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Since DeChristopher's trial was postponed several times, the filmmakers were able to follow him for several years. He's a vigorous and interesting character, with the rhetorical skills of a veteran speechifier.

Yet in private moments, he seems younger than the prematurely balding 27-year-old he was when the case began. The movie shows him at home on the morning of his sentencing, making breakfast and drinking milk directly from the bottle. It also revisits his West Virginia childhood, which encouraged his love of nature and his outrage at its despoiling.

Less informatively, Bidder 70 scants the legalities of the case. Clearly, DeChristopher peeved the Bureau of Land Management and the oil and gas industries, but the movie doesn't detail which law or laws he actually broke.

After Redford calls the auction bids "a peaceful protest," the documentary quickly sketches the history of civil disobedience, invoking some names that may be familiar: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and such. But the DeChristopher case really speaks to a newer phenomenon: the attempt to elevate economic interests over freedom of speech, wherein a growing number of right-wing lawyers and judges are interpreting (or reinterpreting) laws to privilege corporations over individuals, and elevate business efficiencies over the messy, time-wasting distractions of full public debate.

DeChristopher's primary concern is climate change, which is no small issue. But Bidder 70 would be more compelling if it had used the U.S. government's assault on the ad hoc activist to also discuss threats to the American political environment.

As 17-year-old Tarik al-Nakib tells it, he was just out to buy some bread one afternoon in April when a silver bus from the Gaza Strip police department pulled up next to him.

"One guy opened the door and asked me to get in the bus," Nakib says. "Another came out and pushed me in. I was trying to understand what was going on, what did I do? No one wanted to answer me."

He says the van picked up four other teenagers before heading to the central police compound. Turns out, the police were after his hair. Like many of his friends, Nakib likes to style his hair so the top is longer and waxed to stand up.

"They told me, 'We will cut your hair because you're not a man. We're going to make you look like a real man,'" Nakib recalls. "I said, 'I'm not a real man because of my hair?' They said, 'Yes.'"

At the station, police made him empty his pockets and took a mug shot, he says. They showed him into a small room with no windows and one chair. A man with an electric razor came in and shaved Nakib's head bald. Nakib says the man then asked him to sweep up the fallen locks, but he made an excuse as a small attempt at defiance.

"I had tried to prevent them from taking me in the bus, but at the police station I didn't try to resist anything," Nakib says. "They said go in the room, I went in. They said sit down, I sat down. He shaved my hair. But I didn't clean up."

The Hamas-run government in Gaza doesn't have a formal decree against certain hairstyles. But the Palestinian Center for Human Rights documented a series of incidents in Gaza last month when police picked up young men and forcibly cut their hair.

Ihab Al Ghusain, the head of the Gaza government media office, told the center that the campaign was started by the Islamic Bloc, a student organization active in Gaza and the West Bank

Pants that sag below the waistline apparently also drew police interest. The human rights center reports some young men picked up for their hair had to sign a statement promising not to wear low-rider trousers.

Al-Ghusain backed that idea in April 15 posts on both his English and Arabic Facebook pages.

He said he would ask the Palestinian Legislative Council to outlaw behavior that goes against conservative customs, and linked to an article about a U.S. town banning low-riders.

"If this happened in Gaza we'll hear all human rights organizations shouting," he wrote.

It's not clear how far the crackdown on men's hairstyles could go.

"They're just trying to scare the young guys," says Samir Ashar, a local hair products manufacturer. "But some soldiers and even Hamas police officers style their hair."

He hasn't seen a drop in sales, which run about 3,000 jars of gel a month.

Nakib is growing his hair back, but he says the police haircut did have an impact. He'd rather stay home now than go out with his friends.

One of his pals, Mohammad Abu Ramadan, stopped styling his hair for a while. But he's back to the wax and the stand-up look now.

"It's not a matter of challenging them," Abu Ramadan says. "But I won't change my personality for them. I see myself as more handsome this way. This is me."

About Amanda Palmer

Alt-rock icon Amanda Palmer believes we shouldn't fight the fact that digital content is freely shareable — and suggests that artists can and should be directly supported by fans. Known for pushing boundaries in both her art and her lifestyle, Palmer made international headlines when she raised nearly $1.2 million via Kickstarter (she'd asked for $100,000) from nearly 25,000 fans who pre-ordered her album, Theatre Is Evil.

But the former street performer, then Dresden Dolls frontwoman, now solo artist hit a bump the week her world tour kicked off. She revealed plans to crowdsource additional local backup musicians in each tour stop, offering to pay them in hugs, merchandise and beer per her custom. Bitter and angry criticism ensued — she eventually promised to pay her local collaborators in cash. Summing up her business model, in which she views her recorded music as the digital equivalent of street performing, she says: "I firmly believe in music being as free as possible. Unlocked. Shared and spread. In order for artists to survive and create, their audiences need to step up and directly support them."

If you watch Scandal, you know that there, Fitzgerald Grant is the President of the United States, and that he goes by "Fitz." Now "Fitz," let's face it, is already a pretty punchable name, given that combined with his personality, it makes him sound like somebody with a beanie and a lot of polo shirts grew up, got even richer, had a son, and taught him how to give swirlies to the math team. Fitz is involved, on and off (currently off, or possibly on, but maybe off) (maybe half-off, like end-of-the-season shoes), with Olivia Pope.

Olivia is the protagonist of Scandal, and even though she is a terrible person*, she probably deserves better than Fitz.

(Did I mention this contains spoilers? It contains spoilers.)

Anyway, why does Olivia deserve better than Fitz? Because we all deserve better than Fitz. Did you hear me, O Women Of The World? If you are reading these words, you deserve better than Fitz. Unless, that is, you are Mellie, Fitz's wife, who exactly deserves Fitz, which is part of what makes the show's central romantic mythology kind of hard to give a hoot about. If Olivia had a lick of sense, she would make the "that's that" motion with her hands like she's smacking the dust off, say "ptooey," and go have sex with someone more worthwhile. Meaning: anyone.

And Fitz and Mellie would go off and have a whole bunch of evil babies and tour the world like the Von Trapp Family Singers, only they would be a troupe of lying, well-dressed hypocrites who would cry and complain instead of singing "So Long, Farewell."

Because honestly, Fitz is the worst. He is the absolute worst. In case you don't believe me, I am prepared to present my list of reasons.

1. Personally murdered an old lady with cancer to save his own neck.

2. Cheated on his wife and managed to blame both the wife and the cheatrix. (I just made that word up; I think we need it.) (Especially for this show.)

3. Found out he became president fraudulently, and instead of setting anything right, looked at everyone who fraudulently made him president and was like, "HOW COULD YOU? I AM THE SADDEST BOY IN ALL THE LAND."

4. Borrowed from the military a fellow named Jake, whose task was to stalk and spy on Olivia.

5. Possibly maybe directly or indirectly responsible for getting Jake thrown in The Big Box O'Jail, a terrible tiny hole in a cement floor where nobody has fun.

6. Somehow managed to feel betrayed when he found out that while he remained with his wife in the office he corruptly obtained, his cheatrix slept with the guy he hired to stalk her. WOE IS FITZ!

7. When sad, makes a face like he's trying to pass a kidney stone made of love and anguish.

8. Threatened his wife that if she didn't go away quietly and leave him and Olivia to restart their lives together, he would ruin her possible political future by falsely telling everyone she was a racist who only objected to his relationship with Olivia because Olivia is African-American.**

9. Oh, wait — that was after he bragged to his wife about how his relationship with Olivia was going to be a boon to race relations in America.

10. Clearly believes his simpering self-pity is his father's fault, because he can't even take responsibility for his unwillingness to take responsibility for anything.

11. Clearly believes the problems in his relationship with Olivia are more the result of the fact that she doesn't understand him and nobody understands him and WOE IS FITZ and less the result of the fact that he is a married corrupt sniveling jerkface weasel.

12. Who PERSONALLY MURDERED AN OLD LADY WITH CANCER TO SAVE HIS OWN NECK.

Olivia should dump Fitz. Mellie should dump Fitz. Everybody should dump Fitz. People who have never met Fitz should dump Fitz. White House tour groups should be brought through his office for the sole purpose of dumping him at the end of the visit. Strangers should be encouraged to queue up to dump him in more and more interesting and violent ways, like the "Calm down, get a hold of yourself!" line in Airplane!

Because Fitz is absolutely the worst.

*Helped fix an election, encouraged tormented employee to resume life as torturer, falsely set up only nice person in Washington to look like abusive boyfriend to save lover's behind, picked wrong guy as dangerous mole, doesn't know enough to keep her undies on when in the Oval Office.

** Olivia's idea.***

***Because Olivia is a terrible person.

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