Day: December 9, 2004

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Foreign dissidents facing U.S. hurdles to publishing

In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval.

The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States.

Way to export our values, guys– by not importing other values.

Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has joined the lawsuit, arguing that the rules preclude American publishers from helping craft her memoirs of surviving Iran’s Islamic revolution and her efforts to defend human rights in Iranian courts.

Does anyone know if a documentary about bowling, “A League of Ordinary Gentlemen,” is available on tape or DVD or on cable or any frelling place? I’d love to see it, particularly since it features some bowlers that I’ve actually bowled with in the Pro-Am.

By the way, is anyone planning to bowl in the February Pro-Am in Babylon, NY? If we can match up a time, maybe we can get a group together.

PAD