Perhaps some of you don't know about this scandal. But it wasn't that long ago that Cicciolina (does that mean "little cricket?), a porn star, was elected to the Italian Parliament. I guess those working folk wanted one of their own to represent them? Cicciolina was also at the center of some big-time art controversies as the subject of the work of Jeff Koons. I've long been drawn to good old-fashioned art and censorship controversies.
Well, this time it is a controversy in the Italian Parliament again. You see, the conservative Parliament recently fired "Dario Mattiello, an assistant to the upper house's vice president, after photographs of him at a gay nightclub in Rome were distributed." There have been protests about the firing in the gay community, and now Parliament is accusing gay activists with infecting their computer system with gay porn images.
There is something akin to poetic justice here, though I can't quite get a handle on it. Still, it's nice to have a laugh at the expense of conservatives. Our conservatives here in the old USA, meanwhile, are back to what they do best, like banning dancing at high schools. These folks and how they deal with culture and its changes. . . I imagine them with eyes closed, their fingers in their ears, and singing at the tops of their lungs "la la la la la la la." They have such faith in abstinence education and banning, two methods that simply don't work.
