Censorship

In response to the Counterpunch article by Bradley Steffens ("A Once-Banned Author Believes in Censorship for the Good of Society," Oct. 29), I would like to say that I am fed up with the notion that every American must live in a society that allows no artistic expression beyond that suitable for a 12-year-old. Excuse me, all you well-meaning but sadly misguided parents, but I never asked you to have children. You chose to, and it's your responsibility to raise them with whatever morals you see fit; but please stop expecting other adults to sacrifice their intelligence on the altar of your children.

Performance artist Karen Finley accused Tribune Entertainment of censorship Wednesday after company executives decided to remove her from a segment of "The Dennis Miller Show" because they deemed graphic comments she made as potentially offensive to viewers. "I feel really horrible, as if my form of expression has been censored," Finley said from New York. "I think Dennis Miller is just as bad as Jesse Helms. What's the difference?"

"Rambling Rose" went to London and ran afoul of the British censors. The movie, starring Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Lukas Haas and Robert Duvall, about a naive 19-year-old woman who shakes up a quiet Southern town with her alluring ways, was trimmed about 20 seconds--to remove portions of a bedroom scene with Rose (Dern) and a 13-year-old boy (Haas). In the scene, the boy expresses curiosity about a woman's body and she lets him touch her breast.

Zhang Shan never paid much attention to Internet censorship in China. The stylish art gallery clerk said it didn't really matter in her daily life. Then last year, she lost access to some of her favorite websites. First YouTube. Then Twitter. Then Facebook. It was her first memorable brush with the so-called Great Firewall of China -- one of many powerful mechanisms the Chinese government uses to block content deemed too sensitive for the eyes of its 384 million Internet users.

The decision by Google Inc. to stand up to censorship in China is a marked turnaround from just a few years ago, when the Internet giant agreed to gag parts of its search engine to enter the lucrative China market. Google's threat to bolt from the Asian nation has brought praise from politicians and Silicon Valley business leaders, along with many of the human-rights activists who had condemned the company for going along with China's restrictions on Internet access. Whether Google's reversal sprang from political idealism or corporate realism, the Mountain View, Calif.

I couldn't agree more with Goldberg's column. It is particularly offensive when people who otherwise claim to be pro-First Amendment attempt to selectively censor speech which they interpret to be derogatory to a group to which they belong. Censorship is censorship regardless of whose ox is being gored and under the First Amendment, it is always wrong. In an area of mandatory labeling laws and the high-powered lobbying of groups like the Parent's Music Resources Center, this is a message that the music industry can't afford to ignore.

Washington's eternal sophomore, Charles Krauthammer ("We All Believe in Censorship," Commentary, April 29), would conscript us into his argument for governmental censorship based upon a series of false assumptions. The purpose of censorship is to regulate the morality of thoughts. The purpose of restricted access is not to achieve "the smallest possible audience," but to obtain the most voluntary audience. Images stimulate thoughts. Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs and Krauthammer's simplistic descriptions of them prompt similar, if aesthetically different, thoughts.

The controversy in Pasadena over a move by Marshall Fundamental School Principal Joseph Caldera to impose censorship on the school newspaper should concern journalists and educators as well as parents. As a journalist who grew up in Pasadena and attended its schools, including Marshall 25 years ago, I commend the integrity and courage shown by faculty adviser Mary Ellen MacArthur, student editor Matt Luecke and The Eagle's Eye staff. This country is constantly uneasy with, yet drawn toward the tenets of its foundation: free thought and speech and human equality.

The NBC series "Quantum Leap" took a leap past network censors on Friday with the disclosure that a controversial episode featuring a gay character contemplating suicide had been approved for broadcast with slight modifications. NBC spokeswoman Pat Schultz confirmed that the episode had been sent on for review by the NBC ad sales division. No air date has been set, she said, but it will not air during the November ratings sweeps.

Members of the National Endowment for the Arts' advisory council Friday condemned the political controversy besetting the agency as a harbinger of an era of censorship. "History has proven that the freedom to create can only be healthy for a country," said Sally Brayley Bliss, a North Carolina dance authority and council member. "If there is censorship, this can lead to the end of civilization."