Howl Against Censorship, Howl, 50 Years Later

As we fight in this period of American repression, it's nice to mark a victory 50 years of ago when Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg won their victory to publish Howl, a passionate, good-humored, angry cry for love and justice.

Via Pacifica radio:

Fifty years ago, on October 3, Judge Clayton Horn ruled that Allen Ginsberg's great epic Beat-era poem HOWL was not obscene but instead, a work of literary and social merit. This ruling allowed for the publication of HOWL and exonerated the
poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who faced jail time and a fine 50 years ago for publishing "HOWL."

This is great program; following is an audio link to the special Pacifica special: Howl, 50 Years Later (includes Jan. 1959 reading by Ginsberg) and a conversation with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, among other wonderful people.

- HOWL (link to text)

HOWL
For Carl Solomon

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Wingnut Radio is a Symptom

by Realism

With the hubbub about this report I thought that I should weigh in. It's interesting how conservative talk radio dominates in almost every market. While it's clear that America overwhelmingly supports the liberal agenda, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative. Many of our friends on the right suggest that the reason that we don't see more progressive talk radio is "Mostly because it sucks". However, even a cursory glance at the evidence shows that this is not true. For the real answer, we need to look at the effects of media consolidation, and how that has affected the content of radio programming.

One reason for the imbalance might be the talk radio demographic tends to be more male, middle-aged, and conservative. However, research by Pew indicates that the audience does have more diversity than the programming — 43 percent of regular talk radio listeners identify as conservative, while 23 percent identify as liberal and 30 percent as moderate. The ideological breakdown of the country as a whole during this same period was very similar — 36 percent conservative, 21 percent liberal, and 35 percent moderate. Of course, this is a somewhat circular argument. It seems apparent that since the programming is over 90% conservative, there aren't going to be many progressive listeners.

More importantly, even in liberal markets where progressive talk radio has competitive ratings and revenue, station owners will often broadcast conservative programming on multiple stations compared to just one for progressive talk. For example,

in Portland, OR, where progressive talk on KPOJ AM 620 competes effectively with conservative talk on KEX AM 1190, station owners also broadcast conservative talk on KXL AM 750 and KPAM AM 860. Although there is a clear demand and proven success of progressive talk in this market, station owners still elect to stack the airwaves with one-sided broadcasting.

This issue is more important than simply ensuring that liberal voices are not censored by media conglomerates whose interests are better served by a political philosophy that puts the financial well being of large corporations ahead of the public interest. Media consolidation has been shown to pose significant problems when the public interest is in conflict with the profit motive of the broadcaster.

For example, in 1997, the Fox affiliate in Tampa, Florida fired two reporters and suppressed a story they had produced about one of the Fox network's major advertisers, Monsanto, concerning the health effects of Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH). Fox took action after Monsanto threatened to sue over the story. This is one specific incident where the broadcaster censored an important news story in order to protect their financial interests.

Another problem caused by media consolidation is the lack of attention to important local issues. When the majority of local media outlets are controlled by national media conglomerates, issues that are important to the local populace are ignored in favor of content that can easily be shared throughout different markets. As an example, see the testimony of Jonathan Adelstein, FCC Commissioner, 05/26/04
"Many of you might have heard this story about Minot, North Dakota where there was a derailment of a train which was carrying toxic fertilizer. When it derailed this cloud moved towards the city, a toxic cloud. And they tried to contact the broadcasters. The sheriff was there on the spot, almost immediately tried to contact the broadcasters.

The Emergency Alert System failed on both ends. They called the broadcasters. It turned out that most of the stations, I think six of the seven, were owned by one company, Clear Channel, out of state, and there was nobody there to answer the phone at night. So for quite a period of time, the public wasn't alerted to the presence of this cloud. There was a siren that went off. Everybody turned on their radio to try to hear what was going on, and there was nothing on the radio but oldies or country music. Nothing about what was happening, the threat that was coming to their community."

Scores of people were injured and three people died [edit: 1 person died and 300 were injured]due to the lack of warning.

For you free market ideologues, it is important to remember that the broadcast media's number one asset, the frequency spectrum that they broadcast over, is provided to them at no charge. The monetary value of this asset is estimated at more than $500 Billion. The only thing that is required of them is to serve the interests of their viewers/listeners. In other words, the profit motive is not supposed to be the main factor in determining programming. American democracy requires an informed electorate, which depends for news and information upon a fair, honest, accessible and accountable broadcast media.

House vote to ban Myspace from schools, libraries.

by Ben Masel

The House of Representatives Wednesday night passed legislation mandating that schools and libraries receiving federal funds or discounted rates under the Universal Access statutes block social networking sits such as Myspace, Friendster, and Xanga.

Dubbed the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), the bill gives the Federal Trade Commission 120 days to enact rules further defining "Social Networking Sites" but it's my first impression that the prohibition would kick in immediately on passage in the Senate and signing by the President.

The 410 "Ayes" included all of Wisconsin's Representatives, with only 15 Democrats voting against. rollcall

Some interesting snips from the floor debate

MR DINGELL:...
The simple fact of the matter is this legislation was sprung on us. I am told that it was written last night. We barely saw it before the process on the floor started. And the committee process, which enables us to look at legislation in a sound and responsible way, and the committee process, which enables us to work together to put good legislation on the floor, legislation which is carefully thought out and which the wisdom of all of the Members is brought to bear on the question, is not something which we find in the process in which we are now engaged.

So now we are on the floor with a piece of legislation poorly thought out, with an abundance of surprises, which carries with it that curious smell of partisanship and panic, but which is not going to address the problems.

We have a piece of legislation on which we have less than an hour to talk, and we have no opportunity whatsoever to amend the proposal. We can vote ``yes'' or we can vote ``no.'' Well, most Members, I suspect, will do the politically wise thing, and I will join them in it, and that is, I am going to hold my nose and vote for this legislation in the full awareness that it is not going to address the problem at all and that it is a political placebo for a very, very, serious problem...

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act, because it sends the wrong message to our children, our parents, teachers and librarians. The bill would curb Internet usage as a means to protect children, a counterproductive method to achieving such an important goal.

Rather than restricting Internet usage, parents, teachers and librarians need to teach children how to use our ever changing technology. The information age in which we live offers so much potential to our children, if they know how to use it...

Mrs. BIGGERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a cosponsor of H.R. 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act...

...It is easy to see why networking Web sites are popular among teens. A recent poll by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that 87 percent of those aged 12 to 17 use the Internet on a regular basis. Of this 87 percent, approximately 61 percent report having personal profiles on networking Web sites like MySpace, Facebook or Xanga.

Presuming Mrs. Biggert (an Illinois Republican) is correct, why would Dem Representatives want to alienate over half of todays teens, who after all, will be joining the electorate soon? This bill would not stop any sexual predator from finding victims. At best, by limiting access to those teens who log on from locations other than schools and libraries, it would make them work incrementally harder to find kids willing to meet them. Measure this against the cost of restricted access, and there's no real benefit.

Earlier this week I created a Myspace presence for my campaign, and have found it quite effective, with several bands contacting me with offers to distribute campaign literature at their shows, etc.

With just a week left before the campaign season adjournment, it may be possible to stall this assault on free speech in the Senate, but only if someone there is brave enough to use the available procedural tricks to slow it down. Russ? Herb? C'mon, this one's not as tough as the Flagburning Amendment.

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