BCFE Newsletter Spring 1995

Table of Contents

Can Cultural Agencies Survive the 104th Congress?

It Depends on What You Mean by Survival

In a blunt address to the National Council on the Arts, NEA Congressional liaison Richard Woodruff pointed out that under these terms, "The Endowment as anyone has ever known it would cease to exist, not in three years as the bill suggests, but beginning this October." Goodling, meanwhile, tried to claim that he was doing the NEA and the NEH a favor. "We have two alternatives," he told the Washington Post, "nothing or the best I can do. This is the best I can get out of committee."

The way in which the bill was introduced at the last minute before appropriations decisions had to be made on the 1996 budget, and the speed with which the bill was thrust out onto the House floor without any of the usual processes of testimony, study or review suggest that Goodling's remark was at best disingenuous. In the final vote (19 in favor, 2 opposed), 18 committee members actually voted "present," withholding overt approval to protest the way in which the vote was rammed through. An attempt by Montana Democrat Pat Williams to secure a two-year reauthorization for both agencies at present levels of funding met with defeat.

In the House of Representatives, the Goodling-Cunningham bill is likely to win the approval of a solid majority. The position of the Senate, where fewer right-wing zealots hold office, is another matter. On May 18, Senator Paul Sarbanes (D.-Maryland) delivered a sharp rebuke to House proposals to eliminate cultural agencies, maintaining that "support for the arts and humanities is the hallmark of a civilized society." When agency chairs Jane Alexander and Sheldon Hackney testified before Senator Slade Gorton's (R.-Washington) Interior Appropriations Subcommittee on March 1, they were warmly received, and most subcommittee members seemed to see the truth in Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy's observation that "We are not going to balance the budget by getting rid of the endowments." Early in April, the Boston Globe reported efforts by moderate Republican Senators Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas and Jim Jeffords of Vermont to see that in the Senate support for reauthorization would indeed be forthcoming.

Jeffords has promised an NEA compromise bill before the end of May. It seems likely that a majority of senators will opt to preserve some semblance of both endowments as well as the Corporation for Broadcasting. What happens after that, as House and Senate versions of key pieces of legislation are reconciled in conference committee, is anybody's guess. The one certainty is that the NEA, the NEH, and CPB will not be allowed to go on doing business as usual.

That realization has been slow to sink in. Despite Newt Gingrich's early indications that he favored "privatization" of culture, many defenders of the NEA remained in denial until the 104th Congress actually convened in early January. (Since there was no direct mention of legislation aimed at cultural agencies in the Contract with America, there had been no specific rallying point for weary and divided troops.) Immediately, however, on January 4, Rep. Phil Crane (R.-Illinois) filed HR 209, the "Privatization of Art Act," the newest incarnation of an anti-NEA bill he has filed at every opportunity for years. Rep. Sidney Yates (D.-Illinois) countered with HR 100, which would have reauthorized the endowments and the Institute for Museum Services. Two weeks later Crane joined Republican Joel Hefley of Colorado's 5th Congressional District, home of both Focus on the Family and Colorado for Family Values, in filing HR 579, the "Privati-zation of the Humanities Act," aimed at killing both the NEA and the NEH. Observers agreed that the prevailing political climate favored Crane and Hefley, not Yates.

The first propaganda blitz was aimed not at the endowments but at CPB. On January 19, a House Appropriations subcommittee under Chairman John Porter (R.-Illinois) reviewed the status of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in a debate-free hearing evidently intended to showcase venom-spitting right-wing ideologues Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, Laurence Jarvik of The Center for Popular Culture, Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media, Robert Knight of the Family Research Council and Jim Warner of the National Rifle Association (who whined that the NRA's point of view was underrepresented on PBS and NPR). Minority members of the subcommittee protested that no time was allotted to question speakers, correct disinformation, or discuss any practical concerns. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Commerce Committee Chairman Larry Pressler (R.-South Dakota) seemed to dedicate his being to the annihilation of PBS and NPR, bullying local stations with McCarthyite inquiries into the background and political beliefs of individual employees.

The endowments entered the line of fire on January 24, when former NEH Chairmen William Bennett and Lynn Cheney went before the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee headed by Ralph Regula (R.-Ohio) and called for the abolition of both agencies. At Bennett's invitation, they were joined by Edwin Delattre, Dean of the School of Education at Boston University, who blamed "political correctness" and "subjectivism" for undermining the arts and humanities. The NEA responded with shows of support by certified conservatives like actor Charlton Heston, who praised the endowments while deploring "indefensible" grants.

The NEA also pursued the appeasement tactics first applied in the summer of 1994 with the defunding of photographers Andres Serrano, Merry Alpern and Barbara DeGenevieve. To avoid embarrassing debate in open sessions of the National Council on the Arts, Jane Alexander and members of the Council have been following the practice of assigning a "working group" to review grants recommended by peer panels for Council approval. Increasingly, the purpose of the working group has been to flag politically sensitive material and make decisions in a way that shuts out the public and stays beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act. (The working group can be held accountable for nothing, because it officially does not exist.) Council members now go into meetings already knowing which grantees are to be voted down. Apparently a few grantees are to be voted down whenever Congress requires a sacrificial gesture. The three photographers, for example, were denied fellowships at a time when the NEA was threatened with punitive budget reductions.

In February, timed between hearings and just before President Clinton sent an overly optimistic arts budget to Congress, Alexander and company vetoed two panel-approved grants: $13,000 to Urban Bush Women for a theatrical version of Bones and Ash, a novel by African-American lesbian author Jewelle Gomez; and $25,000 to the Schubert Performing Arts Center for an Ezra Laderman opera based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Alexander turned down a request by Urban Bush Women for reconsideration. Cherie Simon of the NEA public relations office saw to it that this incident received minimal press coverage, and that reporters were supplied with upbeat releases on projects that did receive funding. The agency did make sure that House appropriations subcommittee members were informed of the vetoes, however. On February 22, Ralph Regula nevertheless led a majority of subcommittee members in recommending that $5 million be rescinded from the FY 1995 budget of each endowment.

In March, responding to questions by Senate subcommittee member Ted Stevens (R.-Alaska), Alexander gave assurances that measures were being taken to prevent the awarding of "questionable" grants. Citing recent reforms intended to insure accountability for content, she implied that interim reports required of organizations receiving NEA funding are now being scrutinized to be sure that the projects being sponsored are safe ones.

On May 5, with reauthorization dangling before Goodling's committee, the Council rejected a $25,000 grant to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and a $10,000 grant to the Renaissance Society in Chicago. The Philadelphia ICA grant would have facilitated a collaboration by artists Jana Sterbak, Janine Antoni and Charles Ray who would "draw on repetitive daily acts such as cleaning, sewing, bathing and dressing in their performances and artwork." The Renaissance Society grant would have supported work dealing with "power, sexuality, and gender identity" by visual artists Keith Cottingham, Lyle Ashton Harris, Sharon Lockhart, Catherine Opie, and Collier Schorr. Jock Reynolds of Phillips Academy's Addison Gallery, whose Museum Program peer panel had recommended the projects for funding, reacted with unconcealed rage. (As the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression points out, Jane Alexander's NEA has in less than two years countermanded more panel-recommended grants than were vetoed under her Bush administration predecessors.) Once again, however, micro-management of publicity helped prevent the incident from being widely reported.

Grassroots support for the NEA continues to erode. On May 16, as we went belatedly to press, the Christian Coalition unleashed its "Contract with the American Family." Among its 10 proposals is a scheme to end all funding for cultural agencies. The Christian Coalition's legislative package was warmly endorsed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who had earlier called for the elimination of the NEA, the NEH, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But since the dwindling defenders of the NEA are now divided between the disillusioned and the uninformed, the latest onslaught elicited barely a murmur.

"Not long afterward, Bill began coming to the BCFE's Monday night meetings. He took part in our first annual marathon reading in observance of Banned Books Week and helped with other events. The enthusiasm Bill brought to the BCFE revived an organization whose members had achieved an almost consummate level of burnout. It wasn't long before the BCFE was almost unimaginable without Bill. In January of 1993, he was elected Cochair. A year later he became our sole Chairperson. Currently the BCFE is undergoing reorganization under the terms of which Bill had been expected to serve as President of our Board of Directors.

"I wonder how many people who consider themselves members of the BCFE have any notion of the size of Bill's contribution. Most of the meeting agendas of the past two years were shaped by Bill. He played a critical role in deciding what form our participation in the Mobius High School Freedom of Expression Project would take. He provided us with indispensable insights into the growth of the right in Massachusetts by infiltrating the largest, most pernicious right-wing movement in the state. Our newsletter now exists because Bill felt strongly that it should. He was constantly dependable and always there, the kind of person we could count on to get up at 4 a.m. and drive to Western Mass. to help represent the BCFE at the New England Artists Congress, or to sacrifice a weekend to some stupefying but important conference on hate speech. "In a struggle where much of the opposition is wielding its alleged religious fervor as a club to beat the rest of us into submission, it was an honor to fight at the side of a genuine person of faith. Bill gave our group its moral center and a vital portion of its moral courage. He believed absolutely in justice for all. When the BCFE was obliged to defend the constitutional rights of white supremacists, Bill helped formulate that stand. His faculty of fairness could be trusted like a voice with perfect pitch. He possessed an artist's sense of the imperatives behind the First Amendment, an African American's understanding of the fragility of freedom, a teacher's love of knowledge gained and shared, and an enlightened human being's empathetic grasp of the humanity of everyone. Knowing Bill was a full and powerful lesson in decency. His friendship was a revelation and a gift. Our loss is enormous, abiding, and beyond articulation."

Bill is survived by his wife, Lisa; his brother Kirkland of Portland, Oregon; two sisters, Gwendolyn and Daisy, both of Boston; and scores of students, associates, and friends. A graduate of Principia College in St. Louis, he held a Master's degree in Theater Arts from Boston's Emerson College, and attended the conservatory at Trinity Repertory Theater in Providence. He was active in the First Church of Christ Scientist, and had recently been employed by the church as an archivist.

In addition to his work with the BCFE, Bill taught acting classes at North Shore Community College and in various adult education programs in the Boston area. He cofounded the Renaissance Theatre Company, and was active in StageSource, an agency dedicated to providing information and support for Boston-based theater professionals.

Contributions to a scholarship fund to be established in Bill's memory may be sent to StageSource, 88 Tremont Street, Suite 714, Boston, MA 02108. Make checks payable to StageSource, but be sure to indicate that the amount is to be applied to the Bill Reeves Scholarship Fund. Q. As we publish our third issue, it might be useful to ask how the first two were received.

A. The response has been for the most part positive - enthusiastic, in fact. We've received a lot of favorable comments, with some dissensions. Our last issue produced the strongest reactions, both pro and con.

Q. What have readers liked?

A. Our censorship update, which often contains material that received little or no mainstream press coverage, and our reports on the NEA. Much of the NEA-related information that appears in these pages has been covered sketchily or not at all by the Boston press.

Q. What aspects haven't they liked?

A. There were scattered complaints that the last issue was "too negative." One reader groused that our front-page piece on the NEA "leaves you with nothing to believe in."

Q. Didn't we intend to leave people clinically depressed?

A. Not quite. In the overlapping areas of censorship and public funding, there's no avoiding some authentically disturbing situations. We last went to press before the 104th Congress went into session, which meant there weren't as yet any relevant bills to fight or support. We also remained in the dark regarding committee assignments. Now that the Gingrich Congress has indeed hit the fan, there are things we can do. Some people will no doubt complain that we're portraying the political situation as too overwhelming to deal with meaningfully. To those people we can only say, You're right, it is overwhelming. Let's grapple with it anyway.

Q. What can be done?

A. The NEA and the NEH may be beyond redemption, but people who still support these agencies should be making sure, now more than ever, that their voices are heard by members of Congress. Rep. Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts, whose Congressional district is filled with arts and educational institutions that benefit from federal funding, has been startlingly weak on cultural issues, even echoing some of Newt Gingrich's sentiments concerning public television. Massachusetts residents should also be aware that while Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry can both be counted on to support the arts and humanities, both have a less than perfect record on free speech issues. Kerry's support of Senator Exon's bill to censor the Internet is especially disturbing. Some appalling legislation is looming on the horizon, including a Constitutional amendment against flag desecration. And since the Oklahoma bombing, censorship is being proposed as an anti-terrorism measure by voices across the political spectrum. It is essential that artists and defenders of civil liberties get used to expressing their opinions to people in government. Congressional offices can be reached through the Congressional Switchboard, 202/224-3121. Mail can be directed to members of the House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515, or to members of the United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510. Letters or brief messages to President Clinton can be emailed to president@whitehouse.gov or sent to the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20500. The White House citizens' comment line is 202/456-1111. As for the NEA, it is important that Jane Alexander hear from those of us who do not find blacklisting, acquiescence to restrictions, abandonment of artists, and chilling oversight measures acceptable means of defending the agency against right-wing attacks. The NEA Chair-man's office can be reached by mail at the National Endowment for the Arts, Nancy Hanks Center, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20506; by FAX at 202/682-5630; or by phone at 202/682-5414.

Q. Since the press isn't doing its job, how can people stay informed?

A. Through publications like Dissent, The Nation, High Performance, the New Art Examiner, and Art in America. Watch for C. Carr's pieces in the Village Voice. Don't trust newspapers like the Boston Globe or the Boston Phoenix to tell you what you need to know, and don't waste your time watching news on tv. If you own a computer, subscribe to ArtsWire (email artswire@tmn.com). Join organizations that defend the arts and free speech. We especially recommend the American Library Association (312/944-6780), the National Coalition Against Censorship (212/807-6222), and the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression (206/340-9301). A detailed list of these and other worthwhile groups will appear in our next issue. If you live in the Boston area, join the BCFE. Come to one of our monthly meetings on Congress Street. Visit the BCFE home page now under construction on the World Wide Web at http://world.std.com/~kip/bcfe.html or call Jim D'Entremont at 617/497-7193 for more information. We are now discussing a guerilla theater action in July, an event series in the fall, and our 1995 Banned Book Vigil scheduled for October 1 and 2 at the Boston Center for the Arts. Having just lost one of our most dedicated members, who cheerfully did the work of several people, we need all the help we can get.

Newt World

For the conservative Republicans who dominate both houses, the 104th Congress is a dream come true -- or, in the case of those who owe their 1994 electoral triumph to the theocratic right, an answered prayer. "This is a chance for us to rewrite and re-route government. This is a precious opportunity," Rep. John Kasich, the Ohio Republican who heads the House Budget Committee told the Wall Street Journal in January. The rewriting and rerouting are objectives of the Contract with America, the legislative agenda House Speaker Gingrich described in the February 2 New York Times as "a program to renew American civilization and to build a true civil society" and to replace the "liberal welfare state" with "some-thing much stronger... a conservative opportunity society."

This apparently means a society where opportunity is restricted to the already privileged. "This is the New Deal and the Great Society in reverse," wrote Jackie Calmes in the January 27 Wall Street Journal. "Rep. Kasich and his budget allies are considering killing, consolidating or privatizing numerous federal offices, among them the departments of Energy, Education, Transportation, Commerce, Human Services, and Housing. They want to turn over Welfare to the states and remake Medicare."

Toward these ends, and in the name of fiscal responsibility, Republicans are seeking to eradicate entirely the $1.3 billion budget of the Low Income Assistance program, which has been helping thousands of indigent citizens pay their utility bills; to eliminate summer jobs for more than 1.2 million low-income youth; to cut Job Corps programs to the bone; to make a nationwide shambles of public housing through a $7 billion rescission; to gut public education; to cancel some programs offering student aid to higher education and abridge the rest; to scale back or drop all programs offering aid to the homeless; to eviscerate child-care assistance for working mothers while forcing more mothers to find one or more jobs; to cut $3 billion out of the food stamps program over the next five years; to defund school lunch programs while relaxing nutritional standards; to block all efforts at health care reform; to lower standards both for product safety and for product liability; to defang the Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Food and Drug Administration; to ease restrictions on industrial polluters; to dilute protections for endangered species while opening more land for exploitation; and, in short, to end or curtail whatever fails to help the wealthy obtain more money.

In late February, Congressional subcommittees hacked away $17.5 billion, $14.9 billion of which was drawn from programs that fall under Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, HUD, and Veterans' Affairs. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a private research firm in Washington, notes that while discretionary programs for the poor make up only 12% of the Federal Government's discretionary spending, they constitute 63% of the cuts proposed. Most of these cuts made it into Rep. Kasich's final budget -- which, despite pieties about belt-tightening toward a balanced budget by 2002, actually increases spending for defense. While some elements are likely to be restored by the Senate, the damage will still be profound.

This comes at a time when the Census Bureau reports that while aggregate economic growth is expanding, the income of the average American household is declining steadily, having dropped 7% since 1989. Per capita income has actually had a slight statistical increase overall, but that includes a disproportionate rise in benefits to the rich. In 1993, the number of Americans below the poverty line increased by more than a million. According to the New York Times, a U.S. Census report released in October 1994 "showed record levels of inequality, with the top fifth of American households earning 48.2% of the nation's income, while the bottom fifth earned just 3.6%."

Gingrich and his legislative clones are seeking to widen the gulf between rich and poor even further. If the Newts go on unchecked, the United States could have, by 2002, the best-balanced budget in hell.

Books

Required Reading in the Aftermath of the Oklahoma Bombing:

Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement by Michael Barkun. University of North Carolina Press, 1994. $39.95, $15.95 paper. A scholarly historical perspective on the religious underpinnings of the white supremacist phenomenon.

Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Survivalist Right by James Coates. Noonday Press, 1987. $8.95 paper. This frightening book is timelier now than when it was new.

Bitter Harvest: Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus; Murder in the Heartland by James Corcoran. Viking, 1990. $18.95. An account of the 1983 showdown between Federal authorities and right-wing tax protester Gordon Kahl.

The Silent Brotherhood: Inside America's Racist Underground. by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. The Free Press, 1989. $22.95. An exploration of the secretive violent extremist group known as The Order.

Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Myth by Robert Fuller. Oxford University Press, 1995. $25. As the millenium approaches, a look at apocalyptic myths and their impact on American culture.

Warrior Dreams: Violence and Manhood in Post-Vietnam America by James William Gibson. Hill and Wang, 1994. $12 paper. A disturbing investigation of the paramilitary subculture.

Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture by James Ridgeway. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991. $18.95 paper. A field guide to American fascist groups.

Required Reading, Period:

Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex: Hate Speech, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Anthony P. Griffin, Donald E. Lively, Robert C. Post, William B. Rubinstein, and Nadine Strossen. New York University Press, 1994. $26.95. First-rate essays opposing promotion of equality through abridgement of speech.

Fighting Words: Individuals, Communities, and Liberties of Speech by Kent Greenawalt. Princeton University Press, 1995. $24.95. A brief but well-delineated look at free speech controversies, including a sharp analysis of the differences between U.S. and Canadian approaches to those issues.

Whose Art Is It? by Jane Kramer. Duke University Press, 1994. $10.95 paper. An important New Yorker essay on public art, now in book form.

Victims of Memory by Mark Pendergrast. Upper Access Books, 1995. $24.95 paper. A comprehensive look at the witch hunts spawned by the pop-psych "recovered memory" cult.

Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights by Nadine Strossen. Scribner, 1995. $22. The president of the ACLU presents forceful arguments against the banning of sexually explicit forms of expression.

You Can't Stay Neutral on a Moving Train by Howard Zinn. Beacon Press, 1994. $22. This memoir by a dedicated activist, historian, and teacher is a heartening reminder that civilized, compassionate and truthful people still exist.

Books We Urge You to Lob at the Wall, but Only After You've Read Them.

The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values by Gertrude Himmelfarb. Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. $24. This distortion of history by an imperious reactionary has been highly recommended by Newt Gingrich.

A Nation without a Conscience by Tim and Beverly LaHaye. Tyndale House, 1994. $16.99. A book without conscious thought by the former head of the Moral Majority and his spouse, the founder and president of Concerned Women for America.

The Things That Matter Most by Cal Thomas. Zondervan, 1994. $22, $11 paper. If the priorities of former Moral Majority media director Cal Thomas ever become universal, we may jump off the Tobin Bridge.

Censors Never Sleep

Space limitations force us to be selective in summarizing recent censorship incidents. Sources for this brief overview include various publications, organizations and individuals, especially the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Detroit News and Free Press, the Baltimore Sun, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Guide, Associated Press Wire Service reports, the American Library Association, the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, the National Coalition Against Censorship, People for the American Way, the ACLU Arts Censorship Project, and persons involved in many of the incidents described.

California:

• On February 28 in San Jose, California Superior Court Judge Peter Stone struck down Stanford University's hate speech code in response to a challenge by nine students and alumni. Although Stanford, a private university, had traditionally applied First Amendment principles to on- campus speech as rigorously as if it were a state institution, in 1990 its administration adopted a code intended to curb harassing or discriminatory speech. The code banned "personal vilification of students on the basis of their sex, race, color, handicap, religion, sexual orientation, or national or ethnic origin." Stone maintained that this was overly broad and went beyond a "fighting words" rationale. The challenge was based on California's "Leonard Law," the work of conservative state Senator Bill Leonard (R.-Orange County). This 1992 statute says that private institutions of higher learning cannot discipline students because of speech or any other expression that has off-campus First Amendment protection. The Leonard Law was previously used to strike down the speech code at Occidental College in Los Angeles. [Note: The Leonard Law notwithstanding, speech codes remain widespread in California colleges and universities. The First Amendment seems not to deter state-supported California schools from clamping down on forms of speech. Recently, in one typical incident at the University of California at Santa Cruz, senior Scott Smith was threatened with seven counts of sexual harassment last December for writing and distributing a satirical essay, "Where Are the Women?," in which he jokingly called for a "Miss Nude Santa Cruz" contest.]

• Illinois House Bill 1102, which would give local communities broad powers to define "obscenity," was introduced in February by conservative legislators, while its counterpart, SB 1036, was filed in the Illinois Senate. Chris Finan of the Media Coalition points out that these bills contain language clearly intended to blunt two out of three prongs of the obscenity test established under Miller v. California. They counter "serious value" arguments by stating that if the material in question is "commercially exploited for the sake of its prurient appeal," then the material must lack any serious literary, artistic, educational or scientific value. Furthermore, they narrow the scope of "community standards" by stressing what the community "accepts" rather than what it tolerates. Both bills were favorably reported out of committee. As we go to press, HB 1102 remains on the House floor awaiting a vote. Following fiery speeches decrying "freedom gone wild," SB 1036 passed on May 3 by a 40-14 vote.

• Formally charged with malicious destruction of personal property after his attack on a city-sponsored exhibit of work by artist Hans Evers, former Cambridge City Councilor William Walsh opted for a trial by jury. Six hours of testimony was heard at Middlesex District Court on April 7. The large wooden boxes out of which Walsh had ripped two mounted latex dildos were wheeled into a corridor adjacent to the courtroom for examination by the six-juror panel and designated alternates. (The piece places an allusion to the work of sculptor Donald Judd in the service of a wry comment on the male obsession with penis size. In the context of a show that explored issues of masculine identity, it was neither bizarre nor obscure.) One female alternate juror found the sight of the dildos so disturbing that she asked to be dismissed. "This isn't about Mr. Evers's artwork or First Amendment rights or freedom of expression," said James Rafferty, Walsh's attorney. "This is about whether a crime occurred." Three days later, the jury decided that Walsh's vigilante action, supposedly intended to protect his constituents from publicly supported "porno-graphy," was not "malicious" and not a crime. Walsh was acquitted. The implications of a city councilor taking the law into his own hands seem not to have occurred to Judge Mark Kovan or this jury. Meanwhile Walsh, who has long been a law unto himself, remains at liberty while appealing his conviction on 41 counts of bank fraud.

• Last December 29, U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns dismissed wire fraud charges against MIT student David LaMacchia, whose computer bulletin board, Cynosure, had been used as a kind of trading post where copyrighted software was exchanged for free. Describing LaMacchia's actions as "irresponsible," Stearns pointed out that LaMacchia might more properly have been prosecuted under copyright law. Since the U.S. Copyright Act, as currently worded, does not criminalize such behavior, Stearns suggested that Congress consider revising its copyright legislation. The judge also observed that to prosecute LaMacchia under the Federal wire fraud statute would be to open the floodgates for criminal charges against thousands of home computer owners. While some computer rights advocates, like Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, hailed the decision as a victory for freedom in cyberspace, others complained that it lent encouragement to software piracy, and representatives of the software industry urged an appeal.

• When her 12-year-old daughter bought Butt Trumpet's debut album Primitive Enema at a local Strawberries record outlet, Julie Bauman petitioned the Leominster City Council to outlaw sales of records with Parental Advisory labels to minors. While Bauman won the support of 23-year- old City Councilor Kevin Cormier, a proposed ban was defeated 8 to 1 at a City Council meeting early in March. Although Bauman and her supporters vowed to return with a reworded bill, the Strawberries chain has vowed to fight whatever local censorship ordinance may eventually pass. Community opposition is being organized by another Leominster parent, Nina Crowley, who helped found the newly established Massachusetts Music Industry Coalition. [Note: Primitive Enema has also run afoul of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which maintains that the album's cover art, whose Parental Advisory label replaces the words Explicit Lyrics with Lighten Up, makes a mockery of the RIAA warning label system. EMI records, which produced the album, has thus far ignored RIAA demands to recall all copies of Primitive Enema and reissue the record with a standard warning sticker.]

• On February 27, entrepreneurs sought Town Meeting approval for a plan to zone a 75-acre tract of land in Norwood, a commuter town southwest of Boston, for adult entertainment. The proposal resulted, however, in a two- thirds majority of Town Meeting members passing a motion to ban adult fare in all media from Norwood entirely. The adult entertainment zone would have been sited in a non- residential area off Route 1. The ban has been little noted by the press outside the immediate area, although the Boston Herald editorialized that "The good people of Norwood should be congratulated for putting decency and values above zoning practicalities."

• Early in 1995, teachers' unions led the opposition to an education bill filed in the Massachusetts House by House Minority Leader Edward Teague (R.-Yarmouth) and in the Senate by Marian Walsh (D.-Boston). The bill would have required public schools to give parents 10 days' notice prior to any lesson dealing with "human sexuality, sexual orientation, contraception, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual or physical abuse, alcohol or drug use, marriage, divorce or family life, gender or sexual relationships, moral decision-making methods, suicide, euthanasia, coping with or understanding death or other forms of personal loss or grief, self-esteem, emotional health, religious practice or belief." Parents would be given the option of taking their children out of class before any of these topics could be touched upon. Teachers and school officials complained that such legislation would stifle class discussion. Accordingly, the legislation was rewritten to narrow its scope down to "heterosexuality, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transvestism, contraception, abortion, or sexually transmitted diseases." As gay organizations, the AIDS Action Committee, and advocates for health and sexuality education were quick to point out, this new version still addressed the primary purpose of the original, which had been crafted by anti-sex- education crusader Brian Camenker of Newton, head of the Interfaith Coalition, with input from the Christian Coalition and Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice. (This legal arm of the Robertson empire is also involved in challenging condom distribution in Massachusetts public schools.) The bill was especially intended to chill the Safe Schools Program, instituted as a means of discouraging violence against gay and lesbian youth. Nevertheless, the amended version was voted out of committee March 9, and passed by the full Senate in an April 3 voice vote. Governor Weld refused to say whether or not he would veto the bill once it appeared on his desk.

• The senior class at Bradford College, a small 4-year liberal arts college in Haverhill, has traditionally selected its own commencement speaker. This year Bradford students picked Leslie Feinberg, a labor activist and author of the award-winning novel Stone Butch Blues. Their second choice was Socialist Congressman Bernard Sanders of Vermont. Both selections were vetoed by Bradford president Joseph Short, who said that an appearance by Feinberg, a self-identified transgendered lesbian, would be inconsistent with the dignity of the occasion. On April 5, about 100 students responded to this decision by occupying Academy Hall, the school administration building. At a general faculty meeting the next day, an overwhelming majority of faculty members voted in solidarity with the students. When the administration asked Peggy Walsh, the faculty member whose Humanities course included Feinberg's novel on its required reading list, to serve as substitute commencement speaker, Walsh declined. Expressions of support for the students came from the National Writers Union, the BCFE, and other organizations. While controversy raged around this issue on campus, the reactionary Haverhill Gazette entered the fray with an editorial entitled "A Tip of the Cap to President Short." Congratulating Short on his rejection of a choice by "off-beat radicals" and deploring "the lack of moral direction in today's youth," the editorial maintained that Feinberg was on a moral par with neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. This tactic only increased the outpouring of support for Feinberg. On April 20, having at last actually read Stone Butch Blues, President Short relented, and Feinberg was invited to speak. In an attempt to turn the situation around, local right-wing activists sought aid from such organizations as Accuracy in Academia, whose executive director Peter LaBarbera is best known as the perpetrator of an anti-gay monthly screed called The Lambda Report. Nevertheless, the May 12 commencement proceeded without incident, and Feinberg's address received a standing ovation.

• Early in December, 20-year-old University of Michigan sophomore Jake Baker wrote three violent, sexually explicit fantasies and posted them on alt.sex.stories, an unmoderated Internet newsgroup devoted to erotic fiction. A few weeks later, Robert DuVal, a University of Michigan alumnus residing in Moscow, discovered the stories and on January 19 placed an angry transatlantic call to the university administration. Baker's on-campus computer privileges were quickly suspended. A subsequent investigation by campus police and the FBI revealed that the female character who is abducted and tortured in one of Baker's stories bore the name of one of his classmates, and that Baker had also been discussing methods of abducting women with an email correspondent in Canada. On February 2, after Baker resisted a request to withdraw from the university, the short, slight linguistics major was suspended and marched off campus by armed officers. On February 9, Baker was brought into custody by the FBI and charged with interstate transmission of threatening messages, despite his insistence that his postings, which carried disclaimers, were fiction. U.S. District Court Magistrate Thomas A, Carlson ordered him held without bail. In defense of this action, Carlson said, "The allegations, if true, reflect a profoundly disturbed individual... who probably should not be walking the streets." Baker, who had never previously been arrested, was imprisoned for 29 days until Federal Judge Avern Cohn intervened and freed him on his own recognizance. When Baker is finally brought to trial, a conviction could return him to prison for up to five years. Meanwhile, controversy rages on the Internet and on campus over whether the Baker incident was just a case of "college gross-out" bravado gone awry, or the kind of unequivocal threat perceived by University of Michigan law professor Catharine MacKinnon, who considers rape and torture fantasies acts of violence in themselves. Baker's injudicious use of an actual person's name gave many free- speech advocates grave reservations about coming to his defense.

• Pam O'Leary, an Ann Arbor resident, drives her red Toyota Corolla daily to and from Toledo, Ohio, where she runs the Center for Choice II, a family planning clinic where abortions are performed. (The original Center for Choice was firebombed in 1987.) For the past four years, her car has carried a customized license plate that reads 4 RU486, referring to the French abortion pill. Last November, however, Candace Miller, an anti-choice right-wing Republican, became Michigan's Secretary of State, ousting liberal Democrat Richard Austin. A few weeks after Miller took charge, O'Leary received official notification from the secretary of state's office, which exercises oversight in the issuance of license plates, that her 4 RU486 plate must have been "issued in error." The letter explained that since it was state policy not to permit any license plate to hold a "letter combination which might carry a connotation offensive to good taste and decency," O'Leary must return the plate and replace it. The Michigan motorist whose license plate reads PROLIFE was not contacted. O'Leary has enlisted the aid of the ACLU, and court action is being contemplated.

• The ACLU Arts Censorship Project reports that Debbie Denzer, the school librarian's assistant who was fired for lending "satanic" and "feminist" books to two students, has won a $38,000 settlement from the West Valley School District in Kalispell. In December 1993, two seventh-grade girls approached Denzer for help in preparing a report on witchcraft in the Middle Ages. When she could find no appropriate source materials in the library itself, Denzer reached into her personal collection and lent the students two books: The Devil and All His Works by Dennis Wheatley, and Not in God's Image: Women in History from the Greeks to the Victorians by Julia O'Faolain and Lauro Matines. After the Christian fundamentalist parents of one of the girls expressed outrage over the books, West Valley School principal Frank deKort suspended Denzer and recommended her dismissal. At a January 1994 meeting of the school board, the books were attacked for "vulgarity" and Denzer's employment was terminated. She then appealed the decision to the county superintendent, who decided in her favor last June. When the school board sought to have this administrative move reversed, Denzer filed a federal lawsuit with the aid of the ACLU. While the out-of-court settlement effectively vindicates Denzer, the terms do not, however, include reinstatement.

• In March, the judiciary committee of the Montana State Senate turned thumbs down on the Senate counterpart of House Bill 83, which Republicans had successfully rammed through the Montana House. The bill, ostensibly aimed at hard-core pornography, would have given local communities broad powers to prosecute whatever offended some segment of the population. With help from the Media Coalition, the American Library Association, and other sources, booksellers across the state worked diligently to prevent the bill from passing. Bookselling This Week reports, "In accordance with the State Senate judiciary committee's recommendation, 13 Republicans joined 19 Democrats to defeat the bill on a 32-18 vote. All senators voting in favor of the bill were Republican."

• On January 31, 1994, Bernardsville furniture manufacturer Ejlat Feuer took 110 nude photographs of his 6-year-old daughter for a course assignment at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, where he was a student. Feuer's wife of 18 years and the Feuer children's nanny were present during the 15-minute photo session in which Feuer shot pictures of the girl through a glass tabletop on which she was seated. Employees at the Kodalux Processing Service in Fairlawn, where the Feuers sent the film to be developed, examined the resulting contact sheets and reported their existence to the police. (New Jersey law bans depictions of child nudity "for the purpose of sexual stimulation or gratification," and requires photo processing labs to report suspected kiddie porn to the authorities.) "These were not typical pictures of a young child with bubbles around them," Kodalux manager David Chipkin later told the New York Times. When Feuer stopped at a local photo store to collect the contact sheets, he was arrested. Detectives then conducted a search of Feuer's home, business offices, and car; grilled Feuer's wife about such topics as whether or not she believed in God; and took the pajama-clad Feuer children to the police station for medical examination and intensive questioning about sexual abuse. Feuer was finally released on $2500 bail, on condition that he cease living with his family and avoid all contact with his youngest daughter. A grand jury agreed with the prosecutor that the photographs were "graphically explicit" child pornography, and Feuer was indicted despite solid support from the ICP and art experts. Anti-censorship groups and arts advocates came to Feuer's defense. Therapists and the Feuer family pediatrician offered testimony to the effect that the Feuer children had indeed been traumatized, but only by their treatment by the police, and that they were under emotional stress from their father's forced absence. After two months, Feuer was allowed to return home as the case dragged on. Efforts were made by the ACLU Arts Censorship Project and others to have the case dismissed, but Somerset County Superior Court Judge Leonard Arnold ruled in favor of the prosecution early in 1995. Finally, however, as prosecutors realized their case was weakening, they struck an agreement with the defense that would enable them to save face. Feuer is now enrolled in a pretrial intervention program that is expected to clear his name by this summer.

• Without considering the First Amendment implications of the case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that artist Michael Lebron had the right to sue the National RR Passenger Corporation, or Amtrak. In an 8-to-1 decision, with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor dissenting, the high court ruled that the company is indeed, for legal purposes, an agency of the Federal government. This ruling supersedes a 1993 appeals court decision to the effect that Amtrak is a private corporation and not subject to constitutional free-speech protections. Amtrak had refused to allow the artist to install a political poster critical of the right-wing Coors dynasty on the "Special," the giant wraparound billboard in Penn Station. Lebron's case will now return to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District for a final ruling on its First Amendment merits.

• Waging the most energetic anti-smut campaign since the 1940s, when Fiorello LaGuardia chased burlesque across the Hudson to New Jersey, conservative Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has won strong City Council support for a scheme to run the majority of New York City's sex-related businesses out of town. The present plan is a slightly more lenient version of an earlier proposal that would have pushed sexually explicit entertainment out of Manhattan altogether and into selected remote industrial sections of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. While permitting some sex-related establishments to occupy space in "commercial zones of high density" as well as manufacturing districts, the regulations forbid adult businesses in all locations to operate within 500 feet of houses of worship, schools, residences, or one another. Approved by the City Council in March and now under review by the City Planning Commission and community boards in the five boroughs, this draconian measure is certain to affect constitutionally protected speech. In addition to reducing adult businesses in the Times Square area from 47 to half a dozen at most, the ordinance is expected to shut down many legal businesses serving sexual minorities. Gay Pleasures, for example, a store on Hudson Street that sells rare back issues of gay publications of all kinds, will probably be forced to close its doors. City officials are expected to put the regulations into effect before November, when a one-year moratorium on new sex-related businesses will terminate.

• From its national headquarters on First Avenue in New York City, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a right-wing movement of lay Catholics, greeted the U.S. release of the British film Priest with cold fury. On March 23, the Catholic League called a press conference at which its current president, sociologist William A. Donohue, delivered a scathing ten-page statement calling the film "an invidious portrait of Catholic priests and the religion to which they belong" and claiming that "This in-your-face movie is intended to put salt in the wounds of Catholics." A theatrical production of the BBC, Priest is the work of screenwriter Jimmy McGovern and director Antonia Bird. It tells the story of a morally conflicted young gay priest assigned to an inner-city parish in Liverpool. Affecting and well-acted though melodramatic, Priest has been well received on the festival circuit and in Europe. The film, which opened in New York and Los Angeles March 24, was awkwardly scheduled to have gone into wide release on April 14, Good Friday. Donohue demanded that the Disney organization, whose subsidiary Miramax owns the U.S. distribution rights, withdraw the film altogether. Disney/Miramax declined to do more than to change the national opening date to April 7 in some cities and April 21 in others. This failed to appease the Catholic League. "We are calling for a boycott of all Disney products," Donohue announced on March 29, "a boycott of vacations to Disney World and Disneyland, and a boycott of the Disney cable television channel. We are also asking the public to call Disney and tie up the lines.... We will call on all Catholic organizations to sell Disney stock." While some theaters showing the film have been subject to crude forms of harassment, the Catholic League's anti- Priest campaign shows greater sophistication than its previous blitzes against Godard's Hail Mary and Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ. In late April, Disney retail stores were targeted for demonstrations, and Payne Webber reported that more than $800,000 worth of Disney stock had been sold by irate Catholics. [Note: Ironically, U.S. audiences who see Priest are attending a censored film. Before its 1994 acquisition by Disney, Miramax had a tradition of buying first-rate European films and hacking them up for American release, shortening movies like Cinema Paradiso in order to ensure more screenings per day and to accommodate the allegedly feeble attention span of American moviegoers. The company did, however, stand by filmmakers like Pedro Almodovar when the MPAA proposed cuts to avoid the dreaded NC17 rating, and did not practice censorship per se. But since Disney, home of Mickey Mouse, cannot as a matter of policy release an NC17 film even indirectly, Miramax now routinely cuts films like The Advocate, Queen Margot, and Priest for content. The American version of Priest is 10 minutes shorter than the director's cut seen in the rest of the world, and some of the changes are intended to keep a mildly explicit gay sex scene within the parameters of an R rating. Because of Disney's ownership, the original versions of Miramax films are unlikely ever to become available even on videocassette, at least in the U.S.]

• In mid-February, someone entered the office of the Red and Blue, a conservative student publication at the University of Pennsylvania, and carried the magazine's files to a nearby Dumpster. Since the Red and Blue is the oldest publication in the Ivy League, its archives included material dating back to 1889, including the only known copies of some issues. By the time the removal of the publication's property was discovered, much of the discarded material had already been pulped in a trash compactor. The wholesale destruction of the Red and Blue's files seems, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to have been the end result of a controversy that began last November when the magazine published a sophomoric satirical piece by Jeremy Hildreth, a finance major. Hildreth's column, called "One Man's Haiti," derided concern for a nation whose chief exports "are exiled dictators and cab drivers." The ensuing furor led to efforts by the Black Student League and others to shut down the magazine. "The university should not support, in any way, publications that irresponsibly print anything that is detrimental to the public's image or outlook of any ethnic group," said Black Student League representative LaShanta Johnson. In February the Student Activities Council voted (47-21, with 35 members abstaining) to withdraw official recognition from the Red and Blue and to terminate its funding. Red and Blue editor Christopher Robbins condemned this move as "censorship in the worst possible way," not anticipating the subsequent trashing of his files. University President Judith Rodin ordered an investigation of the situation, requested that the Student Activities Council make its guidelines more specific, and condemned funding decisions based on content. Following a second denial of funding to the Red and Blue, a private donor stepped in to make the magazine's May issue possible.

• In Fairfax County, the library system remains under siege by Christian activists led by Karen Jo Gounaud, who has dedicated herself to stamping out expressions of the "gay agenda." Ongoing crises have included militant efforts to stop distribution of the D.C. gay paper the Washington Blade, a campaign to restrict children's access to a broad range of material, and a successful drive to force the system's 22 libraries to stock a list of obscure anti-gay titles. The most recent incident was the cancellation early in May of a Gay Pride exhibit planned for June at the Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library. Reference librarian Charles Keener has presented such a display at the library every year since 1985. This year, bowing to pressure, Fairfax library Director Edwin S. Clay III ruled that Gay Pride displays would no longer be allowed. [Note: In a future issue, we still hope to run a detailed account of the Byzantine and increasingly successful maneuvers of Gounaud and friends, as well as efforts by Northern Virginia Citizens Against Censorship to oppose them.]

• On February 27, the Loudon County Library Board excised the anti-censorship provisions in the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights before renewing its status as policy for the local public library system. By a 4-3 vote, the following statements were removed: (1) "Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval;" (2) "Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment;" (3) "Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgement of free expression and free access to ideas." "These policies have nothing to do with Loudon," said John Nicholas, the board member who proposed the changes on behalf of a new right-wing majority. The vote produced a firestorm of controversy, with citizens crowding into a contentious March 15 meeting to demand that the board reconsider its vote. On March 20, however, the board dropped the Library Bill of Rights altogether, adopting its own watered-down policy statement in an effort, according to Nicholas, to create a "more concise" version of the ALA's document.

• An attempt by the state legislature to enact a broad and unconstitutional "harmful to minors" statute failed early in May when the Washington State Senate upheld a veto by Governor Mike Lowry. The bill, ESSB 5466 ("An Act Relating to the Well-Being of Children"), was designed by the House and Senate Committees on Law and Justice to replace Washington's "erotic music" law, struck down last year by the state supreme court. It would have expanded the scope of the law to include among potentially harmful matter "a motion picture film, a publication, a sexual device, or any combination thereof," defining publication as "any book, magazine, article, pamphlet, writing, printing, illustration, picture, sound recording, telephonic communication, or coin-operated machine." The bill would have also applied to live performance, which it defined as "any play, show, skit, dance, or other exhibition performed or presented to or before an audience of one or more, in person or by electronic transmission, or by telephonic communication, with or without consideration." The proposed "harmfulness" test was a vaguer version of the Miller obscenity test, allowing "the average adult person" to determine what might appeal to the "prurient interest" of minors. In his veto message, Governor Lowry cited the potential chilling effect of this legislation and stated that "The well-being of children is not promoted by banning them from art galleries, barring them from a world of instant communication, or hiding them from accurate health care education and information that may save their lives."

• In January, newsdealers Ira Stohl and Kristina Hjelsand were threatened with prosecution for selling Answer Me!, a 'zine produced annually in Portland, Oregon by satirists Jim and Debbie Goad. Having previously devoted issues of Answer Me! to suicide and serial killers, the Goads devoted the 1995 issue to rape, combining a sendup of the politics of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin with a graphic look at "the rapist's psychic landscape." Acting on a complaint from a Western Washington University student, Whatcom County Prosecutor David McEachran sent a police inspector to examine the publication. Deciding that Answer Me! was pornographic, McEachran ordered Stohl and Hjelsand to stop selling it. The newsdealers responded by creating a display in which a stack of the magazines, bound in chains and padlocked, was propped up on a black-draped table. In February, McEachran demanded that Stohl and Hjelsand stop selling or displaying Answer Me! or any "similar material." When they refused to comply, the pair were formally charged with "promoting pornography." Stohl and Hjelsand are now receiving aid from the ACLU Arts Censorship Project, the American Booksellers Association, and other groups. [Note: Answer Me! figured in a second recent free-expression fracas when Jim Goad was subpoenaed by the defense team representing Francisco Martin Duran, the Colorado military veteran charged with firing an automatic weapon at the White House. Because a copy of the serial killer issue of Answer Me! was found in Duran's pickup truck, lawyers assigned to Duran seem to have entertained an "Answer Me! made me do it" defense. Fortunately this tactic was abandoned, and Goad was not required to testify at Duran's trial.]

• In early February, Senator James Exon (D.-NE) filed S.314, the Communications Decency Act, an anti-smut bill aimed at cleaning up the Internet (in whose vast reaches, contrary to legend, only a small percentage of material is sexually explicit). Opposition to S.314 from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Internet Business Association and other groups quickly gathered momentum. An on-line petition to stop the bill pulled in signatures from 108,000 individuals and organizations. In March, however, Senator Larry Pressler (R.-ND) and the Senate Commerce Committee approved the bill with minor changes intended to placate large commercial Internet access providers like America On- Line and Compuserve. Committee chairman Pressler then submerged the Exon legislation in the omnibus telecommunications package he sent to the floor of the Senate. The Exon bill would exclude materials that are "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent" from electronic transmission. Exon says it is designed "to keep the information superhighway from resembling a red light district." He also expressed the fear that children like his 8-year-old granddaughter could stumble upon flagrant obscenity, thereby betraying some degree of ignorance about the ease with which certain corners of cyberspace can be accessed. Free speech advocates warn that such legislation is a first step toward commercial exploitation of the Internet, and toward regulating into submission a forum that still manages to be a free marketplace of ideas.

• On April 4, the Sexual Crimes Against Children Act sailed through the House of Representatives, winning approval by a vote of 417 to 0. The bill would require the U.S. Sentencing Commission to change its guidelines to insure stiffer sentences for those convicted in federal court of child prostitution or child pornography charges. The bill's Senate counterpart passed unanimously two days later.

• In May, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum will unveil the restored front fuselage of the Enola Gay. This first public exhibition of the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 will mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The Enola Gay was to have been surrounded by material placing it in historical context and depicting the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Last August, however, after the American Legion and other veterans' groups complained that the Smithsonian was planning a "politically correct" interpretation of the victory over Japan, two dozen members of Congress, led by archconservative Massachusetts Republican Peter Blute, sent a letter of protest to Smithsonian Secretary Robert McC. Adams. The letter denounced "anti-American prejudice and imbalance" in the proposed exhibit, which was to have been called "The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II." As the New York Times noted in an editorial condemning Congressional tampering with the work of historians and curators, conservative critics appeared to be demanding "complete vilification of the Japanese and uncritical glorification of the American war effort." By the end of September, however, Air and Space Museum Director Martin Harwit and his colleagues caved in to veterans' demands and promised to work toward an exhibit they would find more palatable. This aroused the ire of anti-war activists. By January, the exhibit had been through at least six revisions as museum officials struggled to appease both sides. The struggle was exacerbated by downsizing provisions in the Contract with America and Republican threats to slash funding for cultural institutions that failed support a conservative world view. Confronted with increasing right- wing agitation, demands for Harwit's resignation, and Representative Blute's call for oversight hearings on the conduct of the Smithsonian, I. Michael Heyman, who replaced outgoing Secretary Adams, met with the museum's Board of Regents on January 30 and announced that the exhibit would be scrapped except for the Enola Gay's fuselage, which would be displayed with minimal commentary. This saga nevertheless dominated Congressional discussions about the institution's funding, and at the end of February, a House panel recommended a 9% recission in the Smithsonian's $371 million budget for FY 1995. Early in May, Harwit finally turned in his resignation, stating that "nothing less than my stepping down from the directorship will satisfy the museum's critics and allow the museum to move forward with important new projects."

• In March, People for the American Way released the annual report of its artsave project, now headed by lobbyist Jill Bond. Artistic Freedom under Attack, Volume 3: 1995 includes 104 case studies of attacks on artistic expression in 33 states and the District of Columbia. Its preface notes that "Although art has always been a political target, the current attack is unprecedented and unrelenting.... [T]his year's findings reflect a dramatic jump in the overall censorship success rate, from 63 percent in the last report to an alarming 78 percent in 1994.... In a clear measure of the escalating threats, the rate at which artists turned to the courts to defend their work, or faced legal challenges, has almost doubled since 1992-'93, to one out of every six (17 percent) such incidents." [To obtain a copy of Artistic Freedom Under Attack, send $14.95 ($12.95 if you are a member of PFAW) to artsave, People for the American Way, 2000 M Street N.W., Suite 400, Washington DC 20036.]

• The Algerian bloodbath that has claimed at least 30,000 lives in the past three years continues, with artists, educators, and members of the press being singled out for assassination. In February, during the holy month of Ramadan, attacks on civilians intensified. Rai singer Rachid Baba Ahmed was machine-gunned to death in Oran, and the director of Algeria's National Theater was killed. Other recent casualties include feminists, student leaders, and university professors. More than thirty journalists have been killed in the past two years. The turmoil began when the Algerian army voided elections in order to prevent a fundamentalist takeover of the government. With the insurgency being led by the illegal Islamic Salvation Front, atrocities and repressive actions are being perpetrated by both sides.

• In Dhaka, Bangladesh, the on-again off-again in absentia blasphemy trial of writer Taslima Nasrin, who in August 1994 fled to Sweden to escape death at the hands of militant fundamentalist vigilantes, has been postponed for the seventh time and is now set for June 3. On March 11, when prosecutors failed to supply written government approval to proceed with the case, Assistant Metropolitan Magistrate A.K.M. Kamluddin scheduled April 15 as the new trial date, and threatened to postpone the case "indefinitely" if the prosecution failed to provide the necessary documents at that time. (Since the offense occurred outside Bangladesh, government permission was needed to validate the trial.) On April 15, despite a Home Ministry directive that the trial could proceed, Nasrin's lawyers managed to have it delayed an additional month. In May, Kamluddin ruled that the Home Ministry's directive was "appropriate and good in law." The blasphemy charge, filed after Nasrin allegedly told an Indian newspaper that the Koran "should be thoroughly revised," could carry a two-year prison sentence if she is convicted. Conservative Muslims, however, are demanding her death and have placed a $5000 price on her head. Since Bangladeshi authorities cannot guarantee Nasrin's safety in or out of prison, she is expected to remain in exile for the foreseeable future. The 32-year-old feminist author continues to provoke right-wing Islamic factions through her outspoken advocacy of women's rights. Early in March, she told a delegation of Tunisian women at the Copenhagen U.N. social summit, "I don't know that Islam allows any freedom for women. I have not seen any equality and justice in Islam." Recently awarded a grant by the German government, Nasrin will spend the summer writing in Berlin.

• On April 20, in a ruling that civil libertarians hope will curb the power of police to seize "offensive" works of art, Ontario Provincial Court Justice David McCombs determined that five paintings and 35 drawings seized in December 1993 are not child pornography and may be returned to Canadian artist Eli Langer. Child pornography charges filed against Langer and Sharon Brooks, director of Toronto's Mercer Union gallery where Langer's work had been exhibited, were dropped last year following an outcry by arts groups and free-speech advocates. The paintings and drawings themselves, which are stylized depictions of adults and children in sexual situations, were placed on trial. If they had been found "guilty," they were to have been destroyed. In acquitting the artwork, Justice McCombs recommended that the law be altered to give judges discretionary power to turn down police requests for warrants to impound allegedly obscene or offensive material. While Langer welcomed the outcome of the case, he told reporters, "I've spent a year and a half of my life dealing with this very difficult and painful time and process. This kind of notoriety... creates just a situation of pressure for me." At the end of April, prosecutors were considering an appeal.

• Brought before a military court in Cairo, two Islamic militants were sentenced in January to be hanged for the attempted assassination of novelist Naguib Mahfouz. In late February, the sentences were reaffirmed by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. On March 28, Mohamed Nagi Mohamed, who stabbed the Egyptian Nobel laureate, was executed along with his accomplice Mohamed al-Mahlawi. Mahfouz had long been targeted by fundamentalists angered by writings, especially his treatment of religious themes in the novel Children of Gebelawi. The 83-year-old author, who was hospitalized for seven weeks with multiple stab wounds in his neck, has suffered neurological damage that impairs his ability to hold a pen.

• Alexei Kostin, publisher of the erotic journal Yeshcho ("More"), was released in February after more than a year's incarceration while awaiting trial in post-Soviet Russia's first pornography case. Kostin's trial finally began on February 22. Judge Andrei Kalmeyev, who seemed to agree with Kostin's contention that the charges made no sense, sent the case back to the prosecutor for further study, and allowed Kostin to go free on a technicality. Early in 1994, the openly gay writer and publisher had been arrested on charges of pornography and conspiracy, although Yeshcho was a legally registered literary periodical, and Russian law does not normally hold publishers legally liable for the content of a publication. Booker Prize nominee Zufur Gareyev, who had been a regular contributor, was also arrested, but released after PEN International and other groups applied pressure. The editor of Yeshcho escaped prosecution by fleeing to Latvia. Kostin's case remains to be decided. Its eventual outcome may determine the limits of free speech in Russia, and define what constitutes pornography there. Meanwhile, Yeshcho has ceased publication.

• In Istanbul, Turkish author Yasar Kamal, best known in the West for his novel Memed, My Hawk, was charged with advocating separatism under Article 8 of the Anti- Terror Law following the January 10 publication in Der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, of an essay called "Campaign of Lies." The article was sharply critical of government policies toward Turkey's Kurdish minority. When it resurfaced in revised form as Kemal's contribution to an anthology of essays on freedom of thought, Turkish authorities charged him, along with his publisher, with racism as well. The entire press run of the book was ordered confiscated. Since 1984, Kurdish insurgents in southeast Turkey have been struggling to establish an independent state. Kemal's essay indicted the Turkish government for its ruthless treatment of the Kurds in a conflict that during the past decade has cost over 14,000 lives. In a statement issued at his initial court hearing, Kemal wrote, "Everybody should do their best... to stop this horrifying, dirty war." His trial on the separatism charge, which could carry a prison sentence of up to five years, has been set for May 5. In late April, Prosecutor Cevat Ozel, who specializes in seeking convictions for members of the press accused of sedition, began grilling Kemal with the intention of adding charges of "insulting the Turkish Republic." Meanwhile, the government has shut down Turkey's leading pro-Kurdish newspaper, and guerilla warfare continues.