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Today's Stories October 20 / 21, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Man Who Builds Hillaryworld October 19, 2007 John Ross Che's Mexican Legacy Sheldon Rampton Shared Values Revisited: a Case Study in the Limits of Propaganda Rahul Mahajan A Tale of Two Atrocities: Blackwater and Haditha Devra Davis Deadly Secrets: Chemical Pollution and Cancer Christopher Brauchli Blasphemous Science Wadner Pierre Haiti After the Deluge Bill Quigley Jailed for Justice Website of the Day Textbook Sticker Shock   October 18, 2007 Saree Makdisi Academic Freedom is at Risk Meg Dwyer What I Learned from 9/11: Who Wouldn't Want Us Dead? Alevtina Rea Sketches of Russian Life Norman Solomon The United States of Violence Kristoffer Larsson Something is Rotten in Sweden Harvey Wasserman Nukes are Back and So are We Website of the Day Eve Ensler: "A Filibuster Would Stop This War"   October 17, 2007 Steve Niva Counter-Insurgency, American-Style Andy Worthington The Case of Mohamed Jawad Alan Farago The Credit Shock Russell Mokhiber The New Billionaire-Criminal Class Sharon Smith Democrats, AWOL When It Mattered Mike Whitney Time for the Banks to Face the Hangman Robert Fantina Iraq, Iran and the US: Business as Usual Chris Irwin Where Have All the Rednecks Gone? Website of the Day Sex Ed at Oral Roberts University October 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Doris Lessing and the Dynamite Prize Paul Findley Follow the Leader: The Open Secret About the Israel Lobby Robert Bryce Inconvenient Corrections: Al Gore's Wacky Facts Uri Avnery The Mother of All Pretexts Paul Craig Roberts The Iraqi Genocide Ray McGovern What Did Nancy Pelosi Know About NSA Spying and When Did She Know It? Norman Solomon The Pro-War Undertow of the Blackwater Scandal Martha Rosenberg The Curse of Cymbalta William S. Lind Out of the Frying Pan Joel S. Hirschborn Time to Boycott Voting Website of the Day Pipeline Through Paradise: Big Oil's Arctic Play   October 15, 2007 Gary Leupp Response to an Angry Marine Andy Worthington A Gitmo Detainee Finally Gets a Break Heather Gray Al Krebs, a Fighter for Family Farmers John Walsh Blacks Turn Against the War: Why Won't Liberals Join Them? Joshua Frank Nobel Gore? Dave Lindorff Slaughter of the Innocents in Iraq Matt Vidal Squaring the Circle on Children and Health Care Ali Khan Pakistan's Constitutional Mess Sen. Russ Feingold The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program Johnny Barber The Balm of a Peace Process Infuses the War on Terror Website of the Day The Real Gore October 13 / 14, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Al Gore's Peace Prize Wajahat Ali Privatizing Terror, Outsourcing Diplomacy: an Interview with P. W. Singer Jeffrey St. Clair A Half Mile of Hell Ralph Nader Impeachment, Cowardice and the Democrats David Heleniak Gitmo at Home Laura Carlsen Plan Mexico and the Billion Dollar Drug Deal Brian Cloughley The Flat Drug World Richard Rhames Here Come the "Bankrupted Social Security" Scamsters, Again Ron Jacobs For the Sake of a Future Fred Gardner The Overrated Importance of Being "On Message" John Ross The Betray Us Flap Russell Hoffman Another Pro Nuker Wins the Peace Prize Missy Beattie Will Someone Please Give Lou Dobbs a Lobotomy? Poets' Basement Gibbons, Buknatski and Ford Website of the Day "Psychokiller", the Blackwater Version October 12, 2007 Cindy Sheehan Leadership Void Brendan Cooney Washington's Holocaust Deniers Alan Farago Gore Still Lost Florida Jan Oberg Gore's Peace Prize, a Grand Misjudgment M. Shahid Alam The Mercenary State: Pakistan's Killer Elites David Macaray Lies About Teachers and Unions Julia Kendlbacher Urban Legend, We Love Our Forest People Peter Rost, MD Drug Money and the Clinton Campaign Website of the Day Nader Live: "Things are a Lot Worse Than We Thought" October 11, 2007 Al Giordano Bill Clinton as Ambassador to the World? Saul Landau Killing for Profit: Blackwater in Iraq Jacob G. Hornberger The Failed Legacy of Interventionism William S. Lind The Iraq Mirage Joshua Frank Big Sky Rebels Josh Mahan Colorado River Blues Pat Williams Where Are You, Paul Wellstone?     October 10, 2007 Michael Yates Travels Across Greenspan's America Gary Leupp Spreading Awareness or Smearing a Religion? David Macaray How Wal-Mart Can be Beaten Alan Farago Corruption and the Law of Intended Consequences Tom Clifford Homeless in Their Own Land: Iraq's Deepening Refugee Crisis Col. Douglas MacGregor Washington's War Sunsara Taylor Nooses at Columbia George Wuerthner Behind the Bovine Curtain Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Indigenous Peoples' Day Michael Dickinson Forgetting Lennon's Birthday Website of the Day Paying for War   October 9, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Blinded by Ideology: Cato, Trade and Outsourcing Andy Worthington Fourth Whistleblower Rocks Guantánamo Alan Farago The Fall of Florida's Largest Land Developer Brian Eno Exporting Democracy with Missiles David Rovics The RIAA vs. the World Farzana Versey Two Lovers and the Funeral of Secularism Andrew Buncombe and Omar Waraich Musharraf's Landslide Website of the Day Romney and the Wheelchair Bound Medical Marijuana Patient   October 8, 2007 David Macaray Lesbians for Hillary? or Teamsters for Hillary? Jeff Ballinger Nike, Steroids and Marion Jones Brian Eno This Ban Won't Stop Us Christopher Brauchli Translating Bush Louay Safi End the Disgrace of Guantánamo Matt Reichel Homocide by Cops at the Phoenix Airport Dave Lindorff Finally, A Good Day for the Constitution Thomas P. Healy The Politics of Mercury Pollution Martha Rosenberg E. Coli Spreading Slaughter Allowed to Stay Open Richard Rhames A Democrat's Lament Website of the Day Not All Italians Love Columbus   October 6 / 7, 2007 Alexander Cockburn A Rainbow Over a Graveyard Norman Finkelstein Jeffrey Goldberg's Prison James Bovard Are Presidents Entitled to Kill Foreigners? Patrick Cockburn The Invasion of Afghanistan, Six Years Later Jeffrey St. Clair At Disaster Falls Ralph Nader Where Are the Lawyers of America? Ray McGovern So Who's Afraid of the Israel Lobby? Saul Landau A River Runs Through It Ben Tripp Bring on the Next War! Terry Lodge The Grateful Dead Body Parts Delivered to Your Door Reform Act Seth Sandronsky Market Mystification and the Liberal Virus Kevin Funk / Steve Fake Divestment and Darfur Missy Beattie In the Custody of Bush and Cheney Website of the Weekend Snoop Dogg vs. Bill O'Reilly   October 5, 2007 Andy Worthington The Anonymous Victims of Guantánamo David Macaray De-Skilling America's Labor Force Lee Sustar The Democrats and Iran: Can They Sink Any Lower? Dan La Botz Cincinnati Six Years After the Killings and the Riots Aaron Hess Hate Week Comes to Campus William A. Cook Unmasking AIPAC Website of the Day Range of Memory   October 4, 2007 Uri Avnery The Power of the Israel Lobby Dave Marsh Dick Cheney, a Eulogy Valerio Volpi How Italy Became a Launching Pad for the US Military Cecilie Surasky Dissenting at Your Own Risk Dave Lindorff Remaking Iraq, as Vietnam Norman Solomon Sputnik, 50 Years Later Laura Carlsen Costa Rica and CAFTA: Memo Reveals Manipulation Scheme Walter Brasch When Compassion Fails: Bush and the Children's Health Act Ben Terrall Haitian Human Rights Advocate Kidnapped William S. Lind Beyond the OODA Loop Website of the Day Musicians in Handcuffs   October 3, 2007 Vijay Prashad Gang of Four Anita Sinha Black Ties and Bulldozers in New Orleans Winslow T. Wheeler Posturing at the Petraeus Hearings: Where was the Oversight? Sharon Smith The Kucinich Quandary Jeff Leys Our Bonhoeffer Moment Sen. Russ Feingold We Must End This Tragedy Mohamad Bazzi Playing Into the Hands of Ahmadinejad Brenda Norrell A Cry from the Top of the World Robert Weissman No Sex, Still a Scandal at the IMF Website of the Day Jena by Mellencamp   October 2, 2007 Ibrahim Warde Logical Lies About Bin Laden's Wealth Gary Leupp "I Hate All Iranians": Frank Talk from a Defense Dept. Official David Macaray The Hunt for a Blue November: In Pursuit of the Labor Vote Conn Hallinan Religion and Foreign Policy John Ross The Great American Chess Match Alan Farago Ripping Off Miami's Poor Sonja Karkar The Right to Exist: States or People? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Meteor and the Mahatma Website of the Day Grandin on Che's Legacy   October 1, 2007 Al Giordano The Clinton Campaign's Reckless Race for Big Money Donors Paul Craig Roberts From Burma to Iraq: Hypocrisy Rules the West Moshe Adler The Crimes of Microsoft Ingmar Lee My Kayak Journey Down the Wild Pacific Coast John V. Walsh Ahmadinejad is Not My Enemy Norman Solomon Political Science and Truth of Consequences Roger Burbach Historic Victory in Ecuador for the Left Ramzy Baroud The Politics of Assassination Stephen Lendman The Maestro of Misery: Greenspan's Dark Legacy Susie Day Honey, I Shrank the Military! Website of the Day Letters from Fort Lewis Brig   September 29 / 30, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Clinton Time: Do We Set Our Clocks Forward or Back? Uri Avnery So What About Iran? Andrew Cockburn Iraq's WMD Myth: Why Clinton is Culpable Jeffrey St. Clair Through the Gates of Lodore Wajahat Ali The Good, the Bad and the Iraqi Andy Worthington The Curse of the Military Commissions Don Santina Ethnic Cleansing in San Francisco Ralph Nader Free Lunches, for Corporations! Fred Gardner The Man Behind the MoveOn Ad Seth Sandronsky The US Economy Since 1980 Gideon Levy The Children of 5767 William S. Lind A Ticking Bomb Reza Fiyouzat An Anti-Imperialist Case Against a Nuclear Iran Richard Rhames Wag the Tail, Frag the Dog David Michael Green Buyer's Remorse: Their Purchase, Our Regret Zach Mason Hate and Hope in Herndon Poets' Basement Gibbons, Ali, Davies and Suss Website of the Weekend Domestic Crusaders     September 28, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison The Teflon Alliance with Israel Roberto J. González / David H. Price When Anthropologists Become Counter-Insurgents Saul Landau September, the Cruelest Month in Chile Tom Clifford Burma by the Numbers Christopher Brauchli Of Toxic Almonds and Bad Beef Martha Rosenberg Spinning Suicide Statistics Dave Zirin Soldier in Winter: John Carlos Speaks Out on the Jena 6 Laray Polk Bush Library or Lockbox? Binoy Kampmark When Reagan Turned Brown James McEnteer Hell, Columbia: an Academic Hotshot Introduces a Petty Tyrant Website of the Day Concerned Anthropologists   September 27, 2007 Alan Farago Housing Market Crashes and Burns Andy Worthington A Bad Week at Guantánamo Jonathan Cook Why Did Israel Attack Syria? William Hughes Billy Graham, a Prince of War Exposed Ray McGovern Bush, Oil and Moral Bankruptcy Ron Jacobs Joe Biden's Plan to Chop Up Iraq Dave Lindorff Quit the Party! Join the Mass Resignation Movement! Joshua Frank Pruning the Green Party Anne Dachel The CDC, Vaccines and Autism Website of the Day The God-O-Meter   September 26, 2007 Bill Quigley HUD's Home Wreckers Paul Craig Roberts A Pandemic of Police Brutality Jeff Kisseloff Still Smearing Alger Hiss China Hand Is China the True Target of Financial Sanctions Against Iran? Behzad Yaghmaian At the Gates of Paradise Sonja Karkar The Quality of Mercy in Gaza Mike Ferner Interrupting the Empire, 30 Seconds at a Time Col. Dan Smith Freedom to Speak, Freedom to Learn Clifton Ross Bollinger's Barbarous and Ignorant Speech Brenda Norrell A Meeting of Indigenous Peoples in Caracas Website of the Day The Smearing of Jean Maria Arrigo, a Psychologist Opposed to Torture   September 25, 2007 Nicole Colson On the March Against Racism Uri Avnery Foam on the Water Brendan Cooney Ahmadinejad on Broadway: Free Speech? Arrest Him! Harry Browne Bruce Springsteen Comes Home ... to Hell Marjorie Cohn The Drift Toward War with Iran David Macaray The UAW-GM Strike: the Long Knives are Already Out Ralph Nader Hypocrisy and Inverted Priorities in Congress Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger, the Climate Change Hypocrite Anthony Papa Perverted Justice & America's Drug Laws Christopher Ketcham All Politicos Now Classed as Sexual Deviants Website of the Day John Waters on Free Speech   September 24, 2007 George Ciccariello-Maher Racist Violence from Jena to Oakland Saree Makdisi The War on Gaza's Children David Keen Action-as-Propaganda: Learning About the Iraq War from Hannah Arendt Sherwood Ross Just How Powerful is the Israel Lobby? Only Cheney Knows for Sure Ron Jacobs Greenspan's Open Secret Donna Saggia The Cult of the Military and the Decline of Democratic Values Mike Ferner Free Speech Takes a Capitol Beating Malini Johar Schueller Norman Hsu is a Model Minority Monique Dols and Dylan Stillwood Ahmadinejad and Columbia Website of the Day The Promotion September 22 / 23, 2007 Alexander Cockburn On Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" Jennifer Loewenstein Beneath the Hideous Veneer of Security Linn Washington, Jr. The Injustice in Jena: Prosecutorial Misconduct More Dangerous Than Racism Jeffrey St. Clair Going Down in Dinosaur: Oil, Dams and Whitewater (Part One) Alan Farago Genuflecting to China Brian Cloughley Of Hate, Hubris and Atrocities Robert Fantina The Deadly Pattern of US Imperialism Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Land Tenure and Resistance in New Mexico Jason Hribal Fear of an Animal Planet David Rosen Slugger Sex: Athletes, Violence and Male Sexuality Mike Whitney The Era of Global Financial Instability John V. Walsh Who Will Lead a Filibuster of the Iraq War Spending Bill? Dave Lindorff Why Aren't We Banning Blackwater Here? David Michael Green Hiding Behind a Camouflage Skirt Fred Gardner Claudia Jensen (Look Back in Anger) Cassandra Jones Support Our Mercenaries Roger van Zwanenberg Pluto Press Under Attack by Israel Lobby Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Ford Website of the Weekend "For the Bible Tells Me So"   September 21, 2007 Karim Makdisi Letter from Lebanon M. Shahid Alam A History of Violence Alan Farago Who Will Buy My House? Joshua Frank The Demise of the Congressional Black Caucus Dave Zirin Notre Dame and the Economy of Sports Kenneth Couesbouc A Short History of Lending and Borrowing Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein Mass Health Care Failure Ben Terrall The Streets of San Francisco: Where Impeachment is Taken Seriously--By Everyone But Pelosi Steve Fournier Ex-Dems, Sign Up Here Frederico Fuentes, et al Voices in Defense of Bolivia Website of the Day Sabra and Shatila, Remembered   September 20, 2007 Kathleen Christison Whatever Happened to Palestine? Zoltan Grossman An Endless Occupation? Paul Craig Roberts As the Empire Slips: Greenspan and the Economy of Greed Stan Cox and Wes Jackson Carbon-Free and Still Wrecking the Planet Russell Mokhiber AARP to Kucinich: Drop Dead Charles Modiano Jim Crow's Children: the Jena 6, Shaquanda Cotton and Blog Power Raymond J. Lawrence Bush's Worrisome Use of Religion Brendan Cooney Body-Snatched Nation Website of the Day Mind Control for Breakfast   September 19, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By? Paul Krassner The Power of Laughter Sgt. Martin Smith The New Private Warriors: Blackwater in Iraq Seth Sandronsky Living in a Dilapidated Market: To Rent or Own? Claud Cockburn Looking back at the Great Crash Victoria Buch Israel's Agenda for Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer Robert Weissman Oil Warriors: From Greenspan to Kissinger Mike Ferner Can We Talk? Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's $9 Billion Boondoggle for Big Water Website of the Day Housing Cost Calculator   September 18, 2007 Mike Whitney U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel Alan Farago Interviewing Alan Greenspan: How 60 Minutes Blew It John Ross America's Great Wall: Where Will the Workers Go When They Finish It? Ron Jacobs Nooses Hung From Jena, La. to College Park, Md. Alex Doherty Britain's 9/11 "Truth Movement": Who's Responsible? September 17, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom Paul Craig Roberts Conservatism Isn't What It Used to Be Ricardo Alarcón The Return of C. Wright Mills Amid the Dawn of a New Era Marc Levy Fake Vets Chasing Fame Eva Liddell In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like Website of the Day Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by Frank Capra, and written by Theodor Geisel Sept. 15-16, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The General Came to Washington Vicente Navarro How the U.S. Schemed Against Spain's Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy Mike Whitney Plummeting Dollar, Credit Crunch Herman Mindshaftgap Has There Ever Been a Surge? If so, Has it a Future? Ellen Cantarow Girls! Music! Palestine! Jordan Flaherty K-Ville: Fox's New Paean to the N.O.P.D. Zachary Hurwitz Julio Cusurichi on Amazonian Development September 14, 2007 Debbie Nathan New York Times reporter was a member of an illegal underage porn site, claims he was only "posing as online predator" Franklin Lamb Sabra-Shatilla, 25 Years Later Patrick Cockburn Greet Bush and Die: The Killing of Abu Risha Farzana Versey The World's Richest Muslim Tycoon Alan Farago This is Florida, Epicenter of the Housing Bust and of Public Corruption Hank Edson Bill's New Book is Giving Me a Headache September 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Petraeus Confided Presidential Ambitions to Iraqi Official Scott Vest, former Air Force Captain at Minot The Barksdale Nukes Andy Worthington Guantánamo: "Ghost" Prisoners Speak At Last Michael Baney Mr. Fixit of Quake-Stricken Peru Has Death Squad Past Dr. Susan Block Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern? September 12, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts American Economy: RIP Stan Goff The Petraeus Report William Blum When Soldiers Mutiny...Only Those Fighting the War Can End It. Manuel Garcia Forgetting 9/11 Debbie Nathan Why One Sex Survey Didn't Make the Big Time               Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition October 20 / 21, 2007 Folsom Street Fair and America's 4th Sexual Revolution Deviants on Parade By DAVID ROSEN For the last twenty-four years, gay and straight sexual deviants have met in San Francisco during Leather Pride Week to celebrate the Folsom Street Fair. This year, on Sunday, September 30th, between three-hundred-and-fifty and four hundred thousand fetishists, their admirers and voyeurs gathered in what is considered the world's largest assembly of sexual deviants. While the street fair was the centerpiece of the week's adventures, almost every night featured a special deviant-themed event. One night the Leathermen's Discussion Group hosted a "Fetish Fair" that showcased a variety of b&d/s&m demonstrations featuring "some of the most knowledgeable and respected experts in the community." Other special events included an evening with erotic performance artists Cleo Dubois and Fakir; a formal gay-oriented uniform dinner, Roll Call 2007, sponsored by California Boots and Breeches Corp.; a male/male spanking get-together; and a host of after-hour private fetish sex parties for both straight and gay male and female adventurers. Folsom Street Fair is the premier event of a growing, nationwide network of adult deviant sexual fantasy and play. It is a cornerstone event of America's 4th sexual revolution, this one pushing further the revolutions of the 1840s, 1920s and 1970s. In distinction from earlier movements for sexual reform, today's revolution remains unseen and unacknowledged, hidden behind a background of Christian evangelical battles over cultural values, Bush administration war against pornography and media pursuit of sex offenders. Nevertheless, a sexual insurgency is taking place among consenting adults. It is mostly noncommercial in character and involves what has been traditionally identified as illicit or nonconventional sexual practices. Equally important, it is taking place within an expanding cultural environment of media, fashion and advertising industries that aggressively exploit references to a wide variety of deviant sexual indulgence. With little fanfare, a new sexual revolution is taking shape in Mr. Bush's America. * * * The people strolling along Folsom Street came from across the Bay, across the country, across the globe and from every conceivable background, including sexual inclination. So entertaining, whole families came to gawk and participate in the festive revelry. Folsom Street was packed with people for five blocks and lined with booths offering everything from s&m whipping sessions and fetish toys, to performances by rock bands and displays by erotic artists, to AIDS/STD tests and to literature on gay-friendly evangelical churches, and to hotdogs and beer. According to "The San Francisco Chronicle," Tom Maiolo, a visitor from Tampa, FL, attending his first fair and outfitted in a leather vest and chaps with his butt exposed, exclaimed, "So far, so good. I love this, and I'm just getting started." Another fairgoer, Jaeleen Bennis, mused, "This is like Disneyland--you'll never see anything like this in the world." One woman, who goes by the name Andrea Storm, was dressed in a tiny silver dress shaped like a martini glass with bra cups decorated like green olives. "It's totally fun," she said. "I don't get very far because I keep getting photographed. I feel like I'm on the red carpet." As the Chronicle reports, " couples led each other up and down the street with dog collars and leashes, men in thong underwear played Twister, women in stilettos and fishnet stockings spilled out of their corsets, and shoppers browsed stalls selling products such as baseball caps reading 'Master' and 'Slave' and a book entitled 'Dungeon Emergencies and Supplies." One area, Venus' Playground, was designated as a women-only space. It consisted of a tent used as a dungeon for sex play and another tent for demonstrations. Among the planned specialty events were "Beginning Bondage: Quick Tips," "Sticks and Punching with Lady Hilary" and "Japanese Rope Bondage with Madame Butterfly." To encourage personal ease, the space was designated off-limits to photography. Folsom week involved a wide range of scheduled public events. They included: an art show, "Daddies and Dukes"; "a spoken word smut salon," "Perverts Put Out"; a women-only event, "This Shit Will Fuck U Up"; a veterans fund raiser, "Mr. & Miss Gay Bridges Uniform Party;" and a full-dress gala at the Magnitude dance club (with tickets running $90 a pop). Folsom Street has something for almost everyone. [San Francisco Chronicle, "Leather and Corsets and Whips, Oh My," October 1, 2007; BAR, 27 September 2007] * * * The fair generated considerable national attention when the conservative group, Concerned Women of America (CWA), came out against it. CWA branded the fair "reminiscent of biblical Sodom and Gomorrah." It was especially disturbed by the fair's take-off on Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" as its promotional poster. The twelve apostles and the devotional wine and bread were replaced by men and women decked out in S&M leatherwear and a table full of sex toys.[www.folsomstreetfair.com] CWA spokesperson, Matt Barber, noted in a press release, "Scripture says that God is not mocked, yet it doesn't stop people from trying." It added, "[a]s evidenced by the latest stunt, open ridicule of Christianity is unfortunately very common within much of the homosexual community." Barber expressed considerable displeasure over taxpayers being "forced" to pay for the fair in which, in his words, "'gay' men and women [are allowed] to parade the streets fully nude, many having sex--even group orgies--in broad daylight, while taxpayers funded police officers look on and do absolutely nothing." CWA launched a national campaign against Miller Brewing for its promotional support of the fair. The campaign picked up momentum when Fox and other cable news networks jumped on the story. While Miller is a long time supporter of LGBT events, the brewer capitulated and removed its logo from the poster. Andy Cooper, of the fair's events committee, joked, "I guess it wouldn't be Folsom Street Fair without offending some extreme members of the global community." And added, "[t]he irony is that da Vinci was widely considered to be homosexual." * * * Folsom Street is part of an adult, noncommercial deviant sexual culture that is growing throughout the country. In its "Leather Community Calendar," the gay-oriented Leather Journal lists approximately two hundred fetish events that take place across the country. Like Folsom, are major annual happening including the Gay Pride Day parades that bring out diverse fetishist contingents in cities across the country and the Key West Fantasy Fest that draws over 80,000 deviants. Other annual events include the more hardcore, weekend-long gatherings like the International Leatherman (ILM, Chicago) and the Mid-Atlantic Leather Association (MLA, Washington, DC) conferences that bring three to five thousand in full regalia--men, women, gays, straights, tops, bottoms, blacks, whites, Latins, although predominantly white gay men. The Journal also lists some three hundred and fifty clubs and other organizations serving male and female, gay and straight fetishists into leather, rubber, bears and bikers as well as s&m, b&d, water sports, fisting and other indulgences. One of these groups, the Satyrs Motorcycle Club of Los Angeles, recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. Some additional indicators of this new sexual culture are: * Explicit sex clubs which operate throughout the country. They include Power Exchange (San Francisco), the Peepshow (New York), The Green Door and The Fantasy Social Club (Las Vegas) and all catering to a heterosexual crowd (although they encourage female homoeroticism). Establishments like Blow Buddies (San Francisco), Slammers (Los Angeles), El Mirage (New York) and Jacks (Philadelphia) are gay male-only clubs. In these adult-only "safe sex" venues, nearly anything goes. * Fetish clubs catering to b&d, s&m and other tastes operate in Atlanta, Baltimore, Birmingham, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Phoenix, St. Louis, San Diego and other cities. Some are hosted by a professional dominatrix. * NASCA International, a swingers association, identifies one hundred and sixty-eight swingers clubs across the U.S., with California (26) and Texas (20) leading the count. In addition to intimate liaisons at members' homes and party venues like Club Kama Sutra (Philadelphia) and the BackDrop (Mountain View, CA, now in its thirtieth year, America's oldest swing club), swingers meet at local and national conventions like Hedo-fest (Washington, TX), Couples Choice (Eagle Nest, NM), the Orlando International (Orlando, FL) and Life Style West (Las Vegas), a four-night extravaganza. * Gentlemen's clubs are no longer limited to Las Vegas. Strip clubs, some with X-rated nude dancers, lap dancing and private backrooms for other, more intimate services, can be found throughout the country. TUSCL, a website of strip clubs, lists twenty-eight hundred; Texas (217) and Florida (215) have the greatest number. * Gay bathhouses remain notorious venues for sexual liaisons. They operate in New York (East Side Sex Club, Wall Street, West Side Club and 82nd Street Club in Flushing, Queens), Portland, OR (Club Portland), San Francisco (Eros), San Jose, CA (Watergarden) and Seattle (Club Seattle) as well as Boonville, MO (Megaplex). In addition, there are successful chains like Flex Baths (Columbus, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Phoenix)and Steamworks (Berkeley, Chicago and San Juan). This is a small sampling of venues available for adults to live out their fantasies. This sampling does not include private liaisons between married or other couples which incorporate all manner of deviant sex play, nor commercial exchanges legally available in Nevada or easily arranged throughout the rest of the country through weekly newspaper ads and online websites like Craigslist. Nor does this discussion include the increasing explicit role of deviant sexual imagery in the mass media (i.e., movies, television, videogames and magazines), fashion and advertising. These areas encourage a more tolerant sexual culture, lubricating the appeal of deviant sexual experience. * * * America is in the midst of a 4th sexual revolution. In contrast to the previous revolutions of the 1840s, 1920s and 1970s, forbidden or deviant consensual sex has become an accepted practice among many adults. With conservative moralists, Republican stalwarts and Christian fundamentalists in retreat, it is the right time to examine America's best kept secret, today's sexual revolution. The on-going sex scandals involving Republican and Christian worthies have taken the proverbial wind out the sails of the new puritans. Wedge issues that defined the 2006 election like abortion rights, gay marriage and stem-cell research have lost their edge. America just might be ready to face, embrace its darker sexual side. Deviant practices have always been a feature of America's sexual landscape. In the past, such activities existed at the periphery of acceptable society; today, however, they have become an integral feature of popular experience. Deviance has become an accepted indulgence among a growing number of consenting adults. While no authoritative estimate of the number of adult Americans engaged in consensual(and mostly noncommercial) deviant sexual practices is available, such indulgence is not uncommon. Two critical developments over the last thirty-plus years have set the stage for this new sexual environment. First, the American Psychiatric Association, in the 1973 revision of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders" (DSM-III), reclassified homosexuality from pathology to (in its most egodystonic form) paraphelia. This transformed sexual perversion from a mental disorder to what some analysts' label "deviance without pathology." Second, the Supreme Court's 2003 landmark "Lawrence and Garner v. Texas" decision sanctified the right to personal sexual privacy among consenting adults, whether they be gay or straight, female or male. This legitimized (noncommercial) deviance among consenting adults. Where it was once a mental disorder or a crime, sexual deviance has become a lifestyle. Sexual deviance is rooted in a relationship, be it to oneself, to another, to an object, practice or fantasy. It is a ritualized relationship, a dialectical tension between that which attracts and repels, of self with otherness. It involves nonconventional sexual practices among consenting adults and differs fundamentally from nonconsensual activities, whether labeled pathological or illegal. For deviants, sexual otherness is not denied but rather ritualized with illicit erotic significance; this is what psychiatrists call "nonpathological" or "egosyntonic" deviance. For those with sexualized pathologies (what are called "paraphelia" or "egodystonic"), nonconsensual acts like rape, sex slavery, pedophilia, lust-murder or other acts of violation deny the autonomy or humanity of one or more of the participants. This is the (often fuzzy) line where sexuality turns against itself and one or more of the participants is harmed. They are less about sex and more about existential power. Over the last four centuries of American history, the boundaries of acceptable sexual practice have been challenged, changed and redefined. The Folsom Street Fair makes explicit the increasing popular appeal of deviant sexuality. It is an appeal not limited to San Francisco. David Rosen can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.

Now Available! How the Press Led the US into War Buy End Times Now! New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   Grand Theft Pentagon How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism         The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont   CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed     Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"