‘From scatology leaps obscenity,’ Fred said grandly. : Let’s Talk Dirty

When I was a young reporter in Oakland, I used the word puke to describe the attitude of a campus radical toward the policies of the University of California. It was contained in a quote. I think the radical said, “This whole place makes me puke.”

An editor named Stanley Norton, who was the most miserable human being on the face of the Earth, summoned me into his office. He was a man emotionally incapable of not yelling and, when he yelled, he sprayed the air with spittle.

It was best generally not to stand too close to Stanley, and it proved wise in this case, too. He instantly began yelling and spraying on an almost hysterical level because I had used puke.

The diatribe finally ended with Stanley shouting and spitting: “You will never see the word puke in an American newspaper!”

It was one of his last great pronouncements. Stanley died a few months later, and, I am pleased to say, he was as wrong in his final pronouncement as he was in all the others. Times change. Puke is OK.

I mention this by way of getting into the flap at Sylmar’s Evergreen High, where a phrase was deleted from the school newspaper by Principal Robert Beck. Beck found it offensive and said the kids just had to learn to answer to authority in the “real world.”

I wanted to discuss it with Beck, but he wouldn’t return my call. Principals don’t feel it necessary to answer to newspaper columnists in the real world.

He did, however, tell one of our reporters that he asked himself before censoring the phrase whether or not it would be acceptable in the L. A. Times. He decided it would not be and blue-penciled it.

Beck was right. An editor here also found the phrase offensive and deleted it from our report. We printed an entire story based on the offensive phrase and never said what the offensive phrase was. The people’s right to know stops here.

I am waiting to determine if I can use the phrase, but there are no editors available at the moment. Perhaps they are out having breakfast and discussing the ramifications of evil phrases. We are very big on ramifications at the L. A. by God Times.

When I hand in a column, an editor is bound to ask: “Any ramifications in this?” I assure him there are none. I don’t believe in ramifications. It is only recently that I have come to believe in editors.

The reason the Evergreen fuss is important is a recent Supreme Court ruling that restricts First Amendment protection of high school journalists.

A principal in Hazelwood, Mo., deleted from the campus publication articles on teen-age pregnancy and the impact of divorce, two obscene and obviously inflammatory subjects.

It went all the way to the Supreme Court, which found in favor of school principals, God help us all.

I don’t think the Evergreen phrase in question is dirty, although some disagree. One of them is an acquaintance named Fred.

At the time I discussed this with Fred, I was accompanied by my friend, Travis, who is almost 5 years old. Travis was annoyed because I would not allow him to climb up the side of the house on a rosebush vine.

He looked at me angrily and said: “Poo-poo, pee-pee!”

I said, “You’re still not going to climb to the roof on the rosebush vine.”

Travis shrugged and went on his way.

Fred was shocked. “You let him use those dirty words?” he asked.

“They’re the only dirty words he knows,” I said.

“From scatology leaps obscenity,” Fred said grandly.

Obscenity is in the eyes of the beholder. American independence was an obscenity to King George III. Judaism was an obscenity in Hitler’s Germany. Racial equality is an obscenity in Pretoria.

The jury is still out on poo-poo, pee-pee.

Breakfast is over. The editors are back, stuffed with scrambled eggs and ramifications. I asked if they would allow publication of the phrase deleted from the Evergreen High newspaper. One said yes, two said no, a fourth said maybe.

A fifth said, can’t we write around this?

Tip-toe, Martinez. Dance with me, Elmer.

Words don’t frighten me. The constriction of ideas does.

I’m not sure the Evergreen High hassle proves anything except that, when you utilize sexual imagery to make a point, the point may never be made, notwithstanding First Amendment rights.

So what’s more important, the right or the point?

I’ll use the real phrase at the end of this column. Fred says if I do and I’m fired, it’s my own fault because I’m crazy.

But, if I don’t, we’ll never know whether we dictate policy for Evergreen High’s principal or he dictates policy for us.

What the hell. This may be my first ramification column. Editors love ramifications.

The phrase is: