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Computer underground Digest Wed Aug 16, 1995 Volume 7 : Issue 68
ISSN 1004-042X
Editors: Jim Thomas and Gordon Meyer (TK0JUT2@MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU
Archivist: Brendan Kehoe
Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish
Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith
Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth
Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala
Ian Dickinson
CONTENTS, #7.68 (Wed, Aug 16, 1995)
File 1--BCFE Heroes and Villains 1994/1995
File 2--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 19 Apr, 1995)
CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN
THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 10:09:46 -0500 (CDT)
From: David Smith <bladex@BGA.COM>
File 1--BCFE Heroes and Villains 1994/1995
---------- Forwarded message ----------
BCFE NAMES 1994/1995
HEROES AND VILLAINS
The Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression, in commemoration of
the fifth anniversary of the August 1, 1990 Boston opening of Robert
Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, has compiled its fifth annual list
of heroes and villains.
The list includes those individuals, organizations, businesses and
institutions that had the strongest positive and negative effects on
free expression, the arts, and First Amendment rights in the past
year. Although our focus is on Massachusetts, we include both
institutions and individuals whose primary impact has been of local
importance, and those whose influence is national in scope. Because of
the surfeit of villains this year, we have expanded our Villains list
from ten entries to twenty - and find it difficult not to expand it
further than that. Entries are presented in no particular order.
Lifetime achievement awards are also accorded one individual and one
institution in each category. Previous lifetime citations for heroism
have gone to Alan Dershowitz and the American Civil Liberties Union
(1990-'91); Peggy Charren and the American Library
Association(1991-'92); Harvey Silverglate and People for the American
Way (1992-'93); and Don Edwards and the National Coalition Against
Censorship (1993-'94). Lifetime villains include Senator Jesse Helms
and the Heritage Foundation (1990-'91); Catharine MacKinnon and the
American Family Association (1991-'92); Oliver North and the Christian
Coalition (1992-'93); and Beverly LaHaye and Focus on the Family
(1993-'94).
The BCFE, an affiliate of the National Campaign for Freedom of
Expression, is an alliance of artists, arts administrators, writers,
teachers, and citizens concerned about censorship and the arts. We are
a project of Mobius, an artist-run center for experimental art in all
media. The opinions of the BCFE, however, do not necessarily reflect
those of the NCFE or of Mobius's staff, board, or member artists.
Table of Contents
Villains
Lifetime Achievement Awards
1. Paul Weyrich
2. Cincinnati
The Top 20 for 1994-1995
1. The 104th Congress
2. Newt Gingrich
3. James Exon
4. Larry Pressler
5. Diane Feinstein and Trent Lott
6. John Kerry
7. Ed Markey
8. Peter Blute
9. DeLores Tucker and William Bennett
10. Martin Rimm
11. The Carnegie Mellon Administration
12. America Online
13. Church of Scientology
14. Ralph Reed
15. Christian Action Network
16. Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
17. The New NEA Four
18. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
19. William Walsh
20. The Boston Press
Dishonorable Mentions
Heroes
Lifetime Achievement Awards
1. Leanne Katz
2. Rock Out Censorship
The Top 10 for 1994-1995
1. Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords
2. Newt Gingrich
3. Nina Crowley
4. Hans Evers
5. The Bradford College Class of '95
6. Yvonne Nicoletti
7. The Anti-Censorship Activists at Carnegie Mellon
8. Mike Godwin
9. Joycelyn Elders
10. Nadine Strossen
Honorable Mentions
Posthumous Heroes
Heroes and Villains 1995
Villains
Lifetime Achievement Awards
Right-wing power broker Paul Weyrich. In second place on its list of
the Top 10 Censored News Stories of 1995, Project Censored cites
the news blackout on Weyrich's Council for National Policy (CNP).
A secretive, closed-door strategy-formulating organization whose
membership is a Who's Who of the far right, the CNP played a
decisive role in creating the conservative Republican anschluss of
November 1994. An admirer of Father Coughlin, the Thirties
pro-fascist radio demagogue, the ardently authoritarian Weyrich
has operated at the heart of reactionary politics for over two
decades. With the help of handouts from beer magnate Joseph Coors,
he has founded or cofounded an impressive list of right-wing
organizations, including the Moral Majority, the Heritage
Foundation, and the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress
(CSFC). His agenda has been to influence the electoral process
through fundraising campaigns, grassroots mobilization, propaganda
blitzes, and promotion of conservative candidates. Out of the CSFC
grew the Free Congress Foundation, which has branched out into
lobbying for conservative judicial appointments, communications
schemes like "National Empowerment Television," and efforts to
defeat gay rights initiatives. He has described the New Right as
"radicals who want to change the existing power structure" rather
than conservatives in any traditional sense. Weyrich was one of
the first to articulate the idea that the United States is
engulfed in a cultural civil war. "It may not be with bullets, and
it may not be with rockets and missiles, but it is a war,
nonetheless. It is a war of ideology, it's a war of ideas, it's a
war about our way of life. And it has to be fought with the same
intensity, I think, and dedication as you would fight a shooting
war." It is becoming increasingly clear that to dismiss this
statement is to be fatally deluded.
Cincinnati. In 1842, Charles Dickens wrote: "Cincinnati is a beautiful
city; cheerful, thriving, and animated." He was particularly
impressed by the Ohio community's support for free public
education, though he had doubts regarding its quality. English
entrepreneur Frances Trollope, who preceded Dickens in Cincinnati
by 14 years and spent much more time there, could have told him
that Cincinnati education was a fairly Spartan enterprise. In Mrs.
Trollope's day, this frontier town on the banks of the Ohio was a
cultural backwater mainly noted for the size of its pig
population. Trollope, who complained that her Cincinnati neighbors
held the fine arts in contempt and considered Shakespeare
"obscene," may herself be held accountable for inventing the
shopping mall. That she invented it in Cincinnati seems completely
fitting. A longtime inspiration to the enemies of art, culture,
scholarship, tolerance, taste, and intelligence, Cincinnati, aka
Orthodoxy-on-the-Ohio, deserves recognition for the proud
persistence of its Philistine tradition. For three decades,
Cincinnati was home to the pacesetting Citizens for Decent
Literature, led by Charles H. Keating of Lincoln Savings and Loan
fame, one of the sleaziest politicians of our time. The list of
censorship imbroglios in recent years is long and sad. Highlights
include the prosecution of Dennis Barrie and the Contemporary Art
Center for "pandering obscenity" via the work of Robert
Mapplethorpe; a heavy-handed effort to shut down the city's only
gay bookstore by having its video rental copy of Pasolini's film
Salo adjudicated obscene; library bans on a range of material
including Playboy and the Advocate; and raids on the homes of
computer users suspected of downloading pornography. While some
perfectly good people choose to live in Cincinnati for reasons
best known to themselves, the city itself is less a municipality
than it is a state of mind made up of six parts Cincinnati for
Family Values and four parts Marge Schott. This mindset is
spreading; beware.
The Top Twenty for 1994-1995
(in no particular order)
The 104th Congress. Winner of the 1995 Orwell Memorial "Ignorance Is
Strength" Award. This legion of the ethically challenged came
swooping down on Washington last winter with a deafening messianic
mean-spirited roar that all but drowned out the voices of those
few members who retain the faculty of reason. Its mission is to
stomp the poor, blight the environment, roll back civil rights,
erode separation of church and state, and make America a sprawling
tawdry playground for the crass, the mean and the greedy. Its
contempt for the Bill of Rights is manifest, especially with
regard to the First Amendment. Its support for constitutional
amendments to criminalize flag desecration and reintroduce school
prayer, its enthusiasm for censorship of cyberspace and
telecommunications media, its hostility to both high and popular
culture, and its endless grandstanding over pornography, real and
imagined, all certify that the 104th Congress is the most
egregious collection of pro-censorship moral crusaders to hit
Capitol Hill in over forty years.
Congressman Newt Gingrich (R.-Georgia), Speaker of the House of
Representatives. The race to be crowned Most Repellent Politician
of Our Time is too close to call, but this Machiavellian sociopath
may have an edge. Beneficiary of a wealthy propaganda-spewing
ethically dysfunctional personal empire, chief perpetrator of the
Contract with America, Gingrich has supported efforts to abridge
the First Amendment through constitutional additions on flag
desecration and school prayer, has applied an almost preternatural
insensitivity to efforts to stifle minority voices, has advocated
zero-funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and has
given aid and comfort to every Congressional effort to kill all
government support for art and scholarship. William Butler Yeats
said that the millenium would usher in the Age of the Rough Beast;
it might well be a Newt.
Senator J. James Exon. Now that Jesse Helms devotes his wit, charm,
and intellect to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he
now chairs, his role as the Senate's self-appointed guardian of
public morals has been assumed by this 74-year-old Nebraska
Democrat. A longtime supporter of Jesse's attacks on the arts,
Exon broke new ground by leading the charge to clean up electronic
communications. Outraged by the news that some people talk about
sex via computer networks, he sponsored the Communications Decency
Act (originally S.314), which imposes fines up to $100,000 and
prison sentences up to two years for electronic "indecency."
Attached to the Senate's omnibus telecommunications package,
Exon's bill passed the Senate 84-16, and may well become law. The
fact that sexually explicit material is only available to those
who actively seek it out matters not to Exon who, like all
censors, enjoys minding other people's business. Railing against
"porn-users' advocates" like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, Exon basks in the support of the theocratic right.
Senator Larry Pressler. Chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and
Transportation Committee, this South Dakota Republican's
McCarthyite assaults on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
reveal the moral vacuity of a politician who never stops
campaigning - and addressing his campaign pitch to the lowest
common denominator. Pressler's most offensive stunt in recent
months was to demand that all affiliates of National Public Radio
fill out a 16-page questionnaire, prepared with input from the
far-right Family Research Council, about the sex, ethnicity,
religious backgrounds, political affiliations, and employment
histories of all employees. Special attention was paid to whether
any NPR employees had worked for Pacifica Radio, which has
challenged broadcast content restrictions. "[The questionnaire is]
aimed at only one thing, and that's intimidation," the late Arthur
Kropp of People for the American Way told the New York Times.
"It's politics at its nastiest... a witch hunt." The questionnaire
was finally withdrawn, but not before Pressler's ideological
fact-finding mission had cost taxpayers $92,000. As Pressler's
South Dakota Democratic counterpart once said, "A Senate seat is a
terrible thing to waste."
Senators Diane Feinstein (D.-California) and Trent Lott
(R.-Mississippi). "Liberal" Democrat Feinstein and redneck
Republican Lott, both avid supporters of the Senate's Counter
Terrorism bill (S.735) and its roving wiretap provisions, teamed
up to make that dubious piece of legislation even more repressive
with an amendment banning distribution of information about
explosive materials and devices by any means. (Goodbye Anarchist
Cookbook.) The comedy team of Feinstein and Lott has also
collaborated on efforts to combat smut on cable tv, and are among
the sponsors of the Flag Desecration Amendment - which, if
ratified, will mean that the United States neither has nor
believes in freedom of speech.
Senator John F. Kerry (R.-Massachusetts). One of an increasing number
of Democrats who seek to get votes by proving that they can be
Republicans just like everybody else, Kerry has been drifting to
the right in ways that show dwindling concern for First Amendment
principles. His worst offense may be his support of James Exon's
Communications Decency Act, which he voted for twice: in
committee, and then on the floor of the Senate. An opponent of the
1989 Flag Amendment, he has equivocated in stating his position
regarding that measure's current incarnation, and may even vote
for it. Not, in any case, to be trusted.
Congressman Ed Markey (D.-Mass.). Doggedly persisting in his efforts
to censor television, Markey is the chief architect of the
Parental Choice in Television Act, H.R.2030. The bill, which may
well become law, would force purchasers of television sets to pay
for a violence-censoring device (the so-called V-chip), whether
they want one or not. More problematic is a provision that calls
for an official federal Television Rating Code, should the
broadcast industry fail to adopt a satisfactory rating system
"voluntarily." (Such a rating system, which would not distinguish
Eisenstein's Potemkin from Miami Vice, would be at least as much a
censorship tool as the MPAA's film rating system; the chill is
already being felt.) It is worth noting that the left-leaning Mr.
Markey's Congressional district is a hotbed of right-wing
activity, and that he has been steadily pressured by Morality in
Media to help wage its holy war against the secular humanist
airwaves.
C. DeLores Tucker, head of the National Political Caucus of Black
Women, and William Bennett, disastrous Education Secretary under
Reagan, bumbling drug czar under Bush, presently co-director of
Empower America, a reactionary right public policy lobby, and the
"John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow in Cultural Policy" at the
egregious Heritage Foundation. Even stranger bedfellows than Diane
Feinstein and Trent Lott, this odd couple has recently found
common ground in the will to censor popular culture. Joining
forces in press conferences, public appearances, and a series of
public service announcements decrying rap music and Time Warner,
Tucker and Bennett deny promoting censorship while avidly
supporting censorious ratings systems, broader definitions of
pornography, and narrower definitions of permissible speech. Using
rhetoric that combines the sanctimoniousness of Jerry Falwell with
the sophistry of Catharine MacKinnon, Tucker has testified before
Congress that "Because this pornographic smut is in the hands of
our children, it coerces, influences, encourages and motivates our
youth to commit violent behavior." She believes that much rap
music is not entitled to constitutional protection and should be
sold in adult bookstores if at all. Bennett, smug, self-righteous
editor of the Book of Virtues, has recently demanded abolition of
the National Endowment for the Humanities, which he once chaired,
because of its failure to live up to his right-wing standards of
political correctness.
Martin Rimm. Recipient of our first annual Milo Minderbinder Award for
Outstanding Pro-Censorship Achievement by a Self-Promoting
Charlatan. As an undergraduate at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon
University, Rimm conducted a "research" project on sexually
explicit material on computer networks. With the aid of anti-porn
activist Deen Kaplan, Rimm sold the study to the student editors
of the Georgetown Law Review, with the stipulation that potential
critics would not see pre-publication copies. Rimm then panicked
the Carnegie Mellon administration into censoring electronic
access on campus, talked Time into doing a lurid cover story, and
wangled an appearance on Nightline. On publication, the study
immediately revealed itself as methodologically worthless.
Information soon came to light suggesting that Rimm had (1) pried
information from operators of adult bulletin boards by claiming
they could use his study to increase their profits; (2)
simultaneously tried to sell his software to the Department of
Justice to help them prosecute those same people; (3) used
unethical means to obtain computer usage data on Carnegie Mellon
students, faculty and staff; (4) misrepresented his position at
Carnegie Mellon; (5) plagiarized parts of his report from a
Canadian study whose conclusions were almost diametrically opposed
to his. These charges, now under investigation, have resulted in
Rimm being disinvited to testify at anti-porn hearings on July 24.
But the damage has been done. Rimm's results, which distort and
grossly exaggerate both the availability and the nature of sexual
material on the Internet, will be repeated by pro-censorship
zealots in and out of Congress until they become "facts."
America Online (AOL) and its ambitious President and CEO, Stephen M.
Case. In the words of James Egelhof, who maintains one of a
growing number of anti-AOL sites on the Internet, "AOL provides
the worst Internet service in the country, and charges massively
for it. AOL's profits depend on pacifying its user base and
quelling dissent and debate, so it enforces a heavily restrictive
user agreement against its customers.... AOL's online areas are
far from the free-speech havens Internet users have come to expect
on Usenet and IRC [Interactive Relay Chat]. In fact, AOL, bent on
presenting itself as a `family service,' makes sure that nothing
controversial or offensive ever can reach its members. AOL staff,
armed with a lengthy list of prohibited subjects and words, police
the message boards and chat rooms for violations. These untrained
staffers have the power to delete any message, stop any chat, and
cancel any member's account." Among the many forbidden words
included in AOL's "Vulgarity Guidelines" are penis, vagina,
defecation, urination, transsexual, transvestite, sadomasochism,
and submissive. In addition, Case and his AOL watchdogs have been
recording information about what their subscribers download, and
sharing it with the Justice Department. AOL, of course, has not
explained who uploaded the material in the first place or how it
is so easy for them to track the relevant downloads. Sounds like
entrapment to us.
The Church of Scientology. Perhaps modeling their behavior on that of
America Online, the keepers of the flame of L. Ron Hubbard have
forged cancellations of Internet messages they don't like, tried
to remove an entire Usenet discussion group devoted to critical
examination of Scientology, threatened operators of anonymous
remailing services in order to discourage anonymous criticism of
Scientology, instigated a raid on an anonymous remailing service
in Finland, and sought to intimidate Scientology critic Dennis
Ehrlich, his Internet access provider, and Netcom by suing them on
extremely dubious grounds of copyright violation.
Ralph Reed, Executive Director of the Christian Coalition. Recipient
of our 1993 institutional Lifetime Achievement Award for Villainy,
the Christian Coalition has not been content to rest on its
laurels. This relentlessly obnoxious outfit has, in fact, gone
forth and multiplied, spreading nationwide like a plague of kudzu.
Although some credit for this success is due Pat Robertson, from
whose failed 1988 presidential campaign the Christian Coalition
slithered forth, the real driving force and leading strategist
behind this crypto-fascist movement has been Mr. Reed. With
diligence and fierce efficiency, testing the outer limits of
501(c)(3) nonprofit status all the way, Reed has quietly set about
dismantling the Bill of Rights. A measure of his success is the
seriousness with which his Contract with American Families, a
legislation package from Hades that pursues a program of
theocratic social engineering, has been received on Capitol Hill.
(One of its demands, the elimination of the arts and humanities
endowments, is now nearing fulfillment.) Reed, who has the aura of
a choirboy who slips behind the rectory to strangle cats, is one
of the most sinister figures ever to gain power on the Christian
Right.
Sex Is...
, which indirectly benefited from NEA funding.
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. A right-wing
authoritarian movement that overlaps with Operation Rescue and militant
charismatic factions, the Catholic League has enjoyed increasing success in
misrepresenting itself as a mainstream Catholic organization. Ten years ago,
the Catholic League gained notoriety by mobilizing against Jean-Luc Godard's
Hail Mary; in 1995, it got even more mileage out a patently offensive
disinformation campaign against the movie Priest, accompanied by a boycott of
Walt Disney Enterprises, whose subsidiary Miramax released the film. The
Catholic League's obsessively homophobic Massachusetts chapter tried to
prevent the film, which deals with a gay priest in working-class Liverpool,
from opening at the Dedham Community Theater, and did succeed in shortening
its run. In other recent exploits, the Catholic League has been active in the
fight against condom distribution and safer sex information, and mobilized
against Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art for supporting World AIDS Day
posters and shrines depicting the Blessed Virgin Rubber Goddess ("Immaculate
Protection"), a project by Provincetown artist Jay Critchley and Boston
artist/activists Lydia Eccles and Wendy Hamer.
The NEA Administrative Four. People like these caused arts advocates who had
fought long and hard in defense of the NEA to give up and abandon ship. (1)
Jane Alexander, the arts endowment's Chairman, made our Heroes List last
year, then disgraced herself within a matter of days by permitting the
politically motivated defunding of photographers Merry Alpern, Barbara
DeGenevieve, and Andres Serrano - and then claiming that the quality of the
artists' work was at issue. Since then, she has presided over more
politically inspired vetoes of NEA panel-approved grants than her two
Bush-era predecessors combined, while playing the role of Great Lady of the
Arts and getting away with it. (2) Cherie "Get with the Program" Simon, the
NEA's head of press relations, who speaks for the Endowment when Jane
Alexander isn't being let out. Simon's abrasive, condescending style, barely
masking her contempt for artists, has helped erode the NEA's grassroots
support. (3) National Arts Council Member George White, President of the
O'Neill Theater Center, led the charge against Alpern, DeGenevieve, and
Serrano, claiming that to fund them would contravene the "clear instructions
of Congress." White's attitude toward Serrano, an artist now being punished
for his much-misunderstood 1987 work "Piss Christ," has helped make
blacklisting at the NEA a respectable enterprise. (3) National Arts Council
Member Barbara Grossman, who teaches in the Drama Department at Tufts
University, may have set the standards of doublethink and cognitive
diminution that the Council, the governing board of the NEA, now lives by.
Last August, in the apparently rehearsed deliberations that ended in the
defunding of Alpern, DeGenevieve and Serrano, Grossman read the 1992
Democratic Party statement on freedom of expression, then said brightly, "We
cannot be blind to political reality.... I would never, ever limit an
artist's ability to create what he or she needs to create... but I think that
given the volatile times in which we live, we cannot be blind to the reality
of funding, either." Since this sort of Orwellian moral sellout predictably
did nothing to change the reality of funding at the NEA - i.e., there very
likely soon won't be any funding - it might at least have given us a lift if
someone there had stood up and shown some integrity.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Continuing a tradition, the high
court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has in the past year placed
political correctness before sound Constitutional principles on at least two
important occasions. In Bowman v. Heller and Hurley v. Irish-American Gay,
Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, the SJC made well-meaning and popular
decisions that unfortunately contravened well-established First Amendment
law. In Bowman, a suit by a candidate for union office against a political
enemy who had made crude and distasteful flyers lampooning her and
distributed them privately to five allies, the court ruled that Heller's
"intentional infliction of emotional distress" entitled Bowman to damages.
This contradicts the 198? U.S. Supreme Court decision Falwell v. Hustler,
which affirmed the constitutionality of satire; its implications are
particularly disturbing for writers and artists. In Hurley, the court ruled
that the virulently homophobic Allied War Veterans who run Boston's St.
Patrick's Day Parade had to accept the presence of a gay contingent in their
annual celebration of bigotry. Having ruled in the Desilets case that
landlords can refuse to rent to tenants if they disapprove of the tenants'
lifestyles, the SJC seems to believe that members of sexual-minorities should
be allowed to march in St. Patrick's Day parades but not be allowed to rent
apartments. The Hurley decision has recently been overturned by the U.S.
Supreme Court, where, if there is any justice, the Bowman case will soon be
headed.
Former Cambridge (Mass.) City Councilor William Walsh. Still clinging to his
City Council seat while awaiting sentencing on 41 bank fraud convictions,
Walsh appointed himself municipal arbiter of decency last October and
embarked on a one-man vigilante raid against an art exhibit sponsored by the
Cambridge Cultural Council. The target of Walsh's righteous wrath, which he
called "nothing but raw sex," was Identidem, an exhibit of works by artist
Hans Evers. A sampling of pieces from a two-year project on masculine
identity, the show included phallic imagery, but no depictions of sexual
activity. (The presence of masking and posted disclaimers should have been
sufficient to warn those potentially offended by a few allusions to male
anatomy.) Ripping two latex dildos out of their settings and absconding with
them, Walsh demanded that the show be shut down, that the Cambridge Cultural
Council be investigated, and that Hans Evers be prosecuted for obscenity. He
also alerted right-wing media thugs like Cro-Magnon radio talk show host
Howie Carr, and launched a smear campaign against Evers, his supporters, and
the Cultural Council. Evers responded by pressing charges against Walsh for
malicious destruction of property. Although Walsh was acquitted by jurors who
were never instructed in the serious First Amendment implications of a public
official acting as self-appointed censor, the BCFE finds Walsh - a longtime
enemy of the arts, free expression, and civilized society -thoroughly and
irredeemably guilty.
The Boston press. Five years ago, when artists organized the BCFE in response
to attacks on the NEA and cultural institutions, Boston had a number of
reliable arts reporters. These journalists were of varying degrees of
intelligence, talent, sophistication and perspicacity, and not all of them
wrote for papers whose agendas encompassed any serious arts coverage.
Nevertheless, we could at one time be sure that if anything significantly
affecting the arts happened locally or nationally, someone in Boston would
report it. Such is no longer the case. The best arts journalists in Boston
have left town, gone on leaves of absence, stopped working altogether, or
moved to publications where their strengths are wasted, underused, and
practically unrecognized. Because local editors -including most arts editors
- tend to have little respect for, interest in, or knowledge of the lives and
issues of working artists, and are ill-informed about grave issues facing the
arts today, arts reportage is now mostly the domain of the young, the
starstruck, and the inept. (The conventional wisdom seems to be that one
doesn't need to know a damned thing in order to cover the arts.) Events of
crucial importance to the thousands of cultural workers in the Boston area go
unreported here, leaving an informational void for which every publication in
Boston must be held accountable. The worst offenders have been (1) the Boston
Globe, where Arts Editor Mary Jane Wilkinson (recently promoted to Managing
Editor for Features) has thrown the full weight of her provinicial arrogance
into an apparent effort to make sure the arts supporters of New England
remain as clueless as she is; (2) the Boston Phoenix, which suffered a brain
drain with the departures of Mark Jurkowitz, Maureen Dezell, Ric Kahn, Liz
Galst and others, and now appears to be assembled by and for supremely
oblivious toxic yuppies; (3) the Boston Herald, which now prints less of
cultural interest than the Daily Racing Form. Until this situation improves,
artists interested in keeping informed should rely on the Washington Post,
the Village Voice, trade publications, the Internet, and smoke signals.
Dishonorable Mentions
Congressman Joseph Kennedy (D.-Mass.), who proves that not all Kennedys
support the arts and have three-digit IQs, for supporting the Flag Amendment
and other idiocies; Senators Charles Grassley (R.-Iowa) and Dan Coats
(R.-Indiana), for boorish attempts to regulate content in cyberspace; Senator
Nancy Kassebaum (R.-Kansas), for punitive moves against the NEA for funding
Highways, the Santa Monica facility where performance artist Tim Miller is
based ("I think most people would not call the solo performances of Tim
Miller art"); roving wingnut Barry Crimmins for his delusional testimony in
recent cyberporn hearings; Herald-critic-cum-dance-administrator Iris Fanger,
for doltishly censoring a piece by choreographer Lynn Shapiro out of this
summer's Faculty Performance Dance Series at Harvard; the MBTA Police (the
Boston subway gestapo), for heavyhanded attempts to stop orderly protests
against the Commuter Channel, and for roughing up artist Stephen Frederick
for the crime of dressing weirdly; the MBTA, for trying to reject public
service messages by the AIDS Action Committee, and for removing AIDS
awareness posters by artist Jay Critchley; New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
for pushing a draconian porn-zoning ordinance; Time magazine, for
disseminating shoddy, sensational pro-censorship propaganda in the wake of
Congressional attacks on Time Warner; Disney/Miramax, for butchering the
works of film artists in order to perk them up for American attention spans
and tone them down to avoid the dreaded NC17; the Haverhill Gazette, for its
rabidly homophobic efforts to stop Leslie Feinberg's appearance at Bradford
College; the administration of Bradford College, for almost giving the
Haverhill Gazette its wish; Principal Gregory Scotten of Martha's Vineyard
Regional High School, for censoring the commencement speech of Class of '95
Salutatorian Megan Cryer, refusing to allow her to refer to her rape by a
fellow student; Orleans Town Executive Nancymarie Schwinn, for her mercifully
short-lived directive against nude representations in the Orleans Cultural
Council's gallery; Lotus Corporation, for erasing identifiably gay and
lesbian material from an art exhibit intended to celebrate Gay Pride Month;
the busy book banners of New Hampshire; Gary Bauer's Family Research Council;
Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D.-South Carolina); Donald Wildmon's
American Family Association; Congressman Robert Dornan (R.-California);
Congressman Phil Crane (R.-Illinois); Congressman Dick Armey (R.-Texas);
Congressman Richard Neal (R.-Mass.); the Clinton Administration; and others
too depressingly numerous to mention.
Heroes
Lifetime Achievement Awards
Leanne Katz, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against
Censorship. When we gave our 1994 institutional Lifetime
Achievement Award for Heroism to the National Coalition Against
Censorship, we said that Leanne Katz's "drive, determination,
integrity of purpose and clarity of vision make her one of the
finest role models free expression activists could hope for." In
the past year, she has more than justified that description. Her
courageous leadership on a succession of difficult issues has been
indispensable at a time of burnout and demoralization. We are
especially grateful for her swift response to the harassment
campaign directed at the Pink Pyramid, Cincinnati's only gay and
lesbian bookstore, whose video rental copy of Pasolini's Salo
served as the basis for "pandering obscenity" charges. Grasping
the importance of this case more readily than some free expression
advocates who ought to have known better, Leanne Katz initiated an
amicus brief supporting attempts to dismiss charges against the
bookstore owner and two employees. This brought the righteous
wrath of Donald Wildmon's American Family Association down on her
organization. With typical grace and tact, she turned the
resulting crisis into a moral victory. We are pleased to honor
this passionately sane defender of freedom for her tireless
efforts on behalf of all of us. For information about the National
Coalition Against Censorship, write to: NCAC, 275 7th Avenue, New
York, NY 10001.
Rock Out Censorship. This Ohio-based organization, rooted in the music
scene but broadly attentive to First Amendment issues, was founded
by activist John Woods, who understands that any movement worthy
of the name must have strong grassroots participation. With the
help of its newsletter, an information-packed tabloid that puts
slicker publications to shame, Rock Out Censorship informs music
fans and musicians while mobilizing them across the country. A
strong supporter of the Right to Rock Network campaign against
Parental Advisory labels, ROC is in the forefront of fights
against music censorship in many states, most notably in
Pennsylvania. Knowing this group exists helps keep members of the
BCFE from flinging themselves into Boston Harbor; ROC has our
strongest endorsement. For information, contact Rock Out
Censorship, POB 147, Jewett, OH 43986.
Top Ten for 1994-1995
(in no particular order)
Senators Patrick Leahy (D.-Vermont) and Jim Jeffords (R-Vermont). In
the Green Mountain State, something in the air, the water or the
maple syrup seems to help produce a higher class of legislator.
Both Leahy and Jeffords have long supported funding without
content restriction for the National Endowment for the Arts, the
National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting. This year, Leahy emerged as the Senate leader
in the fight against censorship in cyberspace, a fight supported
by Jeffords. Among Republicans, Jeffords has established a First
Amendment record rivaled only by Rhode Island's John Chafee.
Recently Jeffords has not only stood firm against the prevailing
anti-cultural currents of his own party, he has been among the few
Senators from either side of the aisle who have marshaled cultural
literacy, insight and commitment into efforts to save government
support for the arts and humanities.
Congressman Newt Gingrich. We are willing to choke back our revulsion
long enough to give Gingrich credit for his opposition to Senator
Exon's Communications Decency Act (CDA) and other attempts to
censor the Internet. On June 20, on the National Empowerment
Television program Progress Report, Newt said of the CDA, "It is
clearly a violation of the right of adults to communicate with
each other. I don't agree with it.... [It is] a very badly thought
out and not productive amendment...." Civil libertarians were at
first skeptical, but Newt evidently meant what he said and has
used his considerable power to thwart all cyber-censorship
initiatives reaching the House.
Music industry activist Nina Crowley. When a petition seeking to ban
sales of records with Parental Advisory labels to minors was
presented to the City Council in her home community, Leominster
(MA), Nina Crowley played a key role in defeating the measure by
circulating a counterpetition and seeking support from the
Recording Industry of America, the National Association of
Recording Merchandisers, and the ACLU. Out of this effort grew
Mass. MIC (the Massachusetts Music Industry Coalition), an
organization that brings together musicians, promoters, d.j.s and
fans in an effort to uphold freedom of expression in music and all
other media. As Mass. MIC's Executive Director, Ms. Crowley has
worked tirelessly and effectively to make her organization a major
rallying point in the fight to stop censorship in Massachusetts.
Artist Hans Evers. Contrary to legend, few artists leap at the chance
to gain the kind of notoriety censorship incidents confer on them.
Hans Evers certainly had nothing of that nature in mind when he
installed his city-sponsored exhibit at Gallery 57 in Cambridge,
Mass. But when Cambridge City Councilor William Walsh intervened,
damaging one piece in the process of trying to censor it, Evers
fought back. Where many artists would have let the matter drop,
this one sought justice - and affirmation of the fact that the
First Amendment forbids public officials to act as freelance art
vigilantes. Evers got no such satisfaction, and received a welter
of ridicule from right-wing columnists and talk-show hosts. But
his handling of the situation set a fine example for artists
everywhere, and we salute him for it.
Bradford College Class of '95. Graduating seniors at Bradford College,
a small but reputable 4-year liberal arts institution in
Haverhill, Mass., traditionally pick their own commencement
speaker. Normally, the only issue is availability. This year,
Bradford seniors chose author/labor activist Leslie Feinberg,
whose novel Stone Butch Blues had been required reading in the
Senior Humanities Seminar that half the class was obligated to
take. Bradford President Joseph Short refused their request,
saying that to invite Feinberg, a self-described transgendered
lesbian, would be inconsistent with the dignity of commencement.
As one student put it, "We cannot graduate without reading her
book, but we cannot hear her speak at graduation." Demanding that
Short rescind his decision, students occupied the administration
building, alerted the media, and contacted gay rights, labor, and
free expression advocates across the state and around the country.
Short eventually relented. In her eloquent commencement address,
Leslie Feinberg paid tribute to the integrity and determination of
the Class of '95; we're happy to echo her sentiments.
Andover High School student Yvonne Nicoletti. When Nicoletti, an
18-year-old honor student, arrived at school clad in a T-shirt
promoting the band White Zombie, Assistant Principal Ellen Parker
ordered her to go home and change. Parker found the design
emblazoned on the shirt, a caricature of large-breasted women,
offensive. Nicoletti left the school, but then, with her parents'
consent, returned to the school grounds wearing her bra outside
the offending shirt to cover some of the graphics. When she began
a silent vigil standing on a boulder opposite the school,
principal Timothy Thomas ordered her to leave. When she refused,
he had her arrested and charged with "disturbing a school," then
suspended her indefinitely. With the aid of the Massachusetts
Civil Liberties Union, Nicoletti was reinstated at Andover High a
few days later. In July, Judge Elizabeth Flatley of Lawrence
District Court formally filed the case, insuring that it would
slip into oblivion without coming to trial, and leaving the
question of Nicoletti's First Amendment rights - and that of other
Massachusetts high school students - unresolved. Nicoletti's
spirited, courageous, principled stand against censorship serves
nevertheless as an example to students in increasingly repressive
public schools across Massachusetts.
The anti-censorship activists at Carnegie Mellon University,
especially (1) former Student Body President Declan McCullagh; (2)
the students, faculty, staff and alumni who make up the Coalition
for Academic Freedom of Expression (CAFE); and (3) the pro-sex
feminist direct-action group known as the Clitoral Hoods. Serving
as an example to academic communities everywhere, they had the
guts to stand up to the heavy-handed tactics of an intellectually
dishonest authoritarian administration. (If he had done nothing
else, McCullagh would still deserve thanks for discovering that
Martin Rimm is the author of the most execrably written novel in
the English language, An American Playground.)
Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(EFF). A leader in the fight against government censorship of
computer networks, Mike Godwin is an able communicator who
explains in clear and eloquent terms the nature of electronic
communication and the indispensability of free expression to a
working democracy. Mike has served us well by preparing EFF's
powerful Congressional testimony, by going one-on-one with the
Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed on Nightline, and by doing a lot
of the legwork necessary to expose the Martin Rimm "study" for the
academic fraud that it is.
Former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. A wise, intelligent, truthful
voice in a presidential administration notably lacking in wisdom,
intelligence, and truthfulness, Dr. Elders was an isolated voice
of reason on the subjects of sex, AIDS, contraception, and drugs.
This made her the object of one of the most vicious and persistent
hate campaigns ever mounted by the theocratic right. Many would
have answered such smears in kind; Elders responded with dignity,
humor, and a firm resolve never to be to be silenced. Someday,
when American culture reaches adulthood, it will be ready for a
Joycelyn Elders, but then the need for her will be less acute.
Nadine Strossen, President of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Noted for her well-articulated and authoritative stands on a range
of constitutional issues, Nadine Strossen is the youngest person
ever to rise to the presidency of the ACLU. Her book Defending
Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights,
published in 1995 by Scribner, presents solid arguments, from a
feminist perspective, against censorship of sexually explicit
material. One of the best features of this excellent, necessary
work is that it clearly and compellingly demonstrates the
anti-feminist nature of such censorship. The author of an
important essay, "Regulating Racist Speech on Campus," reprinted
in the anthology Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex (NYU Press,
1995), Strossen has lectured eloquently on the problems of free
speech in recent public appearances around the country. She
teaches at New York Law School; we envy her students.
Honorable Mentions
Music promoter Richard White and Nirvana guitarist Krist Novoselic, for
founding the advocacy organization JAMPAC and lending critical support to
Mass. MIC; students Jeffrey and Jonathan Pyle and their father, law professor
Christopher Pyle, for challenging the dress code at South Hadley (Mass.)
High; students Casie and John Northrup, for pursuing a similar challenge at
Carver (Mass.) High; Congressman Peter Torkildsen (R.-Mass.), for breaking
with his party in ways that show a civilized sensibility at work, and for
risking obloquy by defending the National Endowment for the Humanities;
journalist/critic Bill Marx, for a Boston Magazine piece that at least
approached a truthful perspective on the strange world of the Massachusetts
Cultural Council; banned novelist Nancy Garden, for the integrity of her work
and the eloquence of her statements on censorship at the 1995 OutWrite
Conference; Lani Guinier, for continuing to defend the rights of minority
voices to be heard; theater historian Gail Cohen, for dedicating herself to
the preservation of an almost lost heritage in regional theater; banned
novelist Robert Cormier, for his stands against the censorship of his own
work and everyone else's; theater owner Garen Daly, for resisting heavyhanded
attempts to keep the film Priest out of Dedham, Mass.; Boston printmaker
Jerry Harold Hooten, for refusing to acquiesce to censorship by
representatives of Lotus Corporation; Martha's Vineyard Regional High School
Salutatorian Megan Cryer, for responding to censorship of her graduation
speech with an eloquent silence; Feminists for Free Expression, for existing.
In a cultural war of attrition, we are relieved to note that many of those
we've honored in the past five years are still in the trenches. These include
artist Kurt Reynolds; playwright Vera Gold; musician David Herlihy; Boston
Center for the Arts Director Susan Hartnett; ICA Director Milena Kalinovska;
attorney/journalist Harvey Silverglate, attorney/author Wendy Kaminer;
artist/educator Edward Strickland; Edmund Barry Gaither of the Center for
Afro American Studies; Skipp Porteous of the Institute for First Amendment
Studies; ACLU attorney Marjorie Heins; journalist Nan Levinson; free
expression activist Peggy Charren; scholars Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and
Anthony Appiah; Boston Cultural Commissioner Bruce Rossley; and many others.
Finally, we confer posthumous Lifetime Achievement Awards on Bill Reeves,
Chairperson of the Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression for over two
years until his sudden accidental death on April 2, 1995, whose unwavering
dedication to the cause of free expression was an inspiration to everyone who
had the privilege of working with him; and on Arthur Kropp, the fiercely
dedicated President of People for the American Way from 1987 until his death
from complications of AIDS on June 12, 1995. The loss of these irreplaceable
people will be acutely felt for many years to come.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1995 22:51:01 CDT
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