Well, I have been asked for money for a latte before. And a friend of mine has an email signature, I live for the day schools have all the funding they need and the Pentagon has to have bake sales. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this. Actually, having lived here for so long I shouldn’t really be surprised at anything.

It appears that the US Department of Homeland Security, having exhausted the normal funding routes of bleeding taxpayers and selling the next few generations to China as indentured servants, is muscling in on territory normally occupied by organizations like the Cancer Society, the SPCA, and the Make-A-Wish foundation.

It’s holding “charity” fundraising galas.

Oscar Wilde would’ve been ecstatic at the juxtaposition of life and art at the Brooklyn Museum earlier this evening — and not just because it involved an abundance of luxury goods. As guests arrived for the opening of an exhibit celebrating the art of Takashi Murakami and his collaboration with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, they were greeted by an outdoor scene more common on Canal Street: logoed merchandise piled on tables or hung on metal pegs, graffiti-covered walls, stalls closed “by court order,” and persistent vendors promising “best quality” and “best price.” The difference? Those piles of LV Multicolore bags were real…

As real as my recognition of Das Unheimliche.

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