Hi Mark,

I smell a First Amendment lawsuit against the mall owners in the near future, and possibly some action by the tenants.

If the shirts had said something like "F*** SADDAM" or some such, the mall's action might have been justified. However, there's nothing on the items in question that could even remotely be deemed lewd or offensive; for that argument to succeed, they'd have to ban ANY shirt with ANY type of message, since what's acceptable to some patrons would be offensive to others.

Without that, here's what happens: I'm a Michigan fan, I own a mall, and I'm offended by anyone wearing Ohio State t-shirts, so if they don't take them off, my security force arrests them -- but they allow t-shirts from Florida, Kansas and Nebraska. How long do you think that would hold up in court? Not long, IMHO.

Private property notwithstanding, they must enforce their rules in a consistent, fair and equitable manner; it doesn't sound like they are doing so. If I were a tenant in that mall, I'd be *livid* right now, since this could negatively affect traffic in the mall and thereby my profits.

Where's JVP when we need him? (bg)

>..Whatever anyone's opinion about Iraq is, this goes way beyond reasonable thinking, IMO:
>
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=519&e=1&u=/ap/20030305/ap_on_re_us/mall_activists