Some late Friday news chum for your enjoyment. I’m also planning a post related to LAUSD’s cancellation of most summer school classes; that post is just waiting on my doing a registration for an alternate program.
- From the “Another Economic Casualty” Department: Yup, I must regretfully report another economic casualty. The sex trade. I’m not referring here to the Adult Film industry, although they have requested their own (ahem) stimulus (ahem) package and they have more people joining their (ahem) acting ranks. Rather, I’m referring to the human sex trade. As Time Magazine reports, business is down in cities such as Bankok and Berlin, and where there is traffic, they are choosing based on price. Is nothing sacred?
- From the “You Call That Art” Department: This one I find pretty disgusting. The LA Times arts blog is reporting on an artist called Tinkebelle whose claim to fame is turning her cat into a purse (here’s the Fox news report on that). Basically, in 2004, this (ahem) artist twisted her cat’s neck and skinned it with her own hands, making it into a purse. Needless to say, she received a lot of emails on the incident. Now, she has investigated each email sender and published the emails, them along with the names, ages and addresses of each sender in the book “Dearest Tinkebell”, going so far as to include YouTube videos, MySpace profiles and any other embarrassing information available on the Web pertaining to the e-mail authors. This woman appears to be quite sick: in 2007 she did an exhibit where she rescued 61 chicks from a factory then threatened to throw them in a shredder if her audience did not adopt them, and had a 2008 exhibit featuring hundreds of hamsters running around a gallery in transparent spheres.
- From the “Some Things Never Change” Department: Perhaps I’m sensitized to it because I’ve been marathon watching “The Tudors”… but the news is reporting how France has snubbed Great Britain… again. Specifically, the French didn’t invite Queen Elizabeth II to this year’s ceremony on the 65th Anniversary of D-Day, even though the popular British monarch was a participant in the 50th and 60th anniversaries. In a special twist of Gallic logic, the French invited British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose popularity is at a low point amid scandals and a poor economy, rather than the comforting figure of the British monarch. In their typical backhanded way, the French have sort of apologized for snubbing the queen and have said that she is welcome to attend. The Queen’s response? Buckingham Palace has huffily responded that the queen is not amused and that no royal is available to attend the ceremony.
