The explosion wreaks more destruction

The Globe Corner Bookstore is dead as a physical bookstore anyway. If I remember correctly Harvard gave it some preferred treatment as other book emporia (including the Harvard University Press store) closed. But it just couldn't last.

In other news, I was interested to see that the "Fleeting Expletives" case, FCC v. Fox, is back on the Supreme Court docket. The last time around, in 2009, the Court upheld the FCC's censorship rights on somewhat technical grounds but noted that the case might come back on pure First Amendment grounds. That is what is happening. This is not a standard liberal-conservative-Kenney split. Justice Thomas signaled in his independent decision two years ago that he might switch over to Fox's side if the only issue were the government's right to censor Cher's televised "Fuck 'em." In essence, the Internet has smashed the uniqueness of the broadcast media, and with so many other ways to get speech out, it is not at all clear that the premises for the government's authority to censor speech on the airways still hold. Fascinating.