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From: nrc@cbema.att.COM (Neal R Caldwell, Ii)
Subject: Re: PMRC/Little Light/Homeground inanity (LONG)
Message-ID: <9104182242.AA12674@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>
Sender: Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Date: 18 Apr 91 22:10:23 GMT
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> From: ed@DAS.LLNL.GOV (Edward J. Suranyi)
> 
> I just received my first issue of _Little Light_, the new American
> fanzine put out by The American Association of Them Heavy People.  It's
> their third issue:  Spring 1991.  And boy, was I shocked!
> 
> Do you remember Chris's joke posting about the PMRC's list of Kate's
> songs and how filled they were with obscene imagery?  

I'm sure you know this but just to keep things clear for those just 
arriving I'll point out that there was never any "PMRC list of Kate's
songs" beyond the one Chris posted as a joke.   I'm not even sure that 
Chris originally associated it with the PMRC.  Unfortunately I can't
seem to locate it in the archives so I'm not sure.  (Pointers to the
appropriate file would be appreciated.)

> PDFM) told Vickie that a previously unknown American fanzine took it
> seriously, so they wrote to the PMRC.   Well, _Little Light_ is that
> fanzine.  In the new issue, they are really angry about having not
> gotten the joke!

Actually the thing they're unhappy about this issue is Homeground's
backhanded dismissal of the whole issue in HG #40.  A simple correction
without a repetition of the same sort of accusations that people
took exception to in the first place could have laid the whole thing 
to rest.

> In fact, out of the 20 page fanzine, six-and-a-half pages deal with
> this issue!  The very first letter is from a person named David Bricker,
> Attorney-At-Law, who says:

[details of PMRC's potential legal recourse]

But note that this was a letter and not an editorial.  I'm sure many
folks can tell you the lawyers are apt to write such letters without 
much provocation.

> The editors of the fanzine publish PDFM's letter to the PMRC in full,
> as well as his reply article in _Homeground_ #40.  However, in the
> latter, they put several (sic)s in for no reason that I can gather.

If HG had extended the same courtesy to the PMRC the whole issue could
have been dropped.  The 'sics' in the article were for the most part 
associated with errors that appear in Homeground #40 (I checked
HG #40 and I can list them if you like, they're pretty trivial but 
they're clearly errors).  Unfortunately an over-zealous editor evidently 
corrected these errors in the text of "Little Light" article,
rendering the meaning of the 'sic' unclear.

> They make fun of his British spelling "Centre" in the PMRC's name.

No they didn't.  They did place a 'sic' after the "Centre" but the
"(sic: We're British and we spell it the British way!)" remark was 
_exactly_ as it appeared in HG #40.  Should we consider this to have 
been HG making fun of the American spelling? 
 
> After that, they have an article called "Cen-sor-ship Defined",
> in which they describe the history of the PMRC and the stickering
> campaign.  Some of it isn't too bad, but there are several stupidities
> in this article.

I'd be interested to hear what you think are the stupidities in the 
article.  I thought it did very good job of laying out the censorship 
fights that have occurred over the last five years and how more than 
anything they show that the system works.  It seems well researched so
I'd be interested to hear about any errors you think it may contain.
I think you'll have to admit that this sort of in depth treatment is 
far better than the repeated yammering about the imminent collapse of 
American freedom that HG has been engaging in.
 
> I was boiling mad by this time, so I sat down and wrote a letter,

[ the following are excerpts from the letter...]

>      First of all, I'd like to explain the true history of this matter.
> You quote Peter Fitzgerald-Morris's reply article in Homeground #40.
> After making a slur about their British spelling (how on Earth can they 
> help but spell words the way they were taught in school?), you quote 
> him: "The document actually originated in the US computer network
> "Love-Hounds" (sic) . . ."  What's wrong with this, for heaven's sake?
> This is in fact what the computer mailing list is called.

In HG #40 it's 'Love-Hounds", with mismatched quotations.  It is, of
course, LL's fault that the typo was corrected as well as a 'sic' added
but it wasn't their intention to be snide.  As I pointed out before, the
editors of LL said nothing about the British spelling, that was in HG.

>      A person who shall remain nameless here posted the original message
> to love-hounds about a year and a half ago.  It was quite clearly meant
> to be taken as a joke -- hundreds of people saw it on the computer net
> and nobody complained.  

I don't think this is correct.  I seem to recall one or more persons
on the net flaming this post.  Again, I can't find any of this in the
archives but I'd be interested in checking.  

> Unfortunately,
> they left off the signature which subtly hinted that the message was
> a joke.  Even so, it's hard to believe anyone would take it seriously.

As LL pointed out, they weren't the only ones.  The fanzine "Still 
Breathing" evidently misunderstood it as well.

> In Jeff and Bill's [they are the editors -- Ed] welcome letter, they say
> that Little Light was the "first [newsletter] (anywhere) to report the
> news of Kate's long-awaited second tour."   Well, love-hounds reported
> this two days after she made the announcement at the convention.)

Are you saying that their claim is incorrect?  I hardly think Love-Hounds
can be considered a 'newsletter' for this purpose.  If you want to include 
electronic communications media we lost out to the phone by just under two 
days.

>      To go on, in "Cen-sor-ship Defined" you say that the fact that "Army
> Dreamers" has been removed from BBC playlists during the war shows-up
> "Homeground's essential hypocrisy of going after Americans while ignoring
> their own, government sponsored 'censorship'."  For heaven's sake, the
> last issue of Homeground came out in December, and the war started in
> January.  In other words, there hasn't been an issue of Homeground
> published since that action of the BBC!  How could there possibly be
> a comment about it?

Here I agree with you, the BBC playlist question isn't really
pertinent until after HG have had a chance to comment on it.  It will
be interesting to see what HG has to say about it.   I'd also be 
interested to know if there are any real examples of British censorship 
fights that have been ignored by HG while they continue to harp on 
American issues.

>      In the same article, you say "Homeground is spreading the persistent
> rumor that MTV wouldn't play "Running Up That Hill" in its original form,"
> and you contradict them.  Well, I'd sure be happy if you were right, but
> you're the first person I've ever heard say this.  I know they showed 

Later you add...

|      Well, I have a correction to make.  All my sources tell me that
| the real video *was* played on MTV -- exactly once, on August 20, 1986.
| This was because the video had been nominated for an MTV award, as you
| correctly stated, so they had to show it once.  This showing was
| advertised in Billboard in a full-page ad as a "special screening".

In HG #40 in the "Five Years Ago" section PDFM says...

 "...the video was soon a hit of its own in all the territories where
 the single was gaining airplay.  Except one.  In the US the cable
 channel MTV refused to use Kate and Michael.  You can pick the reason
 from the following list of possibilities: (1) it was too erotic (2)
 Kate doesn't lip-sync.  It was of course merely a coincidence that the
 campaign against the sexually explicit nature of (some) rock music led
 by the PMRC was first having it's impact on timid programmers at this
 time."

HG has been repeating this same story for five years when it's
easily shown as false.  Whether it was played one time or every
fourth play as LL claims, MTV did show the video.  This continued
implication that MTV's "timid programmers" didn't show the original
version of the video because of pressure from the PMRC is pretty silly
when you consider that not only did MTV show the video, they actually 
showcased it and nominated it for an award.

It's about time that HG either showed some proof of this allegation 
(beyond rumors spawned by their own innuendo) or dropped it for the 
baseless speculation that it is.

>      Look, I agree that PDFM's comments about the PMRC do not reflect
> complete understanding of the situation.  In fact, I wrote to him about
> the similar comments he made about the k. d. lang controversy.

I'm not particularly worked up about this and when I talked to Jeff
about it it was clear that he's not pulling his hair out over it, either.

However, the fact is that HG was patently unfair to the PMRC by placing
their name on this joke document.  As a "parody of attitudes displayed
in the current rock music censorship battle" it was just fine.  
Unfortunately, the parody falls flat when you attribute it to a specific 
organization that makes it a policy not to engage in the sort of 
judgements that were being made light of.

Again, a simple retraction or even an honest airing of the PMRC's
position could have laid the whole thing to rest and would have left
HG readers better informed, as well.  Instead HG chose to question 
the sincerity of the PMRC's response, saying in effect that it was for 
only for public consumption and implied that the PMRC was somehow 
responsible for the state stickering laws that they were actually lobbying 
against.

It is telling to note that throughout this LL has given a full airing
of the views and issues on both sides while HG has failed to even reveal
the name of the  newsletter in question (LL).

All that said, I hope that LL will not dwell further on the issue
(except perhaps for printing letters and making any necessary
corrections). 


"Don't drive too slowly."                 Richard Caldwell
                                          AT&T Network Systems
                                          att!cbema!nrc
                                          nrc@cbema.att.com
