After we have had a very understandable chuckle at Ashcroft (certainly not 
one of *my* favorite cabinet members), it might be good to take a peek at the 
following article to see how many nude paintings, etc. in public places have 
been removed in the time period before the current administration due the 
danger of them being misconstrued as "sexual harassment".  I doubt that the 
authors of this humorous poem are aware of this history.  Ashcroft was 
foolish in that he was *continuing* a stupid precident from past years, not 
being foolish on his own, although he is fully capable of that!
For example, from this article:
 http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel022502.shtml

"Vermont tends to consider itself a quite progressive state — but the state 
government was years ahead of John Ashcroft in covering up works of art. In 
1993, female employees in a state office building complained that they were 
being sexually harassed by a mural of Christopher Columbus arriving in the 
New World, because the painting depicted native women without shirts. State 
officials hung bedsheets over the harassing mural. "

Read the whole article - lots of examples - stupid, all of them!  And for 
those of us who have supported women who have been harassed for breastfeeding 
in public, primarily by *women*, it should not surprise us that many of the 
complaints about nude paintings, statues have come from women.

Ruth Scuderi, IBCLC
Westfield, MA

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html