Plum Crazy

So this guy I know suggested that The Wiesenthal Center's publicly requesting Mel Gibson to alter his film "The Passion" was an imperilment of Gibson's rights to free speech. For his benefit, I would like to present to him with what a real imperilment of a filmmaker's rights to free speech looks like.

A veil of censorship is hanging over the Venice film festival, with a series of contentious new films facing bans, savage cuts and a looming threat that their makers may be locked up when they return home.

Let's compare and contrast. In the first case, a private group requests that a filmmaker alter his film with no threat to his freedom or his ability to release his film if he doesn't. In the second, the government may ban the filmmakers' works outright, alter them forcibly, and/or imprison the filmmakers.

Gee. Stacked up next to each other like that, really, no comparison. The first is not a threat to anyone's rights to free speech. The second clearly is. Remind me to feel sorry for Mel Gibson some time next week, though. Otherwise I'll certainly forget.