Who would have thunk?

The Crusty Gazette actually has a sense of humor--probably not about me calling them Crusty however. From today’s “Gazette News Quiz” (and it even gets a pull quote headline):

Until close to the performance date, which of these was supposed to be a requirement before students could attend “The Vagina Monologues” at Amherst Regional High School?

A: Confiscation of non-fairly traded chocolate bars
B: Blood testing for traces testosterone
C: Breathalyzer testing
D: Singing a song from “West Side Story”

And even the next question of the week (2 out of 10 ain’t bad) relates to ‘VM’:

And while we’re at it: Marina Goldman brought an object to Firday’s performance of “The Vagina Monologues” referring to it as something that “only gets to come out once a year.” It was:
A: Pillow depicting the female body
B: A 10-foot letter ‘V’ mad of Amherst Athletic Club handbills
C: A signed copy of Eve Ensler’s firs one-woman show “All about me (ve)”
D: A grammatically correct Emily Dickinson doll

Of course my Athletic Club has not used “handbills” to advertise in almost 10 years., you know since the advent of the Digital Age. Yet another reason I refer to them as Crusty.

UPDATE: High-noon (ish)
Okay since a few folks asked, my list would have been...
Until close to the performance date, which of these was supposed to be a requirement before students could attend “The Vagina Monologues” at Amherst Regional High School?:

A: Yell the C-word while thrusting both arms skyward like Mary Lou Retton did when sticking her dismount to capture Olympic Gold.
B: Blood testing all males for traces of Estrogen
C: Breathalyzer testing (but have them blow into a condom)
D: Recite—in its entirety-- the Pledge of Allegiance.

UPDATE: 5:15 PM. Yeah it's snowing (welcome to New England)

UPDATE: Saturday 6:30 PM. Couldn't possibley add to this:
Hide the Kids

Don't let the Sunnnn go down on me...

First Amendment Tomfoolery

The Umass ‘Rally for Public Decency’ put on by the, gasp, Republican Club, had a pretty good turnout considering the freezing weather—anywhere between 50 to 75 folks, mostly students, but a smattering of Umass officials (looking bored), cops, bloggers and the bricks-and-mortar media (Ch 3 TV with spiffy bright blue overcoats).

Of course the battle lines/spin are predictable: The Radical Student Union portrays the Republican Club as homophobic, and they in turn portray the issue as “sexual harassment” (making the general pubic uncomfortable via sexual images) and say it has nothing to do with gayness.

Somehow between 5:30 am and noon (rally time) I misplaced my camera. Ouch! A blogger without his camera is like a fish without a bicycle.

But nothing noteworthy as far as “bang-bang” occurred where I would be tempted to use the video setting. The signs were all hand made poster paper, although the wood podium from which the speakers delivered their oratory bore the official Umass logo (the one they nixed the word “Amherst” from a few years back)

I hung with my Irish, blogger compatriot Tommy Devine for most of the time I was there. And since he’s gay, I will be most interested to read his take on this tempest (and to steal some of his photos).

Undoubtedly if the Republican Club posted cut out photos from Hustler or Penthouse Magazines, in a public space, on state property there would be an eruption to rival Mt. Vesuvius.

I love the comments in today’s Collegian from Shaun Jamieson - the assigned advisor for both groups in the Office of Student Affairs: "I think that there are definite free speech issues with the flyer, but I think that there are concerns about whether or not it's appropriate," he said. "There's also good arguments that I've heard on both sides for keeping it up and taking it down and I just want to help both groups express themselves in the marketplace of ideas."

Ummm, glad he’s not a NORAD commandeer trying to decide whether to shoot down a civilian commercial jet hurtling towards a Nuclear Power Plant.

I support gay-marriage, but I’m a happily married hetero. And I would not be pleased with vivid illustrations of sex between a man and a women prominently posted on public property where kids could see it.

A Umass spokesperson said rather declaratively "The Radical Student Union will be required to remove the display." They in turn, pretty much replied: go to Hell.

When the cops move in to enforce the order, all they need do is arm themselves with bars of soap.

Bookends

One goes down...

And another comes up.

There you go again!

So my former karate student Max Karson is at again. Having been given one year probation after his arrest for allegedly making fellow students “uncomfortable” at a University of Colorado ‘Women’s Studies’ class a day after the exceedingly awful Virginia Tech massacre by observing that anyone who has not thought about killing 32 people is a “liar.”

And this time it hits a little closer to home. Max’s recent column (not an "editorial" and clearly labeled "opinion") in The Campus Press has created an uproar by using almost every racist stereotype ever invented for Asians. As some of you may know my daughter Kira, now an All American Girl, was born—and abandoned the same day—in The People’s Republic of China.

FoxNews is on it!

I guess the only thing that surprises me is Max is identified as an “editor” at that paper. Obviously based on past history Max is hardly a team player who would thoughtfully edit the writing of others.

Let’s see, when Max was suspended at Amherst Regional High School four times--but always reinstated after getting plenty of press. He wrote about—in addition to masturbation--gays, blacks, and women all in less than a stellar light (well...except for maybe masturbation).

Maybe it had to do with his mother leaving his dad for another women when Max was still at an impressionable age. Or maybe he, like a lot people, just loves the attention. Obviously he knows how to push buttons with his “satire” for maximum exposure.

Interestingly the Daily Hampshire Gazette, his hometown paper for the majority of his life, who editorially supported 'The Vagina Monologues' at ARHS, had little sympathy for Max:

Karson is now offending people as a student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he has been distributing an outrageous newsletter called "The Yeti," which is also packed with vulgar language.

Karson thinks he's doing us all a favor by pushing the limits of free speech, but free speech is not without responsibilities. Karson has a right to his opinions, but his fellow students have a right to react to what they find hostile and offensive and to protect themselves in the face of threatening remarks.

To the best of my knowledge Max never used the C-word.

Sure, you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded movie theatre; but you can bellow it at the beach on hot summer afternoon with waves crashing all around. Context means everything. And anyone who knows Max Karson’s background realizes that he thinks he’s being cute, while hoping folks become enraged. And apparently they have…again.

When ACLU attorney Bill Newman spoke at my rally to support ‘West Side Story’ after the Amherst Regional High School cancelled it he said, “The way to counter bad speech is with good speech.” Amen! Please, let's not make Max a First Amendment suicide bomber.

Although with his pathetic karate skills, Max better watch his step over the next few days…because, you know those Asians—they’re all Martial Arts experts.

The greater of two evils

What’s worse: Amherst Regional High School’s canceling ‘West Side Story’ or later embracing ‘The Vagina Monologues’?

Four years ago when ARHS became the only high school in the nation to perform ‘VM”, I couldn’t quite decide. Like asking a death row inmate to choose between the electric chair or cyanide gas.

But now that Amherst school officials have allowed adolescents to reprise that feminist manifesto, we have a winner!

In 1999 a 17-year-old Puerto Rican girl collected 158 (out of 1,300) student signatures on a petition decrying the production of ‘West Side Story’ for the annual school play because of ethnic (hers in particular) stereotyping. The School Committee took it a tad too seriously and things went downhill pronto.

Although School Superintendent at the time Gus Sayer showed some backbone with his original memo on the matter: "No group, neither in the majority nor in the minority, should have the ability to censor the decisions our community’s educators make about what to teach, what to read, or what to produce on the stage.”

But bureaucrats can be spineless. Sayer backed off, as he didn’t want to micromanage the High School Principal. and the School Committee did nothing as they didn’t want to micromanage the system.

Six months prior to the ‘West Side Story’ rumble, however, another enterprising 17-year-old activist collected 400 signatures on a petition protesting the policy of restricting students ‘off campus privileges’ during the school day, thus preventing kids from going out for a smoke.

Superintendent Sayer sympathized: “It’s not easy for students who are addicted to refrain from smoking all day”, while also applauding their “activism.”

Izzy Lyman, then co-director of the private Harkness Road High School, said with a sigh, “makes me long for the days when the only rights students had were the right to remain silent.”

To summarize: when the ‘West Side Story’ fiasco started the School Committee deferred to Superintendent Sayer, who deferred to Principal Scott Goldman who deferred to the play’s producers…who caved, saying the controversy had become too “distracting.”

And so Amherst Regional High School became the only entity in history (a record still intact) to cancel a play based on the timeless Shakespearean tragic love story ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

One of the more famous ARHS (1989) graduates Eric Mabius, recently voted “Sexiest man alive” by People Magazine started his career as Paris in ARHS production of ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ Luckily he attended our bucolic High School back in the pre-activism days .

At a rally I organized on the Town Common to support ‘West Side Story’ about 100 folks attended, a few high school students, parents--but mostly media. State Senator Stan Rosenberg and ACLU attorney Bill Newman spoke eloquently about free speech and their was much buzz about bringing in a production of the play to the High School with a big-name volunteer cast, but nothing ever came of it.

Fast forward late-December, 2003: When I first read buried in the Amherst Bulletin (who refused to use the word “vagina” in a headline) about senior Kristin Tyler appearing before the School Committee in early-December to inform them (apparently not to ask) about performing ‘VM’, I thought “here we go again with those 17-year-old’s.”

I vividly recall the first school Committee Meeting after the news broke a few weeks later when about two-dozen folks showed up to support the play and only two to oppose.

Although Superintendent Hochman had trumpeted the girls courage to publicly speak out about violence against women he refused to let them come to the School Committee meeting to speak about why they should do it in the form of ‘VM’ because he wanted to shelter them from the brewing controversy. Hmmm.

But a young art teacher, especially supportive of the play, and faculty advisor to it (with a side business of “erotic photography”--specializing in women of course) did appear to read “statements” from the girls.

Immediately the Daily Hampshire Gazette published an editorial citing the strong support at that single School Committee meeting, casting me as a book burner; but then never bothered to issue another editorial after the next three meetings where play opponents far outnumbered supporters.

And the editor-in-chief also forbids me from writing another ‘VM’ column for the Amherst Bulletin, a violation of my verbal contract with editor Nick Grabbe. The same chief editor who accused me of censorship.

(To Be Continued…)

'Vagina' exposed

Jere Hochman, Superintendent
Mark Jackson, Principal ARHS
RE: Public Documents Request ‘VM’

Could I please get an accounting of the number of tickets sold for the recent performance of The Vagina Monologues at Amherst Regional High school, and a breakdown of how many were “student” tickets and how many full-fare “adult” tickets.

Could I also get any overhead costs associate with the production (police for instance) and any monies paid out to presenters during the week of workshops at the School leading up to the play.

Larry Kelley