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So it turns out that the porn flick that state legislators managed to get banned from the University of Maryland College Park has been playing on college campuses across the country.
And it turns out that the reason it’s been playing on college campuses across the country is that the movie’s distributors have been giving it away to campus groups for free.
And it turns out that the reason they’ve been giving it away for free is that they’re trying to build some buzz around their product at a time when the porn industry is suffering huge losses.
Nice work, doofuses. You just gave a bunch of pornographers a bunch of free press, and the revenue that goes with it.
Sunday update: The Student Power Party, a slate of candidates in UMD’s upcoming student government elections, is planning to screen the film and host a free speech forum tomorrow night.
A student programming committee’s decision to show the porn film Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge in the University of Maryland College Park student union this weekend has been overruled by the university’s president.
UM President C.D. Mote Jr. took the action after Maryland state legislators raised the possibility of cutting state funding to the institution.
Republican state senator Andrew Harris proposed amending the state budget to cut off funding to any college or university that screened an adult film other than as part of coursework, and senate president Thomas Miller indicated that he would support such an amendment. “That’s really not what Maryland residents send their young students to college campus for, to view pornography,” he said.
The college’s vice president for student affairs, Linda Clement, said the decision to cancel the screening wasn’t made on any one basis. “People were concerned about portrayal of women, concerned about violence, concerned about our students and decision-making processes,” she said. “It just seemed like the best thing to do.”
Discussion of the issue in the legislature was halted several times this morning as student groups on class trips filed through the senate chamber. “If you kids are wondering what we’re doing, we’re waiting for you to leave the room,” Miller said at one point. “We’re going to talk about some bad stuff.”
Update: Big shock — the legislators got played for fools by the movie’s distributors.
“If you want to try for those young voters, first of all, you’ve got to stand for something, because one of the things that stands out with a young voter is originality.”
That was South Carolina governor Mark Sanford right after the 2008 presidential election. Today, in a move that is widely seen as positioning himself for a run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, he’s saying he’ll turn down $700 million dollars in federal education funding for his state.
Sanford says the government should be paying down debt, not running up new bills, but his refusal of the stimulus money only makes sense as a symbolic gesture … and it’s an odd one. The stimulus money has been allocated. It’s not going back into the general fund. If South Carolina doesn’t accept its share, it’ll go somewhere else — California’s Governor Schwarzenegger has already said he’ll be happy to take it.
And as Senator Lindsay Graham — a South Carolina Republican, and no fan of the stimulus — has noted, South Carolinians will footing their share of the bill for this expenditure, whether any of it returns to the state or not.
So Sanford’s approach is definitely original. He’s the only governor planning to refuse the education money. It’s an approach that’s getting a lot of attention among conservative activists. But his position is costing him support at home — his favorability rating in South Carolina now stands at 40%, nine points below President Obama. And it’s hard to see it doing him much good with young voters in 2012 — in the primary or the general election.
More than a thousand teachers and students marched on the South Carolina state house yesterday, with a simple message: “Take the money.”
Sanford has until midnight tomorrow to listen.
Below are the lyrics to “Kim Il Sung,” a tribute to the North Korean dictator. The song was printed in the Weatherman Songbook in 1969, and was intended to be sung to the tune of “Maria” from West Side Story.
The most beautiful sound I ever heard
Kim Il Sung
The most beautiful sound in all the world
Kim Il Sung
Kim Il Sung, Kim Il Sung, Kim Il Sung
Kim Il Sung, Kim Il Sung, Kim Il Sung
Kim Il Sung
I’ve just met a Marxist-Leninist named Kim Il Sung
And suddenly his line
Seems so correct and fine
To me
Kim Il Sung
Say it soft and there’s rice fields flowing
Say it loud and there’s people’s war growing
Kim Il Sung
I’ll never stop saying Kim Il Sung
And surely now Korea
Will forever more be a
Socialist country
Korea
Say it sneaky and the Pueblo is taken
Say it bold and the imperialists are quakin’
Korea
I’ll never stop saying Korea
Here’s another great resource — the National Coalition Against Censorship.
We’ve linked to their blog in our sidebar, but feel free to poke around their main site, too.They’ve got lots of stuff going on, including various projects run through their Youth Free Expression Network.
studentactivism.net 
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