Author: Glenn Hauman

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Foreign dissidents facing U.S. hurdles to publishing

In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval.

The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States.

Way to export our values, guys– by not importing other values.

Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has joined the lawsuit, arguing that the rules preclude American publishers from helping craft her memoirs of surviving Iran’s Islamic revolution and her efforts to defend human rights in Iranian courts.

Since the last censorship thread has gotten so much traffic, I’d like to point out this article from Mediaweek about those who’d like the FCC to clamp down on what you can see and hear on TV and radio…

Activists Dominate Content Complaints

In an appearance before Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.

The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”

What Powell did not reveal — apparently because he was unaware — was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003 — 99.8 percent — were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.

Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints — aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS — were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)

The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns among critics of the FCC’s crackdown on indecency. “It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio,” said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists’ advocacy group.

The article goes on to highlight how a $1.2 million fine was levied by complaints from less than one in a million viewers of a given show.

Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind, the weblog of comics editor Mike Gold, formerly of First and DC Comics and now back with the upcoming GrimJack and Jon Sable (link to come when I finish with that web site) revivals for IDW.

I note with unease his unique analysis on the most obsessive compulsive comic book character, Little Dot.

We would be remiss in our duty if we didn’t point out that the holidays are coming up, and that Crusade – The Complete Series will be out on DVD on Tuesday, and that the latest Star Trek: New Frontier book After The Fall is in stores now, and both make excellent holiday presents for loved ones. And if you buy them by clicking on the links given, you give us the wonderful holiday present of extra money.

We’ll now stop the hard sell and let you get back to the comments threads, before people think this is Mark Evanier’s blog…

I was going to write a post about the Alabama legislator proposing a law cutting public funding for any books that “promote homosexuality”, which would include nonfiction books that suggest homosexuality is acceptable and fiction novels with gay characters, and public school textbooks couldn’t present homosexuality as a genetic trait and public libraries couldn’t offer books with gay or bisexual characters… but Neil Gaiman has already done the work. Go.

Suddenly posts are getting punted for “questionable content.” I tried it; it happened to me, too, and my post consisted of “This is just me trying something.” We’ll get it figured out.

PAD

UPDATE: Overaggressive comment spam filtering. It’s fixed now. (And if I ever find this one spammer out, I’m going to break his arms.) Now all I have to do is change the orignal author of this to PAD from Kathleen… –GH

Peter will be signing at the Midtown Comics Book from 4 to 4:45 today. We will be at the book fair today but not tomorrow. You can wish Ariel a good Bat Mitzvah and see for yourself how cute Caroline is in person. I’ll be there too.