.) Though the current "Go Topless!" site talks more about women's rights than Raelism, in 2004, Raelian women were marching topless not for the legalization of bare breastedness, but
against "the repressive Myth of God." Don't remember the Raelians? This is just the most recent stunt by the publicity-hungry group that
capitalizes on media-friendly controversy: in 2002, during the slow news week between Christmas and New Year's Day,
they announced the creation of the first human clone, gaining what Rael estimated at over $500 million of free media coverage. In an interview, Rael
unabashedly discusses his passion for publicity.
[more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Aug 21, 2009 -
63 comments
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin. This Saturday will mark this article's four year anniversary. Frankly, I was mildly surprised not to have found it mentioned before in MeFi. It's a good read about a sad state of affairs; how our government is turning its own people into outlaws, because freedom has been traded in for an illusion of security.
...but then we already knew that. Don't we?
posted by ZachsMind
on Aug 29, 2007 -
110 comments
Art Crimes is a fascinating site about the history of vandalism in the fine arts, recently revived by a Frenchwoman who left a
lipstick imprint on a 2 million dollar painting by
Cy Twombly. Other examples include a
British suffragist attacking a Velazquez with a knife, an
installation vandalized by the Israeli ambassador to Sweden,
two Chinese performance artists who urinated into Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, and a
Canadian art student who vomited blue gelatin on a Mondrian. Oddly enough, the artwork that has weathered the most attacks is Rembrandt's
The Night Watch, which has survived two knife attacks (one by an unemployed teacher with a butter knife) and an attack by a mental patient who had a compulsion to fling sulfuric acid at fine artworks. Other art vandalism methods, including glass cutters, hammers, scissors, guns, and ink, are discussed
here.
posted by jonp72
on Jul 26, 2007 -
38 comments
