CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Little Big Brother at The Carlisle: Censorship at San Francisco Senior Living Facility

Life in senior communities has been dissected in two recent shows: Man on the Inside with Ted Danson and The Thursday Murder Club starring Helen Mirren. They have not described the kind of censorship I have experienced at The Carlisle in San Francisco, a city known for  free speech ever since Lawrence Ferlinghetti published Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl and Judge  Clayton Horn ruled that it was not obscene.

I thought that my experiences with censorship had ended after I retired from Sonoma State University where the president of the school aimed to censor the student newspaper. As the faculty adviser who taught a course on libel, privacy and copyright, I was cast as the fall guy and refused to fall. When I moved to The Carlisle in San Francisco and inherited the position of editor for the residents’ monthly newsletter I discovered that a local version of Big Brother was watching me and the publication. Ouch!

n the Sixties when I wrote for the underground press I took the pen name Jomo. Now I edit and write uder the name Jojo. For a year........

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