China's "dirty words"

By GottaLaff

One of my all time favorites, George Carlin, who I knew briefly and loved longly (NSFW):




It's nice to live in a country that lets you say whatever you want, unless you're on national Tee Vee, in a school room, or at a Tea Bagger rally.

China, on the other hand:

China does, of course, have its own version of the dirty words (many, many more than the seven identified by Carlin), but the list itself is confidential.

Trying to figure out what is banned and what is not has taken on new urgency in the aftermath of Google's withdrawal from China over censorship concerns and the strong stance of the Obama administration on Internet freedom.

In China, the censoring is left up to each website. Outside of China, users find themselves typing headlong into Great Firewall of China.

The Chinese government doesn't even call it censorship, the preferred term being "guidance of public opinion."

That's a little like duct taping someone's mouth and calling it "guidance of communication."

David Bandurski, a scholar at the China Media Project, based at the University of Hong Kong:

"The paranoia," Bandurski said, "is more effective than blocking certain words."

What does that remind me of? Thinking... thinking... Oh, I know!

PalinBeckRushBilloTeaBaggersBachmannFox.

That was my version of Carlin's seven words you can't say on Tee Vee.

So what are the unspeakable words that George Carlin would have turned into an instant classic routine?

Adult, adultery, brainwash, censorship, civil movement, core principles, corruption, credit crisis, Cultural Revolution, Dalai Lama, demonstration, dissident, economic bubble, Edgar Snow, evil, exile, fraud, genocide, impeachment, June 4, lust, mafia, mainland, mistress, Mongolian independence, multiparty, national secret, nurse, naked, one-party, overthrow, princeling, rape, Rebiya Kadeer, revolution, riot, scripture, sperm, state security, Taiwan independence, temptation, Tiananmen, Tibet independence, truth, yellow .

Temptation?

Truth??

The dictionaries won

By GottaLaff

Yesterday I posted about a school that was going to ban Merriam Webster's Dollegiate Dictionaries because they included definitions of various sex acts.

Today, they're going with freedom of choice:

After being pulled from the shelves for what some saw as racy content, Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary may have the last word in Menifee. [...]

"The dictionary will go back to the classroom but the parents will be given the option to determine if they want their kids to have access to that dictionary," said Betti Cadmus, a spokeswoman for the Menifee Union School District in southwest Riverside County. Students will take permission slips home and parents who don't want them to use Webster's 10th Collegiate Edition can opt for alternative dictionaries.

I bet throngs of furious parents mobbed the school to voice their concerns:

Cadmus said that despite complaints about the dictionary, no parents showed up at Tuesday's meeting to express any concerns.

I guess more dictionaries showed up than moms and dads.

Look up "censorship" in dictionaries at CA school and... oh wait, you can't

By GottaLaff

Banning books is alive and well at a California. By the way, what's the definition of "tight ass"?

[O]ne parent in Menifee last week [...] called the principal of Oak Meadows Elementary School to say that entries describing oral sex in the dictionary were too explicit. The books were immediately pulled off the shelves and "temporarily housed off location" until a committee could determine their suitability for children.

Imagine what would have happened if they looked up "tea bag".

A panel of parents, teachers and administrators will meet later this week to comb the dictionary for potentially graphic words or definitions and issue a report within a month.

Yo! Folks! It's a dictionary.

The dictionaries were in the reference section of the fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms.

School board President Rita Peters, a voice of reason:

"I think it's absurd that we will remove dictionaries from our library especially because these dictionaries are the same ones we use in our spelling bees," she said. "I think we are approaching censorship with this. If they ban this book, they better clean house and go through all of them. What's good for one is good for all. I think we will open a big can of worms if these books are banned. It's the dictionary after all, c'mon."

Ooo! Maybe they should take the word "boob" (snicker!) out of all dictionaries. And "butt". Heheheh. And "weiner". Chortle. And "screw". Heheheheh.

And "Republican." Heheheh.

Damn librul XXX rated indoctrinators!

Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, which fights for the public's right to information and free speech:

"At the end of the day, if my kid is digging through the Merriam Webster dictionary to find words he and his friends are going to giggle over but along the way find other words they will use, I think that is a day well spent in school."

See? Stumbling across the definition of "oral sex" is educational. It's all those others that are gateway words.

China demotes editor over Obama interview

By GottaLaff

As Paddy just said to me, the wingers were all whining that the President didn't talk enough about the free press while he was in China, but it was enough to get a reporter demoted?

BEIJING: The top editor of a Chinese newspaper that interviewed US president Barack Obama has been demoted, in a move they described as fallout from Communist Party censors’ anger over its handling of the story. [...]

An editor from another publication said censors also told the Southern Weekend not to print a picture of a note that Obama wrote for the paper, speaking of the importance of a free press.

During his visit to China, Obama prodded the host government on censorship and human rights.

50-100 library books censored by curse-cleansing vandal

By GottaLaff

Who the #!$% gives a %@#* if there are words like %#@! and $#%@! badly enough to deface the books themselves:

Maury County Library director Elizabeth Potts said dozens of books have been discovered with blue ink marks where profanities used to be, including what she referred to as an "f-word" in the "9/11 Commission Report," The Daily Herald, Columbia, Tenn., reported Tuesday.

That %@#!# 9/11 Commission. They really need to watch their language.

Employees estimated 50-100 books have been targeted by the language-cleansing vandal.

"It bothers me because nobody is holding a gun to their head making them read these books," Potts said. "If they don't like them, they should just return them."

"This person is evidently offended by these words," she said. "I'm more offended by (the suspect)."

The "suspect" must belong to the same ilk who condemns premarital sex and then realizes their daughter was knocked up by a guy named Levi.

The library is now putting up signs asking people not to cross out words in their books.

I understand the sign says something like, "WTF do you think you're doing? Put the @#$#! pens away or get the %@&*! out.

Gitmo court censorship

By GottaLaff

What you're not seeing on the Tee Vee Machine or elsewhere:

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - The five men accused of the September 11 attacks on the United States disrupted and delayed the Guantanamo war court on Thursday when they refused to leave their cells for a hearing at the remote U.S. military base in Cuba where they are held. [...]

A court censor cut off Lachelier when she began talking about Binalshibh's complaints that he had been subjected to sleep deprivation, which critics have derided as an abusive technique used to soften prisoners for interrogation.

"The government can't hide the fact that they used sleep deprivation," Lachelier said before the audio feed to observers and reporters outside the courtroom was cut off.

The audio is on a 40-second delay that allows a court security officer to hit a button to block material believed to be classified.

Prosecutor Clayton Trivett later said Binalshibh's complaints of sleep deprivation could be explained by the diagnosis that he suffers from delusions. [...]

"The government's position is that it's not happening and it's never been happening," Trivett said.

It's still happening.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

VIDEO-- Myth-Information: Coal-sponsored CNN rejects anti-coal ad

By GottaLaff

Anyone who thinks that the news media are not bought and paid-for is delusional:

Academy Award-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen created the anti-coal ad to harpoon the coal industry’s greenwashing campaign. Today, Politico’s Mike Allen reported that CNN rejected the ad [...]

As ThinkProgress has reported, CNN’s presidential campaign coverage received significant backing from the coal industry. The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has also tracked CNN’s Ali Velshi’s promotion of so-called clean coal.

No bias in the media. Nope. Ridiculous. Absolutely crazy.

High school un-cancels production of 'Rent'

By GottaLaff

Original post with all my usual commentary here. Happy ending here:

A controversy erupted when the Corona del Mar High School play was canceled over possible objections to gay content. But the principal has reviewed the script and the show will go on as planned.

At Corona del Mar High School, the show will go on.

After a flap that raised the ire of the gay community and ruffled feathers across the Newport Beach campus, drama students will be allowed to stage a production of "Rent," a musical about struggling artists in New York City.

"I never had a problem with the play selected" by drama teacher Ron Martin, Corona del Mar Principal Fal Asrani said in a statement released Wednesday by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

"The selection of our drama productions is his call. I just requested the opportunity to review the script before it was final. [The school] administration received parent concerns from a previous play and I wanted to be able to ensure my commitment to the concerned parents as well as show my support of the student production without any reservation." [...]

As the controversy filtered onto blogs, drama students and alumni of the 2,300-student school spoke out against the show's cancellation, which some said stemmed from intolerance. The musical deals with poverty, drugs and the impact of AIDS on gay and straight relationships.

Last week, Martin requested a rush copy of the toned-down version of the script, which he gave to Asrani on Monday. [...]

Newport-Mesa Supt. Jeffrey Hubbard denounced media reports of the controversy and criticism that the school was homophobic, citing human relations achievements at the school. [...]

Martin said, based on slurs he had overheard and offensive videos posted by students online, that he felt there was a problem with homophobia on campus and that he hoped "Rent" would help promote understanding.

And they sang and danced happily ever after.

School cancels 'Rent' production because of gay characters

By GottaLaff

I saw this in my morning paper yesterday, but I was gone all day and couldn't write about it. Luckily, Paddy sent me a shorter e-version of the article today:

A Southern California drama teacher says his school's production of the musical "Rent" was scrapped because of the play's gay characters.

The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Corona del Mar High School in Newport Beach, Calif., planned a spring production of the Bohemian love story until the drama teacher said he was told by the principal to cancel it.

Sounds a little like the school I work for, which is actually very liberal for the most part... but that doesn't matter. It's the parents who drive our principal's decisions.

For example, in one show that I co-wrote, we had to refrain from using two words in a running comedy gag. The words? Tampons and PMS. Never mind that the words are used in ads on the Tee Vee Machine at all hours of the day, and never mind that every teenager has seen them in the aisles of their local drugstores. Uttering them out loud, even in a comedic context, was taboo.

The school district said Principal Fal Asrani did not put the kibosh on the production, but only asked to review the script.

That's exactly what happened in my case, too. The problem with that is, when one sees words in print, and not in the context of a performance, it tends to skew one's perceptions and focus. The result? In my case, a watered-down script filled with euphemisms. In the case of Corona del Mar, cancellation.

Teacher Ron Martin said he chose "Rent," the story of artists struggling in New York City, for the spring musical because he hoped it would help teach tolerance after overhearing students using anti-gay epitaphs.

You'd think that life lessons in "tolerance", not to mention freedom of artistic expression, would be the priorities, but no. And what about other themes emphasized in "Rent"? That of drug use and living one's life with AIDS.

To further the comparison to my own experience, there was a segment in my show in which a girl performed a monologue about the joy and liberation she felt from coming out as a lesbian. I was forced to rewrite the scene, substituting gender-neutral pronouns so that her "lover" could be construed as male or female. I managed to keep it ambiguous enough, remaining faithful to the original intent. Don't ask.

The reason I'm bringing my own show into this is to explain that a well-known show like "Rent" may have had preconceptions attached to it, but the show we produced was original. But that still didn't matter. The only advantage I had was my ability to rewrite and adapt the material, sneaking in the original concepts despite the censorship. In short, we got around it (after six rewrites) via writing acrobatics.

Corona Del Mar High didn't have that luxury, but they shouldn't have to. And that is a real shame.

Chinese media censors Obama's speech

How to tell when you're doing something right? Repressive regimes don't want their people to hear what you have to say.

BEIJING: The official Chinese translation of President Barack Obama's inauguration speech was missing his references to communism and dissent, while a live broadcast on state television Wednesday quickly cut away to the anchor when the topic was mentioned.

The comments by the newly installed U.S. president veered into politically sensitive territory for the Communist Party, which maintains a tight grip over the Internet and state-run media.

At one point, Obama said earlier generations "faced down communism and fascism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions." He later addressed "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent - know that you are on the wrong side of history."

The Chinese translation of the speech, credited to the Web site of the official English-language newspaper China Daily, was missing the word "communism" in the first sentence. The paragraph with the sentence on dissent had been removed entirely.

Does the New York Times think "gay" is a bad word?

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

Think Progress caught this:

Towleroad notes that when a reader text messages someone a New York Times article with the word “gay” in the title, the New York Times web service censors the word “gay,” replacing it with a “beep”.

Try it yourself here, suggests Think Progress.

I could understand it if they did that with "Bush" or "Cheney"... but "gay"?

Sarah Palin Wanted To Ban Books From The Library

I'm just shaking my head. This kind of blatant attempt at censorship enrages me. Sure her base loves it though. I just scoped the article, but she does not go over well from what I can see.

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor.