Monday, May 6, 2013

Jaw-dropping body art

Photographer Ray Massey and artists Annie Miller and Annie Ralli give new meaning to an observation made by Edgar Degas: "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." See more of this amazing art here.

In the annals of WTF?

The head officer of the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response branch at the Pentagon -- Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, 41 -- was arrested and charged with sexual battery Sunday after he allegedly grabbed the woman's breasts and buttocks, per USA Today. Wow. Clearly, there is something terribly rotten in the state Denmark and it has nothing to do with Hamlet. Methinks it may be time for Congress to take sexual assault/harassment prevention programs out of the military chain of command.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Why gun reform keeps failing

SOMETHING like 90 percent of Americans, including most rational gun owners, favor more robust background checks as one means to deter gun violence. And yet, that proposal – and any other sensible gun reform measure – has been declared KIA in Washington. One only needs to look to Arizona to understand why. The state recently made it a crime for the police to destroy firearms that come into its possession via buy-back programs. Surrendered arms must now be warehoused until sold. Make of this what you will. But it is telling that Gov. Jan Brewer received some 2,000 pleas in support of the new law and only 25 in opposition to it. This disparity explains, in a nutshell, why gun reform keeps failing. The folks who really care about this issue make their voices heard. Or as Woody Allen would summarize it, eighty percent of success is showing up.