Yesterday was Damian’s birthday. He shares his birthday with Elliott Lewis, Berry Gordy, Jr., Hope Lange, Paul Shaffer, Ed Harris, Judd Nelson, Jon Stewart, and Anna Nicole Smith.
We went to Trevi’s (no, no web link) and had couple of pizzas and a rather nice time. Pizza was great, not at all what we expected. I recalled also having spent a few meals in there with my father, mother, and grandmothers. Anyway, happy (belated) birthday to Damian who is 7 years old now.
A Durham student activist gets a visit from the Secret Service. Responding to complaints from neighbors, local police, and acting on the suspicion of potential un-American activities. The secret service paid a visit to a 19 year old student who displayed a poster of Bush in her home. “…it depicts George W. Bush holding a length of rope against a backdrop of lynching victims, and reads: “We hang on your every word. George Bush: Wanted, 152 Dead”–a reference to the number of people executed by the state of Texas while Bush was governor….”
The article goes on: ‘”A poster of Bush, even if he’s in a noose, is protected speech during wartime or peacetime,” notes Alex Charns, a Durham attorney who specializes in civil rights. Such speech is all the more protected, he points out, when it’s displayed within a person’s home. If a trained police officer doesn’t know the difference between political speech and a threat to the president, then we’re all in trouble,” Charns says. “If the Secret Service has nothing better to do than check on political posters, that’s a bad sign.”‘
I’d say Shirlock, suffer the mind to speculate what they’d do in my case. Great gods. I hope they don’t come knocking on my door. They could confiscate the entirety of paxtonland.com and geedubbya.com If this 19 year old girl warrants a visit from the secret service for she did in her own home, imagine what they’d do to me. I’d have rubber hose welts for the rest of my natural life. (via metafilter)