Strippers Hold Counter Protest Against Ohio Church; Nudists In Great Britain Raise Money For Cancer

August 9, 2010 — Ron Chusid

Different countries and different groups have quite different reactions to nudity or even bikinis. As I noted last week, wearing a woman was arrested in Dubai for wearing a bikini in a mall, with the charges later dropped. In Ohio strippers might not get arrested, but some were harassed by protesters from a local church. The strippers have retaliated by protesting in bikinis outside of the church (picture above):

The dancers at the Foxhole in Coschocton County, Ohio, are used to arriving at work to the sounds of protests from members of the nearby New Beginnings Ministries church. But the same couldn’t quite be said for the churchgoers, who showed up for services on Sunday and were greeted by the sight of bikini-clad protesters.

For the last four years, the pastor at New Beginnings has led a protest outside the Foxhole every weekend. Beyond just voicing their disapproval of the strip joint, the church members also videotape the license plates of the bar’s patrons and then post the info online.

So the crew at the Foxhole decided to give the churchgoers a taste of their own medicine, sitting outside the church in skimpy outfits and cooling each other down with Super Soakers as they grilled up burgers.

They also held signs with Bible quotes like:
Matthew 7:15: Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing
Revelations 22:11: He that is unjust, let him be unjust still

The strip club’s owner has unsuccessfully tried to sue the church for their protests, but now he’s hoping that this table-flipping will help to put an end to things.

“When these morons go away, we’ll go away,” he said. “The great thing about this country is that everyone has a right to believe what they want.”

In contrast, people in Great Britain appear much more tolerant as a group of over one-hundred nudists rode a rollercoaster naked to raise money for cancer. This broke the old record of 32 naked rollercoaster riders in 2004. The Daily Mail reports:

From bare nipples to white knuckles – more than 100 thrill-seekers rode a rollercoaster naked today.

The 102 enthusiasts bared all to take their seats on the Green Scream rollercoaster at Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

Organisers were hoping they had broken a new record after 32 attempted the same feat in 2004 at Alton Towers, in Staffordshire.

Organiser Tracy Jones said: ‘We wanted to raise as much money as possible for this brilliant charity and give everybody who was brave enough, the chance to be part of the world record. Consequently, we had to run the Naked Rollercoaster three times.’

The ride took place at Adventure Island, raising money for Southend Hospital Charitable Foundation’s Bosom Pals Appeal.

Adventure Island boss Philip Miller said: ‘People have travelled from all over the UK to take part and we’ve heard some amazing stories from so many who have been directly, or indirectly, affected by cancer and wanted to give something back.

Barbara Warner, of Bosom Pals, said it ‘takes of lot of nerve to take off all your clothes’ in front of so many people and the world’s media.

She added the appeal ‘would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who was brave enough to bare all and raise such a huge amount of cash – more than £22,000 – for our vitally important cause’

I wonder what members of that Ohio church would think of this fund raiser. More pictures under the fold (not safe for work).

(more…)

Posted in International, Religion, Social Issues. Tags: . 5 Comments »

Core Issues

August 9, 2010 — Ron Chusid

Al Franken just tweeted: Net neutrality is a “core issue for everyone who uses the internet.” True but don’t expect that to mean Republicans will support it. For example, climate change is a core issue for everyone who uses the planet, and yet conservatives still oppose action on this.

This comes just as Verizon and Google have announced a joint broadband policy which I have not yet had time to read much detail on.

Posted in Blogs & Social Media, Democrats, Environment. Tags: . No Comments »

Rand Paul Accused Of Kidnapping Female Student At Baylor

August 9, 2010 — Ron Chusid

It looks like Rand Paul might be an even stranger person than we first realized. Esquire reports about a secret society called the NoZe Brotherhood which Paul belonged to while attending college at Baylor. This is the most bizarre aspect:

The strangest episode of Paul’s time at Baylor occurred one afternoon in 1983 (although memories about all of these events are understandably a bit hazy, so the date might be slightly off), when he and a NoZe brother paid a visit to a female student who was one of Paul’s teammates on the Baylor swim team. According to this woman, who requested anonymity because of her current job as a clinical psychologist, “He and Randy came to my house, they knocked on my door, and then they blindfolded me, tied me up, and put me in their car. They took me to their apartment and tried to force me to take bong hits. They’d been smoking pot.” After the woman refused to smoke with them, Paul and his friend put her back in their car and drove to the countryside outside of Waco, where they stopped near a creek. “They told me their god was ‘Aqua Buddha’ and that I needed to bow down and worship him,” the woman recalls. “They blindfolded me and made me bow down to ‘Aqua Buddha’ in the creek. I had to say, ‘I worship you Aqua Buddha, I worship you.’ At Baylor, there were people actively going around trying to save you and we had to go to chapel, so worshiping idols was a big no-no.”

Nearly 30 years later, the woman is still trying to make sense of that afternoon. “They never hurt me, they never did anything wrong, but the whole thing was kind of sadistic. They were messing with my mind. It was some kind of joke.” She hadn’t actually realized that Paul wound up leaving Baylor early. “I just know I never saw Randy after that—for understandable reasons, I think.”

When I asked Benton late last week if Paul remembered any of these episodes from his Baylor days, he replied in an email: “During his time at Baylor, Dr. Paul competed on the swim team and was an active member of Young Conservatives of Texas.”

In its coverage of this revelation, The Washington Post adds: “According to a recent Time article, Paul does not support legalizing marijuana.”  It’s like the worst of all possible worlds. Paul is a libertarian in opposing many government programs which make sense while opposing something rational which libertarians do believe in, legalization of marijuana.
Update: Best response comes from Facebook: “keep the federal government out of coed kidnappings.”
Posted in Drug Policy, Rand Paul, Republicans. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »
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