National Portrait Gallery removes video as Christians threaten to fight funding

SHAME on Martin Sullivan, the director of the gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington for bowing to senseless empty threats from the Catholic League. 

To ask for censorship of a piece in the NATIONAL GALLERY based on personal religious preference is boring, but allowed.  TO FACILITATE that censorship from within the organization, based on a "choose our battles" methodology, is an offense deserving of termination.  Shame on you, dude.

From the NYTimes:

"Mr. Wojnarowicz (the artist), who died of AIDS in 1992, made the video in the 1980s. Among the imagery that he uses to depict the suffering of an AIDS patient is a scene of ants crawling on a crucifix. In a telephone interview, Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, said “A Fire in My Belly” was a form of hate speech."

Really, Donohue?  HATE SPEECH?  he also mentioned that if the ants were crawling on Mohammud, we would be having a very different conversation . . . or none at all.  Well, at least he recongizes the similarities between radical Islam and his own warped Christianity.

Out.

Energy Star Falling

In the wake of an almost-unbelievably horrid review from the Government Accountability Office, the Energy Star program looks as if it's in for a complete overhaul.  Fifteen fake products were submitted for Energy Star certification, and all were accepted.  Here's the rub:  One was a gasoline-powered alarm clock, and one was

"an air cleaner that was actually a space heater with a feather duster and fly strips taped to it."

Hilarious.  And sad.  And another reason to fear big bureaucracy.

The reforms are being spearheaded by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.  Full story HERE from physorg.com
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