
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
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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
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu>
File 2--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 19 Apr, 1995)

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