June (Web-only) 2005

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Condoms: Is there nothing they can't solve?
Today's New York Times editorializes, "The United States will never contain deadly diseases like AIDS and hepatitis C without common-sense programs that distribute condoms in prisons."

Such programs "are unavailable in about 95 percent of this country's prisons … despite studies showing that same-sex encounters behind bars are more common than prison officials care to admit," the Paper of Record explains.

Uh, yeah, Weblog has seen some of those studies. One in five male inmates reports that he has been forced into sexual activity while in prison; about 10 percent say they have been raped. The Times editorial doesn't even mention prisoner rape (pity the paper didn't check its archives). Implementation of 2003's Prison Rape Elimination Act has been "slow" and "fraught with problems," says an update from Stop Prisoner Rape.

But The New York Times thinks it can solve the problem exacerbated by prison rape with condoms, just as Times columnist Nicholas Kristof thinks that condoms can solve the problems exacerbated by marital rape in Africa. Given that the Times has repeatedly reported that it's hard to get at-risk men in gay bars to use condoms, why does the paper think they'll be all the rage for rapists?

50 Shekel: the first Messianic Jewish rapper?
Coming soon to the cover of Relevant magazine? Media darling 50 Shekel made his mark as "the New King of Heeb-Hop" with his single "In Da Shul," a takeoff of 50 Cent's popular "In Da Club." His other songs, however, were not parodies. But is his conversion to Christianity and joining Jews for Jesus?

At first glance, it does look like a joke, a la Tool's Maynard James Keenan. On 50 Shekel's website, he's dressed in one of those Jesus T-shirts ...