there's Colorado, there's Florida, and there's sex with minors

I'm not in favor of preying upon children, sexually or otherwise, either, but this is about a book, not an action.  While I started reading the report, I assumed Greaves III, who self-published what's been described as a "how-to guide for pedophiles," was nabbed for uploading something on the internet in Colorado that got downloaded in Florida, but, no.  It was the good old US postal service, which he used to send a signed copy of his book to an undercover cop.  Not.  So.  Smart.

Reminds me of the sting used a decade ago to get Mike Diana, then a young artist of gross-out, underground comic books, on obscenity charges when he was living with his mother in Florida.  (I told his story in Outspoken.)  Along with the Smithsonian pulling David Wojnarowicz’s film “A Fire in My Belly” -- objected to by pols who never saw it, of course -- I'm getting real deja vu whiplash.

God forbid our flyboys actually know what's going on

Fortunately, this blow against what? terrorism? (But who's being terrorized?  the State Dept?) is probably futile.

kind of about wikileaks

Here's a link to the war logs, the most important cache Wikileaks has published.  It works today, not sure it will tomorrow.  And here's something I wrote almost a decade ago (!) in Outspoken.  It was an introduction to a section about a doctor who lost his job for reporting on a dangerous new lung disease he uncovered and a firefighter who sued Los Angeles county over his right to read Playboy at fire stations, but it seems relevant to the current brouhaha over publishing diplomatic cables.  Please note: I'm not equating Assange with Galileo,  just commenting on the costs of knowing things -- and the all-important question of how we'll deal with that.

Knowledge is frequently unwelcome.  From bad news to images of cruelty to scary science, who at some point hasn't wanted not to know?  (Or is it that we want it both ways: to want to know everything and to want what we know to be nice?)  Sometimes we need to push the boundaries of knowing -- for safety, judgment, social cohesion or progress, the historical record.  Sometimes we simply desire to know.  But curiosity is not an unalloyed good.  There is hubris in pursing risky knowledge, arrogance in insisting on knowing more than we have a purpose for, and the relentless thrum of information that engulfs us is more than we can possibly use.

In Forbidden Knowledge, the late literary scholar Roger Shattuck lists six categories of knowledge that have, in various times and places, been off limits.  Under knowledge that is dangerous, destructive, or undesirable, he includes technology, sexual cruelty, and violence, and he recommends that such material be lablled and restricted.  The walls erected to keep knowledge out also keep ignorance in, though, and such barriers seldom withstand the test of time.  So from carnal knowledge to scientific discovery, the pressing issue is how we will deal with the consequences of knowing.

In 1633, Galileo Galelei was called before the Inquisition in Rome to disavow what his judges believed to be heresy and he believed to be truth: that the Earth rotates on its axis.  Nearly 70 years old, sentenced to house arrest, and banned from publishing his work for the rest of his life, Galileo knelt before his censors and recanted.

"And yet," he is said to have whispered as he rose slowly from his knees, "It turns."

trouble in Niceville

 Here's the story.
First question: There really is a town called Niceville? (Did Dr. Seuss know?)
Second question: Who brought the feds in on this?
The YES program, funded by the State Department, brings students from Muslim countries to study at U.S. high schools and learn about our constitution, civil society, economic system, education system, and all sorts of vaunted cross-cultural things, including, presumably, our sense of humor.  As the friend who alerted me to this observed, "The decision by the sponsoring organization to kick this student off the program and repatriate him would seem to run totally counter to this ideal."  In a lot of contexts, "Death to America" isn't all that funny, but it doesn't sound like he was a threat to anyone.  Besides, he got suspended for a while, which probably sent whatever message (that hoary excuse for censorship) the good citizens of Niceville intended to send him. Can we say, "overreaction," everyone?

Sometimes the answer to bad speech is....

Good speech -- and a good audience

And sometimes it's really good music (played by a mensch)

Merry KKKristmas?

Idaho has a law that can punish people for anything "offensive to the senses" or that interferes with the comfort of a neighborhood?

I just might be able to get behind this guy

Yes, okay, he was drunk and violent and perhaps nuts, but I'm pretty tired of Palin politics too.

what todo about Marty Peretz

Sometimes more speech really is the answer to bad speech -- especially when the speaker is a smart guy like Winston Warfield.

Urinate on them? Is that what's known as drawing a line in the sand?

Ah, symbolic violence -- as opposed to the real kind, which makes us all heroes.

holy book, holy cow?

Isn't the point of symbolic protest to make people take notice?  (Especially when what they take is also offense.)

Whom does god hate?

Repugnant, indeed, but I want the right to say, God hates the tactics of the Westboro Baptist Church, don't you?
So I guess it's the First Amendment to our dying breath.

Protecting symbolic speech that would destroy written speech

This is where the First Amendment gets really weird: The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., said it will burn the Islamic holy book to mark the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. And, Bloomberg is right.

Except when it's for Iraqis

and then we get to call it national security

Oh, for christsake, give peace a chance!

National Security! Terrorism! Lock up the children!  Or, in the to-the-point words of David Cole, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case,“This decision basically says the First Amendment allows making peacemaking and human rights advocacy a crime,”

Hamas? Jamais.

Wait till it is beamed to the United States.

Is there a more effective conversation killer than invoking the Holocaust?

 Even indirectly, as Helen Thomas found out. 
Her much-quoted-out-of-context Jews go back to the shetl was a dumb thing to say and it obscured her larger point that Israel is occupying Gaza (this is the original interview; commentary is too voluminous to include). So people who say dumb or shameful things should be shamed. But shunning & banning & make it clear that certain ideas are beyond the pale, a very effective way to shut people up.

Except when it's a most unique [sic], toxic person -- or in the state of Wyoming

Suellen Carman, an old friend of mine and of the First Amendment, who lives in Wyo. and received the Intellectual Freedom Award from the Wyoming Library Association in 2002, wrote to state officials to object to their barring Bill Ayers from speaking at the Univ. of Wyo. The following is a response from Jim McBride, the state superintendent of education.

Subject: RE: Letter to the President and Board of Trustees
Carman, sorry, we aren't going to agree on this issue. This is a very unique person with a very unique history - - I believe he is simply too toxic for UW. Let's simply agree to disagree! I simply believe there is a view beyond academic freedom.
J McBride
Wyoming Department of Education
Superintendent of Public Instruction
"One Team One Effort"

By all means, protect kids from playing at violence.

Much better to send them to war so they can work at it  (Please note that sex, cigs & booze are already off limits. Violence is now up to the Supremes.)

The offense that just keeps on giving.

How could South Park, equal opportunity offender, resist?

Censorship is a boomerang

Free speech is a U.S. thing; Canadians know better. (And, yes, more odious, but isn't that the point?)

Emma Goldman had a point

If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution.  Emma Goldman
(Sure, it's not earth-shattering, but the real question is, why not dance?)