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Censorship: The Angels and the Ax

“Where We Go To Talk About Censorship”

Start of a section on censorship. In this short opening essay (very hard to follow), Leonard contrasts the experience of being asked to speak about censorship at the modern L.A. hotel Bonaventure (“…at least two hours by Porsche to the nearest quart of milk”) to meeting a dissident in the Soviet era Hotel Rossya in Moscow (“Think of Kafka’s castle”). His summarizes his thesis as “The Rossya is the foot of censorship in your face, on your neck. The Boneventure’s more problematic, like a bowl of brain…I know what I was doing in Moscow. In Los Angeles I had my doubts.”

He goes on to write about the many examples of censorship in western society and celebrates the “angels” who fight them every day – from teachers to celebrity authors:

…are among many other heroes and heroines of the U.S. Constitution who have stolen time from jobs and families to insist, without reservation, that our young republic really meant it when it said that Congress shall make no law abridging what We The People publish.

Let’s see where he goes with the rest of the essays in this section….

New word: Kinhasa = alternative spelling for the Capital of the DR Republic of Congo, Kinshassa.

New learning: …Ok, not new learning,  but great quote, “Do American fascists have civil rights?”