The girls from the Ukrainian topless protest crew FEMEN speak out after allegedly being kidnapped, humiliated, threatened, forced to undress and beaten in a Minsk forest, abuse which they say was perpetrated and filmed by the Belorussian KGB. Yes, they still call it “KGB.” Read more »
The New York Times sent an angry letter to the New York Police Department about this video of cops roughing up and blocking photojournalist Robert Stolarik from shooting arrests of protestors at the at the World Financial Center. The NYPD responds with… something? Read more »
The Vatican recently released a meticulous 3D online tour of the Sistine Chapel that you can walk through. It’s kind of telling that the Vatican embraces Flash technology before reforming their Medieval morals. Read more »
This week, this biggest worldwide concentration of douchebags is located on the Côte d’Azur of France at the Cannes Advertising Festival. It’s our sycophantic industry’s biggest self-fellating event. But thanks to the economic downturn, plus the discovery that some winning ads from recent festivals were fakes (tres horrible!) that never ran, this year’s show has lost a bit of lustre. Still, I’ve scrolled through scores of early winning entries to find my favorite so far. As we’ve said often here on ANIMAL, we strongly condemn the rampant Photoshop abuse of animals in ads. But we couldn’t help but chuckle at these Gold Lion winners for Fiat (the panda one is precious). Not only does this campaign unexpectedly and memorably relay the low CO2 emission selling point, it also (misleadingly?) implies that little Fiats are crash-test safe. Brilliant. |Images: coloribus|
On Friday night, Brooklyn state Senator Kevin S. Parker was arrested after allegedly assaulting a New York Post photographer, who says, “He ripped the door panel off my car with his legs. He tore out my flash.” Last year, the Senator was accused of choking one of his staff members and in 2005 he was accused of punching a traffic agent in the face. |NYP|
Some say it’s unfair to harp on the Catholic Church’s child-abuse scandals when the Pope’s in town. It would be a cheap shot, for instance, to call Pope Benedict XVI the kind of guy who protects pedophile priests from prosecution.
Well… In 2006, the BBC documentary program Panorama claimed that, as a Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger issued a “secret church directive” that guided the Vatican’s systematic cover-up of boy-fucking fathers.
This is no conspiracy theory that’s been retro-fitted to indict a Cardinal who became Pope. On Aug. 7, 2002, the National Catholic Reporter connected Ratzinger to Crimen Sollicitationis, a 1962 document that outlined the Vatican’s policy for handling allegations of sexual abuse. Their Vatican correspondent reported that Crimen Sollicitationis was referenced in a “letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation, to the bishops of the world regarding new procedures for sex abuse cases.”
Clearly, these new procedures had nothing to do with honesty, or justice, not even decency.
The documentary is here (click “watch” on the right). Or, read a transcript
-Jeff Koyen
Editor-in-Chief:
