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Popular U.S. clothing store Urban Outfitters has halted sales of a T-shirt apparently supporting Palestinian violence that has sparked outrage in the American Jewish community. The T-shirt, created by Los Angeles-based designer "Fashion Jive," depicts a young Palestinian boy carrying an AK-47 assault rifle, over the word "Victimized." The T-shirt also shows the Palestinian flag, a map of the Palestinian territories and a small white dove. The item sold online for $25. "If Urban Outfitters is good at something, it is getting publicity," remarked Ami Cohen, works for American Apparel in Tel Aviv. "This company has a history of coming...

We know Urban Outfitters sometimes makes shirts with stupid sayings, but this one really takes the cake - The mega-chain had to halt sales of a certain new tee after pretty much everybody reacted in outrage. The shirt features a Palestinian boy (which can be deduced by the Palestinian flag and map of Palestinian territories next to him), crouched, holding a large gun with a couple friends behind him doing the same, with the word "Victimized" beneath him, and "Fresh Jive" above him (the shirt was actually designed by Fresh Jive, a company out of LA), and a white dove...

PHILADELPHIA - The Anti-Defamation League has asked retailer Urban Outfitters to stop selling a T-shirt that reads: "New Mexico, Cleaner than Regular Mexico." "This is saying that the country of Mexico is a dirty place," said Barry Morrison, regional director of the civil rights group. "Dirty can be interpreted figuratively and literally." The group wants the Philadelphia-based retailer to get rid of all its inventory. Urban Outfitters did not immediately return calls for comment Friday. The retailer, which targets 18- to 30-year-olds, has run into similar controversy before. Two years ago, it stopped selling a game called "Ghettopoly" after protests...

Not even the foggiest-headed stoner would argue they want children to smoke pot. (Especially if it means children digging into one's stash.) The challenge is in dissuading kids from doing so without resorting to potentially counterproductive myths and hyperbole. Enter Ricardo Cortes. Last month, Cortes published his children's book, It’s Just a Plant, 48 cannabis-laden pages that he hoped would be taken as a welcome dose of "reality-based education." The former high school D.A.R.E. officer and Brooklyn-based T-shirt and skateboard designer says the book is intended for "six- to 12-year-olds." It still encourages kids to say "No," but stops short...

An Urban Outfitters catalog arrived yesterday and I thumbed through it. In addition to trendy clothing and gift items, they sell "cool" wrapping paper, oh so hip, in colorful prints, of things like bacon slices, sushi, martinis, and Jesus. Jesus? Yes, Warhol-style colored pictures of Jesus with halo, all over the wrapping paper. Does this convey the true spirit of Christmas to Christians hoping for a little more religion and a little less Santa Claus? I do not think so, seeing the Jesus paper in there among martini or bacon festooned wrap. The next page of the catalog is titled...

Am I the only post-40-year-old who remembers the joy of ticking off old people by wearing a smart-aleck T-shirt? I wondered about this amid the coast-to-coast grumbling over Urban Outfitters, the Philadelphia-based clothing retailer that recently pulled from its stores a T-shirt that said, "Voting is for Old People." Imagine. Young people mocking the habits of their elders. Why, next thing you know the young will be making fun of old folks' clothing styles, driving habits and comb-overs. Horrors. As a kid, I had several T-shirts that caused oldsters to bristle. One of my favorites was emblazoned with marijuana leaves...

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. -- The creator of the controversial “Jesus Dress-Up” refrigerator magnets being sold at Philadelphia-area stores spoke exclusively to NBC 10 on Tuesday night. The man, who goes by the name, “Normal” Bob Smith, says he is doing nothing wrong. “Jesus Dress-Up” is a magnetic crucifix with a variety of clothes and accessories. Many people are outraged by the product, but Smith says he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. “I don't think there's anything wrong with religious satire,” said Smith. “People have got to learn to laugh at themselves, it's part of human nature.” Smith, who...

Urban Outfitters is offering a refrigerator magnet set depicting Jesus on the cross. A variety of clothes for "Jesus Dress Up" include a Satan mask and tights, ballerina, and dogcatcher outfit. Jesus, wearing only briefs, allows users to "clothe" Christ in a variety of secular outfits. Other articles of clothing are a "beanie" cap, a snorkel, bunny slippers, a tuxedo, and a Dr. Seuss hat. An employee in a New York City store exclaimed, "We've got tons of them!" Although the product is not available on their website, you can view a sample of it by clicking here. Take Action...

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Harvard political institute criticized the hip retailer Urban Outfitters on Monday for a new T-shirt campaign declaring that "Voting is for Old People." The institute chided the Philadelphia-based clothing chain for appearing to wear its apathy on its chest, calling the T-shirt slogan "the wrong statement at the wrong time" in the pivotal presidential election year. "The shirt's message could not be further from the truth," wrote Harvard Institute of Politics director Dan Glickman, the former congressman and Clinton administration agriculture secretary, and student chairman Ilan Graff in a letter to Urban Outfitters CEO Richard A....

ADL Welcomes Urban Outfitters' Decision to Discontinue Production of Offensive T-Shirt 1/9/04 2:28:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: Barry Morrison, 215-568-2223; Myrna Shinbaum, 212-885-7747 both of the Anti-Defamation League PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today commended Urban Outfitters, Inc. for its decision to discontinue production of a t-shirt that perpetuates an ethnic stereotype of Jews. The clothing item, part of a line of ethnic t-shirts, featured the language EVERYONE LOVES A JEWISH GIRL surrounded by dollar signs. The League wrote to Urban Outfitters, Inc. President Richard Hayne on Jan. 6 to complain that...

Clothes Make the Man Like Jack and his magic beanstalk, Urban Outfitters President Richard Hayne turned a few hippie beans into a hip $700 million retail empire. But did he lose his soul in the process? JONATHAN VALANIA (jvalania@philadelphiaweekly.com) There is, perhaps, no more efficient way to remind yourself that you are no longer 22 than to walk the aisles of Urban Outfitters. For the postcollegiate slackerati it is a mecca of precisely modulated urban hipster cool, a time-warp thrift store aesthetic filtered through a retrograde prism of detached irony and kitsch--proof positive of the fashion adage that everything, no...