Features

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, political humorist Molly Ivins and satirist Paul Krassner are among the voices speaking out as the Free Speech Movement’s 40th anniversary commemoration continues throughout the week. 

Texas political commentator Molly Ivins will deliver the annual Mario Savio Memorial Lecture during a 7-10 p.m. program Wednesday in Zellerbach Hall that will also feature the Young Activist Award presentation. 

Free tickets will be available at the hall from 5 p.m. 

Hersh, a reporter for the New Yorker, won journalism’s most coveted honor in 1970 for breaking the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. He will be interviewed by Michael Krasny, host of KQED’s Forum program, in the Pauley Ballroom on the UC campus from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. Friday.  

Hersh is the featured guest at a conference on “Resisting Government Secrecy in a Time of Terrorism” to be held this weekend at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The conference is being co-sponsored by the journalism school and the California First Amendment Coalition. 

Hersh won his Pulitzer Prize in 1970 while reporting on the My Lai massacre for the Dispatch News Service. After the Washington Post broke the Watergate story, Hersh’s reporting on that story for the New York Times helped that newspaper keep pace with the dispatches of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Earlier this year he broke the story about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail. He is the author of Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, published this year by HarperCollins. 

Other conference topics will include media coverage of the Iraq war, Supreme Court decisions on national security and civil liberties, subpoenas against reporters, and homeland security and restrictions on information access. 

While conference registration is not required for attendance at Hersh’s presentation, seating priority will be given to those who have registered. Registration for the conference is $45 for First Amendment Coalition members, $55 for non-members, and $25 for students. 

Paul Krassner, whose outrageous essays and offerings appeared in The Realist, one of the seminal satirical zines of the 1960s, will participate in a 6:15 p.m. interactive broadcast Friday as he, Scoop Nisker and Kris Welch dissect the evening’s presidential debate between John Kerry and Molly Ivins’ favorite target. 

Other events on the agenda include two programs Tuesday evening, a 6 p.m. DeCal panel on “Students, Power, and the Desires of Society” in the FSM Cafe and a “FSM and Civil Liberties” poetry reading at the Bears’ Lair. 

Wednesday events include a noon showing of the documentary film Berkeley in the ‘60s in the FSM Cafe, a panel discussion on “Effective Strategies of Change” from 3:15 to 5:30 p.m. at 2050 Valley LSB, and a 6 p.m. concert in Lower Sproul Plaza featuring Utah Phillips and other performers, followed by a 9:30 p.m. open poetry reading at The Starry Plough Pub, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

On Thursday, Jo Freeman, author of At Berkeley in the Sixties will talk on “How Cold War Culture Shaped ‘60s Protest” from noon to 1:15 p.m. in 119 Moses. 

Panel discussions will be “Focus on the FSM & Sixties: Lessons for Today,” starting at noon in Sproul Plaza, “How it Worked: Nuts and Bolts of the FSM” from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at International House followed immediately in the same location by “Berkeley and the Black Freedom Struggle: Then and Now.” The day’s last International House offering will be “Focus on the FSM: Its Genesis, Meanings, and Consequences” from 6:45 to 9:30 p.m. 

For theater buffs, there’s a 3:30 to 5 p.m. play For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge in the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union 

Friday’s main even happens—where else?—around a police car in Sproul Plaza at noon. The rally features movement speakers, campus representatives and a dissection of the Patriot Act.  

Other events that day include a 9 a.m. to noon Ideas Fair to be held at political tables in Memorial Glade and another panel, “Effective Strategies of Change,” will be held at 160 Kroeber from 9:15 to 11:45 a.m. 

From 1:30 to 4 p.m., a teach-in on 12 current civil liberties issues will be held in and around Sproul Hall and in 20, 110, 126 and 166 Barrows. 

From 7 to 11 p.m., there’s a Sixties Film Festival featuring Berkeley in the Sixties and Freedom on My Mind at 142 Dwinelle. 

For a complete list of programs and participants see the web site at http://www.straw.com/fsm-a/ 

Staff writer J. Douglas Allen-Taylor contributed to this report.?