the Thatcher government’s handling of the Spycatcher and “M16” cases. The censor’s bankrupt imagination created more press, more attention and ultimately more public accessibility than would otherwise have been the case. Right after the Rushdie issue emerged, the mass media took American intellectuals to task for not instantly condemning the Iranian death sentence on Rushdie. Perhaps American intellectuals were taken by surprise—it’s hard to go from whipping boy to being the first defense line for freedom of thought overnight. Fortunately, the U.S. media’s standard of objectivity kept it from having to commit itself on the same issue when it came to Vice President Quayle’s praise for El Salvador’s death-squad party ARENA’S “commitment to democracy,” which emerged at the same time. Media cries of moral cowardice reveal the smug resentment of wordsmiths who share the nagging knowledge they only write the official story. Which brings us to the case of Salman Rushdie, his now infamous The Satanic Verses, and the Iranian hit contract put out on him. Plenty has been written about the book, Rushdie’s plight, the instant outrage of some members of the Islamic community, and the slow, rather embarrassed burn of Western intellectuals. In discussions of censorship—in this case, an attempt at cultural terrorism—I have not seen it suggested that Britain’s defense of Rushdie is hypocritical, given the gag Blindmanwithx-ray visionseescancer beforedoctorscan Preparation H is No. 1 target of shoplifters laws on its own citizens’ memoirs. After Joyce’s Ulysses, The Satanic Verses must be the most villified and least read book of modern times. This is part and parcel of the subtext of American antt-iritellectualism, as amplified by the mass media. Acouple of particular reactions point this out quite clearly. Another resounding canard circulated by the American media reached me via the trickle- down effect. To wit: any number of friends—a doctor, a filmmaker, a reporter for Fprbes—intelligent, literate people, repeated something they’d heard in the media, and I had dismissed as simple ignorance by television commentators and newspaper columnists. The inherent appeal of the media’s anti- intellecualism was evident nonetheless. “Besides,” these friends said, ending conversations on poor Rushdie’s plight, *7 hear it’s a bad book.” This complacent populism has permeated American life for two centuries: the appeal of individualism vs. the collective security of common ideas, a democracy of shared values and worth, a historic and political ideal. This tension is, an acquaintance NO HARM TO DOLPHINS StarKist Seafood Co. plans to exploit new policy in advertising campaigns. Senator blisters CIA director in ‘mishandling’ once said in another context, “our greatest asset and our greatest liability.” This attitude works in concert with religious fanaticism. Immediately the “bad art” of years past leaps to mind—Henry Miller, James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon. Unfortunately, Rushdie’s more subtle enemies call themselves friends. And would defend to his death his right to write a “bad book.” Ithink American media’s distaste and misapprehension of The Satanic Verses comes in part from the American fetish for realism in its art and symbols. Rushdie’s two main characters, Farishta Gibreel and Salandin Chamcha, like Haroun Childers Eggebert and Anna Livia in Finnegans Wake, like the male and female principles in Gunter Grass’ The Flounder, are mutating, changeable, fantastic myth-figures, making it difficult to read for the literal-minded, video-conditioned American reader. Hence the “bad book” sobriquet. The inconsistency in this attitude toward Rushdie’s mutable characters was revealed by a Spanish schoolteacher’s comments a couple of years ago on Phil Donahue’s then hit TVtalk show. This dapper young man from Madrid had spent a year teaching in the NewYork City public schools. The observation that hit home was his comment about Americans: “They all want to be somebody else. You ask them what they do and they say, ‘Yes, this is what I am now, but one day I’ll be this or that.’” Americans are constantly changing, evolving into something else. At the root, said the teacher, this provides for great mobility, great promise. It also creates great frustration. Mutation, change, the remaking of the identity from duckling to swan, housewife to movie star, ashes to phoenix—this tthe vital chain of life in the American system. It’s history of a sort— personal history. “Our lack ofhistory," said my acquaintance, “is this nation’s greatest asset, its greatest liability.” This lack of historical perception and the substitutes that rush to fill the vacuum—objectivity, censorship in the name of national security, the fear of ideas—binds Americans to the lowest common denominator, to the tyranny not of political, but mass media egalitarianism. Everybody can be a hit for 15 minutes. Writer Timothy Ryan, recently of Seattle, lives in Washington, D.C. His previous story in Clinton St was “White Stones” (Winter, 1986). Writer/artist Walt Curtis lives in Oregon City. A frequent contributor to our pages, his last story was “Blue Hole in the Oregon Cascades,” (WI, ’89). SURPRISING AND DELECTABLE FOODS BUILT AROUND YOUR NEEDS AND MY IMAGINATION. bald is beautiful... and it’s on sale. 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