Description of Incident: Four days after the opening of the exhibit, entitled "Caution! Religion," six men ransacked it defacing and destroying many of the 45 works of art displayed. After their detention and arrest, public outcry over the exhibit's content spread throughout the area. At the court date in August 11th, the judge threw out the charges of four of the people caught in the museum, literally red handed, due to "lack of evidence." The remaining two people captured were also released by the court, which stated that they were unlawfully prosecuted in their acts of preventing a crime (the crime of inspiring religious or ethnic hatred). Concurrently, a criminal investigation began regarding the content of the museum's collection. Aleksandr B. Chuyev, a member of the Russian parliament, is calling for charges against the artists and curators for instilling interethnic or interreligious hatred.

Results of Incident: Several artists have been called in for questioning by the local prosecutor's office. The curator has gone underground. No formal charges have yet been levied.

"It's like being a cook. And if you were a really good cook, and you had a lot of money for really excellent ingredients and really good equipment, then you could cook just about anything. But if you don't have all the gear . . . and you don't even own a cookbook, but you still want to eat, and nobody's going to cook it for you, then you better find some other way to improvise that dish. And that's kind of the way the stuff gets put together."

(Quote from Zappa! magazine; interview by editor Don Menn.)

Description of Incident: During a Dutch music awards ceremony in 1968 (for the LP "We're Only In It for the Money") Zappa heard the album for the first time since he turned it into the record company. "I noticed that whole chunks of songs were missing. Someone at MGM had been offended by the lyrics and had arbitrarily chopped portions of them out. On September 19, 1985, Zappa appeared before a Congressional hearing on explicit lyrics in popular music. The hearing was called at the behest of Top Government Officials whose wives included Susan Baker and Tipper Gore, founders of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), which eventually waged a campaign of lies and pressure that forced the record industry to agree to "Warning Parental Advisory" stickers on certain albums.

"If the goal here is total verbal/moral safety, there is only one way to achieve it: watch no TV, read no books, see no movies, listen to only instrumental music or buy no music at all." Ironically, one of Zappa's instrumental albums was stickered by a retail chain, many of which have strict "18 to buy" regulations on albums with "Tipper stickers."

Zappa further ridiculed Gore's assertion that certain types of music could promote deviant behavior saying, "I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone's teeth get cleaner?"

There are many, many more censorship cases in Zappa's history, involving record companies, radio stations, TV stations, governments and retail stores.

Results of Incident: Frank Zappa died December 4, 1993, of complications resulting from prostate cancer. He remains one of America's most respected contemporary musicians and free speech soldiers. "Zappa was dealing with questions that [George] Orwell dealt with in another era -- questions about conformity and the flow of information in a free society," music journalist Bill Paige told the Madison, Wisc., Capital Times following Zappa's death. "I can't think of any artist today who so truly carried on in that tradition of social satirism. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who spoke so much truth about what was wrong in society, in government, in the music industry itself."

Description of Incident: U.S. (IRS) Attorney filed a motion for a temporary injunction in federal court which was granted by one judge George. Basis for the opinion was that Irwin's methods equated to a "plan" or "tax scam". No evidence was presented other than opinion by the attorney, nor were any prossecution witnesses called. Defense witnesses testified that they read the IRC and came to believe as Irwin insists in his material that "no law makes one liable to pay the federal income tax". Witnesses also testified to the fact that THEY did their own research and were not indoctrinated into any sort of plan by buying the book "The Federal Mafia" by Irwin Schiff.

Results of Incident: Judge George issued a permanent injunction against Irwin Schiff and Freedom Books. He is not allowed to sell "The Federal Mafia" but is allowed to sell most of his other Anti-Tax material. He is appealing and seeking a court of competant jurrisdiction in order to have the blatantly lawless decision of judge George thrown out.

Description of Incident: The mural was a part of the Resource Center's multi-cultural public art effort to commission local artists to create area neighborhood art. Olabisi was selected by the Resource Center to make the mural, and submitted his proposal to the L.A. Cultural Affairs Commission. The Commission rejected the proposal on grounds that it may promote violence in the neighborhood and lacked neighborhood support. The commission continued to reject the proposal despite a petition signed by 900 area residents. After the ACLU admonished the commission that rejection of the proposal infringed upon the first amendment rights of the Resource Center, approval was granted by the commission.

Results of Incident: Because of the controversy public funding was withdrawn from the project by the Resource Center. However, the mural was created nonetheless with the aid of private funding.

Description of Incident: A local hair dresser complained to the gallery owners that the painting was obscene and would be offensive to tourists and harmful to children. The gallery owners took no action. Then the hair dresser complained to the police who contacted the gallery owners and informed then that they might be in violation of local obscenity laws.

Results of Incident: The gallery owners covered the "offensive" portion of the painting until they contacted the Assistant District Attorney regarding the issue of the paintings obscenity. The ADA told them the painting was not obscene because it had serious artistic and literary value. The owners then kept the painting in the window uncovered.

Description of Incident: The Anchorage Assembly voted to cut the city's arts budget by $20,000, the exact amount allocated to Out North Theater by the Anchorage Arts Advisory Commission. The Assembly cited the Theater's homosexually-themed productions as the reason for the budget cut.

Results of Incident: After a fierce public outcry, the assembly voted to reverse the budget cut and restored the $20,000.

Description of Incident: Waterhouse submitted a slide of Letters Home III to the selection committee for Art with a Southern Drawl, the University of Mobile's annual art exhibit. The committee selected the painting and it was subsequently installed in the university's Fine Arts Building. After the installation but before the opening of the exhibit, a student notified the chair of the university's Department of Fine Arts that she believed the painting contained "demonic" symbols. Several university officials agreed that the symbols were demonic and the painting was removed from the exhibit before the opening. The university informed Waterhouse of the removal via mail and invited her to submit another piece. Waterhouse declined.

Results of Incident: Letters Home III was not shown at the exhibit.

Description of Incident: The Chanticleer, a student newspaper partially funded by Jacksonville State University, purchased a subscription to Red Meat from the Onion Syndicate in 1996. After publishing the comic strip in two editions, Harold McGee and David Watts cancelled the subscription without notifying in the paper. McGee and Watts, claiming that the comic strip was anti-religious and immoral, ordered Langston and the newspaper's editor-in-chief to discontinue publication of the comic strip.

Results of Incident: Publication of the comic strip was discontinued. The editor resigned in protest.

Description of Incident: The play was scheduled to be performed at a school. A school board member attended a dress rehearsal and dissatisfied with the content of the play, contacted the district superintendent and other board members. The superintendent based upon bureaucratic concern, ordered the play to be canceled until a review process of the play's content could be completed. During the review, the board found that the play was not consistent with the message of abstinence, which was "the philosophy of [the] district..."

Results of Incident: The play was canceled at the school and rescheduled for performance after school hours at the Glendale Teen Center.

Description of Incident: A free performance for children of "Peter and the Wolf" was scheduled for performance by the area symphony. Anne Conrad-Antoville, a cellist in the orchestra, asked that production be canceled or music be switched because she claimed the piece portrayed the wolf species in a negative light.

Results of Incident: A private hearing by the ochestra's board decided to continue with the performance.

Description of Incident: A group entitled Concerned Women for America organized a protest calling for the play's cancellation on grounds that it contained vulgar language and promoted masturbation. The school board then scheduled a meeting to debate the issue of the plays propriety.

Results of Incident: Rather than fighting the protest the Fresno/Madera Medical Auxilliary withdrew the program from Clovis High School.

Description of Incident: The parent of a child enrolled in an art class, which used texts surveying works of famous artists, approached the Principal about removing the books. The parent believed that the works were "pornographic and morbid." When the principal refused to remove the books the parent joined with several others to petition the Assistant Superintendent. The Assistant then removed the books. Because of protests for the books return by a community coalition promoting free expression a Library Resource Review Committee held a hearing to debate the propriety of the books presence in an elementary class.

Results of Incident: After the hearing, the committee decided unanimously to reinstate the books.

Description of Incident: After the play's approval by the High School Principal, an anonymous citizen and a faculty member contacted the school governing board regarding the contact of the play. Upon review by the board President, Clawson ordered the cast memebers to omit the perceived offensive content or cancel the play.

Results of Incident: Rather then undermine the integrity of the production by omitting segments, the student chose to cancel the play.

Description of Incident: An HIV fund raiser was being held at Gallery Studio 2030. The organizer requested the paintings be removed because she believed the works to potentially be offensive to the attendees of the event.

Results of Incident: The gallery owner covered the work for the duration of the event. The works then stood unmolested for the duration of their stay at the gallery.