Invisible Institute News

Sympathy For The Censor

On October 11, 2006, Jamie Kalven gave a speech titled "Sympathy for the Censor" at the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum. The text of the speech is available here; and an audio version here. Studs Terkel introduced Kalven; hence the references to him at the beginning of the speech.

In this talk, Kalven addresses the case, pending in federal district court, arising from his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the City of Chicago demanding his notes on police abuses, in connection with Bond v. Utreras, the federal civil rights suit described in "Kicking the Pigeon." (An article by David Bernstein in Chicago Magazine provides background on this controversy.)

I

There has been some debate in federal court and among my journalistic colleagues recently about what kind of a reporter I am. Actually, Studs resolved this issue a while ago when he characterized—and honored—me with a term he uses to describe himself. He called me “a guerrilla journalist.” Unfortunately, this term has not, at least so far, carried the day. I have been described as “an advocate,” as “one-sided,” as obviously “biased.” In their most recent brief, City lawyers stopped just short of calling my work spam. They referred repeatedly to something distasteful called “internet submissions.”

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Tuesday, October 17th 2006; 4:46am

Jamie Kalven op-ed on police impunity

An op-ed by Jamie Kalven appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on September 16, 2006. Titled "Cops With Criminal Tendencies Operate With Impunity," it reports and analyzes Chicago Police Department statistics on the outcomes of misconduct investigations.

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Tuesday, September 19th 2006; 6:46pm

Working With Available Light: Chapter One

It's as if a deep wound, long buried, has been laid open. Lying beside my wife, I'm confused by my maleness — so hard, so insistent — and feel somehow implicated in her wounding. Every caress feels coercive. Yet there is another kind of touching she welcomes. In the past, I often gave her massages; sometimes as a prelude to lovemaking. Now massage has become a lifeline between us. I imagine my fingers are drawing out the tension and fear that have invaded her body. And for the moment at least, it seems to be so.

She lies on our bed on her stomach. I straddle her from behind, lean forward, and work my fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp. I rub her neck and shoulders, then work down her back. How fragile she seems, this woman who runs marathons, climbs mountains, skis the most demanding trails. Her shoulders and neck, her wrists and fingers seem impossibly delicate. This is a perception I have often had of the children but never before of her: how breakable a human being is.

I move down to her buttocks. Years ago she taught me how to make bread. Now I am the baker in the family — a better bread maker than breadwinner, we used to joke — and the children have grown up eating what they call "Daddy's bread." As I massage her there, I am invariably, helplessly, reminded of kneading dough. And vice versa. This is one of the surprises life has held: this ripening of sexual passion over time — the way it deepens and ramifies, embracing not only children but also garden and kitchen in the sexuality of the household.

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Thursday, July 27th 2006; 3:42pm

Bibliography

Books

  • Working With Available Light: A Family’s World After Violence [New York: W.W. Norton, 1999].
  • Editor, A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America, by Harry Kalven, Jr. [New York: Harper & Row, 1988]

Articles

  • “Kicking the Pigeon: Bond v. Utreras, et al.” The View From the Ground. 4 August 2005.
  • “Kicking the Pigeon: March 29 and 20, 2004.” The View From the Ground. 27 July 2005.
  • “Kicking the Pigeon: The CHA Plan and Public Safety.” The View From the Ground. 23 July 2005.
  • “Kicking the Pigeon: Up Under the Building.” The View From the Ground. 20 July 2005.
  • “Kicking the Pigeon: Bridgeport.” The View From the Ground. 18 July 2005.
  • “Kicking the Pigeon: April 30, 2003.” The View From the Ground. 12 July 2005.
  • “Kicking the Pigeon: Old Wounds.” The View From the Ground. 11 July 2005.
  • “Kicking the Pigeon: April 28, 2003.” The View From the Ground. 8 July 2005.
  • “Kicking the Pigeon: The Setting.” The View From the Ground. 7 July 2005.
  • “Kicking the Pigeon: April 13, 2003.” The View From the Ground. 6 July 2005.
  • “Restoring the View.” The View From the Ground. 5 July 2005. //archive/2005/07/restoring-the-view.html.
  • “State Street Coverage Initiative: ‘I’ve been walking these streets for forty years.’” The View From the Ground.
  • “State Street Coverage Initiative: ‘I’ve been walking these streets for forty years.’” The View From the Ground.
  • “State Street Coverage Initiative: ‘It’s white man’s land now.’” The View From the Ground. 17 March 2003.
  • “The Policing of Public Housing.” The View From the Ground. 4 March 2003.
  • “A Note to Readers.” The View From the Ground. 26 February 2003.
  • “Denial of Access to Access Denied: Part V.” The View From the Ground. 17 December 2002.
  • “2822 S. Calumet.” The View From the Ground. 6 December 2002.

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Friday, July 21st 2006; 6:15pm

Round Two For Judge Bork

Last fall in these pages I examined the constitutional philosophy of Robert H. Bork, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia who is widely thought to be destined for the Supreme Court should President Reagan be re-elected [see “Robert Bork and the Constitution,” October 1, 1983]. I took as my text a 1971 law review article in which Judge Bork—at the time a professor at Yale Law School— set forth his general approach to constitutional interpretation and then applied it to the First Amendment. He did not respond directly, but when an item about my article appeared in the December issue of the American Bar Association Journal, his response was swift and sharp. Apparently he was prepared to leave the readers of The Nation in a fog of uncorrected error about his views, but not the 340,000 lawyers who receive the A.B.A. Journal.

The offending item, titled “Here Comes Attila the Hun of the Constitution,” appeared in a column called “Browser,” which presents short, chatty summaries of recent articles thought to be of interest to the bar. Judge Bork’s reply, in the February issue [reprinted here with the A.B.A. Journal’s permission], began:

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Friday, July 21st 2006; 6:11pm