They should be, since even LaRose herself pointed out the obvious. "On the Internet, she allegedly boasted that her appearance and nationality would allow her to travel freely and without scrutiny as she went about her mission," writes The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson. As Patrick Smith has written in his "Ask the Pilot" column something like five billion times since September 11, 2001, the greatest weapon those 19 al-Qaeda members had going for them was not box-cutters but the element of surprise. That was also what made pregnant Irish woman Anne-Marie Murphy seem like a good choice to (unwittingly) carry a bomb onto an El-Al plane for her boyfriend in 1986. Obviously, it's not that hard for terrorist organizations to recruit someone who looks nothing like the men Newt Gingrich thinks should be "actively discriminated against" -- so what do you suppose their next strategy would be if racial profiling became official policy? (Or probably already is, given the unofficial discrimination happening at airports all over the place.)

And the idea that we all know what a terrorist looks like is dangerous not only because it means people like LaRose might teach us the hard way that we don't, or because it puts innocent people at risk of tragic overreactions by authority figures, but because it reinforces the idea that "terrorism" is only committed by one kind of person. Colleen LaRose is nothing but the latest in a long line of white American terrorists: Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, Shelley Shannon, Eric Rudolph, Bruce Ivins, Scott Roeder, James von Brunn, Andrew Stack III -- the list goes on. This country is crawling with hate groups and disturbed loners with axes to grind, many of whom share a race and at least loosely a religion, but somehow, you never hear calls for increased scrutiny of white people or Christians. You never hear anyone suggest those groups should be expected to give up their rights, privacy and dignity for the good of us all.

Nor should anyone suggest that, since it would undoubtedly lead to -- get this -- wasted law enforcement resources, harassment of innocent people and missed opportunities to catch criminals who don't fit the profile. If all "looking like a terrorist" means is that you share a race with someone who's committed an act of terrorism, then guess what, every single American qualifies. So even if you believe racial profiling is appropriate, the only logical move is to treat us all as equally suspicious.

"The basic definition of child pornography is a photo or a film of a child under 18 engaging in sexual conduct," Adler explains. "Sexual conduct can mean a range of things, including actual sex acts but it also means lascivious exhibition of the genitals. That in turn is a standard that is open to interpretation by courts and has been interpreted broadly at times." It's easy to see how such mounting legal jargon could quickly magnify even a marginally sexual scene involving someone underage into kiddie smut. "There have been numerous examples where the term 'lascivious exhibition' has been applied to pictures that were sexual but in which the children were wearing clothes," she says. "Without an overt sex act, without nudity, those cases usually involve marketing to pedophiles, not mainstream Hollywood movies." There are always exceptions, though, seeing as child porn law is rather "amorphous." Jeffrey Douglas, a criminal defense attorney, puts it in more basic terms: "A 15-year-old is deemed by the law incapable of consenting [to being touched sexually] and therefore [the filmmakers] can't allow it."

You might recall the controversy over a brief rape scene in another Fanning movie, "Hounddog," shot when she was just 12 years old. She didn't get naked, she wasn't shown naked on-screen, but some still deemed it child pornography and petitioned to have the actress's mother and agent arrested for allowing her to appear in the disturbing scene. The filmmakers and Fanning's guardians avoided criminal charges, but nonetheless had to weather a storm of bad press. The public reaction to "The Runaways" kiss is, unsurprisingly, very different: Not only is Fanning three years older (in a growth period where three years makes a vast difference), but the scene at issue doesn't feature a rape. Plus, it's girl-on-girl canoodling, which is generally seen as playful and nonthreatening; we tend not to see the same potential for corruption and harm.

Still, there is public perception and then there is child porn law -- and the two are not always in sync. As Adler says, the studio was smart to play it safe.

Well, here's the positive spin: The teacher clearly has a future in stand-up comedy, because, told in a Janeane Garofalo deadpan, that is one guffaw-worthy line. As with most good comedy, though, it's funny because it hits on a raw reality: The recession has so many feeling profoundly hopeless -- and for women, true economic desperation often means selling our bodies in one way or another. Just last night, my roommate was mulling how she could possibly make ends meet while going to grad school in New York and I said dryly: "There's always prostitution." Much as I'm a rabid defender of sex work as a valid and respectable profession, the truth is that for most it's a last resort; and selling your eggs for money -- as opposed to doing it for altruistic reasons -- can be a similarly physical and emotional sacrifice. I can't count the number of times in the past year or so that I've heard my financially-strapped female friends toss off the same sort of sarcastic quip, and sometimes I haven't been entirely sure they were joking.

Maybe this teacher was merely joking, maybe not, but I think high school students are fully capable of processing the bleak reality that brought about their teacher's outburst. Talk about a teachable moment.

The mini epic, directed by "Paparazzi" helmer Jonas Åkerlund, opens with the Lady getting tossed into the world's most haute couture pokey and stripped down – leading the guards to declare decisively to any doubters still out there, "See? I told you she didn't have a dick." And then Beyonce shows up, and things get really weird.

There's a "Thelma and Louise" by way of "Natural Born Killers" storyline, lesbianism, incredibly catchy dance hooks, buckets of T & A, and some of the most relentless branding you've ever seen. Stop callin' on my VIRGIN MOBILE telephone, bitch! And, for that matter, using Diet Coke cans for curlers and surfing Plentyoffish.com on your HP laptop and taking pictures with your Polaroid, yo! The less than subliminal messages are distracting as hell, but those prison yard opuses don't pay for themselves, I guess. And in the age of DVR, how else are companies supposed to shove their products at us? So my giant, pushbutton festooned hat is off to the genius at Kraft who first saw the possibility of synergy between Lady Gaga and Miracle Whip. Has your mom's favorite sandwich spread ever seemed so alluringly dangerous?  Doubtful. Does it give a sudden craving for tuna salad on Wonder Bread? You tell me.

The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act would make it illegal to "solicit," "coerce" or perform abortions "based in any way on account of the race, color, or sex of the unborn child or the race or color of either parent of that child." In other words: It would make it illegal for women to terminate a pregnancy based on the race or sex of their fetus, and it would outlaw anyone, namely medical providers, from persuading women to abort based on the race or sex of their fetus. In either case, though, doctors would be the ones punished, potentially serving up to ten years in prison if found guilty.

Roger Evans, Planned Parenthood's senior director for litigation and law, told me over the phone that his main objection is to "the notion that the government has a role in deciding what are fair reasons and unfair reasons for a woman to have an abortion." First it's race and sex -- but what next? On a more practical level, though, the bill "makes it exceedingly difficult for physicians or counselors to talk with women who have concerns or ambivalence about what to do," he explains. "If [the patient] mentions the prohibited subject, it puts doctors in the position of saying, 'I can't talk to you about what you're thinking'" -- not to mention the position of refusing to perform an abortion on that patient for fear of being thrown in prison.

At its core, the measure is "a proscription on open communication between doctor and patient." The flip side of that, however, is that it potentially puts pressure on doctors to cross-examine their patients so as to be sure a woman's decision to abort isn't motivated by sex or race. (And how could one ever be sure?) It also seems very likely that the bill would make pro-choice activists wary of doing outreach services in minority communities -- for fear of it being construed as "soliciting" abortions based on race -- and make abortion providers cautious about serving women of color.

It's important to look at this measure within the context of a recent push to reframe the abortion debate as a battle over racial discrimination. Last week, I wrote about how the Endangered Species Project, which is backed in part by Georgia Right to Life, alleges a "black genocide" at the hands of Planned Parenthood and uses African-American babies as anti-abortion propaganda. Both the bill and the ad campaign are built on the same false premise: That the higher abortion rate in the African-American community is the result of a racist conspiracy by medical providers and pro-choice activists (as opposed to, say, the end result of social manifestations of racism -- like poor healthcare and sex education -- which Planned Parenthood actually works to address). The only evidence they have offered up of such a conspiracy has been thoroughly debunked. 

There is no concerted effort by abortion providers to find pregnant black women to pressure into having an abortion. In fact, there is no concerted effort by providers to find pregnant women of any race to pressure into having an abortion. (Must I once again mention that the vast majority of Planned Parenthood's reproductive services are preventive?) The presumption of a need for this measure in the first place is based on anti-abortion mythology. If it becomes law, though, it sounds like a different kind of racial discrimination -- one that deprives minorities of equal access to reproductive services -- just might become a reality.