SDIF is back from it’s week-long, end of the semester related break. We’re still alive. How are you?

And, don’t worry, the White House apparently has that whole mysteriously losing e-mails thing under control.

Whew!

Slow posting again at the end of this week, as I am headed out to Ft. Wayne, IN to help out as the Brewcity Bruisers take on the Bomb Squad.

If you’re in the area, come on out!

Happy Weekending!

Sorry for the slow posting yesterday and today, but I’m headed out to Indianapolis, IN for the Brewcity Bruisers vs. Naptown Rollergirls bout (where I will be serving in an official capacity).

Look forward to Ben’s links later today!

Happy Weekending!

Apparently, blogging can kill you. (AT has some great coverage of the NYT article)

Not sd&if-style blogging, of course. We liken ourselves to the lazy river, as opposed to that four-story inner tube ride with the dark tunnel and the sheer drop where you’re constantly losing your swimming trunks.

No, folks, here at sd&if all nudity is voluntary.

Apologies for the slow posting yesterday/today. It’s Spring Break, even for graduate students. So I’m taking the rest of today off… sd&if will be back on track Monday!

To honor the weekend’s arrival, there’s this:

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticism of the sober hours. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no: drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. It is in fact the great exciter of the yes function in man.

-William James, from The Varieties of Religious Experience

Happy weekending!

Dear Readers -

I would like to take a moment to comment on Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s suspension of artist Wafaa Bilal’s interactive exhibition Virtual Jihadi.

The exhibit takes the form of a video game where Bilal, himself, is cast in the role of a suicide bomber working to hunt down President Bush in war-torn Iraq. The game is actually a hacked version of an Al-Qaeda online game, which itself is a reversal of the popular American game “Quest for Saddam.”

The entire concept raises many provocative questions regarding participation and cultural sensitization in a time of war. How have we, as Americans, through participatory media (online, or in the form of video games) shaped our own perceptions of Iraqis or the war? Who do we “become,” as participants in Bilal’s exhibit or its predecessors? What are we to learn from being asked to engage in such virtual experiences as this? Regardless of the answers, it is intellectual freedom that allows the artist to explore these concepts from a place that may, at times, be too visceral or challenging for some.

We at sd&if support Bilal’s history of provocative work and condemn RPI’s censorship of his exhibit. Yes, his work pushes boundaries and challenges socially-accepted standards. However, it should not be made inaccessible for those curious minds that approach such art earnestly and willingly, hoping to gain some insight into our shared human experience—an experience which, we forget, is all too fleeting. The travesties of war have no problem reminding us of that fact.

Please take a moment to visit Wafaa Bilal’s website and offer your support.

Sincerely,

Tony Hoffmann

Founder/Administrator

Hey readers.

I happen to be in Florida and won’t be posting today. Leave your cries of outrage in the comments.

Look forward to Ben’s Leap Year installment of With Us / Against Us later today!

Smooches,

Tony

sd&if is back from its brief holiday hibernation.

Oddly, the issues didn’t take a break like we did. Our e-mail inbox is swamped with IF alerts, notices, and controversies. And, as ‘08 begins to unfold, we have come to realize that, in 2007, we did not take occasion to cheekily refer to the year as “007″ often enough. Shame on us.

Anywell, we’ve got work to do. Happy New Year everyone!

My apologies for the slow posting this week.

It is finals time in the graduate school arena. My mental faculties are all tied up till next week.

Be back soon!

What is this blog? Or, more importantly, why is this blog?

sex drugs and intellectual freedom aims to collect, highlight, and bring attention to current freedom of expression issues in American media. Not that this is revolutionary or anything. Siva does it. ALA-OIF does it. We are, however, a good deal younger than the folks producing the content on those sites. While we hope to make these issues accessible to people of all ages, we are deliberately trying to engage other 20-somethings like ourselves.

Addressing these issues in media will, we suspect, often come to mean addressing “New Media” (digital resources, the internet, Web 2.0) but certainly will not exclude traditional forms like books and newspapers. We will also aim to consistently tie these issues into the worlds of music and art and education, because what happens in the legal (and often tedious) world of 1st Amendment rights impacts these disciplines, too. And, well, they’re usually just plain cooler to write about. Besides, you never know where freedom of expression issues might pop up. Bridge, anyone?

Oh, and for sure we won’t leave out the sex or the drugs either. Rock and roll may be dead, but we - as dynamic, expressive individual human beings - certainly are not.