From Inside Higher Ed
T. Hayden Barnes opposed his university’s plan to build two large parking garages with $30 million from students’ mandatory fees. So last spring, he did what any student activist would do: He posted fliers criticizing the plan, wrote mass e-mails to students, sent letters to administrators and wrote a letter to the [...]

Welcome to the Nanny State:
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.
That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government [...]

Via Reuters, an embarrassing “gaffe:”
A newspaper in southwest China has sacked three of its editors over an advertisement saluting mothers of protesters killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, a source with knowledge of the gaffe said on Thursday.
Public discussion of the massacre is still taboo in China and the government has rejected calls to [...]

No comment yet on Kyoshi Martinez’s fine blog, The Next Frontier. I may be going on on a limb, but that just might be related to the fact his pro-censorship employer, Illini Media, has threatened to fire anyone who blogs about the Daily Illini.
Illini Media,Daily Illini,Acton Gorton,censorship,cartoon riots,anti-Muslim cartoons

Sweet babbling Jesus:
A Republic, Madam, If You Can Keep It
Because the Daily Illini has requested that Google remove the cached version of the Muhammad cartoons it ran, I am reproducing the entirety of Acton Gorton’s statement accompanying the printing here.
After this paragraph, the blogger — a U of I student named Stephen Donohue — goes [...]

More censorship for student newspapers:
Some Noblesville High School students say they are being censored after the superintendent of Noblesville schools decided that the school paper will not be allowed to run a controversial article on oral sex.
[snip]
[Superintendent Dr. Lynn] Lehman agreed that the subject was important to students, but not suitable for a student paper.
“Upon [...]

Collegiate student journalism suffered another blow today. The U.S. Supreme court declined to review an appelate decision that gave colleges the right to censor student newspapers when the college itself prints them:
The case, Hosty v. Carter, No. 05-377, involved three student reporters at Governors State University, in Illinois, who in 2000 wrote articles in The [...]

Take a look at these photos:

These folks are upset at some editorial cartoons published in Europe that depict the Prophet Muhammad in an unflattering light. Some of the protestors are calling for acts of violance in the nations in which these cartoons were published.
Feeling all morally superior now because nothing like that would ever happen [...]

Bernard Schoenburg’s column in the State Journal Register includes an interview with U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood. He predicts a primary victory for Judy Baar Topinka and Joe Birkett, despite a massive smear campaign by conservatives. But it’s this passage about LaHood’s son that I found most interesting:
SAM LaHOOD, who turns 31 on Wednesday, has a [...]

Administrators at Oak Ridge High School in Tennesee went into teachers’ classrooms, desks and mailboxes to snatch up all 1,800 copies of the newspaper. Wghat had their undies in a bunch?
The Oak Leaf’s birth control article listed success rates for different methods and said contraceptives were available from doctors and the local health department.
Superintendent [...]

In addition to voting to deny private citizens the right to discuss politics on the Internet, Peoria’s Congressman, Ray LaHood, is hard at work screwing over Katrina Victims by diverting precious funds for local pork:
Rep. LaHood has teamed up with other lawmakers to procure farm assistance money for Midwestern states, claiming that farmers should be [...]

It’s an all-too common problem on college campuses. Now, it’s happening at Illinois State University:
Editors for the liberal student newspaper “The Indy” found more than three thousand copies of the paper in garbage cans across the campus.
They say this has been a problem for the last three years, but it got much worse last week [...]

Blogger Dan Gilmore has taken notice of legislation that would define journalism and exlcude bloggers from shield laws. His reaction:
Plainly, what’s at issue — if protection is needed — is the act of journalism, not whether the person doing it is a journalist. We can all do acts of journalism from time to time. Most [...]

Apparently, there are so few real issues in the Waukomis, Okla. school system, the principals are free to concentrate on pounding away the last shred of students’ individuality:
Three honor students who say they have never been disciplined before were sent home from school Thursday for dying their hair.
The girls — all freshmen and all straight-A [...]

Via Reuters:
A New York radio station has agreed to pay $240,000 (134,000 pounds) after sponsoring “smackfest” contests in which young women took turns slapping each other for a chance to win concert tickets and cash.
Maybe I’ll get Pioneer Railcorp owner Guy Brekman and Peoria Park District director Bonnie Noble in the studio and have them [...]