Subscribe to Reason Jacob Sullum's Syndicated Column Sweat the Small Stuff (2/6) Rhetorical Weapons (1/30) Bush on Steroids (1/23) Earlier Columns January 23, 2004 Bush on Steroids Why must sports be drug-free? Jacob Sullum In one of the more puzzling parts of his State of the Union speech , President Bush offered his opinion about how professional sports should be run. He did not criticize the instant replay rule, condemn the use of designated hitters, or tell returning head coach Joe Gibbs how to restore the Redskins to their former glory. Instead, he asserted that athletes should not be permitted to use "performance-enhancing drugs like steroids." Bush stated this principle as if it were obviously true, as if no reasonable person could disagree that "team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players" need to "get rid of steroids now." Yet the more you think about it, the less sense there is to a rule that prohibits athletes from using drugs to enhance their performance. One reason the president offered is that such drugs are "dangerous." Compared to what? Football players routinely get knocked around by 300-pound behemoths. They and other professional athletes frequently suffer injuries?pulled hamstrings, concussions, torn ligaments, busted knees, separated shoulders?that may force them out of the game for months or leave them with lifelong disabilities. If avoiding danger were their main concern, they would not be playing to begin with. In any case, as sports writer Dayn Perry shows in the January 2003 issue of Reason, the hazards of anabolic steroids have been greatly exaggerated. After looking at the scientific literature and interviewing experts, Perry concludes that steroids can be used with reasonable safety by adults under medical supervision. The irony is that legal restrictions and league bans on steroids discourage athletes who use them from seeking medical guidance, so they're more at risk than they would be if steroid use were permitted. As with recreational drugs, prohibition makes steroids more dangerous, not less. Safety was not the only issue the president raised. He also said using performance-enhancing drugs "sends the wrong message: that there are shortcuts to accomplishment, and that performance is more important than character." A man who owes so much to inherited wealth and his family's political connections probably should not broach the topic of "shortcuts to accomplishment." Not all shortcuts come in pills or capsules. An athlete who uses the latest exercise equipment, fitness knowledge, and nutritional expertise to get into shape is using shortcuts that were unavailable to his predecessors 30 or 40 years ago. More fundamentally, all professional athletes benefit from the shortcut known as talent: Because of their genetic endowments, they are stronger, faster, or more agile than most people. Athletes, like everyone else, are rightly judged by what they do with the advantages they had at birth. But if their innate abilities do not negate their accomplishments, why would their use of artificial enhancements that are available to everyone? Craig Masback, chief executive of USA Track and Field, praised Bush's anti-steroid comments, saying "cheating by our star athletes sends the wrong message." Yet using drugs to boost performance is cheating only if it violates a rule, such as the ban on steroids maintained by the Olympics and the NFL. If all athletes were allowed to use chemical aids, those who chose to do so would not have an unfair advantage any more than an actress with breast implants does. And just as it is possible to enjoy an actress's performance despite her artificial enhancements, it should be possible to enjoy a football or baseball game despite the use of steroids or stimulants?and obviously it is, since fan interest in these sports has not exactly evaporated in recent years, despite periodic doping scandals. "No result in any elite sport can be trusted with reasonable certainty to have been achieved without performance-enhancing drugs," New York Times sports writer Jere Longman declared last fall. At the same time, he conceded, "whether fans believe this or care is another matter." Donald Catlin, director of the Olympic drug testing lab at UCLA, told Longman, "In a way, if all the top athletes were on drugs, they would be on an equal footing again." While Catlin views that prospect with distaste, it's not clear why. Two decades ago, in their book Drug Control in a Free Society, James B. Bakalar and Lester Grinspoon noted that "it seems almost self-evident to most people today that using drugs in athletic competition is wrong," but "it is curiously difficult and complicated to justify that position." A presidential endorsement does not make the task any easier. Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason and the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use (Tarcher/Putnam). © Copyright 2004 by Creators Syndicate Inc. Subscribe to Reason January 26, 2004 Do These Deficits Look Familiar? Meet Richard Milhous Bush Jonathan Rauch A polarizing Republican president, reviled by liberals, unseats the Democrats, talks like a conservative, but then sails blithely into a cataract of red ink. President Bush's record is beginning to shape up that way, uncannily resembling the record of?Ronald Reagan? Well, yes, the resemblance is there for all to see, and Bush no doubt draws reassurance from it. A sharp fiscal deterioration fed by reductions in taxes, increases in defense spending, and a recession: Where have we seen this before? From a fiscal point of view, however, the early 2000s resemble not just the early 1980s and the Reagan era but also? perhaps even more?the early 1970s and the Nixon era. Which is not a resemblance that Bush or the Republican leadership in Congress should find reassuring. On the principle that, once in a while, the past provides some insight into the future, consider for a moment the Nixon era, defined broadly to include the Ford administration, which largely continued Nixon's domestic policies. The economy boomed in the 1960s, growing at 4.7 percent a year (in inflation-adjusted dollars), on average, from 1962 to 1968. Revenues poured in the door, and President Johnson and the Democratic Congress?then as now, the same party controlled both branches?celebrated the bounty with a host of federal initiatives. But stingy Southern conservatives still ruled the Capitol, and so Johnson tended to seed the ground with fistfuls of new but small programs, most of them funded modestly but good for lines in speeches. (Some of them, notably Medicare, were acorns from which mighty oaks would grow, but that would come later.) Except in the peak war year of 1968, deficits in the prosperous 1960s ran at or below about 1 percent of the gross domestic product. The war was expensive, and for a while, Johnson tried having guns and butter, but in June of 1968, shortly before the election, he imposed a 10 percent surtax on individuals and corporations. That and some finagling helped him post a small surplus for fiscal 1969. But the surtax was temporary (it ended in 1970). As Johnson's term ended, the country's fiscal situation was unsettled. The next president could make things a good deal better, or he could make them much worse. Along came Nixon. Not a man known for making things better. Nixon cared little for domestic policy, but he regarded himself as a conservative reformer, he wanted to make a mark on history, and he was swayed by the enlightened economic wisdom of his day, which was liberal by today's standards. Above all, Nixon, being Nixon, was determined to snatch up every inch of desirable political real estate, rather than give a Democratic opponent anything to run on. And so he watered and fertilized LBJ's Great Society seedlings while proposing not a few big-government initiatives of his own?most memorably a "Family Assistance Plan" that would have guaranteed a federal payment of $1,600 (about $8,000 in today's money) to every family of four with no income, a scheme that would have added as many as 12 million people to the welfare rolls. (To their everlasting regret, congressional liberals helped kill the plan, insisting it was too stingy?a mistake their successors did not repeat last year with Bush's new prescription drug benefit for Medicare.) Nondefense discretionary spending, 3.2 percent of GDP in fiscal 1969, rose to 4 percent in fiscal 1975 and to 4.6 percent by fiscal 1977, President Ford's last budget year. Nixon spent even faster on entitlements. Fearing that an economic downturn might damage his re-election prospects, he agreed in 1972 to a stunning 20 percent permanent increase in Social Security benefits. The increase originated with House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, a Democrat who got it into his head to run for president. Nixon, determined as ever not to be outflanked, briefly resisted but then, waving his hat, climbed aboard the gravy train. He signed the increase into law in September 1972, in time for seniors to receive their fattened checks on October 1, a month before the election. The increase was so large that it accounted for more than half of the growth in personal income in the fourth quarter of 1972. In case anyone missed the point, the administration helpfully sent out notices letting seniors know that their Social Security checks had swelled. Thanks to that and other examples of Nixon's generosity, entitlement spending grew from 6.5 percent of GDP in 1969 to 10.6 percent in 1975, an unprecedented increase. Nixon managed to pay for more than half of this new domestic spending by cutting defense as the Vietnam War wound down. But the peace dividend proved to be merely a temporary windfall; the defense cuts overshot, and detente collapsed. By the late 1970s, President Carter found himself obliged to reverse course and begin a defense buildup, which Reagan accelerated. And so, by the time of Ford and Carter, the government was running chronic deficits of between 2 and 4 percent of GDP. Filling that fiscal hole was to be the preoccupation of every president from Carter to Clinton. Reagan is generally blamed for the deficit crisis of the 1980s and early 1990s. He certainly made a bad situation worse, running a deficit that reached a recessionary peak of 6 percent of GDP. Remember, though, that the deficit was already 2.6 percent of GDP when Reagan took office, and it was 2.8 percent when he left. He and Congress revoked a substantial share of the 1981 tax cut, and by 1987 the defense budget was coming down almost as fast as it had gone up. In other words, Reagan doubled the deficit as a share of GDP, but only briefly. The underlying fiscal dislocation was largely the work of Nixon, who let?no, helped? federal spending run away from federal revenues, not just for a while but for good. Resolving Reagan's fiscal rupture?that is, reducing the deficit to pre-Reagan levels, as a share of GDP?took only four years (from 1983 to 1987); resolving Nixon's took 20. And George W. Bush? Obviously, he is personally not much like Nixon. But his fiscal legacy looks in danger of being similar. The budget, firmly in surplus when he took office, is now in the red, possibly for years to come; his tax cuts and spending increases account for much, though far from all, of the change. Congress, by exceeding Bush's spending requests, has compounded the problem. With the budgetary vise of the Baby Boom generation's retirement soon to begin closing, the country may be on the verge of a 20-year fiscal crisis much like the one Nixon bequeathed. "After only three years in office, President Bush may be heading to the record books as one of the biggest-spending presidents," writes Veronique de Rugy, a fiscal policy analyst, in a new Cato Institute report ("The Republican Spending Explosion"). She notes that real spending increases in fiscal 2002, 2003, and 2004 have averaged more than 7 percent?versus 1.5 percent over the past 40 years. The administration retorts that most of the spending increases are attributable to the economic downturn, homeland security, and Iraq?exceptional circumstances that required exceptional responses. Fair enough, but a policy isn't exceptional if it goes on forever. "Justifications for borrowing have now run out," says Maya MacGuineas, the executive director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan anti-deficit group. "The higher security-spending needs we have are no longer temporary, economic growth has picked up, and there's really no reason not to pay for all the spending that we decide the government is going to engage in." Well, there is one reason: Repairing the fiscal breach would require Bush to set priorities and make trade-offs, something he, like Nixon, has been conspicuously reluctant to do. Even Nixon, though, promised in 1969 to produce a sizable ("not token") surplus in five years. "It's remarkable that a Republican administration doesn't even have a plan to at least put the deficit on a glide path to zero," says Chris Edwards, Cato's director of fiscal policy studies. "They just say half in five years." Given that 2004 is an election year, austerity may be too much to expect when Bush releases his budget next month. But at a bare minimum, says MacGuineas, "you shouldn't see any tax cuts or spending increases that aren't paid for, and in fact you should see a plan for how to put us on a path to budget balance." In 1972, Nixon faced a choice between political one-upmanship and fiscal grown-upmanship, and we all know which he chose. But Nixon was as crass an opportunist as ever entered American politics. Bush is a better sort of man. Isn't he? © Copyright 2004 National Journal Jonathan Rauch is a senior writer and columnist for National Journal and a frequent contributor to REASON. This article was originally published by National Journal. Reason's Weekly Dispatch By Jeff A. Taylor and the Reason staff Back Issues Subscribe Send Feedback Visit http://www.reason.com/re/rextext.txt for the plain text version of Reason Express. Visit http://www.reason.com/re/current.shtml for the html version. January 27, 2004 Vol. 7 No. 4 In this issue: 1. Weapons of Mass Confusion 2. Units of Measurement 3. High-Priced Spam 4. Quick Hits 5. New at Reason Online - Get a Life 6. Reason's print edition 7. News and Events 1. Weapons of Mass Confusion Election years change things. The dust-up over weapons of mass destruction is no longer an esoteric contest between op-ed writers and Bush press flacks. It now has the makings of a real, live election issue. With Colin Powell, the man the Bush administration sent to the UN to make the case for war, saying that maybe we got it wrong, the issue has become hard to bury. It is also interesting to watch how Powell manages to put distance between himself and White House on so many matters. What does Colin plan for the future? Now the justification for preemptive war is down to Attorney General John Ashcroft accusing Saddam of using "evil chemistry and evil biology." Assuming Ashcroft isn't charging Saddam with promoting the theory of evolution, evil science still does not quite make the case. The reality, as laid out by David Kay, the WMD hunter who should know, is that Saddam only approached the Bush administration's constructed Hitler Lite persona in one regard: He personally approved "super-weapons" that had not a chance of actually being built. At best the CIA totally missed the disconnect between what Saddam thought he had and what was actually available. At worst, the CIA accurately conveyed this situation to an administration bent on building up an Iraqi threat whether or not one existed. The range of possible failures in intelligence gives Democrats at least a shot at pinning them on George Bush. Certainly the Senator Johns -- Kerry and Edwards -- can now cobble together an explanation of why they more or less backed Bush administration foreign policy post 9/11. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109471,00.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/international/middleeast/26KAY.html http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4200706 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Units of Measurement No matter the outcome in November the commander in chief will have to confront the fact that his armed forces are stretched very thin. The heavily reserve-dependent force was never intended to function in a state of nearly continuous deployment. West Virginia and North Carolina National Guardsmen are receiving a crash-course in Iraqi warfare in Florida. It is a job for which they are not particularly well suited. Their units were originally conceived as part of a second wave of armor and mechanized infantry that would rush to Western Europe in the event of trouble with the Warsaw Pact. Their heavy M1 Abrams tanks would help provide defensive depth against waves of Soviet tanks in a conflict everyone expected to be over in weeks, for good or bad. But as they head to Iraq the Guard will leave the Abrams behind and prepare to fight dismounted, as infantry. They also will replace a unit, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, that was always designed to function as lethal light infantry and has still had some hairy moments in and around Kirkuk. The test for the Pentagon will come once these guard and reserve units finally return home. Do their members head for civilian life for good? If so, who or what replaces them? http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/7794730.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. High-Priced Spam When Bill Gates says he can lick spam many have to figure it is a win-win deal. Either Gates succeeds to the benefit of all mankind, or he fails and the world enjoys the secret pleasure of seeing a rich man stumble. But researchers at Microsoft appear to be onto something. The trick has always been to move the cost of handling spam from the email receiver to the sender. Absent that, nothing really changes no matter how many laws get passed. If spam is tremendously cheap to send, people will spam. However, the current email protocol is just not set up to act as a micro-payment clearing house. The resulting snafus could be worse than today's spam-storms. So actual monetary payments on top of the current email system look like a non-starter. That has led Microsoft to the idea of imposing costs other than monetary ones on email senders. If sending email first required the solving of a computational puzzle then the cost would be denominated in time, not cents. A few seconds to solve a puzzle would only marginally impact non-spammers; but spammers sending millions of spam a day would face months of work. Of course, spammers could spend much more money on computational power to crunch through such a system, but they would still be paying more to send email. This approach does not promise to kill spam outright, but it could just price it out of the market. http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/sv/PennyBlack/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Quick Hits Quote of the Week "I am flabbergasted. I am astonished. I am blown away." -- Steven Squyres, the Opportunity mission's main scientist, on the pictures the rover sent back home. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/01/26/state0723EST0033.DTL Xbox Marks the Sweet Spot Mike Rowe caves and turns over his mikerowesoft.com domain in exchange for a Microsoft Xbox. Lawyers from Redmond declare victory. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3429485.stm The Name Game In part by simply losing the AOL preface, Time Warner seems to have put the brake on an investigation by the SEC on the state of AOL's earnings in the runup to the mega-merger. Noted strike-suit lawyer Bill Lerach is still on Time Warner's tail, however, claiming that the firm's steep stock dive should've been foreseen by its officers. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40126-2004Jan22.html Capt. Kangaroo's Court Was the long-running kids' show a "boomer touchstone" or an accidental network platform for a nice man with a bizarre haircut? http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0126/p09s02-cojs.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. New at Reason Online Get A Life Narrating your way into--and out of--the White House. Charles Paul Freund Do These Deficits Look Familiar? Meet Richard Milhous Bush. Jonathan Rauch Postal Pranksters Counterfeit stamps as art. Jesse Walker And much more ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. The Print Edition Get your personal copy of the latest issue of Reason's print edition each month -- before it hits the newsstands and before it's posted on the Web! Subscribe Today! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7. News and Events ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Buy Reason T-shirts and coffee mugs! Click here for the latest on media appearances by Reason writers. Want even more Reason? Sign up for Reason Alert to get regular news from Reason Magazine and Reason Public Policy Instiute, as well as advance notice about media appearances and events. We encourage you to forward Reason Express. If you received this issue from a forward, please subscribe . It's Free! Subscribe to Reason Reason Daily Recent stories Speakers Cornered (2/5) Working Families Fight Back! (2/4) America Goes Bowling (2/2) Reason Daily archive January 29, 2004 Campaign Clichés Not quite false, not quite true Jesse Walker They're not myths. Not exactly. But they aren't the full truth either. And I'm getting a little tired of hearing them. Let's start with a perennial complaint : The press is more interested in the horse race than the issues. Maybe it is, but in this election the horse race is an issue. At this point most of the candidates seem to spend less time arguing that they have the right platform than arguing that they can beat Bush. That was, of course, the thrust of most of the attacks on Howard Dean: that his views were too liberal or his persona too volatile to appeal to anyone outside the Democratic base. It also explains the support for General Wesley Clark among people whose politics are well to his left. (Can you imagine what Michael Moore would have said about the general if he'd run in 2000?) And it's not just the candidates and their celebrity pals who keep bringing up electability: Voters themselves tell pollsters it's an important factor (though not the most important factor) when they make their choice. In essence, we're watching voters trying to second-guess other voters. It's like a complex math problem, or maybe a derivatives market. Can you really blame the media for picking up on this? At the final debate before the New Hampshire primary, reporters posed queries about taxes, social issues, and foreign policy in terms of how the nominee would beat back the Republicans' attacks. And when the questioners didn't bring up the coming race against Bush, the candidates did it for them, addressing the electability question either directly or in thinly-disguised code: Q: Senator Lieberman, back to what Senator Edwards said earlier about the blank check and the $87 billion [for Iraq]. You voted for it. Is this a blank check? At what point will you say no in the future? LIEBERMAN: John, it is not a blank check. And I'll say with the withdrawal from this race of our good friend, the great American, Dick Gephardt, I am the only person on this stage who has unwaveringly supported the removal of Saddam Hussein and our troops who are there carrying out that mission, which, yes, has made us a lot safer than we would be with Saddam in power instead of in prison. I want to tell you a story, John. In Nashua, a few weeks ago, I met a gentleman in a hotel, came over to me, I think he worked there, big burly guy with a crewcut. And he said, "Senator Lieberman, I'm going to vote for you for President, and I want you to know why. I have a son. He is a Marine. He is going to be deployed to Iraq in a month. I trust my son's life with you as commander in chief." Unstated but implied: No way that guy's gonna vote for any of these peaceniks standing next to me. Number two: Dean is faltering because he made a strange noise in Iowa. Dean's yelp at the end of his concession speech was funny, so it's no surprise that many people made jokes about it the week afterward. But that shouldn't be any more damaging than the two Bushes' capacity to make ordinary comments sound like something out of Gertrude Stein . What really hurt the man is not that, after weeks of people saying he's dangerously explosive, he exploded. (It wasn't an angry yelp.) It's that, after weeks of people saying he wasn't electable, he stumbled badly in an election. Number three: Voters like optimistic candidates, not angry candidates, and that's why Dean isn't doing well. That may have something to do with it, though I've never understood why a candidate couldn't be optimistic and angry. That aside, the fact remains that the candidate of pure optimism, John Edwards, hasn't done much better than Dean has. That could change as the campaign heads south; but at this point, despite his pro-forma protestations , Sunny John seems more likely to be nominated vice-president than president. More frequently missed is that Dean isn't actually the least optimistic of the major candidates. That honor belongs to Joe Lieberman , whose dour demeanor is matched by his long history as a moral scold. Lieberman's backers say his foreign policy views would be an easier sell to the great mass of undecided voters because there's no danger anyone will doubt his patriotism. But he talks about pop culture the way Dennis Kucinich talks about the Pentagon. And while there's a core of people who respond favorably to this, many others perceive it as a man bashing their chosen pastime, or their right to choose their own pastime?or, worse yet, a man bashing his own society. To be sure, there are ways to attack Hollywood without seeming elitist, just as there are ways to attack the war without seeming anti-American. One reason so many culture critics talk so incessantly about children is because there's a large middle ground of Americans who don't want to interfere with adult pleasures but are worried about popular entertainment's influence on kids. Bill Clinton knew how to walk this line, in part because everyone knew his own penchant for such pleasures; and so he sagely lectured kids about keeping their flies zipped and pushed V-chips on the nation while leaving his own pants down and finding nice things to say about movies like Fight Club and American Beauty. But that was Clinton. Lieberman is another matter. Why didn't Lieberman receive the same criticisms Dean did? Partly, of course, because Dean spent so long as the frontrunner, and thus drew more fire. But also, I suspect, because political journalists naturally regard public policy as central and culture as a sideshow, even at times when the reverse is closer to the truth. Number four: No candidate can beat Bush. This one's more popular among Republican partisans than it is among the mainstream media. The general line of thought is that Kerry, Dean, and Clark are too liberal and anti-war to beat Bush, and that Lieberman and Edwards have lost their shot at the nomination. Well, maybe. But there's one candidate with a very solid chance of beating Bush. His name is George W. Bush. Four years ago, the person who did the most to defeat Al Gore was Al Gore; the same was arguably true of Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis, and Walter Mondale before him. Bush has the added problem of already being in office. Incumbents have obvious advantages, but they also have more opportunities to create disasters. And between the occupations abroad and the constant threat of another major terrorist attack, the chances of a decision proving very disastrous indeed are somewhat higher than usual, no matter who's in office. The full-time Bush-haters may be a minority, but the class of people who are just wary about the man is pretty big. One large clear-cut public failure, and he can lose their support for good. Everyone's eyes may be on the Democrats, but the ball's in your court, George. Managing Editor Jesse Walker is author of Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America (NYU Press). More by Jesse Walker Reason's Weekly Dispatch By Jeff A. Taylor and the Reason staff Back Issues Subscribe Send Feedback Visit http://www.reason.com/re/rextext.txt for the plain text version of Reason Express. Visit http://www.reason.com/re/current.shtml for the html version. February 3, 2004 Vol. 7 No. 5 In this issue: 1. State of Independence 2. Ticket Takers 3. Insert Joke Here 4. Quick Hits 5. New at Reason Online - America Goes Bowling 6. Reason's print edition 7. News and Events 1. State of Independence Opinion polls are just beginning to reflect it, but President George Bush is seeing his re-election steamroller beginning to veer off-course. Its latest detour: the White House's reluctant backing for some sort of independent look at WMD intelligence failures. That deal was sealed when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) jumped ship and voiced his support for an intel review. A WMD panel would be in addition to the 9/11-review panel that's still at work. Thus, Bush is looking at two potentially embarrassing reviews underway as he campaigns. Democrats, for their part, will be able to use the very existence of these panels to question the administration's handling of foreign policy and national security, even though they failed to oppose much of anything Bush did when he sought to do it. This is extremely lucky for them. On the domestic front, Bush faces intense anger within his own base regarding trade, immigration, and rampant spending. The cynical manipulation of the true cost of Medicare drug benefits has conservative activists particularly upset; the White House repeatedly assured them that fears of a price tag above $400 billion price was just silly talk. Now with the number at $540 billion, conservatives are too mad even to mutter I-told-you-so. It remains to seen whether Bush can rope his party back together and fend off the various probes without expending so much political capital that he has little left for the stretch run. What looked like blowout election is looking closer. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3980-2004Feb1?language=printer http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=486951 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Ticket Takers Worry about the November election is driving whispers about dropping Dick Cheney from the ticket in exchange for former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. Rudy would instantly inoculate Bush from 9/11 and intelligence-related vulnerabilities that might arise from the independent panels. But replacing the flinty Cheney with a mod like Giuliani might also drive conservatives even further around the bend, depressing GOP turnout without actually winning any Democratic crossover voters. So the search for a replacement may not end with Rudy. In fact, a better move for Bush might be to put Colin Powell on the ticket, opening up the State Dept. for some conservative favorite even while anointing Powell as the party's heir apparent for 2008 (such an anointment is probably a necessity for Powell to consider such a scenario). If Bush is going to make any such move, he cannot wait too long. A ticket change late in the campaign will look like desperation. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4065772 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. Insert Joke Here A Texas woman arrested for selling vibrators has become the subject of gag order. This would be funnier if Joanne Webb did not face a year in prison for selling Passion Parties' equipment to a pair of undercover police officers. That's right, crime is so low in Johnson County, Texas that police there can pose as husband and wife and ask another adult to sell them marital aids and then make the bust. Woo-hoo! Gotcha! Prosecutor Bill Moore evidently has had his fill of Webb going on national TV to tell these facts-of-the-matter to world, so he asked a local judge for the 10-day gag order on Webb and her attorney. A permanent gag order may yet be issued. If Moore is so ashamed of the case, he should dismiss it. The least Moore can do is explain why he thinks it is a good use of police and prosecutorial resources to go after someone who could not possibly be considered a threat to the community. Or is it the passion part that he finds spooky? http://www.caller.com/ccct/state_texas_news/article/0,1641,CCCT_876_2615221,00.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Quick Hits Quote of the Week "I'm a firm believer that sports will migrate around the globe, and that they're doing that right now. And at some point maybe we'll have a quarterback from China named Yao Fling.'' -- NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue on his sport's popularity. http://www.suntimes.com/output/telander/cst-spt-rick01.html It Had to Happen A geek in Michigan has named his new son 2.0 instead of junior. There will be many jokes about service packs and firmware upgrades in his future. http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BABY_VERSION_20?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=ENTERTAINMENT Drunken Swabbies Pubs in Britain are starting to test patrons for use of illegal drugs via a hand-swab that detects traces of drugs. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/3449153.stm Nuclear Pak Where did Pakistan's nuclear know-how go, and how did it get there? The details are beginning to leak out. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0202/p07s02-wosc.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. New at Reason Online America Goes Bowling Football as a Way of Life. Jeff A. Taylor "Dominate. Intimidate. Control." The sorry record of the Transportation Security Administration. James Bovard Rhetorical Weapons Misleading the public to war. Jacob Sullum And much more ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. The Print Edition Get your personal copy of the latest issue of Reason's print edition each month -- before it hits the newsstands and before it's posted on the Web! Subscribe Today! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7. News and Events ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Buy Reason T-shirts and coffee mugs! Click here for the latest on media appearances by Reason writers. Want even more Reason? Sign up for Reason Alert to get regular news from Reason Magazine and Reason Public Policy Instiute, as well as advance notice about media appearances and events. We encourage you to forward Reason Express. If you received this issue from a forward, please subscribe . It's Free! Subscribe to Reason Recent Editors' Links Great Americans and the Smithsonian (2/6) Olympic Mayhem (2/5) February 7, 2002 Editors' Links Axis of Incoherence By Jesse Walker It was the most controversial line in the State of the Union address . Barely acknowledging Osama bin Laden, who still seems beyond capture , Bush Minor instead turned his rhetorical guns on Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. "States like these and their terrorist allies," the president declared, "constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world." The president's remark (ghosted, apparently, by the right-wing pundit David Frum ) has provoked both damning criticism and inspired mockery . (On the other hand, the King of Jordan liked it.) If axis means alliance, Bush's comments are especially odd. There's been a mild thaw between Iran and Iraq, but the two countries are still basically foes . And while North Korea has some terrorist connections , the only terror force with which it is closely linked is the Japanese Red Army . (The administration's actual fear seems to be that some terrorists might be using North Korean weapons .) It's as though Franklin Roosevelt, in 1944, declared that the world was threatened by an axis of Germany, Russia, and Argentina. Worse yet: By firing volleys at nations linked to terrorism in general, rather at than specific threats to the United States, Bush is moving still further away from the idea of a limited fight to defend the country. Instead, we step closer to what one empire-booster calls a "pre-emptive and unilateral war ": a perpetual crusade against terror itself?except, of course, for the terror committed in the name of that war . Not, mind you, that it's entirely clear just what axis-fighting policies Bush has in mind. Asked to elaborate on the president's remarks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld offered this : "If we decide to initiate things, we'll initiate things, in a manner, in a time, and with the choices that fit us. If the world decides to impose choices on us, then we'll make choices." If you can make sense of that, you may have a codebreaking job waiting for you at the National Security Agency . Jesse Walker is an associate editor of Reason and the author of Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America (NYU Press) Subscribe to Reason February '04 Print Edition ? Dominate. Intimidate. Control ? Political Body Snatchers ? Every Man a Demiurge Read the Full Issue Intern at Reason! ......... Search Subscribe Subscriber Svc. Archives About Advertise Reprints Donate Pressroom Submissions Events Reason Stuff! Contacts ......... Reason Express Weekly News Email: Name: ......... Nick Gillespie C.P. Freund Jacob Sullum Jesse Walker Brian Doherty Ronald Bailey Sara Rimensnyder Cathy Young Jonathan Rauch Publisher: Mike Alissi (203) 407-0114 Media Inquiries: Mike Alissi (203) 407-0114 Reprint Permissions (310) 391-2245 Web Editor: Tim Cavanaugh Editorial & Production Offices: 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd. Suite 400 Los Angeles, CA 90034 (310) 391-2245 Speakers Cornered Orwellian "Free Speech Zones" violate the constitution Ronald Bailey (2/5) Principal Stalin It's all about the children Peter Bagge (2/5) Working Families Fight Back! Some budget tips from on high Tim Cavanaugh (2/4) CHAMPS-ELYSEES Science and Public Policy Our man in science goes to Congress Ron Bailey (2/4) Off Your Feed A return to submissive wives? Cathy Young (2/4) Gigantic Outlay Party Republicans stuff record pork down federal piehole Ralph R. Reiland (2/3) "Dominate. Intimidate. Control" The sorry record of the Transportation Security Administration James Bovard (2/2) Found Objects What archaeologists can gain from markets, or lose by ignoring them Jeremy Lott (1/30) Voters and Votesters Net politics after the bursting of Dean's bubble Julian Sanchez (1/28) You Choose, You Lose Modern democracy means you have no choice Brian Doherty (1/27) Are We Having Fun Yet? A writer tracks the perverse imp of American malcontent Brian Doherty (1/26) Get a Life Narrating your way into?and out of?the White House Charles Paul Freund (1/26) Ungodly Politics The new discrimination against the nonreligious Cathy Young (1/22) The Finality of Evil America vs. Human Nature Jeff A. Taylor (1/22) What WMDs? Why no bum's rush over bum data? Ronald Bailey (1/22) Too Much Dick Even a bad primary weeds out the losers Tim Cavanaugh (1/20) Vote For This Year's Axis of Evil! Your president needs your suggestions A Reason Poll (1/20) UN Bomber Transition opposition... Fly by night operators... Recessed panel... And more Reason Express (1/20) Class Conflict When clients serve lawyers Jacob Sullum (1/16) Tantrums on the Tarmac Treat people like babies, and babies are what you'll get Jesse Walker (1/15) Wanna Go Where Everybody Knows Your Name? How about everything else about you? Brian Doherty (1/13) The Fuhrer's Face Let's retire the Hitler comparisons Cathy Young (1/13) Bad Blood To fight AIDS, lift the ban on immigrants with HIV Jonathan Rauch (1/12) Flower Power Free the florists! Jacob Sullum (1/9) Label Me Technology will make labeling battles moot. Ronald Bailey (1/8) "...Or Don't You Care?" Logical proposals for taxing away all of society's ills Peter Bagge (1/8) DDT, Eggshells, and Me Cracking open the facts on birds and banned pesticides Ronald Bailey (1/7) Gott Mit Uns Shibboleths in presidential politics Julian Sanchez (1/7) Best of '3 Unfinished stories of last year Cathy Young (1/6) The Silence of the CEOs Stick up for Martha, for your own sakes Michael McMenamin (1/5) Live From Chapel Perilous We're living in Robert Anton Wilson's world Jesse Walker (1/2) Herb Curb If Mark McClellan wouldn't use ephedra, why should you? Jacob Sullum (1/2) "Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up" Celebrating 30 years of failing to save endangered species Ronald Bailey (12/31) Christmas Tree Freedom A symbolic struggle for the soul of America Cathy Young (12/30) Ride the Death Spiral Vicious cycles in entitlement spending Julian Sanchez (12/29) Shimmering Chimeras Moving sheepishly toward the biotech future Ronald Bailey (12/24) Garden of the Forking Paths Saddam's not even good for conspiracy theories Tim Cavanaugh (12/22) Light Unto the Wealth of Nations How Christmas displays illuminate a strong economy Virginia Postrel (12/19) From the Jaws of Victory Catching Saddam and giving Iraqis their country back Michael Young (12/19) Proscribing Online Prescribing Why isn't a digital doctor's note enough? Ronald Bailey (12/18) Songs to Learn and Ping Who isn't trying to sell online music? Jeff A. Taylor (12/17) Is Organ Bootlegging Inevitable? Only markets and science will prevent it. Ronald Bailey (12/17) Waiting for Antar Why Saddam was supposed to kill himself Charles Paul Freund (12/15) The Sideshow's Over Now it's time to get back to the main front in the War on Terrorism Nick Gillespie (12/15) Fruitful, Rich, Useless The Kyoto Protocol creeps along Ronald Bailey (12/12) Rough Ride Regulators punish a car service for charging too little. Jacob Sullum (12/12) After Kyoto Are personal carbon permits next? Ronald Bailey (12/11) Barely Illegal The case for the The DREAM Act Nick Gillespie (12/11) Where are the Hydrogen Mines? Inaccurate power projection in Milan Ronald Bailey (12/10) The Unknown Soldier Bragging on Pfc. Lynch Tim Cavanaugh (12/9) Friday Funnies Daily Brickbat Judge Not (2/6) State of Independence Re-election steamroller hits ditch... CREEP weeps about Veep... Lone Star lawyer gags on vibrator... And more Reason Express (2/3) America Goes Bowling Football as a Way of Life Jeff Taylor (2/2) Rhetorical Weapons Misleading the public to war Jacob Sullum (1/30) Campaign Clichés Not quite false, not quite true Jesse Walker (1/29) Faction News Lebanon's media: divided and unconquered Michael Young (1/29) Multitudes In the Valley of Decision Why would anyone choose to believe researchers who say you can have too much freedom? Ronald Bailey (1/28) Weapons of Mass Confusion Election-ear bombs... Units of measurement... High-priced spam... And more Reason Express (1/27) Do These Deficits Look Familiar? Meet Richard Milhous Bush Jonathan Rauch (1/26) Bush on Steroids Why must sports be drug-free? Jacob Sullum (1/23) State of the SotU Some notes for the teams Julian Sanchez (1/21) Bush's Missed Opportunity ...and its potential costs John Hood (1/21) Popping the Health Care Cost Bubble Maybe health care would be cheaper if the customer actually paid for it. Ronald Bailey (1/21) The Case of the Disappearing Political Wife Two cheers for the invisible Dr. Mrs. Dean Nick Gillespie (1/14) Mars: the Red-Tape Planet? Bureaucrats...in...space! Ronald Bailey (1/14) Fish Tales Are You Eating Cancerous Salmon? Ronald Bailey (1/14) Treasury of Memories Oh-Neill... Southern Man... Ring in the New... And more Reason Express (1/13) Silent Running Why nobody cares about D.C.'s primary Charles Paul Freund (1/12) Retention Deficit Stop-loss in a Volunteer State Tim Cavanaugh (1/6) Constitutional Issues Afghan Whigs... Kurds and Ways... Scan and Pan... And more Reason Express (1/6) Two-Faced Power I love my country but my government confuses the hell out of me. Jeff A. Taylor (1/5) Life During Wartime Squinting at the many hues of terror Brian Doherty (12/31) All the Presidents' Resolutions New Year's suggestions for the men (and lady) who would lead us Nick Gillespie (12/31) Amazon Honor System French Kiss-off Punishing dissent in Snail Country Michael Young (12/30) Snuff Treatment Lying in the name of public health Jacob Sullum (12/26) Jihad in Tappahannock? A question or two for Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri Charles Paul Freund (12/24) Food Fight Anti-fat police are ready to bust heads Kelly Jane Torrance (12/23) Pot Luck A victory for federalism Jacob Sullum (12/19) Bad Timing The Left picks the wrong month to discover the value of money Jesse Walker (12/16) The Big Catch Ace in the hole... A jury of his peers... Near miss in Pakistan... And more Reason Express (12/16) Animated Discourse Cartoons and you?partners in freedom Jesse Walker (12/14) Wayward Press Washington uses obscure visa as political weapon Matt Welch (12/12) Elvis Has Left the Building Why Marshall Mathers can't even get arrested in this town Brian Doherty (12/11) Undue Influence Closing the First Amendment "Loophole" Julian Sanchez (12/10) Continuous news, views, and abuse by the Reason staff Hey Big Spender Feb 5, 03:34 PM How Many Metas? Feb 5, 03:23 PM Gillespie on CNN Feb 5, 03:05 PM More... **Advertisement** Breaking Issues Who Am I Archive Cartoon Archive Interviews Reason Rocks! Amazon.com cover The Satanic Gases Patrick J. Michael... Our Price: $8.76 cover Communism Richard Pipes Our Price: $13.97 cover The Mind and the Market Jerry Z. Muller Our Price: $21.00 cover State of the World 2003 Worldwatch Institu... Our Price: $11.87 cover Global Warming in a Politically Corr... M. Mihkel Mathiese... Our Price: $12.95 cover The Future of Freedom Fareed Zakaria Our Price: $17.47 (Prices May Change) Privacy Information Shop at Amazon.com Hot Air Conference Urgent action on a non-problem Ronald Bailey (12/9) You May Already Be a Loser Correcting California's antispam mistake Walter Olson (12/8) Open Season on 'Open Society' Why an anti-communist Holocaust survivor is being demonized as a Socialist, Self-hating Jew Matt Welch (12/8) Governor, You're No George McGovern Why Howard Dean might be the next Bill Clinton Jonathan Rauch (12/8) Hearing Impairment Suspected terrorists should be able to challenge their detention Jacob Sullum (12/5) Dangerous Deputies Car dealers shouldn't be citizen soldiers John Berlau (12/5) Wolfowitz At the Door The antiwar movement's unsung friend at Defense Tim Cavanaugh (12/4) banner Performance Art ``A put-on is not necessarily a put-down. I liken what I do sometimes to a life game, as an adventure in absurdity, an adult fairytale in which I engage people emotionally and intellectually. The audience gets involved and has to decide for itself what's going on and what's to be learned from the experience. Everybody is a participant.'' - Alan Abel Don't ask me to define it, but some of the items in my collection seem to belong to the category of ``performance art'' - renegotiations of the social contract out of æsthetic desire or some less-easily-defined motive. There are artists who have specialized in the prank. Some who stand out in this regard are Joey Skaggs, Alan Abel, the team of Coyle & Sharpe, Luther Blissett, Michael Jackson, Michael Moore, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, Pedro Carvajal, and Paul Krassner. I notice a certain gender bias here, but nothing the Guerrilla Girls can't fix. Dramatists occasionally play with the audience / performer boundary, and social psychologists have adopted this form of performance art as a professional technique, renaming the performances breaching experiments. In one example, Jim Moran went to a cocktail party, dressed for the occasion except for one anomalous accessory: a small length of string looped around his ear and extending into one corner of his mouth. Moran didn't explain the string to anyone. He didn't even mention it... and nobody else did either! And thusly the Somebody Else's Problem Field was discovered. Mobbing is a form of semi-anonymous, quasi-spontaneous, collective performance art that's starting to take hold. It's ``an e-mail-driven experiment in organizing groups of people who suddenly materialize in public places, interact with others according to a loose script and then dissipate just as suddenly as they appeared.'' Mobs are striking everywhere from The Mall of America to London. And while the movement started out with a spirit of absurdism and frivolity, it's beginning to develop a harder edge thanks to some unexpected and uncalled-for repression from the humorless authorities. A caped crusader calling himself Angle-Grinder Man eagerly destroys the wheel clamps that have been locked onto cars by London's parking enforcement authorities. The Surveillance Camera Players arrange dramatic performances intended for viewing on surveillance cameras, then find examples of these cameras in their surroundings and put on interpretations of Ubu Roi and Waiting for Godot for the lucky security guards or video cassette recorders monitoring the scene. Another group that toys with the ubiquity of surveillance cameras is ShootingBack: In ShootingBack, I confront representatives of the ``Surveillance Superhighway'' (establishments such as department stores where video surveillance is used extensively, yet photography by customers is strictly prohibited). I begin with my camcorder held down at my side, pointing away from a representative of the SS. Then, I ask the representative ``What are those mysterious ceiling domes - those dark hemispheres...'' or ``Is that a video camera? Why are you taking pictures of me without my permission?'' After the representative tells me that I am paranoid and that only criminals are concerned about cameras, I raise the camcorder up to my eye... At this point, the representative of the SS often shows great concern about my camcorder, and thus, in a 180 degree reversal, is self-incriminating. Check out their PleaseWait wearable surveillance / mediated interaction technology (or perahps something more subtle). You may also be interested to know that Michael Naimark has done some useful research into how to temporarily disable surveillance cameras using cheap, off-the-shelf laser pointers. Andrew Epstein of Amhurst College in Massachusetts created a commentary on the U.S. War on Drugs by taking it to its logical conclusion. He posted signs that read ``In order to curb the use of caffeine at Amherst College, the sale and distribution of coffee are no longer permitted on campus. Effective Immediately.'' Then he shut down and cloaked the old coffee machines and sent out confederates to peddle coffee beans out on the sidewalk black market. The best part of this is that it was all done above-board with the approval of the campus administration under the guise of an art project. ``I suspect if he had come to the administration as an activist, there would have been much stronger resistance,'' said Epstein's faculty advisor. ``It shows us how art has this kind of peculiar permission.'' Won't go any further without a tip of the hat to Orson Welles' radio show The War of the Worlds which gripped the U.S. in media-hypnotized panic in 1938. ``The biggest reason I do the hoax medium is because everyone is so post-ironic today,'' says Mike Z of Crowded Theater. ``No one believes in anything. The willing suspension of disbelief is long gone. People have disbelief every moment of their waking hours. So I do try to craft my work so that it's considered important information and not a goof. I think too much of our culture has been abandoned to goofing on truth and meaning. I want to address issues, and I think the best way to do that is to be taken seriously.'' Jeffrey Vallance bought a Foster Farms chicken at the supermarket, then took it to a pet cemetery and - maintaining a straight face - asked for the whole shebang memorial service and burial for his beloved pet Blinky. A woman going by the name Terrifica puts on mask and cape and patrols New York City, looking for drunk women in bars who are in danger of being picked up on by dastardly men, and coming to their rescue. One of the techniques used by the Nazi invaders of Poland to stamp out resistance was to demolish statues and monuments dedicated to Polish patriotism or heroes. Many Poles adopted the practice of pretending that the monuments still existed, for instance walking around the empty spaces where they had been. Three men were arrested for throwing paper airplanes through the airspace of the U.S. embassy in Norway, while the U.S. was bombing Afghanistan. Lorin Partridge shows up at anti-war protests with pro-war picket signs that read ``War is Groovy'' and ``Killing People is No Big Deal.'' ``Olympia,'' dressed in business attire and carrying a briefcase, abruptly went into an hour-long pole dance on the sidewalk of San Francisco's financial district during the Christmas shopping rush. Seattle municipal bus driver Reggie Wilson drives a route all his own: He entertains his passengers with jokes, stories and spontaneous poems in the bus, which he's decorated with smiley faces. He hides candies and snacks under the bus seats on special occasions, and he has a cache of stuffed animals for crying kids. He leads sing-a-longs featuring bus and work-themed songs: ``If You're Happy That It's Friday, Say Uh-huh'' and ``Ride, Ride, Ride the Bus Gently Down the Street.'' Buffo reports: ``June, 1973: As a sign of the 'truce' prevailing for the Camden Neighborhood Festival a tug-of-war was organized between a team of squatters and a team of policemen. The squatters were disqualified and victory was awarded to the police bcause when squatters started losing ground, spectators broke through the sidelines and pulled with the squatters...'' ``When a street procession reënacting the crucifixion was halted by traffic in west London, a group of local youths surrounded the actor playing Jesus, cut loose his ropes, told him to run for it and said they would cover his getaway.'' Gilbert Highet writes: ``It is in the realm of art, the only realm which combines the sublime and the ridculous, that the hoax belongs. When Horace de Vere Cole strewed horse droppings (procured with considerable difficulty and expense from mainland Italy) about the center of that horseless city, Venice, and then watched the Venetians gazing with a wild surmise first at the pavement of the Piazza di San Marco and then at the sky above, where nothing has yet been seen to fly but pigeons and airplanes, he was enjoying the purest pleasure of art...'' Four young Texans spent most of 2002 impersonating federal law enforcement officers - pulling over drivers and then brazenly calling for backup using their real names. Their motive was hard to discern. Despite the fact that the posse did not assault or threaten anyone, but merely engaged in the sort of low-level power-mad harassment that bona fide members of law enforcement participate in when they're in a good mood, FBI Special Agent Noel Johns wasted no time in saying that ``their actions were characteristic of domestic terrorism.'' In San Francisco, California, a man by the name of Brian Anthony Young impersonated a state fish and game warden for three months, checking licenses, issuing citations and confiscating fish. He said that ``boredom and drugs'' led him to perform the inspections on more than 200 anglers, boats, restaurants and stores. Speaking of fish and game in San Francisco, the S.F. Cacophony Society recently organized a pigeon roast downtown. Brian G. Hughes struck it rich in the paper box and banking biz and decided to spend his cash and leisure time messing with people and their attitudes toward conspicuous displays of wealth: entering alley cats in cat shows (and winning!), dropping packages of glass jewels in front of Tiffany's, that sort of thing. William ``Reverend Billy'' Talen uses the model of a streetcorner preacher, the stage of a Disney store or a Starbucks, and a gospel of anticonsumerism to confront money drones and fight for their souls. We could use a hundred more like him. Here's a good story: A student at MIT spent her summer days at the Harvard football field, wearing a black-and-white striped shirt and tossing bird seed around while blowing a whistle. A few months later, football season began, and when the referee blew the whistle for the first home game, the field was suddenly covered with birds. In 1987, a teenager from West Germany flew a small, single-engine Cessna 450 miles through Soviet airspace and landed in Red Square in Moscow. The reds threw Mathias Rust in prison, but Gorbachev let him out soon after - and Gorby took advantage of the incident to can his defense minister and purge the military command, hastening the fall of the U.S.S.R. Five stars to a Mr. Lozier, who conceived of a brilliant hack in the early 1800s. He managed to convince a sizable crowd of New Yorkers that Manhattan was in imminent danger of sinking under the weight of sprawling construction. After a few days, Lozier came up with the plan of cutting the island loose, towing it out into the Atlantic, turning it around and reättaching it to the mainland. He enlisted (I'm not kidding, folks) hundreds of people in this wacky scheme. Jane White was sick of more than a decade of monthly visits from pamphleteering Jehovah's Witnesses. Finally, she snapped. At ten in the morning on Sunday, she banged on the door of the Kingdom Hall where the sect was having its services, then invited herself in and started offering magazines to the congregation. The Pieman (in various guises) has thrown pies at such targets as Bill Gates, Jeffrey Skilling, Willie Brown, Oscar de la Renta, Jean Chrétien, Charles Hurwitz, Milton Friedman, William Shatner, Maharaji, Howard Jarvis, William F. Buckley, Ralph Nader, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, Prince Charles, Anita Bryant, Daniel Moynihan, Ralph Klein, Edward Teller, Quentin Kopp, G. Gordon Liddy, Phyllis Schlafly, Andy Warhol, E. Howard Hunt, Eldridge Cleaver, Rod McKuen, David Icke, Michael Wines, Randall Terry, William Colby, Helmut Kohl, Filip Dewinte, Helen Chenowith, Michael Noonan, Bertie Ahern, Pim Fortuyn, Timothy Leary, Sylvester Stallone and Jerry Brown. ``We want to give people who are so overwhelmed by the terror of modern life the opportunity to laugh in the face of people who are destroying us,'' said a Biotic Baking Brigade member known as ``Agent Apple.'' A crew calling themselves Los Cybrids stormed the ``Internet 2010'' panel to advocate the outright abolition of the internet in a splendidly flamboyant manner. A man in Berkeley, California has been circulating petitions to try to get the city to put on the ballot a proposition to make Aristotle's first law of logic (``A=A'') an official city ordinance. Special categories of hoax performance art have been etched out by practitioners of The Great God Hoax and by magicians and miracle mongers. P.T. Barnum was ever-creative in his use of ritual performance to manipulate behavior and belief. And points for tummult go to The Rensselaer Drop Squad for relentless dropping of big heavy things down tall staircases. A group of students in Georgia threw a rave and a fashion show in a Wal-Mart. ``We just wanted something we could do at Wal-Mart to bring the youth culture and the art world into kinda like a fluorescent-lit wasteland.'' The Solid Gold Chart Busters have taken on guerrilla cell phone destruction as a hobby. View movie clips of their work on-line - they promise that ``[a]ll the people concerned are real members of the public and no one was refunded for the loss of their mobile telephone.'' Talk radio call-in shows are targeted by the performance artist-pranksters Goy Division, and football star-turned-actor O.J. Simpson targeted both the legal system and U.S. racial politics in his brilliant yet deadly satire, The O.J. Simpson Trial. A couple of radio DJs pulled a stunt that involved dressing up in prison orange jumpsuits and going door-to-door in neighborhoods in Milbrae, California asking people to help them get out of their handcuffs. In doing so they uncovered an infrequently-used offense in the penal code: falsely causing an emergency to be reported. Sometimes it's very hard indeed to distinguish performance art from what is commonly labeled delusionary schizophrenic antics. What do you make of Rosie Ruiz and her non-victory at the 1980 Boston Marathon? Or the amazing claims of IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV? William Topaz McGonagall made a name for himself as an undiscouragable author of awful poetry. Ronald M. Chroniak robbed a bank and then went outside and started handing out money to people, saying ``I just robbed the bank; have a nice day,'' until his arrest. Larry Walters, with the help of some helium-filled weather balloons, flew to 16,000 feet in a lawn chair. Gabriele Paolini has made a name for himself by jumping out behind TV reporters as they are delivering live, on-the-scene broadcasts - usually waving condoms or a photo of the pope. There's some sort of implicit activist message in here somewhere, but I've chosen to put this report here rather than in our Guerrilla Hacks section. This because he's managed to get himself on TV more than 18,000 times. Good grief! A hunter in Uganda was being sought by authorities upset over his habit of shooting gorillas with tranquilizer darts and then dressing them in clown suits. Pete Wagner (inspired by Brother Jed) likes political demonstrations so much that he decided it was no use waiting for an appropriate issue to come around. He started holding Generic Demonstrations at which any ol' issue would be fair game and people would hold up placards reading merely ``For'' and ``Against.'' Wagner also joined in with some friends to liven up a feminist ``Take Back the Night'' anti-rape march - by forming a all-male cheerleading squad to line the parade route and cheer on the marchers. Choi Chung-ching staged regular funerals to drive away potential buyers of housing near his home, successfully exploiting a superstitious custom (but eventually getting sued). They're calling it Munchausen by Internet Syndrome. Some people are manufacturing on-line personæ that are complete with realistic pathos, tragedy, disease, and trauma, and then they go on to suck up the virtual sympathy of other folks on-line. People who transform their whole lives into performance art get special treatment in our Fake Folks and Impostors pages, but I'll highlight a handful here as well: First and foremost was a fellow who called himself George Psalmanazar (his real name is lost to history). In the late 17th Century, George wandered around Europe pretending to be a cannibal prince from the exotic orient. He made up an alphabet and lectured widely about the pagan practices and exotic wildlife of his home nation, even teaching at Oxford on the subject. In 1704 he compiled these observations into the book ``An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa.'' When Psalmanazar died in 1763, his memoirs, in which he confessed to the decades-old hoax, were published. His life was revealed to have been one long work of amazing improvisational dramatic fiction. How could he have pulled off such a complete ethnic imposture on the likes of Oxford? Well, don't say it is because people were stupid back in the eighteenth century. In the twentieth century, Grey Owl, an Englishman who impersonated a native American for years, wrote autobiographical books, lectured, and even visited the British royal family to tell them stories about his life. His influential books are credited with starting the conservation movement in Canada. He wasn't found out until shortly after his death in 1938. One of my favorite performance artists was a San Franciscan named Joshua A. Norton who, in 1859, declared himself to be Emperor of the United States (and Protector of Mexico). The Emperor's visionary proclamations were printed up in the papers, his self-issued currency was often honored, he corresponded with other heads of state, and his renown was such that tens of thousands of people turned out at his funeral. Lord Buckley, poet, performance artist, and hep cat, gets big points for spirit and inspiration, as does his fellow blue-blood Lady Hester Stanhope, the ``Queen of the East.'' Coyle and Sharpe Coyle and Sharpe Bill Gates meets Pieman Bill Gates meets Pieman Lord Buckley Lord Buckley Francine Cavanaugh, piër of Enron's CEO Francine Cavanaugh, piër of Enron's CEO Mathias Rust, captured Mathias Rust, captured Emperor Norton Emperor Norton See also: * The Great God Hoax * Fake Folks * Abbie Hoffman * Impostors * Brian G. Hughes * The Trickster's Bookshelf Pages referenced here: * Performance Art * Slash and Burn: A Narrative Model for the Millennium * Joey Skaggs * Q&A with Joey Skaggs * Alan Abel: The World's Greatest Hoaxer * The Coyle & Sharpe Website * The Ultimate Luther Blissett Website * Jacko's wacko trip to the store * Michael Moore * Interview with Pedro Carvajal * Paul Krassner * Guerilla Girls * Theatre: The art of blurring science's boundaries * Re: breaching experiments * Somebody Else's Problem Field * E-Mail Mob Takes Manhattan * "Flash Mob" Mentality Arrives * We Woz Mobbed! * Flash Mobs Get a Dash of Danger * Angle-Grinder Man * Surveillance Camera Players * ShootingBack * PleaseWait: A Parody of the Time Thieves * EXISTech personal security items * How to ZAP a Camera: Using Lasers to Temporarily Neutralize Camera Sensors * New Kind of Test at Amherst, on the Day the Urns Went Dry * 1938 War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast * For Hoaxes, Mike Z Marks the Spot * Crowded Theater * Excerpt from interview with Jeffrey Vallance * Superhero for Single Girls * On trial for paper plane attack on US embassy * The Anti-Guy * Getting down to the business of street theater * No gloomy riders on Reggie Wilson's Metro bus * More news clippings * Bird brained * Reverend Billy's Home Page * Mickey Mouse is the devil * Mathias Rust's Orion and Isis * The Day They Almost Sawed Off Manhattan * Pie-throwing anarcist Noel Godin * Pie Throwin' Man * Just Deserts? * Nader takes pie for Green Party * Alberta Premier Gets Cream Pie In Face * Hack Eats Horse Sperm! * Biotic Baking Brigade * Blow up the Internet! * Miracle Mongers and their Methods, by Harry Houdini * The Rensselaer Drop Squad * "Performance art" hits Wal-Mart * Phonebashing.com * Ousted Judge Claims Discrimination * Disc Jockey's Prank to Land Him in Jail * The Smoking Gun: Archive * Eric's Web Crackpot Page * The Uselessness of Wackos * Hall of Shame * IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV * William McGonagall * Anarchy In Action * The Official Site of The Lawn Chair Pilot * The prophylactic prophet * Random Ugandan Acts of Unkindness * The Generic Demonstration * Cybersickness * Debating Reality: An Online Hoax Is Not a Pox * Hit & Run: 24 May 2001 * Orientalism as Performance Art: The Strange Case of George Psalmanazar * The Formosan Alphabet * Forging a Collection * Grey Owl * Norton I, Emperor of the United States of America * Lord Buckley Online sniggle.net search sniggle.net only configure email On This Day in Snigglery February 6, 1928: Anna Anderson, a.k.a. "Princess Anastasia" arrives in the United States and begins insisting that she is heir to the Russian Czar and thereby the Romanov fortune. (See Impostors for more such) banner Impostors Why not, just for a lark, be somebody else for a while? Well, for starters, it's often illegal, and it's not always as simple as it sounds. But there is a certain class of person who remains undaunted in the face of these problems. I'm thinking of folks like Joice Heth , who made a career (under the direction of P.T. Barnum ) out of impersonating George Washington's childhood nurse. Or George DuPre, who got his amazing story of being an intrepid World War II spy published by Readers Digest and by Random House books before he was discovered to be a phony. Or Stephen Weinberg, who deserves some sort of award. He posed as the U.S. Consul Delegate to Morocco, as a Serbian militia attaché, an American navy lieutenant, the envoy of the Queen of Romania, an army air corps lieutenant, a doctor (on several occasions), as head of protocol for the U.S. State Department, and (after serving some time for these put-ons) as an expert on prisons. His title as Impostor King is challenged by one Ferdinand Waldo Demara, Jr., whose life was the basis for the movie The Great Impostor . He was a few doctors as well, and the assistant warden of a prison, and a surgeon in the Royal Canadian Navy, a schoolteacher, a college dean, and who knows what else. He is legendary for his ability to perform admirably whatever he was doing with whatever credentials he had assimilated. I wonder if anyone ever saw those two in the same place at the same time... In any case, the torch has been taken up more recently by one Steven Jay Russell who has taken the legal system for a ride by impersonating a judge, a lawyer and a doctor to talk his way out of custody. His trademark is to escape on Friday the 13th. Frank Abagnale made a jump for the big leagues by trying on the hats of a pediatrician, lawyer, university professor, stock broker, F.B.I. agent, airline pilot and motivational speaker. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wilhelm Voigt gets bonus points for putting on the uniform of a Prussian military officer in 1906 and using this ruse to gain the allegiance of a pack of soldiers, then raiding the treasury of Köpenick on the pretense of investigating tax irregularities. Well done, Wilhelm! The Kaiser was so embarassed at the ineptitude of his military that he pardoned Voigt (who'd been caught trying to flee with the cash), who later made a career out of reënacting the adventure on the American stage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On Feburary 10, 1910, six friends (including the young Virginia Woolf) boarded the H.M.S. Dreadnought disguised as the Emperor of Abyssinia, his Abyssinian cohorts, and an interpreter. The proud members of the British Navy came out in full colours to receive their distinguished guests, who were dressed in costumes, with dyed skin and hair, and speaking a language they were inventing on-the-fly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Tichborne Claimant was a notorious imposture in the 19th Century British Empire. A nobody (almost) became a blue-blood heir by exploiting the unreasonable hopes of a mother for her lost son. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ordinary schmoes get into the impostor act when it's convenient and easy (or when they're driven by some poorly-understood compulsion ). A web search gives me the case of Ron Weaver, who at age 30 was no longer qualified to play college football, but as the younger Ron McKelvey he was able to fulfill his pigskin dreams. Even more recently, 31-year-old Michael Backman posed as a high school student while the law in three states tried to track him down for other frauds. Some poor schmuck created an email account in the name of Britain's Prince William to confuse a friend, and was soon flooded by fanmail. Regina Danson of Ghana sought asylum in the United States and beat the INS by claiming to be one Adelaide Abankwah , a tribal ``queen mother'' fleeing the threatened genital mutilation allegedly associated with that office. She was supported in her claims by members of the U.S. Congress, as well as then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, Julia Roberts and Gloria Steinem. Five times Gerald Barnes has been imprisoned for impersonating a medical doctor: ``Over the years, he worked at community clinics treating poor patients. He flew volunteer medical missions to Mexico. He worked as head doctor at a well-regarded Los Angeles clinic performing employment exams on FBI agents, employees of the Federal Reserve Bank and other major corporations...'' Christopher Rocancourt went from jewel thief to get-richer-quick investment con man, hustling around the Hamptons in his limo and helicopter with his Playboy playmate consort while impersonating a member of the Rockefeller family. Alan Young poses as a living legend of the Motown or Jazz world. ``For nearly the last twenty years, Young has wined and dined his way through the [San Francisco] Bay Area by posing as a variety of musical celebrities and convincing the starstruck to pick up the tab for lavish meals, designer clothing, luxury cars, booze, limousine rides, and stays in elite hotels.'' Clifford Garrison juggled and stole from nine wives by juggling at least as many stories until the law caught up to him in early 2003. And there's the impostor named Lewis Morgan who's been pretending for years to be Randy Meisner, the bass player for the Eagles, and has been using this ruse to scam folks along the way. Ditto for Anoushirvan Fakhran a.k.a. Johathan Taylor Spielberg, not the nephew of Steven. While we're on the theme of Musical Mayhem , we can mention the fantastic case of Milli Vanilli , a musical act in which two dancers lip-synched to pre-recorded vocals by more talented singers, while maintaining the conceit of a live vocal performance. They won a Grammy award for their highly successful act, but people jumped on the bandwagon once the first few rats stopped consenting to the shared illusion, and they were exposed to enormous public ridicule. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check this out: A 16-year-old boy impersonated a probation officer after breaking in to the probation department offices and stealing a badge, handcuffs, car keys and other paraphernalia. Then he took a dozen young probationers on a trip to an amusement park in two stolen government cars. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A couple of radio hosts in Miami managed to trick the president of Venezuela into taking an on-the-air phone call by pretending to be Fidel Castro . ``We still can't believe it - he fell for it!'' Then, not much later, they fooled Castro by pretending to be Chavez. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Charlie Varon impersonated a genetics expert and spoke at a California Medical Association luncheon to present his findings that there was a genetic flaw that led to ``insensitivity and rudeness'' in doctors and lawyers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Related, but not quite as daring, is the act of résumé-padding or exaggeration by which U.S. President Clinton's ambassador to Switzerland Larry Lawrence claimed to be a World War II hero, Congressman Wes Cooley claimed to be an Army Special Forces veteran (emulating but not surpassing Representative Douglas R. Stringfellow 's fictitious war record), U.S. Federal District Judge James Ware posthumously adopted a victim of a racist shooting as his brother, and Fox News consultant Joseph A. Cafasso leveraged 44 days in bootcamp into a Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel's résumé. There's a lot of this going around. And, predictably, after the 9/11 attacks, a number of people came forward falsely claiming to have been victims . As the Times put it, Unhappy with your past? Make it up! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ With a little imagination and panache, you can be anyone you want. Or you can not be someone you are. Or, with a little luck, someone else may decide to be you. Good heavens, the options are many! You could even be someone entirely new . Milli Vanilli Milli Vanilli Frank Abagnale Frank Abagnale Ferdinand Waldo Demara Ferdinand Waldo Demara Joice Heth Joice Heth Wilhelm Voigt Wilhelm Voigt See also: * Invented Personae * The Tichborne Claimant * A Modest Proposal * Forgery * Scams & Frauds * The Trickster's Bookshelf Pages referenced here: * Joice Heth * The Great Impostor * Texas fugitive "King Con" tumbles in Florida * A highly inflated version of reality * Grant impostor reflects on crime * will.not * Asylum Seeker is Impostor, INS Says * Bizarre Medical Masquerade * Fake Rockefeller * The Talented Mr. Young * Cops say greedy groom scammed another wife * Impostor Still Touring as Ex-Eagles Guitarist * Say uncle * Milli Vanilli and the Scapegoating of the Inauthentic * Teen puts together a joyride, police say * Radio Tricksters Dupe Chavez Into Chat With "Castro" * Miami DJs claim to have fooled Castro in phone call * Charlie Varon's amusing prank * Résumé Fodder * Cooley Receives Bubble Head Award * Douglas R. Stringfellow * Judge asks, "Can't we just get along?" * Lying Federal Judge James Ware of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals * At Fox News, the Colonel Who Wasn't * Wall of Shame * Some 9/11 stories too good to be true * Unhappy With Your Past? Make it Up! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ sniggle.net search sniggle.net only configure email On This Day in Snigglery February 6, 1928: Anna Anderson, a.k.a. "Princess Anastasia" arrives in the United States and begins insisting that she is heir to the Russian Czar and thereby the Romanov fortune. (See Impostors for more such) banner Art Forgeries ``What we have here is a - I am inclined to say - the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer.'' - Abraham Bredius Okay; there are a lot of art forgeries but only a small subset of these forgeries graduate to become their own genre of performance art. I'll highlight a good example or two here and leave further investigation as an exercise for the reader. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hans van Meegeren was arrested after World War II and charged with having sold a Dutch national treasure, in the form of a Vermeer painting, to the Nazi Hermann Göring. Van Meegeren defended himself in court by demonstrating that he had painted the ``Vermeer'' himself and had conned Göring with the fake. He managed to avoid a treason conviction, but ended up doing time for forgery - alas, Göring wasn't the only person who'd been duped by his fake Vermeers. Before the forgeries were uncovered, in 1937, the art historian Abraham Bredius saw one of van Meegeren's fake Vermeers - Christ at Emmaus - and wrote: It is a wonderful moment in the life of a lover of art when he finds himself suddenly confronted with a hitherto unknown painting by a great master, untouched, on the original canvas, and without any restoration, just as it left the painter's studio! And what a picture! ...[W]hat we have here is a - I am inclined to say - the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The forger Elmyr de Hory managed to pass off hundreds or thousands of ``masterpieces'' on the world's galleries and museums. His story was originally told in the book Fake by Clifford Irving, who later wrote the fake Howard Hughes autobiography. Both of these stories were later captured in the film F for Fake by Orson Welles - you know, the guy who scared everyone with The War of the Worlds radio show way back when. The world's a weird place. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ More akin to the faked authors in our Fake Folks section is the case of ``disumbrationist'' painter Pavel Jerdanowitch, who turned out to be a fellow named Paul Jordan Smith who had cooked up the whole thing to make fun of modern art. In a similar vein, an Australian woman by the name of Elizabeth Durack passed her paintings off as the work of ``Eddie Burrup,'' a nonexistant aboriginal artist. The director of Flinders Art Museum said that the thousands of art-lovers who saw Burrup's work at the ``Native Title Now'' exhibition of aboriginal art became ``directly involved in the deception,'' so congratulations goes out to all of them as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Will Blundell recently ``confessed to being the hand behind paintings that look like the work of artists from Monet to Picasso, Sidney Nolan to Brett Whiteley - a life's work that would be worth more than $100 million if genuine.'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Hebborn made and sold hundreds of forged drawings and other artworks, and even wrote The Faker's Handbook giving instructions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In 1935 the New York City Museum of Modern Art held a Van Gogh exhibition. On the theory that many attendees were more interested in the sensational aspects of Van Gogh's life than in his art, prankster Hugh Troy (see also our Campus Pranks section) molded a piece of beef, placed it in a velvet-lined box and attached a label that read: ``This is the ear which Vincent van Gogh cut off and sent to his mistress, a French prostitute, Dec. 24, 1888.'' Troy smuggled this supplementary exhibit into the museum, where it attracted the greatest crowds. Göring's Vermeer Göring's Vermeer See also: * Scams & Frauds * Musical Spoofs * Literary Forgeries * Phony Archæology * Counterfeiting * September Morn * The Trickster's Bookshelf Pages referenced here: * Forgeries: A Long History * A 20th-Century Master Scam * Art world corrupted by UKP240 fakes * Han van Meegeren * Hoaxes - Movies * 1938 War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast * Rogue's Gallery * Death of a Forger ------------------------------------------------------------------------ sniggle.net search sniggle.net only configure email On This Day in Snigglery February 6, 1928: Anna Anderson, a.k.a. "Princess Anastasia" arrives in the United States and begins insisting that she is heir to the Russian Czar and thereby the Romanov fortune. (See Impostors for more such) Main Page | Recent changes | Edit this page | Page history Printable version | Disclaimers Not logged in Log in | Help Anarchism in the arts . As a political theory that encompasses the full spectrum of social , philosophical , political and economic , Anarchism has a deep reach in culture . Like socialism , communism and even fascism , Anarchism has a plethora of imagery and symbolism which have become associated with a variety of groups and movements, and co-opted (or "recuperated" ) by capitalist industry. The influence of anarchism is not always directly a matter of specific imagery or public figures, but may be seen in a certain stance towards the liberation of the total human being and the imagination. Table of contents [showhide ] 1 Visual Art 1.1 Surrealism 2 Music 3 Written fiction 4 Film/Video Visual Art (ie, the use of art or illustration to promote specifically anarchist ideas) * Flavio Constantini * Clifford Harper * Jay Kinney (Anarchy Comics ) * Arthur Moyse * Laura Norder * Donald Rooum (Wildcat Comics, see Freedom anarchist fortnightly ) * Winston Smith * Gee Vaucher * John Yates Anarchism had a large influence on French Symbolism of the late 19th century , such as that of Mallarme , who said "le livre c'est le bombe" (the book is the bomb) and infiltrated the cafes and cabarets of turn of the century Paris (see the Druken Boat #2). More significantly, anarchists claim that 'strains' may be found in the works of the Dada group, whose anti-bourgeois art antics saw them wreaking havoc in war neutral Switzerland during World War I . However on closer analysis the Dadaists were much closer to the Council Communists , having much of their material published in Die Aktion . Surrealism As anarchism has traditionally emphasized the liberation of the imagination and subjectivity from the constraints of the present social order, many anarchists erroneously consider that it finds one of its closest allies in the work of the surrealists. Surrealism is both an artistic and political movement aimed at nothing less than the total liberation of the human being from the constraints of capitalism, the state , and the cultural forces that limit the reign of the imagination. The movement developed in France in the wake of WWI with Andre Breton as its main theorist and poet. Originally it was tied closely to the Communist Party . Later Breton, a close friend of Leon Trotsky broke with the Communist Party. Surrealism has a strong continued following today in places like Portland, Oregon , the Czech Republic , Minneapolis , Chicago , Australia , and Portugal . Music A number of performers and artists have either been inspired by anarchist concepts, or have used the medium of music and sound in order to promote anarchist ideas and politics. Punk rock is one movement that has taken much inspiration from the often potent imagery and symbolism associated with anarchism and situationist rhetoric, if not always the political theory. In the past few decades, anarchism has been closely associated with the punk rock movement, and has grown because of that association (whatever other effects that has had on the movement and the prejudiced pictures of it). Indeed, many anarchists were introduced to the ideas of Anarchism through that symbolism and the anti-authoritarian sentiment which many punk songs expressed. Anarcho-punk , on the other hand, is a current that has been more explicitly engaged with anarchist politics, particularly in the case of bands such as Crass , Poison Girls , (early) Chumbawamba , The Ex , Flux of Pink Indians , Riot/Clone , etc. Many other bands, especially at the local level of unsigned groups, have taken on what is known as a "punk" or "DIY " ethic: that is, Doing It Yourself, indeed a popular Anarcho-punk slogan reads "DIY not EMI ", a reference to a conscious rejection of the major record company. Some groups who began as 'anarcho-punk' have attempted to move their ideas into a more mainstream musical arena, for instance, Chumbawamba, who continue to support and promote anarchist politics despite now playing more dance music and pop influenced styles. Other musical artists who promote anarchist ideas include: * John Cage * Manu Chao * No Use for a Name * One Minute Silence * Rage Against the Machine (It should be noted that while the singer, Zack de la Rocha subscribed to more anarchist politics, the guitarist Tom Morello was a fervent supporter of Maoism .) Written fiction Anarchist writers, or those that have incorporated anarchist ideas into their fiction, include: * Ursula K. Le Guin (esp. The Dispossessed ) * Michael Moorcock * M. John Harrison * Robert Anton Wilson (The Illuminatus trilogy ) * BS Traven * Alan Moore * Iain M. Banks ' novels of The Culture are science fiction books centred on a "libertarian-anarchist utopia," as Banks calls it in The State of the Art . Film/Video * Jean Vigo * Godfrey Reggio * Otto Nomous - produced numerous short and long form documentary movies on anarchist politics including Anarchy in L.A. and The Fellowship of the Ring of Free Trade. * Luis Bunuel * Jon Jost * Hal Hartley - wrote and directed many films with anarchist themes, including Simple Men, a fictional tale about the children of an anarchist on the run from the law. Edit this page | Discuss this page | Page history | What links here | Related changes Main Page | About Wikipedia | Recent changes | This page was last modified 18:20, 26 Jan 2004. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details). Disclaimers . Wikipedia is powered by MediaWiki , an open source wiki engine. [Main Page] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Main Page Recent changes Random page Current events ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Edit this page Discuss this page Page history What links here Related changes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special pages Contact us Donations Main Page | Recent changes | Edit this page | Page history Printable version | Disclaimers Not logged in Log in | Help Other languages: Dansk | Deutsch | Eesti | Français | ??? (Nihongo) Dadaism (Redirected from Dada ) Dadaism or Dada is a post-World War I cultural movement in visual art as well as literature (mainly poetry ), theatre and graphic design . Table of contents [showhide ] 1 History 2 Origins of the word Dada 3 An Anti-Art movement? 4 Dada and Nihilism 5 Early Practioners 6 A Dada Coincidence 7 Modern Developments 8 Bibliography 9 See also 10 External links History Dada probably began in Zürich in 1916, and there were active dadaists in New York such as Marcel Duchamp and the Liberian art student, Beatrice Wood , who had left France at the onset of World War I . At around the same time there had been a dadist movement in Berlin . Slightly later there were also dadaist un-communities in Hanover (Kurt Schwitters ), Cologne , and Paris. In 1920 Max Ernst , Hans Arp and social activist Alfred Grunwald set up the Cologne Dada group. The French avant-garde kept abreast of Dada activities in Zürich due to the regular communications from Tristan Tzara , who exchanged letters, poems, and magazines with Guillaume Apollinaire , André Breton , Max Jacob , and other French writers, critics and artists. The first introduction of Dada artwork to the Parisian public was at the Salon des Indépendants in 1921. Jean Crotti exhibited works associated with Dada including a work entitled, "Explicatif" bearing the word Tabu. By the dawn of World War II , many of the European Dadaists had fled or been forced into exile in the United States . The movement became less active as the founders died off and post-World War II optimism led to new movements in art and literature. Origins of the word Dada The origins of the name "Dada" are unclear: some believe that it is a nonsensical word, others that a group of artists assembled in Zürich in 1916, wanting to form a movement, chose a name at random from a French -German dictionary. "Dada" in French is a child's word for "hobby-horse ". An Anti-Art movement? According to its proponents, Dada was not art; it was anti-art. For everything that art stood for, Dada was to represent the opposite. Where art was concerned with aesthetics , Dada ignored them. If art is to have at least an implicit or latent message, Dada strives to have no meaning--interpretation of Dada is dependent entirely on the viewer. If art is to appeal to sensibilities, Dada offends. Perhaps it is then ironic that Dada is a precursor to modern art. Dada became a commentary on art and the world, thus becoming art itself. Dada and Nihilism The artists of the Dada movement had become disillusioned by art, art history and history in general. Many of them were veterans of World War I and had grown cynical of humanity after seeing what men were capable of doing to each other on the battlefields of Europe . Thus they became attracted to a nihilistic view of the world and created art in which chance and randomness formed the basis of creation. The basis of Dada is nonsense. With the order of the world destroyed by World War I , Dada was a way to express the confusion that was felt by many people as their world was turned upside down. There is not an attempt to find meaning in disorder, but rather to accept disorder as the nature of the world. Many embraced this disorder through Dada, using it as a means to express their distaste for the aesthetics of the previous order and carnage it reaped. Through this rejection of traditional culture and aesthetics they hoped to reach a personal understanding of the true nature of the world around them. Early Practioners * Guillaume Apollinaire * Hans Arp * Hugo Ball * Arthur Cravan * Jean Crotti * Salvador Dalí * Marcel Duchamp * Max Ernst * Raoul Hausmann * Marcel Janco * Francis Picabia * Man Ray * Hans Richter * Kurt Schwitters * Sophie Täuber * Tristan Tzara A Dada Coincidence Interestingly, at the same time that the Zürich dadaists were busy making noise and spectacle at the Cabaret Voltaire , Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was writing his revolutionary plans for Russia in a nearby apartment. It is known that he was unappreciative of the real revolutionary activity occurring next to him. Tom Stoppard used this coincidence as a premise for his play Travesties , which includes Tzara, Lenin, and James Joyce as characters. Modern Developments In 1967 , a large Dada retrospective was held in Paris, France . Bibliography * Richard Huelsenbeck, Memoirs of a Dada Drummer, (University of California press) See also * Nihilism * Surrealism evolved from Dadaism. External links * Dada Manifesto * Dada Online o Definition of Dadaism o Chronology of Dadaism o Dada Artists o Dada Art, with images showing the characteristics of this movement * Dada Manifesto 2001 * Tristan Tzara * The Dada Manifesto * Dada * Dadaism * Dadaism Information * Information on Dadaism by respree.com Edit this page | Discuss this page | Page history | What links here | Related changes Other languages: Dansk | Deutsch | Eesti | Français | ??? (Nihongo) Main Page | About Wikipedia | Recent changes | This page was last modified 12:36, 31 Jan 2004. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details). Disclaimers . Wikipedia is powered by MediaWiki , an open source wiki engine. [Main Page] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Main Page Recent changes Random page Current events ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Edit this page Discuss this page Page history What links here Related changes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special pages Contact us Donations Jamie Reid . British artist and anarchist with connections to the situationist movement. His work, featuring letters cut from newspaper headlines in the style of a ransom note came close to defining the image of punk rock , particularly in the UK. His best known works include the Sex Pistols album "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols " (1978) and singles "Anarchy in the UK " (1977), "God Save The Queen " (1978) and others. Never Mind the Bollocks album cover Reid produced a series of screen prints in 1997, the twentieth anniversary of the British punk boom. Reid has also produced artwork for the world music fusion band Afro Celt Sound System Links http://www.britart.com Edit this page | Discuss this page | Page history | What links here | Related changes Main Page | About Wikipedia | Recent changes | This page was last modified 17:43, 22 Nov 2003. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details). Disclaimers . Wikipedia is powered by MediaWiki , an open source wiki engine. Situationist . Situationist was defined in the journal Internationale Situationniste as,"having to do with the theory or practical activity of constructing situations" and "situationism" as, "a meaningless term improperly derived from the above. There is no such thing as situationism, which would mean a doctrine of interpretation of existing facts. The notion of situationism is obviously devised by antisituationists" Table of contents [showhide ] 1 History and overview 2 Key ideas in Situationist theory 3 Quotes 4 See also 5 Sources History and overview The Situationist International (SI) was an international political and artistic movement. The SI was founded in the Italian village of Cosio d'Arroscia on 28th July 1957 with the fusion of several extremely small artistic tendencies: the Lettrist International ; the International movement for an imaginist Bauhaus ; and the London Psychogeographical Association . This fusion traced further influences from COBRA , Dada , Surrealism , and Fluxus , as well as inspirations from the Workers Councils of the Hungarian Uprising . The most prominent member of the group was Guy Debord , about whom opinion is somewhat divided. Some describe him as having provided the theoretical clarity within the group; others say that he excercised dictatorial control over the development and membership of the group. Other members were the Scottish writer Alexander Trocchi ; the English artist Ralph Rumney (sole member of the London psycho-geographical society. Rumney was excluded relatively soon after the Situationist International was formed); the Scandinavian vandal -cum-artist Asger Jorn ; the veteran of the Hungarian Uprising Attila Kotanyi ; the French writer Michele Bernstein ; and Raoul Vaneigem . Debord later became Bernstein's husband. One way or another, the currents which the SI took as predecessors saw their purpose as being about a radical redefinition of the role of art in the twentieth century . The Situationists themselves took a dialectical viewpoint, seeing their task as superseding art, abolishing the notion of art as a separate, specialized activity and transforming it so was part of fabric of everyday life. From the Situationist viewpoint, art is revolutionary or it is nothing. In this way, the Situationists saw their efforts as completing the work of both Dada and Surrealism while abolishing both. Still, the Situationists answered the question "What is revolutionary?" differently at different times. The SI experienced splits and expulsions from its beginning. The one prominent split in the group resulted in the Paris section retaining the name Situationist International while the Scandinavian section, or the Second Situationist International organised under the name of Gruppe SPUR . While the entire history of the Situationists was marked by their impetus to revolutionize life, the split between the French and the Scandinavian sections marked a transition from the Situationist view of revolution possibly taking an "artistic" form to it taking an unambiguously "political" form. Those who followed the "artistic" view of the SI might view the evolution of SI as producing a more boring or dogmatic organization. Those following the political view would see the May 1968 uprisings as a logical outcome of the SI's syncretic approach: while savaging present day society, they sought a kind of utopia in the fusion of the positive tendencies of capitalist development. The "realization and suppression of Art" is only one of many supercessions which the SI sought over the years. For Situationist International of 1968, the world triumph of workers councils would bring about all these supercessions. [need paragraph on SI involvement in May 68, including occupation of the Sorbonne by the situs & Enrages ...] The SI was dissolved in 1972 , but despite their membership never having risen above 40 at any one time (and sometimes numbering as few as 10), the importance of Situationist ideas have continued to echo profoundly through many aspects of culture and politics in Europe and the USA. The Situationist movement was a strong influence on the UK punk rock phenomenon of the 1970s for example, which in itself could be said to have changed the English cultural landscape during the last quarter of the twentieth century. To a significant extent this was due to the Situ-literate inputs of Malcolm McLaren , Vivienne Westwood and particularly Jamie Reid into the marketing and imagery of the Sex Pistols . Situationist ideas can also be traced within the development of other radical currents within society such as the Angry Brigade , Class War , Neoism and more recent Reclaim the Streets , Ad-Busters campaigns and the Libre Society . Classic Situationist texts include "Open Creation and its Enemies " by Asger Jorn, "Society of the Spectacle " by Guy Debord, "The Revolution Of Everyday Life " and "The Book Of Pleasures" by Raoul Vaneigem, "Leaving The 20th Century" edited by Chris Gray and "The Situationist International Anthology " edited by Ken Knabb . Also of interest is an earlier book produced by Debord in pre-SI times, called "Memoires," the original edition of which featured a sandpaper cover. The idea was that it would destroy any books that were placed either side of it on the shelf, thus serving as a metaphor for the supercession of 'old ideas' by a radical avant-garde. This idea is also an interesting forerunner of the SI's later determination not to be 'recuperated' and thus rendered harmless by spectacular society, instead remaining aloof and refusing to 'explain' themselves or their ideas. Many of the original Situationist texts tend to be rather dense and inaccessible. However during the early 1980 's English Anarchist Larry Law produced a series of 'pocket-books' under the name of "Spectacular Times " which aimed to make Situationist theory more easily understood. However some people feel that the theory was much reduced by this process. More recently, a book called The Situationist City by Simon Sadler (MIT 1998 ISBN 0-262-69552-2 ), focuses on Constant's unitary urbanism vision but also provides a useful overall perspective. Key ideas in Situationist theory Ideas central to Situationist theory include: The Situation, a notion which had been circulating in philosophical, scientific and artistic circles for some time. Asger Jorn was greatly influenced by Niels Bohr , and we can see within the concept of situation a connection with the notion of locality in Quantum physics . The Spectacular society. "We live in a spectacular society, that is, our whole life is surrounded by an immense accumulation of spectacles. Things that were once directly lived are now lived by proxy. Once an experience is taken out of the real world it becomes a commodity. As a commodity the spectacular is developed to the detriment of the real. It becomes a substitute for experience."- Larry Law, from Images And Everyday Life, a 'Spectacular Times' pocket book. "The spectacle is not a collection of images but a social relation among people mediated by images... The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living... The liar has lied to himself"- Guy Debord The Situationists would argue that by means of the spectacular society, all aspects of our culture and experience is mediated in order to disguise and protect the interests of those who hold real power. Recuperation. "To survive, the spectacle must have social control. It can recuperate a potentially threatening situation by shifting ground, creating dazzling alternatives- or by embracing the threat, making it safe and then selling it back to us"- Larry Law, from The Spectacle- The Skeleton Keys, a 'Spectacular Times pocket book. "Ha! You think it's funny? Turning rebellion into money?"- The Clash , White Man In The Hammersmith Palais. Recuperation is the process by which the spectacle takes a radical or revolutionary idea and repackages it as a saleable commodity. An ironic example of recuperation, it could be argued, was the 1989 Situationist exhibition at the ICA gallery in London's Mall, wherin both original situationist manifestos, and contemporary Pro-Situ influenced works (records, fanzines , samizdat -style leaflets and propaganda) were presented as museum artifacts for the mass consumption of the art establishment. This event of course contrasts sharply to the occasion when the Situationist International gave a presentation at the ICA themselves, which famously ended when an audience member asked the group "what is situationism?" to which one of them answered "we are not here to answer cuntish questions" before marching off to the bar. Detournment; "short for: detournment of pre-existing aesthetic elements. The integration of past or present artistic production into a superior construction of a milieu. In this sense there can be no Situationist painting or music, but only a Situationist use of these means.", Internationale Situationiste issue 1, June 1958. Detournment could be said to be the opposite side of the coin to 'recuperation' (where radical ideas and images are made safe and commodified), in that images produced by the spectacle are altered and subverted so that rather than supporting the status quo, their meaning is changed in order to put across a more radical or oppositionist message. Such a pro-situ technique can be seen in action in the present day when looking at the work of Culture Jammers including Ad Busters 1 , whose 'subvertisements' 'detourn' Nike adverts, for example. In this case the original advertisement's imagery is altered in order to draw attention to said company's policy of shifting their production base to cheap labour cost third world 'Free trade Zones '. However, it can be a thin (or at least very fuzzy) line between 'recuperation' and 'detournment' at times, as Naomi Klein points out in her book No Logo . Here she details how Culture Jammers and Ad Busters have been approached (sometimes successfully) by corporations such as Nike, Pepsi or Deisel and offered lucrative contracts in return for partaking in 'ironic' promotional campaigns. She points up further irony by drawing attention to merchandising produced in order to promote Ad Busters' Buy Nothing day , an example of the recuperation of detournment (or of culture eating itself) if ever there was one. In contrast, evoL PsychogeogrAphix are very fond of pointing out the differences between 'detournment', the postmodern idea of appropriation and the Neoist use of plagiarism as the use of similar techniques used for different means, effects and causes. Quotes "It is forbidden to forbid"- Il est interdit d'interdire - Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968 "Be realistic- demand the impossible!"- Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible! - Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968 "Beneath the pavement- the beach!"- Sous les pavés, la plage! - Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968 "Never work" - Ne travaillez jamais - Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968 "People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth"- Raoul Vaneigem, "The Revolution Of Everyday Life" See also Members of the Situationist International , Jamie Reid , Stewart Home , King Mob , Black Mask , Chris Gray Band , Psychogeography , Surrealism , Fluxus , Dada , Watts , Provos , Anarchism , Anarchism in the arts , No Logo , sniggle , International Workingmen's Association , Libre Society Sources * Internationale Situationniste No 1, June 1958 * Situationist International Online * The Situationist International Text Library * The Realization and Suppression of Situationism by Bob Black * Spectacular Times * sniggle.net: The Culture Jammer's Encyclopedia * Against Sleep And Nightmare Magazine Punk rock . Punk rock (from 'punk ', meaning rotten, worthless, or snotty; also a prison slang term for a person who is sexually submissive) usually refers to the anti-establishment music movement of the period 1976 -80 , exemplified by the Sex Pistols , The Damned , The Clash and The Ramones , and to subsequent music scenes that share key characteristics with these first-generation "punks." The term is sometimes also applied to the fashions or the irreverant "do-it-yourself " attitude associated with this musical movement. The term "Punk rock" was originally used to describe the primitive guitar-based rock and roll of untutored US bands of the mid-1960s such as The Seeds from Southern California and The Standells from Boston . Image:Nevermind.png Probably the first use of the term "punk" music was in Lester Bangs ' 1971 essay "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung" (collected in the book of the same name, ISBN 0679720456 ): "punk bands started cropping up who were writing their own songs but taking the Yardbirds ' sound." A year later Lenny Kaye , in the liner notes of the anthology Nuggets , uses the term "punk-rock" to refer to the Sixties music now usually called "garage rock ", plus some of the darker elements of psychedelia . Shortly after this, Lenny Kaye began performing avant garde proto-punk music with poet Patti Smith , so this would seem to lead directly to the use of the term by the music we now know as punk. The roots of punk rock also lie in the abrasive, dissonant style of the Velvet Underground , the Detroit bands The Stooges and MC5 , the UK pub rock scene, and glam rock groups such as The New York Dolls . An important feature of Punk Rock was a desire to return to the directness of early rock and roll . Punk rockers rejected what they saw as the pretension, commercialism and pomposity which had overtaken rock music in the 1970s , spawning superficial "disco " music and grandiose forms of heavy metal , progressive rock and "arena rock ". Punk rock, by contrast, emphasised simplicity of musical structure, extolling a "DIY " ("do it yourself") ethic that anyone could form a punk rock band (the early UK punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue once famously included drawings of three chord shapes, captioned, "here's a chord, here's another one, here's another one. Now form a band"). The lyrics introduced a confrontational frankness of expression in matters both political and sexual, often dealing with urban boredom and rising unemployment in the UK--e.g., the Sex Pistols ' "No Future"--or decidedly anti-romantic depictions of sex and love, such as the Dead Kennedys ' "Too Drunk to Fuck" or the Sex Pistols ' "Submission." The influence of the situationist movement of the 1950s and 60s is apparent in the vanguard of the British punk movement, particularly the Sex Pistols . This was a conscious direction taken by Pistols prime movers Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood , and is apparent in the artwork of Jamie Reid , who had previously been involved with Suburban Press and King Mob , and designed many of the band's graphics. The cover song, in the hands of a punk band, can often be an instrument for irony and commentary on popular culture . Patti Smith's Horses album contains two examples of reclaimed mainstream songs. Other examples include the Pistol's version of the The Who's Substitute which turns the spurned-lover song into a class war diatribe, Dead Kennedys' cover of "Take this Job and Shove It", (David Allan Coe ) Siouxsie & the Banshees ' "Helter Skelter" (The Beatles ) or Black Flag 's lyrically-altered "Louie Louie " (Richard Berry , popularized by The Kingsmen ). Image:TheClashLondonCallingalbumcover.jpg At least as important as the music, however, was the associated culture, which at the time caused great furore amongst the establishment. Punk fashion revolved around severe haircuts, such as the mohawk , body piercing (often with safety pins ) and conversion of items such as bin liners and thrift store remnants into clothing. "Punk chic" has now been largely absorbed by the mainstream. Punk devotees created a thriving underground press. In the UK Mark Perry produced Sniffin' Glue . In the United States magazines such as Maximum Rock 'n Roll , Profane Existence and Flipside were leading a movement of fanzines . Every local "scene" had at least one primitively published magazine with news, gossip, and interviews with local or touring bands. The magazine Factsheet Five chronicled the thousands of underground publications in the 1980s and '90s . In the late 1970s punk interacted with reggae & ska subcultures , to form the 2 Tone movement that included bands such as The Specials , Madness and The Selecter . In the 1980s the anti-establishment and "DIY " truly came into its own in the United States and the UK with bands like MDC , Crass , Hüsker Dü , Bad Brains , Vice Squad , Minor Threat , JFA , The Dicks and more that never showed up on the industry charts, but none-the-less had a huge effect on popular culture. Not having to deal with the paradox of claiming anti-establishment values while at the same time being just another part of the music industry, which so many 1970s punk bands struggled with, many of the punk fans, bands, fanzines and magazines (Maximum Rock 'n Roll magazine and Cometbus for instance) were able to focus on the music, philosophy and politics, rather than the fashion. These years, approximately 1980 to 1986 , is considered the peak of hardcore punk . Punk has had a lasting influence on all popular music and a thriving subculture can still be found almost anywhere in the United States . Punk rock underwent a brief commercial renaissance in the late 1990s with bands like Rancid , Green Day , The Offspring , NOFX and others. More extensive lists of relevant bands and so on can be found at the following sub-pages; * List of forerunners of punk music (ca. 1968-1976) * List of musicians in the first wave of punk music (ca. 1976-1980) * List of musicians in the second wave of punk music (ca. 1980-present) * List of punk movies * List of punk cities * Related genres: o Anarcho-punk o Anti-folk o Cassette culture o Emo o Gothic rock o Grunge o Hardcore punk o New Wave Music o Oi! o Pop punk o Post punk o Psychobilly o Pub rock (UK) o Queercore o Ska punk o Skate punk o Straight edge o Death punk References * Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung , Lester Bangs. External links * Punk '77! Punk Rock In The UK 1976-1979 * PunkPage.net * punkrock.org * maximumrocknroll.com Super Bowl XXXVIII . Super Bowl XXXVIII is the 38th Super Bowl , the championship of American football . The game was played on February 1 , 2004 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas . The score was New England Patriots 32, Carolina Panthers 29. New England quarterback Tom Brady was named Most Valuable Player . Table of contents [showhide ] 1 Scoring Summary 2 Playoffs 2.1 Wild Card Round 2.2 Divisional Round 2.3 Conference Championships 3 Halftime controversy Scoring Summary New England -- Branch, 5 yard pass from Brady (Vinatieri kick) [7--0] Carolina -- S.Smith, 39 yard pass from Delhomme (Kasay kick) [7--7] New England -- Givens, 5 yard pass from Brady (Vinatieri kick) [14--7] Carolina -- Kasay, 50 yard field goal [14--10] ----+++ HALFTIME +++---- New England -- A.Smith, 2 yard run (Vinatieri kick) [21--10] Carolina -- Foster, 33 yard run (pass failed) [21--16] Carolina -- Muhammad, 85 yard pass from Delhomme (pass failed) [21--22] New England -- Vrabel, 1 yard pass from Brady (Faulk run) [29--22] Carolina -- Proehl, 12 pass from Delhomme (Kasay kick) [29--29] New England -- Vinatieri, 41 yard field goal [32--29]f Playoffs Wild Card Round 1/3/2004: AFC: Tennessee Titans 20, Baltimore Ravens 17 Gary Anderson kicked the winning 46-yard field goal with 29 seconds left. It was a defensive struggle: Titans quarterback Steve McNair threw three interceptions, one of which was returned by Will Demps for a touchdown; while regular-season rushing leader Jamal Lewis of the Ravens was limited to 35 yards on 14 carries. Todd Heap scored another touchdown for Baltimore, while Chris Brown and Justin McCareins scored for Tennessee. 1/3/2004: NFC: Dallas Cowboys 10, Carolina Panthers 29 The Cowboys' turnaround season under coach Bill Parcells came to a crashing halt. Quarterback Quincy Carter threw for only 154 yards and an interception, while being sacked 3 times. He scored the Cowboys' only touchdown of the game. His counterpart on the Panthers, Jake Delhomme , threw for 273 yards and a touchdown to Steve Smith . Stephen Davis ran for 104 yards and another touchdown. John Kasay kicked five field goals for Carolina. 1/4/2004: AFC: Denver Broncos 10, Indianapolis Colts 41 Colts QB Peyton Manning had a perfect 158.3 pass rating as the Colts manhandled the Broncos from start to finish. Manning had passed for four touchdowns in the first half alone (he had five all told), including one to Marvin Harrison where he got up and scored after falling down untouched. Harrison and Brandon Stokley both scored two touchdowns for Indianapolis, with Reggie Wayne adding the fifth. Rod Smith had a late TD for Denver. 1/4/2004: NFC: Seattle Seahawks 27, Green Bay Packers 33 (OT) Al Harris returned Seattle QB Matt Hasselbeck 's interception 52 yards for the game winning touchdown 4:25 into overtime. The game was sent into the extra period on Seahawk running back Shaun Alexander 's third touchdown of the day. Ahman Green scored two TD's for Green Bay, and Bubba Franks caught a 23-yard touchdown in the second quarter. byes: AFC: Kansas City Chiefs , New England Patriots ; NFC: Philadelphia Eagles , St. Louis Rams Divisional Round 1/10/2004: AFC: Tennessee Titans 14, New England Patriots 17 1/10/2004: NFC: Carolina Panthers 29, St. Louis Rams 23 (2OT) The Carolina Panthers stun the favored St. Louis Rams in double-overtime in a thrilling finish to a game that featured big swings in momentum. Carolina scored on a long pass play in the opening seconds of the second overtime period to win 29 to 23 in St. Louis. Both teams had missed field goals in the first overtime period, and the teams had to play on. Carolina led through most of the game, but the Rams rallied from a 11 point deficit to tie the score in the closing seconds of regulation time. 1/11/2004: AFC: Indianapolis Colts 38, Kansas City Chiefs 31 1/11/2004: NFC: Green Bay Packers 17, Philadelphia Eagles 20 (OT) With 72 seconds left in the fourth quarter the Packers were up 17-14. Philadelphia needed a miracle play, which they got when Donovan McNabb completed a 28 yard pass to Freddie Mitchell . The Eagles went on to tie the game at 17 a piece on a 37 yard David Akers field goal and won in overtime when Akers kicked a 31 yard field goal. Conference Championships 1/18/2004: AFC: Indianapolis Colts 14, New England Patriots 24 The New England Patriots win at home, with snow on the field during the second and third quarters of the game, winning the right to go to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years. Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning finds himself outmatched by the Patriots defense, giving up four interceptions during the game. 1/18/2004: NFC: Carolina Panthers 14, Philadelphia Eagles 3 The Carolina Panthers travel to Philadelphia and win the right to visit Super Bowl XXXVIII for the first time in franchise history. This is the third straight NFC Championship loss for the Philadelphia Eagles whose quarterback, Donovan McNabb , sustains a lower-rib injury early in the game. The Eagles' passing game is shut down with the help of rookie Ricky Manning, Jr. , who finishes the game with three interceptions. Just two seasons ago, the Panthers were the NFL's worst team with a record of 1-15. Halftime controversy Super Bowl XXXVIII was noted for a controversial halftime show which was presented by MTV . Singers Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake were performing a duet of Timberlake's song Rock Your Body. As the song reached the final line, "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song", Timberlake pulled off a part of Jackson's costume, revealing her right breast . Many people considered this indecent exposure , and numerous viewers contacted the television station to complain, saying this was inappropriate for this televised event. Jackson and Timberlake have stated that the exposure was an accident. CBS (which broadcast the game and halftime show live ), MTV, the NFL , Jackson, and Timberlake have all apologized for the incident. Jackson later admitted the stunt was planned beforehand, but "went further than she planned." (BBC News 2-4-2004 ). According to her spokeswoman, a red lace bra was supposed to remain when Timberlake tore off the outer covering.