Daggers' Last Gasp

My colleague Ali Karim, who's been sadly silent of late in the crime fiction world due to other commitments, emerged from hibernation to attend the Dagger Lunch last week, and provides this report and pictures (warning: slow to load) for Deadly Pleasures' website.  More of each will be available in the next issue of Crime Spree Magazine.

Meanwhile, Publishing News makes the text of Sara Paretsky's speech available, and here's what the Gold Dagger Winner, who could not attend the ceremony (unlike what I'd previously believed) had to say:

This last week has brought little of joy and much of worry and fear about the future of our most cherished freedoms in the United States -- including the freedom to express ideas fully and openly.  An artist in upstate New York has been arrested and held without charge for an installation piece questioning the bio-terror threat in Washington during the fall of 2001. A library patron in New Jersey was arrested and held for three days for looking at foreign-language pages on the Web in his library. In San Francisco, the FBI pulled in a man for questioning after he made comments against Mr Bush in a public place. All of these acts, and the fear of their repetition, create an atmosphere of fear, and are used deliberately to silence dissent.

In this climate of fear, the only way I can find the courage to continue speaking is from the knowledge that I belong to a community of writers -- to know that, all around the world, people are supporting my voice as I struggle to speak -- just as I will try to support the voices of other writers. As Donald Barthelme wrote in one of his short stories, "we must huddle and cling."

Thank you for your support -- for huddling with me. I feel more honoured than I can rightly say by this award. Please know that I will cherish it.

Interesting words from one of the more politically active crime writers around.

Comments

[Bill Peschel]

I'm not sure about the latter two cases, but the artist in Buffalo was using bacterial agents acquired by someone else for his installations. The investigation is based more on acquiring inappropriate and possibly hazardous materials than expressing dissent. Seems a far cry from "When they kick at your front door/How you gonna come?/With your hands on your head/Or on the trigger of a gun?"

[Alina Adams]

And to add to the last post, free speech does not allow you to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, preach violent overthrow of the government, and... what do you know... threaten public figures. Breaking the law and then being shocked (shocked! - obscure "Casablanca" reference) that you are called on it, is a bit like Jon Stewart inviting political figures on his show to talk about the day's news then, when someone calls him on not asking the tough questions, pleading "phony news show! phony news show" and hiding behind the skirts of "Crank Yankers."

[Rebecca]

Just FYI: The famous "yelling fire in a crowded theater" test of free speech (i.e. the "Clear and present danger" test -- not just an obscure reference to a movie title), comes from the case of Debs vs. U.S. It dates from 1917, and the "clear and present danger" that Debs presented (the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater), was distributing pacifist literature and criticizing the U.S.' role in World War I. Those sneaky pacifists, you have to keep your eye on them. You never know what dangerous things they might be getting up to. They might even be saying that peace is a good thing when the country is at war. Debs, then in his sixties, was sentenced to over 20 years in prison for his "dangerous" speech preaching...uh...pacifism? No one's saying that the country doesn't have a checkered record when it comes to free speech. But citing Debs as an example of how the U.S. does NOT interfere with political freedom of speech is kind of ironic, no, Alina?

[Alina Adams]

Indeed it is, I was using it as shorthand. But I will withdraw the above and replace it with Bill Maher's assertion that it is equally dangerous to yell, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Fleetwood Mac."