In Feb. of 2008 Melanie Cervantes and I drafted a number of letters alerting the city that there was a serious problem involving arbitrary unnecessary curatorial censorship of the Addison street windows. Since that time I have learned that there have been others that have not been allowed to show their work in the Berkeley's Addison Street Windows. The curator, Carol Brighton and the Berkeley Art Commission's decision to back her ban on military symbols in this public space limits debate on this most central issue of our times --*war* . The embedded journalist/embedded art commissioner model does not reflect the community of Berkeley nor the Bay Area. Our three months of meetings and letter writing trying to correct this policy accomplished little. No one we wrote or spoke to at the city wanted to take on this censorship issue.

Today the community of Berkeley has again been denied an opportunity to view important work (the Art and Democracy Exhibit) due to this absurd ban on artists who show military armaments in their work. This is like telling poets they can't use the word _death _in their poems because it might be unsettling to the children that read their poems. All poets that use the word _death_ are banned from exhibiting in the Addison Street Windows by order of the City of Berkeley.

I support the current attempt being launched by the Art of Democracy artists to have these precious windows freed from the current censorship policy. The 1st Amendment, free speech, means nothing if we do not enforce it. Please speak up.

Doug Minkler Nov 4, 2008