After making international headlines and despite a major facebook mistake and bad weather, approximately two-dozen ladies persevered and came out to Hampton Beach today to stand against the social stigma associated with women being topless in public.
Free State Project early mover Jessica Wardell traveled all the way from Henniker to join the topless ladies and their male supporters today and had this to say about the event, “It was lots of fun, there were about 20-30 girls participating, and I didn’t receive any negative criticism. Mostly people were curious about what was going on, and everyone that I talked to seemed to support the idea- especially when I brought up breast feeding.”
The event has already received coverage from the Daily Mail, which focused on the dozens of topless equality events taking place internationally, Reuters, Boston.com, NECN, as well as in Manchester’s Union Leader. Seacoast newspaper “Fosters” was dismissive of the event in their article, calling it “a bust” (yuk, yuk) and claiming only a dozen women came out. How many actually attended? Wardell claims 20-30 ladies in her estimate, with 40-50 additional supporters, including topless males. While more than 1,300 had claimed they were attending on the facebook event, facebook event attendance estimates are almost never close to the actual turnout. Many will indicate they are attending on facebook simply to show support for the event.
What day at the beach would be complete without sand boobies?
The ladies who set up the Hampton event, Kia Sinclair and Heidi Lilley, deserve a lot of credit for doing a great job promoting it and fielding media interviews in advance. Sadly, a major mistake was made early this morning when someone canceled the facebook event! The night prior, one of the admins posted a warning that they were going to cancel the facebook event this morning, but told people that did not mean the event was actually canceled. (Apparently, the FB event was canceled due to heavy trolling of the comments, however this could have been solved by only allowing admins to post.) Of course, only a fraction of the event attendees saw that post, so when the event was cancelled, EVERYONE on the event received a notice this morning from facebook saying the event was canceled with no explanation. This, in addition to the cold, rainy weather was likely a major contributing factor to the turnout. Two dozen topless ladies in bad weather actually seems really good, all things considered!
Organizer Kia Sinclair agreed, saying in a Free Keene-exclusive interview, “I am really happy about the turnout despite the weather. There were actually quite a few topless women around the beach at different times throughout the day. Because of the rain, a lot of women took shelter at the seashell stage. I will say that it was slightly intimidating being stared at and photographed by so many people. Its actually silly that just us being topless made so many people want to take pictures. If the weather was better I don’t think it would have been quite like that. But either way there were a lot of supporters despite the rain.”
Free State Project Early Mover Jessica Wardell, Graham Colson, and FSP Early Mover Matt Genack
Of course, all the mainstream media articles have been showing censored photos, or the ladies shot from behind, because the media are part of the problem. The social stigma against showing women topless runs deep, and mainstream media certainly won’t cross that taboo. Free Keene is not beholden to those rules. Share this article on social media at your own risk – you may get reported and banned for doing so. UPDATE: Facebook has targeted this article for censorship, so if you want to share it there, goto this link and hit “share” on it. That will share a version with a censored pic that uses Graham’s breasts to cover Jessica’s.
Longtime readers of Free Keene remember the controversial and short-lived “Topless Tuesdays” events from 2010. Many critics in the area still cite it as something they didn’t like that liberty activists have done. It’s relevant to point out that none of the females who participated in that were Free State Project participants. They were all townies.
Now, five years later, the topless equality movement has come again to New Hampshire, this time with over 1,100 saying (on Facebook) they will be attending “Free the Nipple” at Hampton Beach. (Who knows what the actual turnout will be.) The event is slated for all-day on Sunday 8/23. There is no specific meeting time or location besides Hampton Beach. This is an interesting approach and one of the event organizers comments on why on their facebook page:
“Even though there is no meeting spot, I have a feeling we will notice each other and make some new friends. I plan on walking around and I’ll gladly introduce myself, but I want to enjoy the beach as much as all of you! We don’t need a giant gathering or “spectacle.” Our goal is to just be normal about it. We want to show everyone that the breast and nipple can be seen without all hell breaking loose, traumatizing kids, giving old men heart attacks, or causing the apocalypse.”
Things are definitely getting interesting. Stay tuned to Free Keene for the latest on this social change in New Hampshire. Though people are legally free to be topless, there’s a large social stigma that needs to be broken. Thanks to the courageous ladies who will be participating in Sunday’s event, and especially to those who will eventually risk arrest in Laconia at an unknown date in the future.
In a move that shows the true nature of the state and regulations, the Manchester aldermen voted 10-3 recently to require UBER to obey their “Vehicles for Hire” ordinance which requires background checks, drug testing, and other bureaucratic nonsense. The lie of regulations is that they exist supposedly to protect you, the consumer. However, they actually just protect the established businesses in the given field. In this case, the old-guard cab companies are being protected from the innovative upstart. Regulations keep poor people poor, by making it near-impossible for them to go into business for themselves.
Despite the now possible threat of Manchester police targeting UBER drivers, heroically, UBER has announced they will continue to operate within Manchester and will likely give legal assistance to any drivers the city gang cites for violating the gang’s precious “code” (“Vehicles for Hire” is section 118). It looks like UBER is ready to go to court over this, as has been their tradition in other cities.
Of course, a free place to live would allow anyone to contract with anyone they like for a ride somewhere. The taxi companies should also be free of regulations, not just UBER. Allow the marketplace to come up with standards, if they are necessary. The cab companies will need to be free of regulatory burden to effectively compete against the nimble new competitor, UBER.
UBER’s argument, as I understand it, is they are not a taxicab company, for which all the regulations are written. UBER does not own any of the cars that its users end up riding in. UBER merely facilitates a smooth transaction between the rider and driver. It’s a matchmaking company. The next step, which may have even UBER worried, is to decentralize ride-sharing even further, to where no company is needed to make the connections between rider and driver. That actually is being worked on now, and it has a terrible name, LaZooz, but the technology is already here (and based in cryptocurrency like bitcoin) – it’s only a matter of time and software development, and participants.
For now though, UBER and other ridesharing competitors like Lyft, are innovating in a way that expands consumer choice, increases service available overall, drives down price, and rewards entrepreneurs. No wonder the city gang wants to stop them! They disrupt the current good ol’ boys network. (more…)
CBS4 in Denver is reporting a scheme between two TSA workers to allow one to sexually assault men during screening. The accomplice, a female, flagged the gender of the passenger as female, causing the machine to report an anomalous penis shaped object, and giving the male an opportunity to take his time “examining” said member with the palms of his hands. This happened at least 12 times. The scheme was uncovered when a supervisor observed the assault on the last victim. No complaints had been filed by the (at least) 11 other victims.
Let that sink in a moment.
Think about it.
The other 11 victims didn’t even know that they had been assaulted, because they somehow thought it appropriate for a government employee to touch them that way. That, to me is the most disturbing part of this case. They thought it was OK.
It is a metaphor for modern life.
Ordinary people go through their entire lives, getting raped by the government, and never even realizing that anything is wrong. They pay their taxes, and never ask who gave government a right to the fruits of their labor. They obey the morass of laws under which America staggers, as best they can, and never ask who gave government a right to control their lives. They watch their spouses and their friends and their children caged and crippled by the system, and never even consider rising up against it. They justify this by saying that the majority wills it, and never wonder what gives half of the population to impose its will on the other half.
Of course it goes without saying that no charges will be filed in this case.
Wake Up; That uncomfortable feeling you’re experiencing should be telling you something!
Local government bureaucrats in Keene are infringing on my right to bear arms.
In July I applied for a concealed carry license. One man, Ken Meola, denied it. I appealed, and this week the news came back: Judge Burke denied my appeal.
Judge Burke’s decision means that while it is perfectly legal for me to carry a firearm openly, it is a crime for me to conceal that firearm, for example by putting on a winter jacket.
The next step is to move on to the State Supreme Court. I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to do that, but I’ll give another update when I speak with my attorney.
I’m disappointed about this decision, but I’m not surprised. The State is a many-tentacled beast, and the different facets of it protect each other. First the legislators did their part by camouflaging a restriction as a right: they call NH “shall issue” but ultimately leave the power of permission to one man working for the police. Then the police did their part to deny my rights, essentially arguing that they are restricting my freedoms because I don’t respect them. Finally, appeals are made to lawyers who also work for the State.
![uber-app[1]](https://i0.wp.com/freekeene.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/uber-app1-300x146.jpg?resize=300%2C146)
