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Menino's mosque II

The Editorial Page

Iraq: Five years later and time to go

It is about time: the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office has finally come to its senses and dropped an obviously bogus criminal charge against Milan Kohout. Phoenix readers will remember that Kohout, a long-time member of the Mobius artists group, was arrested this past month in front of a Bank of America branch in the Financial District, near the historic Old State House. Kohout was staging a political performance, for which he stood in front of a hand-lettered sign bearing the provocative title “Nooses on Sale” with several rope nooses scattered at his feet. His intention was to shed light on the nation’s subprime-mortgage scandal, which has — or will — cost as many as two million Americans their houses and, in many cases, their life savings. The nooses were meant to signify the suicidal tendencies of both consumers and the financial industry. He was subsequently charged with operating without a peddler’s license, a trumped-up charge that was a clear violation of his constitutional right to free speech. Kohout, justice, and the US Constitution have all been served now that Municipal Court Judge Annette Forde has dismissed the case and allowed the artist to again practice his politically grounded work.

As the Phoenix goes to press, news comes that the trustees of the Boston Public Library and the City Treasurer’s office have reportedly reached a compromise in a dispute that threatened the library with political interference. If the terms of the truce hold, it appears the library’s trustees have drawn a line in the sand: the board has agreed to account in more detail its expenditures from library trust funds, while City Hall has agreed to release the funds the library needs to carry out its business. There is an air of a phony crisis about this — one precipitated by City Hall — but compromise seems preferable to confrontation.

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