It should have been a routine traffic stop, but less than 10 minutes later, Gammage was dead.

Now, 15 years later, Attilio Favorini, the founding chair of Pitt’s Department of Theatre Arts, the Pitt Repertory Theatre and the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, are staging Favorini’s play, “The Gammage Project,” to illuminate the events surrounding the man’s death.

The play debuted Thursday at the Henry Heymann Theatre and will run through Feb. 19, with additional performances held from March 2 to 4 at the August Wilson Center. Tickets run from $12 to $25. After each performance — except opening night — there will be a talk back, during which audience members can speak with some of the real people depicted in the play.

Pitt administration of justice professor Wayne Babish was Brentwood’s chief of police at the time of Gammage’s death and said he still carries the guilt of the affair.

“This was a guy that died while I was police chief,” Babish said. “That’s something I’ve had to live with every day since.”

Babish will attend the talk back sessions on Feb. 12 and Feb. 15.

Brentwood police Lt. Milton Mulholland pulled Gammage over and was joined by four white officers from three jurisdictions. The circumstances surrounding why Gammage was pulled over remain a source of controversy, but at the time, nobody had reason to think it would be anything more than a routine traffic stop.

Each officer told variations of the event at the coroner’s inquest, the only legal proceeding for which they were required to testify. There are different versions of why Gammage was pulled over. His registration was expired, but that would have been hard to see. He might have been driving erratically, but no one will ever know for sure because there were no cameras.

What’s certain is this: After pulling Gammage over as part of a routine traffic stop, officers asked him to step out of the car, and a struggle ensued. After minutes of struggling, five officers brought Gammage down to pavement from which he would never rise.

The coroner said Gammage died of positional asphyxia, or suffocation caused by pressure the officers placed on his back and neck while he was in the face-down position.

Favorini said he’d wanted to write the play, which he dubbed a docu-drama, from the moment the case occurred.

Between 80 and 85 percent of the play is made up of what Favorini called “found dialogue,” carved out of quotes from newspaper articles, interviews he conducted and 8,000 pages of court transcripts. The research and writing took Favorini more than two years to complete.

He said the challenge was to “boil it down into something that could be dramatic and somehow capture all of the complexities of the story.”

The playwright made no pretense at objectivity, calling it “a kind of myth that we construct.” Instead, he said he “tried to let the facts take [him] where they wanted to.”

Babish said he has “complete faith in what [Favorini’s] doing and how he’s going about it. I have no doubt that it’s authentic and as accurate as he is able to make it.”

Gammage had no criminal record and had been president of the gospel choir at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Trace amounts of alcohol were found in his blood and toxicology reports did not indicate drug use.

Both Favorini and Brett Caffier, who plays three characters in the production, said Gammage had been guilty of just one thing: driving while black.

Mulholland and two other officers, Michael Albert and John Vojtas, faced charges of involuntary manslaughter.

Sgt. Keith Henderson, another involved officer, was not indicted and appeared to be the prosecution’s best witness based on his testimony at the coroner’s inquest. Favorini said things changed when Henderson refused to repeat his statements — which could have been damning to the officers in open court.

The abrupt turnaround is an example of what Babish called the “thin blue line,” a mentality pervasive among police that they must back fellow officers regardless of the facts.

Babish said he refused to play along. He testified and spoke openly about the incident and was forced to resign as a result. He said that he was forced to step down because the borough council thought he wasn’t doing enough to protect his officers and brought undue attention to Brentwood by speaking with the media. Babish confirmed that his role as police chief was to protect people, not other officers.

“I’m not going to jail for them. I’m not going to lie for anybody. I don’t care where it falls,” he said. “That’s what happens when you take on a leadership role. You’re either going to be a leader, or you’re going to go along with the easy way, and that’s to try to put a spin on things or provide false information.”

Vojtas was acquitted by an all-white jury in 1996, was promoted the following year and remains on the force to this day.

Mulholland and Albert were subject to two mistrials. The second jury was made up of 11 whites and a single black juror. The black juror was the lone holdout preventing acquittal, but he was no Henry Fonda and these no “12 Angry Men.” The case ended in deadlock, and a judge ruled the officers could not be tried a third time.

Babish said he holds no grudges because the termination opened the door to his teaching career. He credited his supervisor, professor Lee Weinberg, for giving him the opportunity.

“When he offered me this job, he felt that that’s why I should teach our students. I should teach them right from wrong and the way to become a leader and a good manager,” he said.

Gammage’s death brought unprecedented change. Babish said that police forces nationwide are now trained to place handcuffed suspects in a sitting or standing position to avoid asphyxia.

Additionally, the Department of Justice launched an investigation that led to the city signing a five-year consent decree mandating federal oversight of the training and discipline of its police in 1997. A referendum to create the Citizens Police Review Board in Pittsburgh was passed the same year. The agency investigates complaints of police misconduct. Babish praised the work, saying he hopes to see new legislation to give the Board more legal authority.

Favorini noted that while progress has been made, it is “beginning to erode before our eyes,” pointing to a 2010 case in which three white police officers severely beat a black teenager, Jordan Miles. Babish and Caffier echoed the sentiment, noting the expanded police authority following Sept. 11 and the events of the 2009 G-20 Summit respectively.

“Once the person’s gone, it’s up to us to make sense of it. We can either let it affect our lives, we can let it change something in society, or we can pick up the rug and shove it under, and I think for a while people didn’t want to shove it under the rug anymore,” Favorini said.

Favorini said he hopes his play will make people remember.

“You can’t change history, you can’t bring Jonny Gammage back to life,” he said. “So all you can do is change people’s minds.”

On Thursday, the Richard King Mellon Foundation awarded the grant to Pitt, which will be payable over three years, in order to create a strong center for energy research and development in the surrounding Pittsburgh area.

“The level of our investment reflects our confidence in the academic and administrative leadership of the University,” said Scott Izzo, director of the Richard King Mellon Foundation, in a press release. “The center has tremendous potential to make an impact in Pittsburgh, as energy will be the major driver of our regional economy for years to come.”

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg thanked the foundation for its grant and expressed hope that this money will help attract talented new staff and students to the Center for Energy in Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, which was created in 2008.

“With this historic gift … we now are positioned to more quickly … reach ever-higher levels of impact and stature for both our center for energy and for the region,” he said.

Gerald Holder, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering, further outlined the school’s goals for the grant. He said it is the “most critical investment for our energy plan” and described areas the school plans to improve, including research in advanced material, energy delivery and reliability, carbon management and utilisation, direct energy conversion, unconventional gas resources and workforce development.

Nordenberg pointed to Pitt alumni in attendance like John Swanson, after whom the engineering school is named, to illustrate Pitt’s role in training highly skilled engineers who contribute to the regional and national economy. Since 1997, Pitt’s school of engineering has increased its number of graduates by 75 percent.

At the conference, Nordenberg also took time to address the recent state budget cut proposals that will soon affect Pitt, refuting claims that grants such as this are evidence that Pitt does not need government money.

“We really are in it together,” Nordenberg said, “This [funding cut] is a long-term bad strategy for the region … or short-term, as the case may be.”

As Ashton Gibbs, Travon Woodall and the rest of the team endured a brutal 63-51 defeat at the hands of South Florida Wednesday night that snapped their four-game winning streak, the Seton Hall Pirates topped Rutgers to halt a devastating six-game losing streak.

Fortunately for the Panthers, Seton Hall — a team they will face on the road at noon on Sunday — doesn’t bear much of a resemblance to the South Florida team that terrorized them on the interior Wednesday night.

Unlike the South Florida Bulls, Seton Hall only has one player with size, athleticism and experience down low: Western Pennsylvania native Herb Pope.

Pope, who played high school ball about 45 minutes north of Pittsburgh at Aliquippa High School, is averaging a double-double with 15.9 points and 10.2 rebounds per game.

The big man, who transferred to Seton Hall after spending his freshman year at New Mexico State, shoots 48 percent from the field. When Pope doesn’t play or scores less than 10 points, the Pirates are just 1-5.

Point guard Jordan Theodore is the other half of the Pirates’ dynamic senior duo. Theodore scored 24 points in Seton Hall’s 59-54 win over cross-state rival Rutgers. He is second on the team in scoring, averaging 15.4 points per game. He also leads the team with 6.8 assists per contest, good for second in the Big East.

But for as much star power as the Pirates bring to the table, they lack depth and experience. Head coach Kevin Willard — the son of former Pitt coach Ralph Willard — played each of his starters, including two true freshmen, for more than 30 minutes on Wednesday. The only reserve who earned more than 10 minutes of action was sophomore forward Patrik Auda.

Freshmen guards Haralds Karlis and Freddie Wilson also saw time off the bench.

Though Pitt has struggled on the road this year, winning just one of six matchups away from the Petersen Events Center, the good news for the Panthers is that they are 5-1 against the Pirates in their previous six meetings. Pitt cruised to an easy 74-53 win over Seton Hall at home last season, but fell to the Pirates 64-61 the last time the teams met in New Jersey in 2010.

One thing is for certain: this Pitt team is not like Pitt teams of the past. The way the Panthers have played at times this year is a far cry from the Jamie Dixon-coached squad that took the floor just last season.

Gilbert Brown, who started at small forward for last year’s club that won the Big East regular season championship, isn’t quite sure what the difference is between that team and the current team that is struggling to keep its head above water in the conference.

“I think it’s just the simple fact that, the way we competed, there were never games when we lost by 20 or more. We were always better than that,” Brown said. “There were guys that were on that team with us that are on this current team that just haven’t shown [that mentality].”

While the 2011-12 Panthers have only lost one game this season by more than 20 points, if their wildly inconsistent play continues, they risk falling to 4-9 in Big East play when they take on Seton Hall this weekend.

At this point, with an overall record of 15-10 and the nationwide race for a spot in the NCAA Tournament heating up, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call Sunday’s game a “must-win” for the Panthers.

The Panthers have had a week off since their last game — a 72-48 loss to Marquette — to reflect on their poor form. Pitt hasn’t won a game in 2012 and while a few games have been competitive, the majority of the Panthers’ losses haven’t been close. Pitt’s average margin of defeat during the losing streak has been 22 points.

With the postseason out of the question, the team’s goal is simple: compete.

“We want to just try to win the rest of our games,” Pitt guard Ashlee Anderson said. “We’re going to compete the rest of the season and then go into the Big East tournament like ‘Let’s come in here and shock some people.’”

Pitt hopes a road game win against Cincinnati (12-12, 3-8 Big East) on Saturday will help solve some of the team’s issues.

The Panthers should find some confidence from Cincinnati’s home record in Big East play. The Bearcats have lost all five of their games at home but are coming off a 60-56 win over Providence on the road.

Cincinnati is led by two guards: redshirt sophomore Dayeesha Hollins and senior Bjonee Reaves, who average 16.6 and 12.9 points, respectively.

The Panthers will continue to be short on depth as the prognosis on sophomore Asia Logan’s shoulder injury is grim.

As of Wednesday, Pitt head coach Agnus Berenato said Logan, who didn’t play Saturday at Marquette, hadn’t been cleared to practice since the injury on Jan. 31 and won’t see time in Cincinnati. She’s listed as day-to-day, and Berenato said she believes Logan will be out for the season.

While Pitt’s players said they believe they are playing solid defense, Pitt leads the Big East in points allowed at 70.1 per game. Berenato said that the team’s inability to convert offensively negatively affects its defense.

“If you make a shot you’re able to go ahead and get in a press,” she said. “I think defensively we just have to start doing more full-court defense off of missed shots so we slow down their offensive attack.”

Berenato described the team’s recent offensive output as “really disappointing.” She added that she’s a big believer in the truism “he who hesitates is lost.” Her Pitt team has been hesitating on offense lately.

“When you lose games and miss shots, it plays tricks on you,” she said. “You question yourself. ‘Should I take it? Shouldn’t take it?’”

She said that the Panthers have used scrimmages with male practice players and competitive shooting drills in order to work on their offense.

Freshman point guard Brianna Kiesel said the team plays its best in transition, so making the most of fast break opportunities is crucial.

“We have to get easy transition buckets,” Kiesel said. “We get in transition, and it helps us a lot … It opens everything up. Our shots aren’t usually open. They’re contested because we don’t penetrate as much as we should.”

Anderson said she isn’t worried that the team’s poor performance this year will have a negative impact in the future.

“It just makes you more focused and more determined to get better in the offseason because you know that you have to get better or you’re gonna have the same results as years previous,” Anderson said.

Pitt’s disappointing loss at South Florida on Wednesday not only ended the Panthers’ four-game winning streak, but the defeat also keeps Pitt out of the top half of my Big East standings.

Meanwhile, at the front of the pack, a familiar squad remains on top, but there’s an anxious group of teams looking to narrow the gap on the leaders.

My weekly power rankings of all 16 teams in the conference lay out which teams are trending upward and which teams are falling into the Big East abyss.

1. Syracuse — It took overtime on Wednesday night, but the Orange (24-1, 11-1 Big East) solidified their position at the top of the Big East standings with a hard-fought victory over Georgetown. With Fab Melo’s academic issues resolved and the star sophomore center back in the lineup, Syracuse is set to coast through its remaining six conference games and clinch the Big East regular season title, as well as No. 1 seeds in both the Big East Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.
2. Notre Dame — The Fighting Irish (16-8, 8-3 Big East) handed Syracuse its only conference loss and are currently riding an impressive five-game winning streak, so Notre Dame might be the only team in the Big East that can catch the Orange. Two more tough wins this week over Marquette and West Virginia legitimized Notre Dame as a contender in the conference, which is all the more impressive when you consider the Irish have played the majority of this season without their best player and leading scorer Tim Abromaitis.

3. Marquette — The Irish’s victory over Marquette this week finally ended the Golden Eagles’ (19-4, 9-3 Big East) seven-game winning streak. However, thanks to senior guard Darius Johnson-Odom’s 23 points, head coach Buzz Williams’ team didn’t take long to get back in the win column. Marquette fans hope that Monday night’s solid, double-digit-victory at DePaul will be the beginning of a new winning streak for their team.
4. Georgetown — The Hoyas (18-5, 8-4 Big East) concluded a nearly perfect week with an upset victory at Syracuse on Wednesday night. A dominating 30-point win against South Florida made a statement to the rest of the Big East that Georgetown has enough talent to win big, but the overtime defeat to the Orange robbed the Hoyas of a much-needed signature win. With four straight games against opponents at the bottom of the conference standings coming up on the schedule, Georgetown should have no trouble rebounding from the disappointment.

5. Louisville — As another team quickly climbing up the Big East standings, the Cardinals’ (19-5, 7-4 Big East) dominating performances in their current five-game winning streak have the rest of the conference on alert. Head coach Rick Pitino’s teams are known for being late bloomers, and if Louisville can continue playing as well as it has over the past three weeks, the Cardinals could make a lot of noise in the conference and nationally down the stretch.

6. Cincinnati — Victories over DePaul and St. John’s were just what the Bearcats (17-7, 7-4 Big East) needed this week to recover from a three-game losing streak. Cincinnati’s inconsistencies stem from the team’s tendency to live and die by the 3-point shot, but with a quality center like Yancy Gates and tough tests still on the schedule against Marquette and Louisville, the Bearcats will have several opportunities to prove to everyone that they aren’t a one-dimensional team.

7. South Florida — It was hard not to be impressed with the Bulls’ (14-10, 7-4 Big East) dominating defensive performance in Wednesday’s victory over Pitt. South Florida entered the crucial contest as the Big East’s second-best defensive team statistically, and it certainly validated that statistic at the Panthers’ expense. If the Bulls continue to play such suffocating defense and protect their home court, they will find themselves in the NCAA Tournament.

8. West Virginia — An overtime victory at Providence couldn’t help the Mountaineers (16-9, 6-6 Big East) out of their current slump, as proven by a disappointing home loss to Notre Dame on Wednesday night. WVU — even with probable Big East Player of the Year Kevin Jones in the lineup — has now lost four of its last five games — and the schedule won’t get easier any time soon. If the Mountaineers lose to Louisville on Saturday, this could be the last week they spend in the top half of my standings.

The bottom half of the Big East definitely isn’t up to par with the typical depth the conference has shown over the past few seasons. Seton Hall (9) ended its six-game losing skid with a win at Rutgers Wednesday, while Pitt (10) suffered a momentum-killing defeat in South Florida. Defending national champion Connecticut (11) needs to get out of a slump just to make the NCAA Tournament this year. Finally, it looks like the Big East Tournament will be where Rutgers (12), Villanova (13), St. John’s (14), DePaul (15) and Providence (16) will have their last chances to make the Big Dance.

But the Oklahoma City Thunder avoided all of those questions. Despite no organized practice during the lockout, the Thunder’s players knew they only needed to do one thing in the upcoming season: win.

It’s rare — and dangerous for opponents — when a team can focus solely on winning due to a lack of off-the-court issues. If the lockout had never occurred, the Thunder and their prospects for the new season would arguably have been the story of the NBA offseason.

Oklahoma City enjoys luxuries that few teams in the league share. General Manager Sam Presti built the team through the NBA Draft, shrewd trades and free agent signings. The Thunder technically began in 2007, when the franchise resided in Seattle and went by the Sonics.

Presti put the future in motion when he drafted Texas forward Kevin Durant with the second overall draft pick in the 2007 NBA Draft. Durant led the league in scoring the past two seasons, and is currently averaging 27.3 points per game through the Thunder’s 25 games.

Prior to the 2010-11 NBA season, Durant accepted an extension to his contract for five years and roughly $86 million.

That year, Presti also acquired Georgetown forward Jeff Green in a draft-day trade with the Boston Celtics. Last season, Presti traded Green to the Boston Celtics for their starting center Kendrick Perkins, filling a hole at the center position.

In the 2008 draft, Seattle drafted UCLA point guard Russell Westbrook with the fourth overall pick. In his rookie season, Westbrook made an immediate impact, scoring 15.3 points per game and handing out 5.3 assists per game. Westbrook played in all 82 games his first season and started 64 of them.

This season, Westbrook leads the team with 5.9 assists per game and backs Durant as the second-leading scorer with 22.3 points per game. Westbrook also plays well defensively, using his long arms and speed to deny passing lanes and steal the ball from players. Westbrook currently has a record of two steals per game, good for fourth in the league.

Most importantly, Presti locked Westbrook up for the future in early January by extending Westbrook’s contract for five years.

In the same year the then-Sonics drafted Westbrook, Presti also drafted forward Serge Ibaka, a 19-year-old from Brazzaville, Zaire. Now he starts at power forward for the Thunder and earned the nickname “I-Block-a” from fans because of the number of shots he blocks on any given night. He averages 2.7 blocks per game, which is third in the league.

Another key cog in the development of today’s Thunder came in 2009 when Presti drafted Arizona State guard James Harden with the third pick in the draft. Harden has increased his scoring average every season during his three years in the league.

This season, Harden averages 16.6 points per game, making him Oklahoma City’s third-leading scorer.

Interestingly enough, Harden rarely starts. During his rookie season, Harden played in 76 games and started none of them. Last season, he played in every single game but started only five. So far, in the 2011-12 campaign, Harden played in all 25 of the Thunder’s games to date, but only started two.

Head coach Scott Brooks starts the game with a defensive player at the shooting guard position, Thabo Sefolosha. With all of the scoring on the floor already in the forms of Durant and Westbrook, Brooks can afford to keep Harden on the bench for awhile and let Sefolosha prevent the opponent’s best scorer from starting the game hot.

Although Harden is undoubtedly the better player, Sefolosha’s presence allows Harden to go to work later when most of the players on the floor are bench players.

With this core in place, Oklahoma City is currently on the right path with a 20-5 record — the best record in the entire league — and just needs to keep focusing on winning.

Absolutely nothing, however, could excuse what I did next, which was avoid my editor’s phone calls for 24 hours.

I didn’t do it to be a jerk, although it was absolutely a jerk thing to do. More to the point, I didn’t do it out of apathy, or because I didn’t care about the trouble I was causing by failing to be in contact. But having already squandered my editor’s good will past two extended deadlines — and having nothing particularly ameliorating to tell them — I couldn’t even think about the conversation without being overwhelmed with anxiety and guilt. My throat constricted, my stomach churned and a lengthy and strong-worded monologue about what a lazy, incompetent, inconsiderate, sorry excuse for a writer, employee and human being I was began to play on a loop in my head at top volume. And my voicemail box began to fill up.

There are two types of anxious people. One is the pathological overachiever. These people compulsively have their ducks in a row. They complete assignments early because the stress of unfinished projects hanging over their heads upsets them. If this is you, you probably don’t have any use for this column, or even understand it. You know instinctively how avoidance makes things worse. If you had missed my deadline, you would have called your editor right away, but more importantly, you never would have missed the deadline. It’s just not who you are.

And then there’s the rest of us. We are in the depression and anxiety support groups, squinting jealously at the girls with 4.0 GPAs. We are the people your professor is referring to when he jokes that the semester’s never over before somebody cries in his office. Our grades rarely reflect our abilities, because although we know that skipping three weeks of class to avoid explaining why you haven’t done the homework is a ridiculously stupid choice, our attendance records say otherwise.

If you’re in this camp, you’re not in bad company. Some of the smartest people I know are struggling to avoid academic probation. My own study habits are so bad that I almost failed Introduction to Performance twice, which sounds very much like a joke you would make about a stereotypical dumb jock and very little like the lived reality of someone who gets paid to share her insights with the student body on a weekly basis. And everyone knows  that the fastest and most effective way to make a bad situation worse when you’ve procrastinated on something or simply not done it, is to avoid the issue by, say, dodging your editor’s phone calls or skipping three weeks of class.

Knowing you’re not alone is comforting, but it doesn’t pull up your GPA, so let’s cut to the chase: How the hell do you stop letting avoidance make your life more difficult?

Write a script. It’s cliche, it’s stupid, but it’s necessary — at least for me. This is for banishing that feeling of “I don’t even know what to say to them.” It doesn’t have to be a great script. It doesn’t have to be a valid excuse or a heartwarming story. You can write down, “I don’t know why I didn’t do my homework, I was just really tired, I’ll get it together for next time” on a piece of paper and say it to yourself a few times before approaching your professor after class. You just need to give yourself something to say, because the alternative is not saying anything.

Force yourself to be accountable. This is the part where you recruit a friend. My boyfriend does this for me: I tell him what I’m avoiding and he helps me write the script for the confrontation, then tells me to call him back after I’ve called my editor or emailed my professor. If you’re really bad — like if you think you might be tempted to lie — find someone understanding enough to actually sit with you and watch you make the phone call or send the email, or walk you to the office for your TA’s drop-in hours.

Reward yourself. Your friend comes in handy here, too — they can tell you how proud they are after you’ve faced your fear and made contact. In lieu of a heaping of praise, buy yourself a candy bar or take a nice walk — whatever will make you feel like you’re being rewarded for doing the right thing. The reinforcement will make you more likely to act responsibly next time.

Contact Tracey at TBH15@pitt.edu.

Bart Simpson, be advised: Asking people to eat your shorts might trigger an international backlash. According to Reuters, an Iranian official recently outlawed Simpsons dolls on the grounds that they corrode morality and contribute to “Western intoxication.” Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time the Middle East has slighted America’s favorite family — just recently, Homer’s power plant job was outsourced to a rural area outside Tehran.

Cold War

Finally, a crisis worthy of the Department of Homeland Security. According to the Associated Press, a North Pole, Alaska, resident allegedly threatened to teach crackheads how to make electromagnetic distortion devices if the state didn’t pay him $85,000. Although entrusting drug addicts with advanced technology seems counterintuitive at best, we’re still worried that the scheme could wreak havoc on Santa’s new high-tech sleigh.

Taking the High Road

Contrary to what you may have read in Jane Austen novels, British people care next to nothing about material wealth. Or at least, that’s the most logical conclusion we can draw from a recent England-based experiment, in which an average of only seven people per bus station accepted offers to pay their fares. Unsurprisingly, the volunteers attracted exponentially more interest when they promised to pay off European debts.

No Deer Crossing

A word of warning to local travelers: Never visit West Virginia without a clear exit strategy. Ignoring its owners’ protests, officials have denied a runaway pet elk re-entry into Pennsylvania for fear that it harbors a chronic disease, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Although we sympathize with the animal — who wouldn’t want to escape the Mountain State? — we’ll refrain from denouncing the decision until we hear Lou Dobbs’ take on elk immigration.

Not-So-Smart Phone

State parliament meetings can sometimes grow unbearably dull, so we’re not surprised that Indian minister Laxman Savadi thought his colleague C.C. Patil would rather watch porn on the cell phone he shared with him. Although some believe their subsequent resignation was appropriate, we hardly think they violated American decency standards. Whatever they were watching, it couldn’t be more obscene than Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account.