{"id":405,"date":"2005-08-12T15:21:36","date_gmt":"2005-08-12T19:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/?p=405"},"modified":"2014-03-10T02:27:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T06:27:26","slug":"405","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/405\/405\/","title":{"rendered":"What if we call them "shoes"? Will they stop being offensive then? Or how about "jugs"?"},"content":{"rendered":"

New post version. With update way below.<\/strong> The crumb trail. From the blogroll of Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams<\/a> to Have Coffee Will Write<\/a> to Sherry Candler<\/a> on how “The Writer’s Almanac” radio program was canceled by the University of Kentucky’s WUKY for offensive content.<\/p>\n

Offensive content…<\/p>\n

(beware, I don’t want to embarrass or offend anyone but there’s naughty content below)<\/p>\n

…like breasts!!!<\/p>\n

Breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts, breasts.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Odious, terrible, offensive things., breasts.<\/p>\n

\nWUKY cancels radio program over offensive content<\/p>\n

By Jamie Gumbrecht<\/p>\n

HERALD-LEADER CULTURE WRITER<\/p>\n

A few weeks after The Boston Globe called The Writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Almanac radio program \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a confection of poetry and history wrapped in the down comforter voice of producer and host Garrison Keillor,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d WUKY-91.3 FM canceled the daily featurette for offensive content.<\/p>\n

The five-minute segments aired on the University of Kentucky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s public radio station at 11 a.m. until Aug. 1. It opened with soft piano music and the voice of A Prairie Home Companion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Keillor remembering major moments in writing history. It was a break for history between news broadcasts and pop music, each day ending with a poem and the wish to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153be well, do good work and keep in touch.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

But in a time of Federal Communications Commission crackdowns on radio content, WUKY officials say, the poems Keillor read were too risky for airplay.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t question the artistic merit, but I have to question the language,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d WUKY General Manager Tom Godell said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s behaving like Howard Stern, but the FCC has been so inconsistent, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know where we stand. We could no longer risk a fine.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Reaction to the cancellation has been minimal so far, Godell said. WUKY managers decided to stop carrying the Almanac after a recent spate of language advisories, although they were tracking the content for about a year, Godell said.<\/p>\n

The warnings, issued by the program\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s production company, came about Curse of the Cat Woman by Edward Field, which contained violent themes and the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153breast\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; Thinking About the Past by Donald Justice, which also used the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153breast\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; and Reunion by Amber Coverdale, which contained the phrase \u00e2\u20ac\u0153get high.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The poems were scheduled for broadcast between July 23 and Aug. 12.<\/p>\n

WUKY never heard complaints about The Writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Almanac because the station always edited potentially offensive language, Godell said. Prairie Home Productions and American Public Media, the segment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s producer and distributor, do not edit or select the content.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a terrible burden to edit, but my concern is that something slips through,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Godell said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have certain standards of decency, and I expect our national producers to do the same thing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The station vigilantly checks song lyrics for offensive content, Godell said, and broadcasts with language advisories are carefully considered. If offensive language clarifies a story, it will be broadcast, especially when listeners can be warned first. But an FCC sanction would be an embarrassment to the station and the university, Godell said.<\/p>\n

Keillor, who will perform Feb. 21 at Centre College\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Norton Center for the Arts, said in an e-mail that stations are within their rights to cancel the Almanac but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proud of the poems he reads.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t one of them I would hesitate to offer to any high school English class,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Keillor wrote. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The fact that someone is troubled by hearing the word \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbreast\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 is interesting, but what are we supposed to do with A Visit From St. Nicholas and the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbreast of the new fallen snow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122? Should it become a shoulder or an elbow? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think so.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Public broadcasters have long had to edit gratuitous language, but meaningful language is worth a fight, said O. Leonard Press, the retired founding director of Kentucky Educational Television. If stations censor themselves, they might as well become jukeboxes, he said.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The purpose of public broadcasting is not to be safe, but to be useful, good, to give people something to think about, something to grow on,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Press said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Survival is not more important than being useful.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Press, an ardent fan of Keillor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writing and performing, called the cancellation an overreaction.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If Garrison Keillor is less desirable on the airwaves than Desperate Housewives,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gone a far piece.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Reach Jamie Gumbrecht at (859) 231-3238 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3238, or jgumbrecht@herald-leader.com.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[clear]<\/p>\n

Oooooo, violent themes. Let’s look at Edward Field’s “Curse of the Cat Woman”, shall we? Dare we? Read it?<\/p>\n

Curse of the Cat Woman <\/strong>
\nby Donald Field, 1967<\/p>\n

It sometimes happens
\nthat the woman you meet and fall in love with
\nis of that strange Transylvanian people
\nwith an affinity for cats.<\/p>\n

You take her to a restuarant, say, or a show,
\non an ordinary date, being attracted
\nby the glitter in her slitty eyes and her catlike walk,
\nand afterwards of course you take her in your arms
\nand she turns into a black panther
\nand bites you to death.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps you are saved in the nick of time
\nand she is tormented by the knowledge of her tendency:
\nThat she daren’t hug a man
\nunless she wants to risk clawing him up.<\/p>\n

This puts you both in a difficult position–
\npanting lovers who are prevented from touching
\nnot by bars but by circumstance:
\nYou have terrible fights and say cruel things
\nfor having the hots does not give you a sweet temper.<\/p>\n

One night you are walking down a dark street
\nAnd hear the pad-pad of a panther following you,
\nbut when you turn around there are only shadows,
\nor perhaps one shadow too many.<\/p>\n

You approach, calling, “Who’s there?”
\nand it leaps on you.
\nLuckily you have brought along your sword
\nand you stab it to death.<\/p>\n

And before your eyes it turns into the woman you love,
\nher breast impaled on your sword,
\nher mouth dribbling blood saying she loved you
\nbut couldn’t help her tendency.<\/p>\n

So death released her from the curse at last,
\nand you knew from the angelic smile on her dead face
\nthat in spite of a life the devil owned,
\nlove had won, and heaven pardoned her.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[clear]<\/p>\n

Remember, this poem was judged offensive because of violent themes, and the use of the word…breast!<\/p>\n

Just a pile of words to the censors. Stab, blood, death and….and breast! Nothing to it but words. We are going to trust the schools overseen by this nation’s pathological nitwits cracked on Christ to teach children about writing and reading and literature?<\/p>\n

Or maybe it’s not just a pile of words to them. Which makes it even worse.<\/p>\n

Thinking about the Past<\/strong>
\nby Donald Justice<\/p>\n

Certain moments will never change nor stop being \u00e2\u20ac\u201c
\nMy mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face all smiles, all wrinkles soon;
\nThe rock wall building, built, collapsed then, fallen;
\nOur upright loosening downward slowly out of tune \u00e2\u20ac\u201c
\nAll fixed into place now, all rhyming with each other.
\nThat red-haired girl with wide mouth \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Eleanor \u00e2\u20ac\u201c
\nForgotten thirty years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c her freckled shoulders, hands.
\nThe breast of Mary Something, freed from a white swimsuit,
\nDamp, sandy, warm; or Margery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, a small caught bird \u00e2\u20ac\u201c
\nDarkness they rise from, darkness they sink back toward.
\nO marvellous early cigarettes! O bitter smoke, Benton!
\nAnd Kenny in wartime whites, crisp, cocky,
\nTime a bow bent with his certain failure.
\nDusks, dawns; waves; the end of songs. . .<\/p>\n

— Donald Justice<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[clear]<\/p>\n

The above poem had no words of violence. It was just Mary Something and her breast. Poor Mary Something. One of those certain moments that dare not be named, it seems.<\/p>\n

Go to the Writer’s Almanac<\/a> to hear the poem “Reunion” by Amber Coverdale, in which the forbidden phrase “getting high” is mentioned. Note that next to the audio link it has another link that reads “how to listen”. The link leads to “audio help”. Seems it should lead to a different kind of primer on “how to listen”.<\/p>\n

Sherry Candler<\/a> has contact information for WUKY so you can bitch. Please do. My note to them was very short. I wrote…<\/p>\n

As you are so worried about censor nazis and lack of consistency, I expect that you will be consistent for them and that we won’t be hearing any recipes for chicken jugs and public service announcements about Jugs Cancer Awareness.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[clear]<\/p>\n

How Chandler Arizona feels about the word “breasts” I don’t know, but they don’t like being able to see ’em. Which is why they’ve made breastfeeding illegal in public. Hathor the Cow Goddess<\/a> has several cartoons on the subject.<\/p>\n

Breastfeeding was once an honorable institution.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The name of the above image is “Charity”. Which to me, with the banishment of breast as a naughty, naughty word, says something about this diseased nation.<\/p>\n

Later (the update)<\/strong>. Tom Godell of WUKY responds that they are restoring the program, though it will be censored.<\/p>\n

Our goal at WUKY is community service. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard from many of our listeners today about the value and importance of Garrison Keillor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Almanac.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In response, we are restoring the program to WUKY\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s schedule at a new–and we hope better–time. It will air Monday through Friday at 7:01 p.m. during NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fresh Air\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, which is consistently one of our more popular programs. At the same time, the concerns we have are real about the use of language that the FCC has fined stations for recently. As a result, we have put in place an editing process that will allow us to delete such language from the broadcast without disrupting the program. I want to thank you for contacting us about this issue. Rest assured that your opinion–and the opinions of our other listeners–really do matter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[clear]<\/p>\n

OK, good they’re restoring it. But a bad call on censoring it. I still wonder if they will be consistent in this or consistently inconsistent, i.e. chicken jugs and jugs cancer awareness.<\/p>\n

I don’t get it.<\/p>\n

Seriously, I don’t get it at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New post version. With update way below. The crumb trail. From the blogroll of Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams to Have Coffee Will Write to Sherry Candler on how “The Writer’s Almanac” radio program was canceled by the University of Kentucky’s WUKY for offensive content. Offensive content… (beware, I don’t want to embarrass […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[426],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everyday-stories","tag-social-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllopuspress.com\/meanwhile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}