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L.A.C.K. & Censoround
April 29, 2004
"skcus."
According to NPR's lawyer, the word "suck" is probably indecent. Well, doesn't that blow?
[TT] Current.org via Begging to Differ via Political Animal
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
4:15:59 PM
"...an expression of respect which simply seeks to honor those who have laid down their lives for this country."
Sinclair Broadcast Group has ordered its affliates to preempt tommorow's Nightline, during which Ted Koppel will read a list of military personnel who have died in Iraq. In a press release, the company stated, "Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show, the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq." Incidentally, Sinclair supported President Bush for president in 2000.
[TT] Bloomberg.com via Chicago Improv Network
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
3:08:06 PM
"I do not believe that you have the right to override an encryption. Because if you have the right to do it, everybody can do it."
Outgoing MPAA Jack Valenti, during an interview with MIT's The Tech student newspaper, was shown how to break a DVD encryption code so it can be watched on a computer. Valenti's response: "Un-fucking-believable."
[TT] The Tech and Studio Briefing
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
2:58:58 PM
'Life of Brian' not likely to be approved next
The Islamic Cultural and Guidance Ministry have given the okay for The Passion of the Christ to be released in Iran, despite protests that Islamic law bars the depiction of prophets.
[TT] Azcentral.com & Studio Briefing
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
2:51:18 PM
"I don't swear usually, especially in front of children."
Cubs manager Dusty Baker was suspended for one game because some fans with children in the front row were offended by the language he used during an argument with the umpire. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti writes, "Dusty becomes the first manager in memory to miss a game because he was ratted out by his own fans."
[TT] Chicago Sun-Times via The Daily Fix
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
12:24:21 PM
"For each recipient, a dozen could have been substituted."
The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has announced the 2004 Muzzle award recipients for the worst violators of free speech and expression. Amongst the winners: CBS, for bowing to pressure by conservative groups to pull the miniseries The Reagans; the Secret Service, for interrogating Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Michael Ramirez over a cartoon they had deemed threatening to the president; and Baseball Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey for cancelling a ceremony honoring Bull Durham's anniversary after the movies' stars Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon criticized the war in Iraq.
[TT] Thomas Jefferson Center via Folderol
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
11:07:49 AM
April 27, 2004
"If they remain online ... it's likely we'll pick it up again."
An anti-Semetic website that recently came up as the first listing in Google on the search term "Jew" all but disappeared after the home page's hosting service cancelled the owner's account. Google had originally refused to pull the site from its search index despite protests.
[TT] News.com via GigaLaw.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
10:54:04 AM
"Here I am, a mom of four children ... and I have been filtered out as not being family friendly."
Every librarian knows how imprecise web filters are (hence the opposition to CIPA). So it's probably no suprise that Google's SafeSearch suffers from the same unreliablity. For example, the words "sex" and "girls" are automatically blocked, which plays havoc with websites like A Little Girl's Boutique, which sells kids clothing, and Parts Express, whose URL has the letters s-e-x in succession.
[TT] News.com via TVC Alert
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
10:34:55 AM
"I feel like I was hit in the chest with a steel bar..."
Maytag Aircraft, a contractor at Kuwait International Airport, fired an employee for taking a picture of an American soldier's coffin that was published in the Seattle Times. Despite attempts to lift it, the military's ban on media coverage of military coffins that has been in place since the Gulf War is still in effect.
[TT] Seattle Times via Librarian's Rant
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
9:53:17 AM
"I'm not a big one for censorship, but it's kids we're talking about."
More King & King controversy, this time in Indiana. After his son found the book at the Shelby County Library, a concerned parent called on the library board to move it out of the children's section, writing, "By him finding that book and asking why two men were kissing in it, I had to tell him about the two men being gay, which is something we disagree with and not what God wants." However, the board voted to keep the book where it is on the shelves.
[TT] Indianapolis Star via librarian.net
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
9:39:00 AM
April 23, 2004
"It's simply a matter of taste; Trudeau is obviously prepared to cross a line, and I'm not."
Despite being asked not to by Universal Press Syndicate, the editors of the Green Bay News-Chronicle and Akron Beacon Journal have edited the phrase "son of a bitch" out of today's Doonesbury. Universal Press spokesperson Kathie Kerr said 10 newspapers expressed concern about running the strip. The Tallahassee Democrat, in the end, was not one of them.
[TT] Green Bay News-Chronicle, Akron Beacon Journal & Tallahassee Democrat via Romenesko
[EDITOR'S NOTE] Dan Kennedy points out that the Boston Globe chickened out as well. Banned in Boston rides again! Meanwhile, the Duluth News Tribune moved Doonesbury to the editorial page.
[TT] Media Log & Duluth News Tribune
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
1:59:00 PM
April 21, 2004
"It flies in the face of the First Amendment."
Officials at a Connecticut women's prison destroyed computer disks of inmates' writing in response to prisoner Barbara Parsons Lane winning a PEN award for the book Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters, according to author Wally Lamb. Department of Correction Commissioner Theresa Lantz temporarily halted the writing program Lamb teaches at the prison, apparently because she misunderstood what he told her about the award.
[TT] Norwich Bulletin via Blog of a Bookslut & Librarian's Rant
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:21:00 PM
'Freedom of Speech ... Just Watch What You Say'
Check out Tabootunes.com, a website dedicated to "songs that have sparked controversies down through the ages." It features a weblog with the latest news in music censorship.
[TT] via Metafilter
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:08:02 PM
"People care about these characters, and seeing one imperiled ... is distressing."
BD, one of the characters in Doonesbury, has lost a leg after an attack in Iraq. In addition to the trauma this has caused some regular readers, the storyline has given some newspaper editors headaches.
For example, in an upcoming strip, BD says "son of a bitch," and Universal Press Syndicate has told editors either run it or don't run it, but do not edit the phrase out.
Meanwhile, the Journal Advocate of Sterling, CO has opted to not run the comic strip "because of the graphic, violent battlefield depictions of Iraq in this week's installment." Makes you feel confident about the news they're running on the front page.
[TT] Newsday, Big News Network & Journal Advocate via Metafilter
[EDITOR'S NOTE] Added a link to the comic strip mentioned in this post.
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:02:03 PM
"We're going to have to clean some of this up in the transcript."
The Pentagon posted a transcript of an interview of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by journalist Bob Woodward that was used in the latter's book Plan of Attack, but removed part of the conversation from the text. Said Pentagon spokesperson Larry DiRita, "I had discussions with the author about passages that would be excluded from the transcript by mutual agreement, and this passage was one of those sections." However, Woodward expressed his surprise the section was excised and requested it be reinstated in the transcript.
[TT] Washington Post
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
1:00:00 PM
April 20, 2004
Oops!
I completely forgot to attend BloggerCon. I, uh, hope no one was expecting to see me.
"How do you forget to attend a conference?"
It was nice this past weekend. That's all I can say.
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
4:07:09 PM
Cheney should appear on Howard Stern's show
The Chinese government is denying US allegations it deleted references to political freedom from a broadcast of a speech Vice President Dick Cheney gave at Fudan University in Shanghai. Foreign ministry spokesperson Kong Quan said that the speech was shown live, but "correspondents may have edited the remarks" afterwards. One of the the People's Daily editors asserted the transcript the US embassy is showing as evidence of censorship was merely a simultaneous translation of the speech.
[TT] ABC News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
9:05:25 AM
April 19, 2004
"The FCC is not applying contemporary community standards, they are trying to change them."
A coalition of 20 broadcasting organizations have submitted to the FCC a petition saying that the recent attempts to crack down on indecency threaten free speech.
[TT] Yahoo! News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
9:23:26 PM
"We won't make a case against the publishing company. You just stop publishing the book."
Joesoef Isak is the winner of the Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award from PEN. Other award recipients include Barbara Parsons Lane, Nasser Zarafshan and Le Chi Quang.
[TT] New York Times via Yahoo! News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
9:19:26 PM
"We would have changed it if they had just written us a polite letter."
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder received a court order to ban the cover art for The End of the Chancellor: Shooting in Self-Defence, in which a storeowner shoots dead a chancellor resembling Schroeder. The original cover featured a sight focused on a blurred picture Schroeder argued looked like him.
[TT] Expatica via Yahoo! News]
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
9:10:12 PM
"The casket has a strong impact ... At that point everybody immediately understands that this is death."
I know Sean Hannity is sick and tired of all this Bush-bashing, but I just can't help myself.
Firstly, the student newspaper of three Iowa colleges were barred from covering the president's visit to Des Moines.
Lastly, newspaper editors would like to see lifted a ban on showing soldiers' coffins, in effect since the senior President Bush's administration.
[TT] Iowa State Daily & Newsday via Romenesko
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
5:09:53 PM
April 12, 2004
"...it would have been discovered that the process could have been in better alignment regardless."
Three students at Clovis High School in Clovis, NM received in-school suspensions for passing out flyers protesting Superintendent Neil Nuttall's call for Principal Andy Sweet to review the content of the school newspaper before publication. The students, an editor and two reports for the paper, say Nuttall pulled the issue after they published two articles he felt were inappropriate.
[TT] First Amendment Center
[EDITOR'S NOTE] Grammatical error corrected
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
5:06:00 PM
"This is not about censorship ... [or] ... First Amendment rights."
The school board of Okaloosa County, FL voted to keep James Lincoln Collier's My Brother Sam Is Dead on the shelves of Destin Middle School. Joseph Rogers, a minister and father of an eighth grader at the school, challenged the book for containing obscene words and a bad attitude towards God.
[TT] First Amendment Center via Google News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
5:00:00 PM
"...the action was not taken at my direction."
Antonin "Quack Quack" Scalia has apologized for the incident in which a deputy federal marshall ordered two journalists to erase tapes they made of a speech by the Supreme Court Justice. Said Scalia, "I was as upset as you were. I have written to the reporters involved, extending my apology."
[TT] Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press via Romenesko
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
4:54:00 PM
"These are the big, rich white leftists who are going to carry the fight to George Bush, and the best they can do is blame Nader?"
Ben McGrath profiles Aaron McGruder, writer of the oft-pulled Boondocks. Buried near the end of the article is the fact that he's outsourced the drawing of the comic.
[TT] The New Yorker via Romenesko
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
4:50:28 PM
April 11, 2004
"From the day you have children, you have to think about how you want to respond to these questions."
The new issue of Bookslut is out, and my column this month is "I've Never Cared Much for Princesses", which covers the controversy over King & King.
[TT] Bookslut
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
2:32:00 PM
April 10, 2004
"We wanted to get the book corrected and replaced ... We are not asking for banning the book."
Behind such controversies as the uproar in India over James Laine's book about Shivaji is the Hindutva movement:
Its proponents assert that Hindus have long been denigrated and that Western authors are imposing a Eurocentric world view on a culture they do not understand.
For example, religion professor Paul Courtright wrote a book about the elephant-headed god Ganesha in which he asserted that Ganesha's trunk represented a limp penis. Not surprisingly, devout Hindus took offense to that.
[TT] Washington Post
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
9:00:00 AM
"They are pulling the tops and looking underneath."
A garden store in Hartsville, TN received two complaints about the nude statues in front of their store, so the owners covered the offending parts with red velvet sarongs. John Ashcroft would be proud.
[TT] The Tennessean via FARK.com
[TT] Wonkette
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:44:13 AM
April 9, 2004
"Incidents of real censorship are pretty rare, but this is a textbook case."
Daniel Handler and Dave Eggers joined Academy of Art University students and at least one teacher to protest the school's actions against a student who wrote a violent short story and the teacher who gave her the assignment.
"That was when Handler became concerned and helped organize a 'forum on free expression' to be held in Kaufman's class last week. But when he arrived at the school, security guards blocked him from entry."
Salman Rushdie and Stephen King contributed letters of protest.
[TT] SFGate.com via LISNews.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
1:54:00 PM
"That's a risk we're just not willing to take."
Not surprisingly, Clear Channel has officially dropped Howard Stern's show from its stations. Their move came in reaction to the FCC suggesting the conglomerate pay a fine of $495,000 for various obscenities on the popular radio program. The good news is, if the fine stands after Clear Channel's appeal, that's $495,000 that won't be going to Bush's re-election campaign.
[TT] Yahoo! News
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:18:54 AM
April 8, 2004
The vast right wing conspiracy post
I've been listening to Air America so I'm seeing right wing assaults on freedom everywhere!
For example, as Capitol Hill goes gaga over indeceny in mainstream media, John Ashcroft is using the Justice Department to wage a personal war against porn. Of course, this isn't exactly surprising news, but given all that's going on in the world, it's just great to see that this is the battle he decides to fight.
 Meanwhile, after a speech at a high school in Mississippi, Antonin "Quack Quack" Scalia sent a deputy federal marshall over two journalists and demanded they erase their tapes. This way he can weasel out of recusing himself later. [TT] Baltimore Sun & SFGate.com via Metafilter
[TT] Seattle Post-Intelligencer via The Earlybird
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
9:09:35 PM
"Anyone who's ever written satire knows it's not really easy."
Editors of three college newspapers found themselves in a lot of trouble because of their April Fool's editions. I know how they feel. When I was the editor of my college paper, the faculty advisors resigned because of the April Fool's edition I put out. Mainly because I put it out in November.
[TT] Seattle Post-Intelligencer via FARK.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:37:12 PM
April 6, 2004
"The true North, strong and censor-free."
While hosting the Juno Awards ceremony, Alanis Morissette decried the uproar in the US over Janet Jackson's Super Bowl performance. Blasting "hypocritical United States censorship," she stripped out of her outfit to reveal a bodysuit with comically exaggerated nipples and pubic hair. When an announcer said, "Actually, we can't show nipples or pubic hair on national TV," she removed the naughty bits from the costume.
[TT] Studio Briefing & Sydney Morning Herald
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
5:07:03 PM
April 5, 2004
"Book" burner!
Brian Smith of Laughing Librarian fame has a new product at his Cafe Press store: the Book Burner BBQ Apron.
[TT] Laughing Librarian
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:25:33 PM
"In Japanese culture, some of these things are acceptable."
Scholastic has ended publication of the Yu-Gi-Oh-related Shonen Jump graphic novel after parents of a student at Hillcrest Intermediate School in Lake Mary, FL, complained about its smoking, mild profanity, and a swastika on a character's head. (The Hindu version, not the Nazi version, incidently.)
[TT] The Ledger via Laughing Librarian
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:21:00 PM
"Now, will you be a patriot ... or a lover?"
The movie 1776 has been banned from Faifax County (VA) middle schools because of sexual content. Said K12 Social Studies Coordinator Sara Shoob, "There's some sexual innuendo and language, and when you're talking about the Declaration of Independence, that does not have to be part of your discussion."
[TT] Washington Post via Neil Gaiman
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
7:07:25 PM
"Am I on trial? I need character witnesses now?"
Neil Gaiman has posted a letter from Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler about the Academy of Art University expelling a student for writing a violent short story for class, then firing a teacher for assigning that same class to read David Foster Wallace's Girl With Curious Hair. When asked for comment, Senior Vice President of Public Relations Sallie Huntting said, "Certainly there is a lot of creativity, and we encourage that. But when there is a questionable or disturbing issue, we contact the proper authorities."
[TT] SFGate.com via Neil Gaiman & Blog of a Bookslut
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
6:57:00 PM
"If there is a serious demand for this 25-year-old book, I am confident that America's used bookstores will be able to satisfy it."
New American Library has backed down from its plans to republish Lynne Cheney's Sisters, which features a lesbian romance, after a phone call from her attorney Robert Barnett. "I told them that she did not think the book was her best work," he said. If only other authors, like Stephen King, were so thoughtful as to keep their subpar works from flooding the market, then the American publishing industry would be saved.
[TT] USA Today via Blog of a Bookslut
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
6:43:00 PM
April 1, 2004
"People are buying more books since the end of the war."
Books once banned by Saddam Hussein are fast sellers at Baghdad's bookstores.
[TT] Daily Times via LISNews.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
6:44:27 PM
"And don't we want our kids to be open-minded..."
A reader took issue with an editorial in the Daily Dispatch on the King & King controversy in North Carolina:
"This book could have been a positive conversation piece for students, parents and teachers; instead the school (and the editors of this newspaper) used it as yet another opportunity to give a thumbs-up to intolerance and narrow-mindedness."
[TT] Daily Dispatch via LISnews.com
posted by Chris Zammarelli at
6:40:00 PM
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