Free Republic

Bob Fosse's career as a Hollywood director looked to be over after just one film when the failure of Sweet Charity at the box office nearly took down Universal Studios in 1969 and ended the era of the big-budget movie musical. He'd always have work on Broadway but his new status as toxic in Hollywood was a blow his ego couldn't accept and he was desperate for a comeback. The abiding fame of numbers like "Hey Big Spender" and "Rich Man's Frug" on Fosse highlight reels and as YouTube clips have lent Sweet Charity posthumous influence that nobody would have...

Tennessee drag queens are taking on a state bill that will ban their performances in the presence of children. Republican senator Jack Johnson proposed Senate Bill 3 that aims to restrict drag events that children can easily attend for being sexually explicit.... ...The Senate bill refers to drag events as 'adult cabaret performances,' and is filed under 'obscenity and pornography.' If passed, it 'creates an offense for a person who engages in an adult cabaret performance on public property or in a location where the adult cabaret performance could be viewed by a person who is not an adult.' Advocates...

<p>"Would you like some chocolate?" Timothy Childs, standing on a sidewalk in Noe Valley on a recent Saturday, offers a small piece of candy to a passing shopper. Because it is summer in San Francisco, Childs wears a parka and an exuberant polar-fleece hat covered with bouncing fuzzy tendrils. The passerby, her own polar-fleece jacket zipped up to her lips, keeps walking.</p>