Censorship

In the great game of word-image association that is art history, when people say Judy Chicago, they picture "The Dinner Party. " An installation with dozens of hand-painted table settings dedicated to important women throughout history, the 1970s work elicited impassioned debate, fast becoming a national symbol for feminist art in all of its disruptive power. But before she painted a single vulval-looking plate and even before she co-founded the groundbreaking Woman's Building in Los Angeles in 1973, Chicago had begun a serious career in L.A., making works that are prime examples of Finish Fetish, Light and Space and earthworks.

In 2001, I wrote a novel in verse called "What My Mother Doesn't Know. " It received a number of accolades, including being chosen an American Library Assn. "best book for young adults. " But the acclaim wasn't universal, as my mail made painfully clear. "Our young people should not have to be exposed to your erotic thoughts and feelings," one irate parent from Iowa wrote. "Your book should be removed from all junior high media bookshelves. That's what we will attempt to do here in Algona.

Ten Muslim students who are on trial for disrupting Israeli ambassador Michael Oren during an appearance at UC Irvine in effect acted as censors, a prosecutor argued in closing statements Monday. In front of a packed Santa Ana courtroom, Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Wagner told jurors that the protesters interfered with Oren's right to free speech last year when, one by one, they stood and shouted as the ambassador tried to give a planned address on U.S.-Israeli relations.

The Trevor Project is an organization devoted to preventing suicides among gay and lesbian teenagers. It has been honored by the White House. But some students have been barred from accessing the group's website using school computers, even though the schools allow them to view all sorts of other sites, including some with anti-gay messages. This censorship of gay-themed, non-sexually explicit sites has resulted in an American Civil Liberties Union campaign called "Don't Filter Me!" It's good advice, and not just because it might spare a school district a lawsuit.

Call it the red light district of the Internet. The .xxx domain for adult-content websites was approved Friday by the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, the Santa Monica-based group that manages the creation and distribution of Web addresses. The move came despite fierce opposition from porn stars and others in the industry who argued the use of the new domain could lead to censorship. Florida-based ICM Registry proposed the domain name .xxx in 2004 with plans to sell Web addresses to adult-content websites and publications.

An anonymous online campaign calling for pro-democracy demonstrations across China on Sunday has been met with the detention of human rights activists, greater Internet censorship and even veiled pressure on foreign journalists. The strict response by authorities comes after a U.S.-based Chinese-language website, Boxun.com, called for repeated attempts each Sunday to launch a "jasmine revolution" in about two dozen cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. The first planned attempt, which was held last Sunday, brought out a swarm of police and foreign media in some of the designated sites but provided no evidence the country was on the cusp of a popular uprising.

In Tunisia's state of unrest, protesters are using blogs, Facebook, Twitter, WikiLeaks documents, YouTube and other methods to mobilize and report on what is going on. The weeks of demonstrations, including the deaths of at least three and as many as 20 people, have been largely ignored by the majority of media outlets until recent days. The Internet has been the largest source of news about the protests, and much of it has been provided by the demonstrators themselves, despite Tunisia's strict censorship of the Web. Given the nature of the Internet, information about the protests ranges from propaganda to documenting the reality on the streets.

The Italian street artist Blu, whose anti-war mural was removed from the wall of the Geffen Contemporary building last week before the public could see it, has called the destruction of his mural by the Museum of Contemporary Art a form of censorship. Others say it was spectacularly bad planning on the part of the museum, which did not receive a proposal from the artist in advance of his starting work. MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch said Monday that he ordered the whitewash of the mural because its imagery ?

Street art is fugitive by nature ? and vulnerable to being destroyed by angry shopkeepers who just don't appreciate the creativity. But in the strange case of a massive antiwar mural that made a brief appearance downtown last week, it was the Museum of Contemporary Art that both commissioned and removed the work. The mural, by the Italian street artist known as Blu, had a strong antiwar and anti-capitalist bent. It featured a field of military-style coffins draped by large dollar bills instead of flags.

A former secretary to Mao Tse-tung as well as an ex-publisher of the People's Daily are among retired Communist Party heavyweights who have published a toughly worded open letter calling on the Chinese government to abolish censorship. The letter began circulating Oct. 1, but the campaign has gained traction since Friday, when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to dissident writer Liu Xiaobo, imprisoned for his role in drafting a similar pro-democracy letter called Charter 08 two years ago. This latest call for freedom will not be so easily suppressed because of the Communist Party bona fides of the people who signed.