Naked politics

If you want to put the kibosh on a successful fundraising campaign for an organization you don't like, just have an ex-exhibitionist infiltrate the group. From the New York Post: NAUGHTY FIRE 'EQUIPMENT' By PAULA FROELICH

August 4, 2007 -- Fire officials poured water yesterday on the wildly popular calendar featuring the department's hunkiest hunks after a video featuring this cover boy waving his God-given hose began making the rounds of gay porn sites.

"We will no longer be participating in this. There will be no more calendars," said FDNY spokesman Francis Gribbon.

The embarrassing video of 22-year-old firefighter Michael Biserta of Brooklyn's Ladder Co. 131 and his enormous member is featured in the 2004 Joe Francis-produced DVD "Guys Gone Wild."

The video clip began to circulate when Biserta appeared on the 2008 calendar that went on sale Tuesday. In the clip, the female camera operators goad Biserta to show them his fire pole. When they ask him to dance for them or get up on the bed, he refuses, but does agree to get in the hotel room's shower in the nude.

Officials said Biserta won't be disciplined because the video was made before he was hired. But officials at the department's fund-raising arm - the FDNY Foundation - said the decision to cancel the calendar was a huge disappointment, because at $15.99 a pop, it brought in on average $150,000 a year for them.

Good lord, is nudity so offensive to Americans that a fire department is willing to pay $150,000 a year not to be associated with it? I'm also guessing that the FDNY wouldn't have hired Biserta in the first place if they knew about his video, but it would be legally problematic to can him now. Maybe this is all a plot by Baby Boomers to hold onto their jobs into their 70s and 80s. If anyone who has ever been naked on the Internet is deemed unemployable, we're facing a huge labor shortage.