On the Problem of Censorship--on TBD and Elsewhere

[Gary Freedman]

I guess the rules of some of the groups on TBD preclude me from quoting some of my favorite passages from James Joyce's masterpiece, the novel "Ulysses." Can you imagine getting deleted from a TBD group because you have quoted from a masterpiece of literature? Ha, absurd! I suspect that some of the TBD group administrators are just a clinamen away from insanity.

Speaking of Ulysses, my tenth-grade (1968-1969) English teacher, Thomas Horan, a proud Irishman, wrote his Ph.D. thesis on that novel. "A doctor in Dublin," which I was just reading on George V. Richard's group "All Drift All The Time," set my mind adrift--I thought of "Ulysses" as well as the problem of censorship.

Dr. Horan, a much beloved teacher at my old high school, The Central High School of Philadelphia, attended my last class reunion, organized by Richard Plotkin. (Mr. Plotkin thinks I'm given to "braggadocio," but that's a different story.)

And, by the way the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York -- Sonia Sotomayor's old court -- ruled that Ulysses was not an obscene book. But try pointing that out to some of the group administrators here on TBD!

http://law.jrank.org/pages/12758/United-States-v-One-Book-Called-Ulysses.html

[Gary Freedman]

GIL, you're obviously not a free speech advocate. Justice Black you're not!

[GIL]

If you are going to push things to the edge then you should expect to fall off sometime. I guess that you should consider your delivery. There and double meanings in that fucking is fucking. in the immortal words of George Carlin " you can prick your finger but you cant finger your prick. Quit jerking everybody around and trying to antagonize people.

[Gary Freedman]

For the record, I left a post on "All Drift All The Time" about the town of Fucking, Austria. It was meant as humorous, and I think it would be viewed as humorous by any reasonable standard. I do not believe that referring to the name of a town in Austria, whether it be Vienna, Linz, or Fucking constitutes the use of offensive language. It does not even constitute an F-bomb in any way. And, also, for the record, I never mentioned my illness.

Here is what I wrote that got me deleted from the group by administrator George V. Richards:

"The mayor of an Austrian town named 'Fucking' is pleading with tourists to stop stealing its road signs for souvenirs.

'Fucking has existed for 800 years, probably when a Mr. Fuck or the Fuck family moved into the area,' said Siegfried Hauppl. 'We all know what it means now, but for us, Fucking is Fucking we don’t give it a second thought.'

Two other Austrian towns, Windpassing and Wank-on-the-Lake, have similar problems, he added.

Google Earth and Mapquest confirm that the town Fucking actually exists. It’s a few hundred kilometers north of Salzburg.

This sign carries the hilarity even further: 'Bitte nicht so schnell!' is German for 'Please not so fast!' (Evidently this type of sign is a commonplace reminder in those parts for drivers to keep their speed down to protect children, but the unintended double meaning in this case is particularly amusing.)

In case you were wondering if this is an urban legend, nopes this ain’t."