A German town was bracing Wednesday for a rally by 1250 garden gnomes with their stubby right arms raised in a Hitler salute — all in the name of art.

[Watch the video here]

Artist Ottmar Hoerl, who has already displayed his provocative gnomes in Belgium, Italy and two German art galleries, said the display in Straubing in Bavaria was the first one in public in Germany.

“It is a work that is meant to get people to think, to react,” he told AFP.

The German artist found himself in hot water with his gnomes in July after prosecutors in Nuremberg launched an enquiry into whether displaying one of the diminutive figures in an art gallery was against the law.

Hitler salutes and Nazi symbols have been illegal in Germany since the end of World War II, but prosecutors accepted Hoerl’s argument that the 40-centimetre (15-inch) gnomes were ridiculing the Nazis, not promoting them.

Hoerl, who has designed other, less controversial, public art exhibitions and permanent installations, insisted that had a serious point to make, namely to draw attention to the rise of the far right in Europe.

Hans Lohmeier, Straubing’s mayor, told AFP that the gnomes would be guarded around the clock after some “critical voices” about the exhibition, which runs from Thursday until Monday in the town’s main square…

LiteratEye #30: Can Holden Caulfield Come Out and Play? You’ll Have to Ask the Judge
By W.J. Elvin III
September 4, 2009

J.D. Salinger has been hiding out in the woods for the past fifty years or so, rarely heard from except when disputes have drawn him into legal battles. As has been widely reported, one such battle is going on right now, that being his suit against Fredrik Colting, a Swedish author.

There’s no need to trouble you with a lot of detail since it’s been in the news. The problem is Colting’s new book, 60 Years Later.

You have to go to Amazon UK to have a look at the “sequel” to Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, since the courts have thus far blocked publication in the U.S..

Salinger’s reclusive nature has sparked considerable media curiosity over the years. What’s up with that guy? Most likely Salinger, now 90, simply had enough of life in the hustling, bustling outside world in his youth. Some of us, so it seems, just aren’t wired for playing hardball in the fast lane.

Salinger certainly had a taste of the world beyond his front door. In the days prior to going into combat in World War II, he was seriously involved with Oona O’Neill, daughter of noted playwright Eugene O’Neill and later wife of Charlie Chaplin. Salinger was bitter about being left for the older man, though the marriage worked out well for Oona and Charlie.

Having experienced intense combat in major battles of World War II, Salinger faced more horrors in liberating concentration camps. Such was the impact that he was hospitalized for a time to recover from the stress of what he saw and sensed. He told his daughter that his nostrils never really cleared of the smell of burning human flesh.

Salinger had the makings of a hotshot celebrity and instead chose a reclusive, Zen Buddhist lifestyle. Wikipedia gives a very solid overview of his life and mentions numerous sources for further reading.

Salinger’s greatest literary invention was, of course, the awkward and troubled adolescent Holden Caulfield. The new book propels Caulfield into today, depicted as a 76-year-old Mr. C, wandering the streets of New York after escaping from a nursing home.

The court battle is over property rights versus freedom of expression, although the matter of greatest concern to Salinger, according to his attorneys, is possible damage to his reputation. It’s hard to imagine, though, that the controversy can do him great harm. Catcher in the Rye stands at a very impressive #177 in top selling books at Amazon at the moment. With all this fuss, it’s got nowhere to go but up for a time to come.

The earlier decision upholding suppression of Colting’s book seems to have rattled a lot of cages. Big names like the New York Times, the Associated Press, plus other major media and prominent library organizations, as well as freedom of expression advocacy groups, are supporting Colting in briefs filed with the court.

A similar case came up about ten years ago involving the re-telling of Vladimir Nabokov’s libidinous novel, Lolita. In the newer version challenged by Nabokov’s estate, the story is told from Lolita’s quite jaded point of view. Reviews make abundantly clear that the new book is no match for Nabokov’s. It covers the same lusty territory but lacks his literary mastery.

Nabokov’s son, guardian of the copyright that runs to 2030, sued the Italian publisher and author Pia Pera to block U.S. publication. Farrar, Straus & Giroux was to have published the U.S. version but dropped it in response to the lawsuit.

The suit was settled in fairly bland fashion with Dimitri Nabokov permitted to write his own introduction to the challenged book, and Pera agreeing to donate half the author’s share of royalties to a writers’ organization. Another publisher picked up the U.S. rights, and it can now be had in hardcover on Amazon for four cents, or twenty-four cents for the paperback, plus postage.

Any serious reader of fiction might wonder what all the fuss is about since great characters in literature — think of Dracula, for instance, or Dr. Frankenstein’s monster — take on a life of their own, migrating from the original story into many other stories. They become cultural celebrities, fair game for whoever wants to write about them, freed of royalty obligations to a copyright holder.

Consider Sherlock Holmes.

Amazon lists about 35,000 Holmes titles, by no means all unique. But suppose just one in every thousand is unique, that’s still a lot of knock-offs. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle only wrote 4 novels and 56 short stories.

I collected around fifty Holmes “pastiches,” as the knock-offs are called, before giving up the chase. I’ve seen a list of over 300 Holmes books written by authors other than Conan Doyle, and I don’t imagine it’s comprehensive. (By the way, if his family name is Doyle, why is he generally referred to as Conan Doyle? Prior to knighthood he was Dr. Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. Did the third given name throw people off so they took it for part of his last name? A little mystery to solve some other time).

Wikipedia took a shot at creating a collection of public domain characters but apparently abandoned the effort. The rather brief list ranged from Alice, of Wonderland fame, to figures from Greek mythology to the Wizard of Oz. It was an intriguing idea but to do it any justice would require an incredible effort. Though that page was jettisoned into the archives, Wikipedia has another page under construction discussing fictional crossovers.

Lloyd L. Rich, an attorney with expertise in the area, explains that fictional characters need to be protected because “there may be a possibility to use the fictional character in book sequels, or for licensing the use of the fictional character for films, television programming, electronic or other media or merchandising. It is only by maintaining control and protection of the fictional character that revenue streams may be maximized for the creator/publisher of that character.”

As Rich indicates, most often an author would take to the courts in an effort to preserve profits. Salinger is all the more interesting and unusual because he has refused further maximization of revenue streams, as Rich puts it, in regard to Holden Caulfield, turning down film offers.

There is one arena where artists and writers seem to be at liberty to play with even the latest in fictional characters as they wish, and that is fandom. I’m not sure why fans are exempt from the rules, though I suppose it isn’t in the interests of an author or publisher to make trouble for fans of their product. I mention it to avoid suggestions that I have overlooked an important anomaly. Fandom is a separate reality and we’ll have to save that discussion for a later date.

Personally, trying to be objective rather than sentimental, I think Salinger is fighting a battle in a war that’s already over. Traditional literature is a twitching corpse. Books as we know them are destined, at their finest, to collection by antiquarians, or may serve as decorative objects in the homes of those wishing to appear cultured.

I’m not going to quit buying, reading and writing about books. But you’ll note more and more institutions of higher learning are jettisoning books in favor of digital devices. “Books” will no longer be static; the roles of writer and reader will likely merge, as the book becomes an interactive process rather than a finished product. It should be one hell of a mess.

image: Boston Globe

(Copyright 2009 WJE, exclusive to The Art of the Prank, for reprint rights contact Literateye@gmail.com)

Check out previous LiteratEye episodes on The Art of the Prank.

Iran’s citizens take to the streets en masse after a disputed election. Gay men in Salt Lake City hold a kissing protest. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church voice their anti-just-about-everything views to military funerals and elsewhere.

Beyond the media attention they inevitably garner, what do protests actually accomplish?

We rounded up a few people who have thought a lot about this topic — Chester Crocker, Bernardine Dohrn, Donna Lieberman, Juan E. Méndez, David S. Meyer, and Howard Zinn — and asked them how much protest matters in this day and age, and why.

Here are their answers.

Howard Zinn is professor emeritus in the political science department at Boston University, and author of the book A People’s History of the United States.

Do protests work? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes very soon, sometimes there is a long-term effect. Sometimes you can see a direct connection between the protest and the result, and sometimes it’s difficult to trace.

What this means is that you must not desist from protesting because you don’t see an immediate result. What immediately looks like a failure may turn out to be a success. Testing is always a gamble, but one worth taking, because if you don’t take the risk, you will be stuck with the status quo and I suppose we all agree: the status quo is extremely undesirable.

Some examples:

There was protest when the founding fathers concluded their work in drafting the Constitution in Philadelphia because there was no Bill of Rights. With the protests threatening the successful ratification (the vote was close in major states: New York, Massachusetts, Virginia) the Founders agreed they would add it, and they did in 1791.

The anti-slavery movement had to keep protesting for decades, from the 1830’s to the early 1860’s, until it had an effect on Lincoln and the Congress, first with the Emancipation Proclamation, then with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

The nation-wide strikes in the 1880’s resulted in winning the eight-hour work day in many places. The demands of the Populist movement resulted in regulatory legislation in various states and resulted in national reforms years later in the New Deal measures to help farmers.

The sit-down strikes of 1936 to 1937 led to recognition of the C.I.O. unions and contracts and better wages and conditions.

The wave of protests in the early 1930’s — by the Unemployed Councils blocking evictions; by the Tenants of organizations winning rent control in the Bronx, for instance, but also other places — led to the New Deal measures that helped the poor.

The various protests against racial segregation, taking various forms, are well known — the Montgomery bus boycott, the sit-ins, the various demonstrations in the South — and all led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and various Supreme Court decisions that effectively ended legal racial segregation in the South.

The protests against the Vietnam War certainly helped Lyndon Johnson come to his conclusion in early 1968 that he would not run for president again, that he would begin negotiating with the North Vietnamese, and that he would not send more troops to Vietnam as General Westmoreland had requested.

The protests of G.I.’s during the Vietnam War — desertions, fragging, public disclosure of massacres — helped build public opinion against the war; and if you study the Pentagon Papers you will see how often the officials in Washington worried about public opinion, and why Nixon promised an end to the war, though it took years.

After the Vietnam-Watergate era, the protests of disabled people certainly led to the Disabled Persons Rights Act.

The feminist movement of the 1960’s and 1970s undoubtedly led to affirmative action for women, moving more women into better positions in the economy.

There is much more historical evidence, but I am running out of space and time.

Chester Crocker is the James R. Schlesinger professor of strategic studies at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and serves on the board of its Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. Previously, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and chaired the board of the United States Institute of Peace.

History demonstrates the relevance and impact of protest actions. For some societies, protest events punctuate their histories like milestones. The short answer is, they matter.

The more interesting questions are why and in what circumstances. But saying that they matter is not the same thing as saying their results are always or principally positive.

Why do they matter? Protests have the potential to have impact on the varied audiences toward which they are directed. They can become part of a mass mobilization campaign, literally altering a society’s inner balance and subverting the coherence and esprit of the authorities. They can place a vulnerable regime on the defensive in the eyes of citizens and at the same time weaken its bases of external support. In a word, protest when conducted skillfully, can undercut a government’s inner sense of rectitude and its perceived legitimacy. Protests of this nature have shaped events in India, the Philippines, South Africa, Ukraine, Serbia, Lebanon, Bolivia, Russia, and other places over the last 100 years.

Not all protests have such sweeping goals. Protests can be targeted tactically in order to achieve a specific shift in policy, to create pressure for remedies or reforms, and to achieve such goals as prisoner releases, the recognition of the rights of aggrieved groups, or the winding down of a war.

When do protests work? To generalize, protests are most likely to be effective in one of three circumstances: a) in political-social systems that already recognize civil rights and political liberties (including freedom of the press) and those that profess adherence to such norms; b) by contrast, in autocratic systems that have become too brittle to adapt and whose security services may have become divided, demoralized, or unreliable agents of repression; and c) in weak, newly democratic systems where official legitimacy exists in the formal sense but lacks the deep social roots necessary to stand up to “street power” demagoguery.

Protests are also more likely to work when a) led by skillful political activists and organizers who understand how to manipulate public opinion and b) targeted at concrete rather than abstract ideological goals. The odds of using protest to stop the building of a dam are obviously better than mounting protests to achieve extra-constitutional regime change. And the prospects are not static: information technology and social networking are literally changing the protest landscape as these words are written.

Are protests a good thing? The short answer — and it is not a cop-out — is that it depends. Street power can get out of hand and subvert the democratic process. Under some conditions, protests can weaken a tottering autocrat and create a vacuum that is exploited by extremists, fascists, or other lowlifes. But protests can also achieve miracles large and small, moving a nation to greater things.

Bernardine Dohrn is clinical associate professor of law and director of the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern Law. She was a former leader of the anti-Vietnam War organization the Weather Underground.

Imagine our world without the differing protests of Henry David Thoreau and Harriet Tubman, Wounded Knee and Tien an Mien, Soweto and Stonewall. Where would we be without the persistence of Ida B. Wells’s anti-lynching campaign and the quiet radical nurturing of Ella Baker who taught the reciprocity of community organizing? Don’t forget the transformative work of those who risked their lives and the safety of their families to serve as an invisible station on the underground railroad or the flamboyant truth-telling of Vietnam vets against the war who threw their medals back at the warmakers four decades ago and still continue to repair the harm. Let’s recall those in wheelchairs blanketing the steps of the Capitol building for dignity and access for the disabled, and the still-clandestine leakers who exposed the torture memos and the illegal actions they legitimized.

The secret is that protest encompasses acts that are individual and collective, literary and rousing, pathetic and transcendent — and we don’t know until later whether it made a difference. So acting against injustice or pointing toward solidarity has an existential quality; it must be done to object to a mighty wrong — to not be part of the problem. Looking backward, it seems obvious that sitting down to strike at Flint, and sitting in at Greensboro lunch counters, and standing up to enter school in Little Rock were obvious sparks to larger social movements. At the time, no one could know.

Surely speaking up when our upbringing encourages being polite can be the most courageous form of dissent. How many men or boys interrupt the hateful locker room banter about women and girls and queers? When do white people reject the invisible privileges that insulate us from the pain of structural inequality? Why is it so popular to admire dissidents in other countries but succumb to the social pressure to go along with homelessness, mass incarceration, and Katrina displacement at home?

And yet it is hardly obvious how to object and also be heard. Clearly comedy and humor open doors where earnest entreaty fails. And the art of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Audre Lourde, and Tony Kushner opens eyes and encourages the ethical longings of others. I don’t think we know what it takes for a walkout or teach-in or musical performance to simultaneously expose tyranny, enlighten, give heart, educate, recruit allies, and forge connections. So we have to act as we can, and then doubt whether we are fully right and effective, and then act again.

Without our protesting ancestors, we’d still be burning witches at the stake.

David S. Meyer is Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, and author of The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America.

Protests can matter a great deal, but not by themselves, and often not in ways activists intend. When King George learned that colonists had dressed as Indians to throw discounted tea into the Boston Harbor, one of many acts of resistance, he saw his empire unraveling and responded harshly. Repression spurred further protests — and ultimately, America. Latter-day tea partiers have yet to take similar risks or demonstrate comparable commitment.

A protest is a signal about who you are, what you want, and what else you might do. A former White House adviser can write an op-ed against a planned war and create a stir; less prominent citizens need to do something more dramatic to win attention for their views, demonstrating at the Capitol or trespassing at a military base. What you do reflects who you are and what you want. Poor people may march on Washington, but rich people usually have other ways of getting their messages across.

When people protest, they tell authorities that they’re unhappy about something, and implicitly threaten to do more than protest: vote, contribute money, lobby, set up a picket, blockade a clinic, or try to blow up a building. Opponents and allies in government make judgments about how strong and widely held demonstrators’ grievances are. Demonstrators can force leaders to explain, again and again, what they’re doing and why. Sometimes, in crafting responses, governments change their policies. The Reagan administration, for example, offered new arms control proposals to the Soviet Union in the wake of massive antinuclear demonstrations. Gorbachev seized upon them, and history unfolded.

Demonstrators can stiffen the spine of would-be allies in government, suggesting there might be advantages in pressing for new positions on climate change, abortion, or gay marriage. No savvy politician will admit to changing direction in response to demonstrations in the street, but of course, it happens all the time.

When activists make progress, it’s always less than what they want. The antiwar movement in the Vietnam era ultimately ended the draft, but the war dragged on. Immigrant rights and anti-immigration demonstrators stopped their opponents in 2005, battling to a stalemate that frustrated everyone. People don’t generally take to the streets looking for smaller reforms, but often it’s only by asking for more that they get anything.

Demonstrators also signal to other citizens who might share their views that they are not alone, that things could be otherwise, and that they might be able to do something about it. The large national event that receives coverage in The New York Times reflects hundreds of smaller, less-visible actions and meetings in church basements and living rooms around the country, as people develop the temerity to think they can change the world. Sometimes they can.

Juan E. Méndez is a visiting professor at Washington College of Law, The American University, and an adviser on crime prevention to the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. He has also served as president of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and was special adviser on the Prevention of Genocide to Kofi Annan.

It is easy to think that the technological advances in communications and information have made street demonstrations useless as a means to influence policy or obtain change. In highly complex societies, powerful special interests have such access to, and even control of, levers of power that against them street protest looks — and most often is — quite futile. Celebrities embracing certain causes often seem more effective in pushing them than anonymous protesters joining to support their common interests.

But what would you do if you were an Iranian whose vote was outrageously stolen by Ahmadinejad’s and Khamenei’s massive fraud? A letter to the editor, lobbying a legislator, or an interview on prime time television are not available if you are a Zimbabwean fed up with Mugabe. Even at the international decision-making level, one suspects that the “international community” would quietly turn to more urgent matters if we thought that Darfurians were accepting their fate and acquiescing on Al Bashir’s designs for them.

For the billions of powerless in today’s world, protest is the only way to have their voices heard. That is why international human rights law places a very high premium on freedom of speech, association, and assembly, all of them broadly understood. Vibrant, live democracies are those where all citizens believe they have a stake in the outcomes and consequently feel compelled to voice their opinions through the vehicles available to them. It is no wonder that the politics of protest are livelier in countries that are emerging from tyranny.

What does protest achieve? The agenda of protesters must be such that can be achieved through genuine debate in a democratic society. At the same time, rarely if ever is that agenda adopted in full the way protesters envision it; and rightly so, because policy is formulated through the interaction of many opinions and not as a result of pressure. Often, protest is a way of preventing some policy option that is considered unfair, and frequently the option is at least modified in view of the protest. So demonstrations may never completely succeed in achieving the goals of the demonstrators; they succeed in allowing them to participate in the process of policy formulation and decision-making, and participation is the democratic ideal.

Undoubtedly, protest must abide by rules of peaceful coexistence and reasonable regulation. Farmers in Argentina had every right to protest against export taxes (whether the taxes were fair or unfair in the overall context is another matter); but they had no right to block highways and impede the access of food products to the markets. Protests should indeed grow in frequency and intensity as necessary, even to the point of bringing down a repressive or unrepresentative government; but they must stop short of forcing a duly elected leader from office. Just as there is a threshold of “legitimacy of exercise” that should be demanded of elected leaders, so also demonstrators must exercise their freedoms of speech and assembly within the constraints of legitimacy of both means and ends.

Ultimately, protest works if it intelligently combines speech with action and a genuine attempt to persuade rather than simply antagonize. Under such premises, protest will continue to be a viable, indispensable ingredient of democracy for generations to come.

Donna Lieberman is the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Do protests matter? Just look at where they’ve been prohibited and why — Tehran and Tiananmen Square, for example. That ought to offer a clue.

But for every stifled protest, there are many examples of political protest that have changed the course of history.

From the Boston Tea Party to the Montgomery bus boycott and the march in Selma, American history is peppered with dramatic moments when demonstrations have provided the catalyst for profound and enduring change.

But for every Selma there have been countless quiet protests that have created a steady drumbeat toward change. Every poster that’s hoisted high, every petition that’s signed, every Tweet that registers dissent contributes to the nation’s political discourse.

And for every quiet protest, there have also been many not-so-quite protests — like the millions who marched to prevent the Iraq war. Though it didn’t feel like it in 2003, the throngs who took to the streets began shifting the public debate so that later our elected leaders could finally muster the courage to challenge the deceptions of the Bush administration.

Protest demonstrations don’t happen in a vacuum. And they matter most when they are part of a movement. The march in Selma was part of a movement that included the Montgomery bus boycott, the lunch counter sit-ins, the freedom rides, the voter registration drives. They both complemented and fueled a litigation campaign to challenge segregation and — no coincidence — to protect the right to protest, and a political strategy to make equality the law of the land.

The impact of protest is often neither obvious nor immediate. Its impact is certainly important for the participants and their cause. But what is vital for democracy is the freedom to protest. Only when everyone has the right to speak out can a democracy thrive. And the test of our democracy is the protection we offer not to the protests we like, but how we treat those we find offensive — be they the Nazis in Skokie or the Klan. All First Amendment exercises — those that “work” and those that don’t — have shaped our history, made it better, and are crucial to how we come to understand ourselves as a people.

The NYCLU produces t-shirts that say simply “dissent is patriotic.” Peacefully gathering to speak out for change is one of the most patriotic things we can do. It’s how each one of us can enrich the public discourse, add to the marketplace of ideas, and help create the context where good ideas will flourish and change might happen in another time or place.

So does protest matter? Few things matter more.

photo: boston.com

The Issue

Last Wednesday Budd Schulberg died at 95. He was a journalist (particularly astute about boxing), a novelist (‘‘What Makes Sammy Run’’) and above all a screenwriter: ‘‘On the Waterfront’’ is a glorious accomplishment. He was also a man who named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee. It is not easy to reconcile Schulberg’s disheartening testimony with his splendid work. Does rejecting the artist mean rejecting the art?

The Argument

The work stands alone. When we are blessed — or is it cursed? — with extratextual knowledge, what is it that we know? Personal rectitude does not ensure an elegant prose style. Conversely, if scholars discovered that George Eliot had shot a couple of guys in a drug deal gone bad, not a word of “Middlemarch” would be altered. Why then should our response to those words be subverted? To read a book or watch a movie is to have an aesthetic response to the work, not to make a moral judgment about its creator.

And yet. Knowing about Schulberg’s (to me) perfidious conduct — he himself defended his testimony throughout his life — can affect how we see ‘‘On the Waterfront,’’ adulterating its joys, corrupting even its most famous scene. That’s psychology more than ethics — no conscious decision is involved — but it is particularly potent psychology.

The contracts of big-time actors and athletes often include a morals clause, less an expression of principled concern for the virtue of the performer than economic concern for the psychology of the audience: many fans won’t pay to see a miscreant perform. Michael Vick’s professional future hinges on how N.F.L. team owners assess that psychology.

Call it the Woody Allen Quandary. In the wake of the revelation of his involvement with Soon-Yi Previn, the young adopted daughter of Mia Farrow, then his paramour, some people refused to attend another of his movies. Feelings ran high. A roster of headlines from 1992, when the affair became public, includes the words “fallen icon,” “incest” and “enough to bring banishment or death in biblical times.” And this is a list of articles that ran in The Los Angeles Times, not The National Enquirer. Would you like some popcorn?

Allen has appeared in many of his movies, often as a character apparently based on himself, making it even harder to disassociate the artist and the art. Something related affects our response to ‘‘On the Waterfront,’’ a story driven by Terry Malloy’s deciding whether or not to testify about people he knows. Some critics see the movie as Schulberg’s apologia (an interpretation he rejects in this fascinating interview).

Unless you were eager to date Woody Allen or pal around with Budd Schulberg, why would you care what they were like as people? Few who renounce Woody Allen movies have a chance to renounce Woody Allen: it’s not as if he’s inviting them over for dinner. Budd Schulberg and I were in a union together, the Writers Guild of America — together in the sense that we both attended union functions at a time when I had my first TV staff-writing job and he’d had a brilliant career for decades. He spoke at a W.G.A. strike meeting in 1988, and I found myself more inspired by his passionate rhetoric than resentful of his past politics. But I was only a small child when he testified before HUAC. My response to those events is necessarily theoretical, distanced; my response to his speech and to ‘‘On the Waterfront’’ is visceral, immediate. Last year our union honored Schulberg; I’m glad it did.

It’s hard to be a good person; it’s hard to produce great work. Most of us accomplish neither. To demand both might be asking more than human beings are capable of. To deprive oneself of great work created by a less-than-great person seems overly fastidious.

Peter Shaffer poses a version of this perplexing question in his play and screenplay ‘‘Amadeus’’: can a bad man make great art? For Shaffer, the answer is unambiguously yes, to the chagrin of Mozart’s rival Salieri, who thought himself the better man yet knew himself the inferior composer. It drove him to despair. Or, Shaffer suggests, to something worse.

It would be so much simpler if all artists lived if not honorably then discreetly. We know remarkably little about Shakespeare’s life; perhaps that helps us respond so fully to his work. Or perhaps Shakespeare himself got it wrong when he had Mark Antony declaim:

The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;

Maybe the evil that men do is interred with their bones. What lives after them is the screenplay to ‘‘On the Waterfront.’’

White Plains, N.Y. (AP) — West Point officials who ordered anti-war demonstrators out of an Army-Navy basketball game did not violate their First Amendment rights, a federal jury decided Wednesday.

The jury found that the protesters’ message — they wore T-shirts spelling out “U.S. out of Iraq” — was not the main reason for their expulsion.

The eight protesters, admittedly looking for attention, stood in the top row of the bleachers to display their message as the national anthem was played before a game in 2004. Building manager John Spisso ordered them to cover up the shirts or leave, and when they refused, they were escorted out by military police, held for three hours and charged with disorderly conduct.

The charges were dropped a month later, but the garrison commander, Col. Ann Horner, barred the protesters from West Point for five years. The protesters, all from nearby Westchester County, sued both officials, accusing them of violating their freedom of speech. Each protester sought at least $50,000 in damages.

At the trial in White Plains, government lawyers defended the West Point officials, saying they were simply enforcing what they thought were rules against demonstrations on campus and were not reacting specifically to the anti-war message.

Horner, now retired, testified that demonstrators wearing shirts that said “100 More Years in Iraq” could also have been banned.

However, Judge Stephen Robinson told jurors that civilian demonstrations were not prohibited at West Point until several months after the basketball game. He said the jury had to decide whether the officials acted against the protesters specifically because of their anti-war message.

Defense lawyer Michael Sussman pointed out that Horner’s directive banishing the protesters cited their “objectionable clothing.” In addition, a military police officer said the protesters were removed because Spisso didn’t like the T-shirts.

But the jurors, on their second day of deliberations, found against the plaintiffs.

Afterward, outside the courthouse, some of the plaintiffs and supporters re-enacted the 2004 protest outside the courthouse, again putting on white T-shirts that spelled out “U.S. out of Iraq.”

image: Syracuse Cultural Workers

Miami (AP) — Newly released FBI files show agents across the country and at the highest level of the agency investigated “Deep Throat” – the 1972 porn movie, not the shadowy Watergate figure – in a vain attempt to roll back what became a cultural shift toward more permissive entertainment.

The documents released to The Associated Press show the expanse of agents’ investigation into the film: seizing copies of the movie, having negatives analyzed in labs and interviewing everyone from actors and producers to messengers who delivered reels to theaters.

All of it in a failed attempt to stop the spread of a movie that some saw as the victory of a cultural and sexual revolution and others saw as simply decadent.

“Today we can’t imagine authorities at any level of government – local, state or federal – being involved in obscenity prosecutions of this kind,” said Mark Weiner, a constitutional law professor and legal historian at Rutgers-Newark School of Law. “The story of ‘Deep Throat’ is the story of the last gasp of the forces lined up against the cultural and sexual revolution and it is the advent of the entry of pornography into the mainstream.”

The papers are among 498 pages from the FBI file on Gerard Damiano, who directed the movie and died in October. Released this month following a Freedom of Information Act request by the AP, they are just a glimpse into Damiano’s roughly 4,800-page file. More than 1,000 additional pages were withheld under FOIA exemptions and because they duplicated other material; the balance of the file has not yet been reviewed and released.

Many parts of the released files are whited out and the FBI’s ultimate targets are unclear, but the seriousness with which the agency treated the investigation is unquestionable.

Authorities have long said the movie was made with mafia money – and the FBI has linked the mob with porn over the years – but the file includes no mention of mob links.

The file includes memos between the FBI’s top men – L. Patrick Gray, William Ruckelshaus and Clarence Kelley, successive heads of the agency after J. Edgar Hoover – and field offices so widespread, it seemed nearly all of the country’s biggest cities were involved.

Read the rest of the article here.

image: Aquarium Drunkard

Beijing (AP) — Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square this week, Chinese authorities have rounded up dissidents and shipped them out of town. Now, they’ve even shut down Twitter.

Along with their usual methods of muzzling dissent, the authorities extended their efforts Tuesday to silence social networking sites that might foster discussion of any commemoration of the events of June 3-4, 1989.

The action is a new sign of the government’s concern of the potential of such technology in an authoritarian society where information is tightly controlled.

“There has been a really intensified clampdown on quasi-public discussion of awareness of this event,” said Xiao Qiang, adjunct professor of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California-Berkeley, and director of The Berkeley China Internet Project.

“It’s a discussion about where China is now and where China can go from here. So the authorities are making a major crackdown to block user-generated sites such as Twitter and show there is no right to public discussion,” he said.

China has the world’s largest online population, and Internet communities have proven increasingly influential in spreading word of events to everything from student protests to group shopping excursions.

People are going outside the normal, controlled channels to set up communities online, spreading information about campus unrest and other activities that the government considers to be potentially subversive.

Government Internet monitors have shut down message boards on more than 6,000 Web sites affiliated with colleges and universities, apparently to head off any talk about the 1989 events, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

Numerous blogs maintained by edgy government critics such as avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei have been blocked and the text-messaging service Twitter and photo sharing site Flickr could not be accessed within China on Tuesday. Video sharing site YouTube has been blocked within China since March.

Read the rest of the article here.

photo: oneangryman.com

An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch.

An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch.

“I thought it would be safe,” Freedom From Religion Foundation co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor told CNN earlier Friday. “It’s always a shock when your sign is censored or stolen or mutilated. It’s not something you get used to.”

The sign, which celebrates the winter solstice, has had some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges because they said it was attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth.

“Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds,” the sign from the Freedom From Religion Foundation says in part.

The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was gone by 7:30 a.m., Gaylor said.

The incident will not stifle the group’s message, Gaylor said. Before reports of the placard’s recovery, she said a temporary sign with the same message would be placed in the building’s Rotunda. Gaylor said a note would be attached saying, “Thou shalt not steal.”

“I guess they don’t follow their own commandments,” Gaylor said. “There’s nothing out there with the atheist point of view, and now there is such a firestorm that we have the audacity to exist. And then [whoever took the sign] stifles our speech.”

Gaylor said that police are checking security cameras pointed at the building’s entrances and exits to see if they can see anyone stealing the sign.

“It’s probably about 50 pounds, ” Gaylor said. “My brother-in-law was huffing and puffing carrying it up the stairs. It’s definitely not something you can stick under your arm or conceal.”

The Washington State Patrol, which is handling the incident, could not be reached for comment.

Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher and co-founder of the group, said it was important for atheists to see their viewpoints validated alongside everyone else’s.

Barker said the display is especially important given that 25 percent of Washington state residents are unaffiliated with religion or do not believe in God. (A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 23 percent of Washingtonians said they were unaffiliated with a religion and 7 percent said they didn’t believe in God.)

“It’s not that we are trying to coerce anyone; in a way our sign is a signal of protest,” Barker said. “If there can be a Nativity scene saying that we are all going to hell if we don’t bow down to Jesus, we should be at the table to share our views.”

He said if anything, it’s the Nativity scene that is the intrusion.

“Most people think December is for Christians and view our signs as an intrusion, when actually it’s the other way around,” he said. “People have been celebrating the winter solstice long before Christmas. We see Christianity as the intruder, trying to steal the holiday from all of us humans.”

The scene in Washington state is not unfamiliar. Barker has had signs in Madison, Wisconsin, for 13 years. The placard is often turned around so the message can’t be seen, and one year, someone threw acid on it, forcing the group to encase it in Plexiglas.

In Washington, D.C., the American Humanist Association began a bus ad campaign this month questioning belief in God.

“Why believe in a God?” the advertisement asks. “Just be good for goodness sake.”

That ad has caused the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to field hundreds of complaints, the group said, but it has heard just as much positive feedback, said Fred Edwords, the association’s spokesman.

Edwords said the ad campaign, which features a shrugging Santa Claus, was not meant to attack Christmas but rather to reach out to an untapped audience.

Edwords maintains the campaign began in December mostly because the group had extra money left over for the year. The connection to Christmas is a coincidence, he said.

“There are a lot of people out there who don’t know there are organizations like ours to serve their needs,” Edwords said. “The thing is, to reach a minority group, in order to be heard, everyone in the room has to hear you, even when they don’t want to.”

The ad campaign, Edwords said, is to make people think. He said he doesn’t expect to “convert” anyone.

But the Christian Coalition of America is urging members to oppose the advertisements.

“Although a number of humanists and atheists continue to attempt to rid God and Christmas from the public square, the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to such efforts,” Roberta Combs, the group’s president said in a press release.

“We will ask our millions of supporters to call the city of Washington, D.C., and Congress to stop this un-Godly campaign.”

As far as the criticism goes, Edwords said there are far more controversial placards in Washington.

“That’s D.C. — this is a political center,” he said. “If I can see a placard with dead fetuses on it, I think someone can look at our question and just think about it.”

The anger over the display in Olympia began after it was assembled Monday. The sentiment grew after some national media personalities called upon viewers to flood the phone lines of the governor’s office.

The governor’s office told The Seattle Times it received more than 200 calls an hour afterward.

“I happen to be a Christian, and I don’t agree with the display that is up there,” Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire told The Olympian newspaper. “But that doesn’t mean that as governor, I have the right to deny their ability to express their free speech.”

For some, the issue isn’t even that the atheists are putting their thoughts on display, but rather the way in which they are doing it.

“They are shooting themselves in the foot,” said iReport contributor Rich Phillips, who describes himself as an atheist. “Everyone’s out there for the holidays, trying to represent their religion, their beliefs, and it’s a time to be positive.”

The atheist message was never intended to attack anyone, Barker said.

“When people ask us, ‘Why are you hateful? Why are you putting up something critical of people’s holidays? — we respond that we kind of feel that the Christian message is the hate message,” he said. “On that Nativity scene, there is this threat of internal violence if we don’t submit to that master. Hate speech goes both ways.”

thanks Don

En Español: Pellízquenme …un mensaje de Michael Moore

Friends,

Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair.

In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea. The racists were present throughout the campaign and in the voting booth. But they are no longer the majority, and we will see their flame of hate fizzle out in our lifetime.

There was another important “first” last night. Never before in our history has an avowed anti-war candidate been elected president during a time of war. I hope President-elect Obama remembers that as he considers expanding the war in Afghanistan. The faith we now have will be lost if he forgets the main issue on which he beat his fellow Dems in the primaries and then a great war hero in the general election: The people of America are tired of war. Sick and tired. And their voice was loud and clear yesterday.

It’s been an inexcusable 44 years since a Democrat running for president has received even just 51% of the vote. That’s because most Americans haven’t really liked the Democrats. They see them as rarely having the guts to get the job done or stand up for the working people they say they support. Well, here’s their chance. It has been handed to them, via the voting public, in the form of a man who is not a party hack, not a set-for-life Beltway bureaucrat. Will he now become one of them, or will he force them to be more like him? We pray for the latter.

But today we celebrate this triumph of decency over personal attack, of peace over war, of intelligence over a belief that Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs just 6,000 years ago. What will it be like to have a smart president? Science, banished for eight years, will return. Imagine supporting our country’s greatest minds as they seek to cure illness, discover new forms of energy, and work to save the planet. I know, pinch me.

We may, just possibly, also see a time of refreshing openness, enlightenment and creativity. The arts and the artists will not be seen as the enemy. Perhaps art will be explored in order to discover the greater truths. When FDR was ushered in with his landslide in 1932, what followed was Frank Capra and Preston Sturgis, Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck, Dorothea Lange and Orson Welles.

All week long I have been inundated with media asking me, “gee, Mike, what will you do now that Bush is gone?” Are they kidding? What will it be like to work and create in an environment that nurtures and supports film and the arts, science and invention, and the freedom to be whatever you want to be? Watch a thousand flowers bloom! We’ve entered a new era, and if I could sum up our collective first thought of this new era, it is this: Anything Is Possible.

An African American has been elected President of the United States! Anything is possible! We can wrestle our economy out of the hands of the reckless rich and return it to the people. Anything is possible! Every citizen can be guaranteed health care. Anything is possible! We can stop melting the polar ice caps. Anything is possible! Those who have committed war crimes will be brought to justice. Anything is possible.

We really don’t have much time. There is big work to do. But this is the week for all of us to revel in this great moment. Be humble about it. Do not treat the Republicans in your life the way they have treated you the past eight years. Show them the grace and goodness that Barack Obama exuded throughout the campaign. Though called every name in the book, he refused to lower himself to the gutter and sling the mud back. Can we follow his example? I know, it will be hard.

I want to thank everyone who gave of their time and resources to make this victory happen. It’s been a long road, and huge damage has been done to this great country, not to mention to many of you who have lost your jobs, gone bankrupt from medical bills, or suffered through a loved one being shipped off to Iraq. We will now work to repair this damage, and it won’t be easy.

But what a way to start! Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Wow.

Seriously, wow.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com

thanks Carol Lena

Your First Amendment Rights At Issue

Colorado Springs – How far is too far when expressing your First Amendment rights? Rienet van der Linde lives on Pyrite Terrace on the west side of Colorado Springs. She’s written on her home, like graffiti. Letting anyone who wants to read it know that she lost her job and she’s unhappy with her former employer.

“This is the house I’m living in and this is the place I can say whatever I want to,” says van der Linde, who’s home is in foreclosure.

At first, her neighbors were concerned for van der Linde’s health. Police were called to her house for a welfare check four times since October 18th. Some of her neighbors say they’re concerned for traffic accidents because of the writing on van der Linde’s walls. Her home is along Rio Grande Street between 21st Street and Lower Gold Camp Road.

“There’s been too many cars that are literally slamming on their brakes from the 35 mph posted speed limit to completely stopping and looking at the side of her house,” says neighbor Jennifer Mendez. “Cars are swerving. Cars are going around other cars. Cars have almost hit other cars.”

“Actually, they drive too fast on this road anyway,” says van der Linde.

“We’re just curious, trying to understand it,” says driver Joe Towns.

“It’s like when you stop to see a car wreck, it’s just the curiosity,” says passenger Samantha Towns.

van der Linde isn’t breaking any laws or code. Since it’s her property and she’s not advertising anything, her graffiti isn’t illegal. There’s no HOA in the community, so she’s not violating any homeowners’ rules.

“Even though it is her property something should be done about it,” says Mendez. “For us that have our houses on the market and for those that are planning to, it’s not helping us out.”

“It is a spectacle unfortunately,” says neighbor Jennifer Picard.

Neighbors have offered to paint her home, but van der Linde isn’t interested.

“No, it’s my First Amendment,” says van der Linde.

Van Nuys – A routine trip to the Social Security office Monday turned into 30 minutes of shock, disbelief and irritation for Lapriss Gilbert, who was forced to leave the federal building by a guard who objected to her “lesbian.com” T-shirt.

As she headed for a line to pick up a Social Security card for her son, Gilbert was stopped by a guard who said her T-shirt, naming an educational and resource Web site for gay women, was offensive.

She said the guard, who works for a private company hired by the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that she leave the building or face arrest.

“As an African-American and a lesbian, I haven’t been through one day without facing some sort of discrimination … but this is just shocking,” said Gilbert, 31.

Lori Haley, a federal spokeswoman for the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement – which is under the Homeland Security umbrella – said the guard was out of line.

“We believe that the actions of the contract security guard were inappropriate and unacceptable – we have notified his company, Paragon, of our position in the matter,” Haley said.

A security guard identified by Lapriss Gilbert as the one who told her to leave declined to comment.

The guard cited the document, The Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Federal Property, as proof of his jurisdiction over Gilbert’s attire, she said.

The document does not specifically address what type of clothing is allowed in federal buildings.

After being kicked out of the federal building, Gilbert called her mother, Tanya Gilbert, who calls herself a longtime activist for gay rights.

The mother and daughter have had same-sex partners for many years.

Tanya Gilbert said she plans to contact her attorney today to file a lawsuit against the Paragon Security Company.

“In 30 years as an activist, this is one of the most unsettling things I have seen. When she called me I told her to wait right there,” said Tanya Gilbert, who recently moved to the Van Nuys area from Chicago.

When the mother arrived, she called the LAPD to protest her daughter’s removal. But before four Los Angeles police officers arrived with at least one federal agent, Lapriss was told she could come back into the building and was escorted to the front of the line by another Paragon security guard.

Read the rest of the article here.

Wichita, Kan. (AP) — Fort Hays State University has fired its debate coach for losing his temper at a tournament, engaging in a videotaped shouting match that included pulling down his shorts to expose his underwear.

University President Edward H. Hammond also announced Friday that the school was immediately suspending its debate program until problems are addressed at the national level. He said it was important to take a stand against the declining standards of college debate.

The argument between Fort Hays State debate coach William Shanahan and another coach following a tournament match at Cross Examination Debate Association event at Wichita State University in March received nationwide attention after it was posted on YouTube on Aug. 2.

Shanahan told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that while his reasoning might seem convoluted, he argued with the other coach because he respected her and her opinions.

“Obviously it got out of control, but to be honest I thought I was in a safe house,” Shanahan said. “I thought I was part of a community that handled its problems internally and that recognized the dangers of exposing ourselves – no pun intended – to the rest of the country.” Read the rest of this article here.

image: sf0

Las Vegas (AP) — A federal judge ordered three college students to cancel a Sunday presentation at a computer hackers’ conference where they planned to show security flaws in the automated fare system used by Boston’s subway.

The temporary restraining order, issued by a U.S. district judge in Massachusetts, prevented the Massachusetts Institute of Technology students from demonstrating at the Defcon conference in Las Vegas how to use the vulnerabilities to get free rides.

The Electronics Frontier Foundation, which is representing MIT students Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan and Alessandro Chiesa, plans to fight the order, said Jennifer Granick, the group’s civil liberties director.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said in a complaint filed Friday that the students offered to show others how to use the hacks before giving the transit system a chance to fix the flaws. MIT is also named in the suit.

But Granick told The Associated Press on Sunday that the students were simply trying to share their research and planned to omit key information that would make things easier for anyone who actually wanted to hack the payment system.

Lawyers for the transit system did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment on Sunday.

Electronic copies of the 87-slide presentation circulating the Internet disparaged the transit system’s physical security and showed photographs of unlocked doors, turnstile control boxes and exposed computer monitors at subway stations.

One slide explains that the presentation would teach attendees how to generate fare cards, reverse engineer magnetic stripes on cards and hack radio frequency identification (RFID) cards.

The next slide says: “And this is very illegal! So the following material is for educational use only.”

The presentation was distributed to conference attendees on CDs on Thursday, before the conference officially began and the transit system filed suit.

In court documents, Gary Foster, chief technology officer for the transit system said the presentation would “inflict significant damage” if the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority did not have a chance to correct the flaws.

“It is extremely important to maintain the security and integrity of the Fare Media systems,” Foster said in a court declaration. “With an insecure, compromised system, even basic revenue controls, to name one example, become significantly challenging.”

The MIT students’ presentation was supposed to demonstrate hacks for the system’s primary two payment cards – CharlieCard and CharlieTicket – which work on the system’s subways and buses. The transit system plans to implement the cards’ use on its commuter rail, boats and ferries, according to its Web site.

Granick said ordering the students to not share their findings would be “dangerous,” and have a chilling effect on legitimate researchers who want to point out flaws that lead to system improvements.

“If you prevent legitimate researchers from talking about their findings, it’s not going to stop people from finding vulnerabilities. It’s going to stop the good guys from talking about them and from learning from each other,” Granick said. “The bad guys are still going to be looking for the vulnerabilities and still be finding them.”

Defcon, attended by many of the world’s best-known security experts, has become an annual showcase of the latest discovered weaknesses in computers, phone equipment and other machines.

photo: skyscrapercity

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose stubborn, lonely and combative literary struggles gained the force of prophecy as he revealed the heavy afflictions of Soviet Communism in some of the most powerful works of the 20th century, died late on Sunday at the age of 89 in Moscow.

His son Yermolai said the cause was a heart ailment.

Mr. Solzhenitsyn outlived by nearly 17 years the Soviet state and system he had battled through years of imprisonment, ostracism and exile.

Mr. Solzhenitsyn had been an obscure, middle-aged, unpublished high school science teacher in a provincial Russian town when he burst onto the literary stage in 1962 with “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” The book, a mold-breaking novel about a prison camp inmate, was a sensation. Suddenly he was being compared to giants of Russian literature like Tolstoy, Dostoyevski and Chekhov.

Over the next five decades, Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s fame spread throughout the world as he drew upon his experiences of totalitarian duress to write evocative novels like “The First Circle” and “The Cancer Ward” and historical works like “The Gulag Archipelago.”

“Gulag” was a monumental account of the Soviet labor camp system, a chain of prisons that by Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s calculation some 60 million people had entered during the 20th century. The book led to his expulsion from his native land. George F. Kennan, the American diplomat, described it as “the greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be leveled in modern times.”

Mr. Solzhenitsyn was heir to a morally focused and often prophetic Russian literary tradition, and he looked the part. With his stern visage, lofty brow and full, Old Testament beard, he recalled Tolstoy while suggesting a modern-day Jeremiah, denouncing the evils of the Kremlin and later the mores of the West. He returned to Russia and deplored what he considered its spiritual decline, but in the last years of his life he embraced President Vladimir V. Putin as a restorer of Russia’s greatness.

In almost half a century, more than 30 million of his books have been sold worldwide and translated into some 40 languages. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Mr. Solzhenitsyn owed his initial success to Khrushchev’s decision to allow “Ivan Denisovich” to be published in a popular journal. Khrushchev believed its publication would advance the liberal line he had promoted since his secret speech in 1956 on the crimes of Stalin.

But soon after the story appeared, Khrushchev was replaced by hard-liners, and they campaigned to silence its author. They stopped publication of his new works, denounced him as a traitor and confiscated his manuscripts.

A Giant and a Victim

Their iron grip could not contain Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s reach. By then his works were appearing outside the Soviet Union, in many languages, and he was being compared not only to Russia’s literary giants but also to Stalin’s literary victims, writers like Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pasternak.

At home, the Kremlin stepped up its campaign by expelling Mr. Solzhenitsyn from the Writer’s Union. He fought back. He succeeded in having microfilms of his banned manuscripts smuggled out of the Soviet Union. He addressed petitions to government organs, wrote open letters, rallied support among friends and artists, and corresponded with people abroad. They turned his struggles into one of the most celebrated cases of the cold war period.

Hundreds of well-known intellectuals signed petitions against his silencing; the names of left-leaning figures like Jean-Paul Sartre carried particular weight with Moscow. Other supporters included Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, W. H. Auden, Gunther Grass, Heinrich Boll, Yukio Mishima, Carlos Fuentes and, from the United States, Arthur Miller, John Updike, Truman Capote and Kurt Vonnegut. All joined a call for an international cultural boycott of the Soviet Union.

That position was confirmed when he was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in the face of Moscow’s protests. The Nobel jurists cited him for “the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature.”

Mr. Solzhenitsyn dared not travel to Stockholm to accept the prize for fear that the Soviet authorities would prevent him from returning. But his acceptance address was circulated widely. He recalled a time when “in the midst of exhausting prison camp relocations, marching in a column of prisoners in the gloom of bitterly cold evenings, with strings of camp lights glimmering through the darkness, we would often feel rising in our breast what we would have wanted to shout out to the whole world — if only the whole world could have heard us.”

He wrote that while an ordinary man was obliged “not to participate in lies,” artists had greater responsibilities. “It is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie!” Read the rest of the obituary here.