where’s the howl?

As the New York Times laments in an editorial this morning:

It is with a queasy feeling of history in retreat that poetry lovers discover that WBAI, long the radio flagship of cocky resistance to government excess, decided last week that it couldn’t risk a 50th anniversary broadcast of the late poet [Alan Ginsberg]’s recording of “Howl.” The station retreated out of fear that the Federal Communications Commission would levy large obscenity fines that might bankrupt the small-budget station.

The sort of self-censorship practiced by WBAI on this anniversary is remarkable and sad, but hardly an isolated event. Still, it should cause us all to utter a collective howl of outrage.

Of course, many things these days call for outrage, but that doesn’t mean we hear it.