Panty Crimes
The New Morality of Video Vouyerism

To exist as a peaceful society, we must abide by a social contract, a set of rules which will defend and protect the whole common force, the person and goods of each associate, but in which each person, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. These rules, apparently, are established by day time talk programs, the Maury Povich and John Walsh shows, especially. One rule they championship regularly is that it is wrong to look up women’s skirts with video cameras. The social contract won’t permit the practice as a tolerable activity within the framework of public good and the body politic, or in their words, “Peeking Perverts… Busted!”

There’s a curious amount of raw up-skirt footage displayed on those shows, ostensibly meant to dissuade us. Still, I wonder who among us, while standing in line at the bank staring at our feet, hasn’t wondered how much money and time it would take to mount a tiny camera inside one of our shoes? Or at the bottom of a fake walking cane? Regardless, I am more than willing to agree to be against the practice for inclusion in our sovereign state. I like this society, especially the American restaurants… there’s just so much bread!

Then, I made the mistake of reading US Magazine and Mademoiselle, two mainstream publications who are supposed to maintain the minimum level of morality of our social contract. But in US, they now have a “wedgy” section. It is near the “They’re Just Like Us…” section which shows how celebrities are “just like us” by publishing photos of Demi Moore or Sheryl Crow when they come down the hill to pick up their laundry or eat a bag of potato chips. Some of the photographers' film roll, on such occasions, apparently just happened to contain a few shots of them adjusting their underwear.

In some respects, the celeb pictures are even worse since the famous people are bound to know about it. Anonymous victims of the skirt stalker-azzi probably won’t find out about it unless they visit illicit “voyeur” websites. Occasionally, a co-worker may find the snapshots and post them on the workroom bulletin board. But quitting, often the case for many problems, is an easily available recourse. What’s a celebrity to do? Quit being a celebrity? I don’t think they are enough “like us” to survive that.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, mostly the hypothetical “shoe camera” issue. But after that, I am left to wonder if I really want to live among a society where it is commonly agreed upon that websites like www.mission-upskirt.com are as OK as www.apple-pie.com and www.baseball.com. Even for panty-pic advocates, I have to imagine the loss of its taboo nature would be frustrating. I have come to the conclusion that our social contract still holds dear the right of a woman to walk down a street without worrying about a camera hidden in the sidewalk (though I wonder, how much would a sidewalk-camera cost?). Ultimately, the only things that may have changed are that US Magazine and Mademoiselle are gratuitous and insulting. And since I had never read them before, this has probably always been the case.

- Nathan Fuller

Hot irony? Topical cream!
Thoughts on T-shirts, if you catch my double meaning, and I think you do

T-shirts can inspire you or break your heart. I remember when my college roommate purchased a T-shirt that stated “From 0 to bitch in 6.3 seconds!” I’m not all together sure if he was aware of the problems he caused for himself by wearing it so proudly to his feminine studies class, but it matched his belt. Plus, it was more like 2 seconds, especially if he came home to find you playing Doom II on his computer. That was a great t-shirt.

On the other hand, I was in line at Wendy’s the other day pondering hell in a hand basket and our country. I wondered if any of these slugs in line with me had ever even heard phrases like “public policy”, “globalization”, or, most importantly, “civil protest”. When one turned around and exposed her “Tim McGraw: Operation Enduring Freedom” shirt, I knew they hadn’t. It was very sad.

Then again, that “0 to bitch” kid could always pull off a T-shirt, or put one on, as the case may be. Back in high school, he fashioned himself a plain white tee with plain black letters. STILLER it read. He was so ahead of his time; it was a homemade tribute to the “Ben Stiller Show”, which is just now, 10 years later, beginning to get its due as the greatest season of sketch comedy ever. For some reason, though, he convinced a classmate that it was the name of his brother, who had died in a tragic traffic accident and he wore that shirt every year on the anniversary of that horrible day. Looking back, I can’t believe I fell for it. Stiller Fuller; what kind of name was that?

What was my point again? Oh right, I love my Meat Wad T-shirt, which I purchased at Hot Topic.

- Robert Jenks

Mein Kampf?
Oh no, Hitler, fuck that.

I try to read the op/ed section in my paper. Within this section the editor of the paper places opposing viewpoints on certain issues. Invariably, with respect to our two party system, the viewpoints come from liberal and conservative columnists who write from the perspective of their political ideology, but then tend not to overly embrace their political affiliation with the hope of appearing journalistically neutral.

I am very open to suggestion. I once drop kicked a monkey because my father told me to. My point is: I read the liberal column and say “Hell yeah, I’m with you brother.” Then I’ll read the conservative piece and say “Hell yeah” to him too. This section of the newspaper only gets me confused. And why is it that every columnist has to use the word zeitgeist? Are they contractually obligated, or just trying to look smart? But, that’s for another day.

1) We can start with the obvious that Hitler believed that the Aryan race was superior to the Jews. I disagree. Would Hitler have made that same assumption had he been alive in the 1990’s, and able to watch both Danny Schayes and Joe Klein play basketball. Is one superior? Is one Jewish, German? I don’t know, but to see these two men glide across a b-ball court, shooting lay-ups... What was the topic again? My memories of these two men in their short, NBA shorts... Fantastic!

2) In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote (or at least dictated to ghost writer, Rudolf Hess), “The Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end spying on the unsuspicious German girl he plans to seduce. He wants to contaminate her blood and remove her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew hates the white race and wants to lower its cultural level so that the Jews might dominate.” I take that as an affront on all race intermingling, and certainly my neighbor Frank Sanchez would have something to say about that. You should see some of the white girls he has up in there.

3) Hitler’s concept of lebensraum (living space) led to Germany overtaking much of Western Europe. I disagree, and I feel that the idea of lebensraum as a premise for war is flimsy at best. Allow me to prove it: A few years back I felt that I was outgrowing the room I grew up in. If I was Hitler, I could have staged a coup and overtook the room of my big sister, Kelvina. The thing is, I didn’t. I got creative, cleaned out the attic, and guess what? I have a buttload of black light posters, a real disco ball hanging, and I even have my own phone line. Take that, Hitler, and take that Kelvina!

And so Thomas Freidman (when did he become such a peace-nik?), George Will et all, you may sway my belief system back and forth, but you, Adolf Hitler, you never will. Your struggle? Hitler, puhleeze!

- Steve Smith