On Saturday, The San Francisco Chronicle gave readers a heads up about “a fun-filled weekend to leave the car at home”:

If you're in San Francisco and you're into blues, leather, comedy, biking, running or blessing fishing boats, you're in luck this weekend.

But you just may want to leave your car at home.

A plethora of events will grace the city by the bay today and Sunday, including the Lovefest Parade and Celebration, the Blues Festival, the Folsom Street Fair and Comedy Day.

So what’s The Chronicle’s idea of “fun filled”? Here’s a snapshot of the goings-on at the Folsom Street Fair, courtesy of columnist and radio talk show host Frank Pastore (99.5 KKLA in Los Angeles):

[M]en doing in public what they’d get arrested for doing in a public restroom anywhere else in America. Only worse. Because not only did they not get arrested, they did “it” - numerous times and in every way and combination - under the protection of law enforcement and city leaders. And nothing happened.

Obviously, participants play dress-up and act out primarily for the shock value. And Americans are rightfully shocked - shocked back to our senses as to why it is that this in-your-face approach repulses us. We’re reminded of why we oppose all the efforts to normalize homosexuality, gay marriage and “alternative lifestyles” - and why we will never give them direct access to our children and their curricula.

Those of us who do not approve of sexual activity in public – whether straight, gay or involving barnyard animals of either gender – are not the only ones who view such immoral, and perverse behavior as emblematic of “San Francisco values.” The deviant denizens of the Folsom demimonde do as well:

“Folsom is the one time of year where the largest number of leather folk from around the world are able to come together,” said Demetri Moshoyannis, executive director of Folsom Street Events, who expects hundreds of thousands of people to attend. …

Moshoyannis added, “We are proud of who we are and what we stand for and in no way do we want it ever used against us. We'd rather come out in full support of what exactly San Francisco values are, what they mean to us, why we love living here, and why we welcome so many people from around the world and hope that they share in our values.”

San Francisco values also include promoting this gaysexapalooza with a poster depicting Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” with leatherboys festooned in chains and a buff black Jesus at a table laid out with sex toys that most people couldn’t even name, much less figure out how to use. Of course, if Moshoyannis and his ilk were as outré as they fancy themselves to be, they would have done a similar “interpretation” of Muhammad receiving revelations from the angel Gabriel on Mount Hira. But then, considering what Islamofascists do to homosexuals in Iran and elsewhere in the Muslim world, why risk real danger?

Great Moments In Higher Education: Part II

Talk about a day late and a dollar short: Speaking about “lessons learned” at a Duke Law School conference, “The Court of Public Opinion: The Practice and Ethics of Trying Cases in the Media,” Duke University President Richard Brodhead said he regretted Duke's “failure to reach out to the lacrosse players and their families in this time of extraordinary peril” after a black stripper/prostitute accused three white players of raping her at a March 2006 team party. He added:

[S]ome of those who were quick to speak as if the charges were true were on this campus, and some faculty made statements that were ill-judged and divisive. They had the right to express their views. But the public as well as the accused students and their families could have thought that those were expressions of the university as a whole. They were not, and we could have done more to underscore that. …

When I think back through the whole complex history of this episode, the scariest thing, to me, is that actual human lives were at the mercy of so much instant moral certainty, before the facts had been established. If there’s one lesson the world should take from the Duke lacrosse case, it’s the danger of prejudgment and our need to defend against it at every turn.  Given the power of this impulse and the forces that play to it in our culture, achieving this goal will not be easy. But it’s a fight where we all need do our part.

Brodhead’s litany of “lessons learned” would have had more credibility if a few of those faculty members who had signed petitions and made unsubstantiated statements that tried and convicted the three students on the evening news stood beside him at the podium and offered their own words of remorse, and a promise to be more circumspect and temperate in the future.

NatGeo Hooks Viewers With Bras

In honor of the 100th birthday of the bra, National Geographic  Channel - the cable channel affiliated with the venerable magazine that exposed generations of tweenage boys to naked Third-World ta-tas – aired "The Secret History of the Bra" over the week-end:

[S]cience meets fashion when NGC travels around the world to reveal the secrets, history and complex construction behind one of the most highly engineered garments we wear. From boiling cauldrons to silk looms to metal factories, NGC traces the evolution of the bra to what is now a $16-billion-a-year industry.

Some interesting facts and figures about breasts and bras you probably did not know (video highlights):

† Each bra has roughly 40 parts.

† Bra sizes go up to 48V.

† An A cup can hold 8 fluid ounces; a B cup, 13 fluid ounces; a C cup 21 fluid ounces; and a D cup, 27 fluid ounces. (Presumably, eyedroppers are used to determine the volume of the thimble-sized cups for flat-chested women.)

† Breasts weigh from 10 ounces to 20 pounds.

† Eight out of ten women wear the wrong sized bra (typically, choosing a band size that is too large around; if the band of your bra rides up your back go down at least one size).

Here’s something else The Stiletto learned a couple of weeks back, while shopping at a bra and corset shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (the old-fashioned kind of emporium where the merchandise is kept in numbered boxes stacked up to the ceiling and you don’t tell the fitter what you want, she tells you what you need): A bra should provide enough lift and support so that the “apex” of your breast is aligned no lower than the edge of the sleeve of a T-shirt. If your breasts are drooping towards the crook of your arm, you are wearing the wrong size or style of bra.

Editorial Note: In researching a link that gives additional information on how to find a bra that fits properly, The Stiletto came across the answer to a question she has been asked more times than she cares to count: A D-cup breast weighs 8 pounds, on average. Now, ya know.

† Police Seek Pint-Sized Purse Snatcher: Police arrested Daniel Twomey, 52, for using his 4-year-old granddaughter to steal a purse from an employee who works at Lucky Leo's in Seaside Heights. Twomey could be charged with endangering the welfare of a child, and employing a minor in a criminal act. Bail had been set at $150,000 upon Twomey's arrest, and he's been ordered not to have contact with his grandchildren.

† An Abortion Clinic By Any Other Name: U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle prohibited a 22,000-square-foot, $7.5 million abortion mill that Planned Parenthood built in Aurora, IL, until town officials determine whether local laws were broken when Planned Parenthood applied for building permits under the name of a subsidiary. Planned Parenthood had hoped to open the health center on Sept. 18, but the clinic's temporary occupancy permit expired Sept. 17 and it cannot open until after the investigation is completed. Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti  is expected to announce his findings this week. 

† The Keystone Kops Are Enforcing U.S. Immigration Laws: IL passed a law that goes into effect Jan 1 that bars employers from enrolling in E-Verify (formerly called Basic Pilot), the federal program that compares job applicants’ identity and immigration, until Washington certifies that the databases used to verify workers’ eligibility are 99 percent accurate. The Bush administration filed a suit in Federal District Court for the Central District of Illinois to block the IL law, on the grounds that the statute is unconstitutional because it pre-empts federal laws that established the worker verification program.

† Pearson's Knickers Still In A Knot Over His Pants: Soo Chung and her husband, Jin Nam Chung, owners of a dry cleaner who were sued for $54 million by administrative law judge Roy L. Pearson over a missing pair of pants have closed and sold the shop because of lost revenue and emotional stress of defending themselves. The Chungs incurred more than $100,000 in legal expenses, which fundraisers and donations helped offset.