“Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world.” Umberto Eco, 1995. Read more.
Mr. President, Pardon the Truth Seeker
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) filed a petition calling on Pres. Joe Biden to posthumously pardon D.M. Bennett, one of the Comstock Act’s most prominent victims. Hopefully, he will do this before leaving office. Read more.
Death by Incarceration
In the early ’70s, the number of individuals in prison in the U.S. was less than 200,000; as of December 31, 2022, there were 1,230,100 in prison. The “modern” era of prison executions dates from the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in January 1977; as of November 30, 2023, 1,582 people have been executed. Read more.
Sex, Sin & Subversion
Sin, Sex & Subversion: How What Was Taboo in 1950s New York Became America’s New Normal was published by Skyhorse/Carrel in 2016 and is nominated for the 2017 Bonnie and Vern Bullough Book Award by the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (FSSS).
“New York is not a state capital or a national capital,” E. B. White famously wrote in 1949, “but it is by way of becoming the capital of the world.” In the ‘50s, as London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Tokyo recovered from a devastating war, the Big Apple became the capital of the 20th century.
During the tumultuous 1950s, sex was as threatening to the nation’s moral order as communism and New York was the epicenter of two “wars“ — a “cold war” waged against subversion and a “hot war” against sin. Today, the once forbidden has become the new normal.