Over seven years as director and emcee for Grand Rapids, Michigan's Super Happy Funtime Burlesque troupe, 35-year-old comedian Corey Ruffin has done a lot of interviews. And unlike the police raids, of which there have also been quite a few, he says the press coverage has started to blend together.

"They always write the same thing," Ruffin says. Putting on a history-book voice, he narrates: "'Burlesque was the originator of slapstick and it's because the characters used to carry around a burl, which was a stick with cloth wrapped around the end that they would hit people with.' Like, every article mentions that, because it's on Wikipedia.

"Just stay away from the burl and you're OK," he counsels.

It's good advice, it would make a great T-shirt slogan, and it alsoAuthority's 13 month ban in accordance with the views expressed in this opinion.

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A brief summary of the facts is indispensable for an understanding of the legal issues before us.


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The Port Authority's tradition of noise regulation.  The rapid development of commercial aviation after the Second World War engendered, for the first time, an urgent need to protect neighbors of thriving metropolitan airports from the deafening noise of overflying aircraft.  Moreover, as experience with the still greater din of military jets accumulated, far-sighted community planners began to anticipate the need to accommodate commercial jet aviation with the legitimate yearning of city dwellers for a livable environment.


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The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, operator of New York's Kennedy International Airport, was one of the first to recognize