Naked City

Shopper Naomi Lloyd has her eye on one of these handsome light fixtures at the Blue Genie Art Bazaar, an annual holiday gift-buying opportunity that runs through Christmas Eve at the Marchesa Hall & Theatre at Lincoln Village. (Photo by Jana Birchum)

• AAAC Says 'No Scanners' At its Dec. 14 meeting, the Austin Airport Advisory Commission voted 5-0 to recommend that City Council "oppose the installation of AITs" (advanced imaging technology, aka "body scanners") at Austin-Berg­strom International Airport, and also "oppose the practice of invasive body searching." Though City Council has no authority over airline security at ABIA, the commission recommended that it communicate its opposition to the Trans­portation Secur­ity Admin­istration and other federal authorities. The AAAC resolution cites nine reasons for opposing scanners: 1) insufficiently reviewed health risks, 2) potential privacy rights violations (especially for vulnerable persons), 3) airports using them have been ridiculed, 4) increase in security delays, 5) potential ineffectiveness, 6) possible violation of the Fourth Amendment, 7) city liability, 8) scanners have been tried and abandoned by other countries, and 9) other security methods (unspecified) are as effective. Not all cited reasons are equally coherent or precise, but they run the gamut of public complaints about the scanners, anticipated for installation in ABIA some time next year. In particular, the reasoning behind No. 3 – the fear of "derision, ridicule, [and] embarrassment" to policymakers or managers – would pretty much prohibit all official action of any kind. – Michael King

• Not Just Any Old Celebration The city of Austin has announced its version of the First Night New Year's Eve celebration – and it will be over well before the bell tolls midnight. After First Night's organizers announced in September that they were taking 2010 off due to a lack of sponsors, City Manager Marc Ott stepped into the breach and declared that the city would ring in the new year for them. Redubbed ANY (short for Austin's New Year), the celebration will be paid for out of the $50,000 set aside as the city's contribution to First Night. For context, the first First Night Austin, held in 2005, cost $430,000; organizers had estimated that this year would take at least $250,000 (see "First Night Austin," The Arts, Oct. 8). The scaled-back ANY shindig will kick off at 5pm at Auditorium Shores, with performers including 2010 Austin Music Award winners Mother Falcon and First Night regulars Austin Bike Zoo. It'll wrap up at 10:30pm after a fireworks display. Rumors that this will involve Ott running around Town Lake with sparklers in each hand have not been confirmed. – Richard Whittaker

• RAdio Radio Over the weekend, the U.S. House and Senate approved the Local Community Radio Act – mandating the Federal Communications Commission to license thousands of new low-power (100 watt, noncommercial) FM stations. The law, when signed by President Obama, will repeal legislation that limited most LPFM stations to rural areas as large broadcasters claimed signal interference. Austin community radio activist Jim Ellinger lobbied hard in support of the bill – helping to persuade Sen. John Cornyn's office to eliminate a "hold" – and the nonprofit Prometheus Radio Project called it "the first major legislative success for the growing movement for a more democratic media system in the U.S." – M.K.

• Silent Night To virtually no mainstream media coverage, sev­er­al hundred protesters rallied outside the White House Dec. 15 opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; 131 were arrested when they blocked a White House sidewalk or chained themselves to a White House fence. The demonstration was led by Veterans for Peace; among those arrested were "Pentagon Papers" whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, former New York Times foreign correspondent and author Chris Hedges, and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. Said Hedges, "The normal mechanisms by which democratic participation are rendered possible in this country have been closed shut, and if we don't do this, we die." – M.K.