Abstract

In Fact..

This section presents news and commentary briefs. We welcome Air America, the new liberal radio network, which was up and talking on March 31. Air America will challenge the notion that liberals can't do talk-radio. Arthur C. Danto, The Nation's art critic, has been named a finalist in this year's National Magazine Awards, the second time he has been so honored. On April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Roldo Bartimole resigned from the Cleveland bureau of the Wall Street Journal. It was his 35th birthday. The murder of Dr. King, he noted recently, combined with the general ferment in American society, "made it impossible for me to remain a neutral observer." From 1968 until his retirement a few weeks ago, Roldo was the conscience of Cleveland journalism, the closest thing the city had to a Lincoln Steffens or an Izzy Stone. Scientific manuscripts are the latest target of Patriot Act-inspired surveillance and interdiction. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces trade embargoes against Cuba, Iran, Libya and Sudan, says US scientific societies could get into big trouble (million-dollar fines, ten years in prison) if editors of their journals suggest ways for authors of papers from those countries to improve their contributions. Leading journals now say they will turn back submissions from the embargoed countries without review.