Private Property

Blogger Eric is peeved that a mall exercised their rights as property owners.

From my perspective as an audience member, I did not interpret the shirts as something political aside from it being an indicator at best that they probably didn't vote for the guy.

However wearing a t-shirt with the President's face and a euro 'no' symbol can't be seen as anything but political. Now .. Millard Fillmore with a euro 'no' symbol ... that would be non-political. And funny.

I spoke with one of the security guards standing nearby who while summarizing the situation mentioned that there would have been no issue with song lyrics as a matter of free speech but yet they claim the right as proprietors to intervene because of an image on a t-shirt, which could be sold in any of the stores in the mall.

This is not a matter of art and freedom, it's a private property concern. Whatever - the email that was kindly sent by Dave Farber to his IP list from Eric said in part

i ask that you forward this email to all friends that would want to know of this story particularly to those in support of the arts and freedom

And so I have. I'd only tell Eric that punctuation and proper capitalization are your friends. Which is, coming from me, a pot-kettle thing I know.

Update - you can't comment on the linked page above, but you can comment (on Eric's blog) here.