Getting caught up on my links - Late April 02024

Let us begin with a call for the preservation of pornography and erotica in archival collections, because of the insights they provide into how people of all stripes saw sex, saw other people, did business, and many other aspects of life and society that don't obviously appear to have anything to do with sex. Especially things like how racist or sexist the material is or was, and how porn and erotica are often extremely good at showing stereotype and the underpinnings of a society, specifically because the erotic is supposed to get at what we find alluring, attractive, and sexy, even if in polite society, it might be a taboo action.

In contrast, we present Alabama's state house, who have passed a bill that, if it becomes law, gives anyone the right to declare any book in a library obscene and demand its removal, and librarians who do not comply in seven days could be charged with a misdemeanor. It also bans schools and libraries from having anyone who might do drag or dress in a way that someone thinks is too "sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative." Which, as is noted, might ban certain kinds of prom dresses and jail the students wearing them. I find these kinds of bills that presume the person demanding removal of materials is right express a basic distrust in the library's willingness to go along with the hegemon and treat their views as unquestionable defaults. Since they can no longer believe that the librarians are right-thinking in the same way they are, they have to take away the ability of the librarians to decide at all. They're also doing it to teachers, through policies that require much of the resources of the Internet to be blocked from student or teacher use in lesson plans or where they might be helpful to students struggling with issues or identity questions. Because out there are people who might be both informative and accepting in their posts and articles. Or a site that has useful things might also host things that are less useful, or that have been deemed harmful because of abdicating decision-making to regexes, the zealots who program the filters initially, and intentionally making it hard to get things unblocked once they've been blocked.

With laws on the books that presume the guilt of the person and materials accused and levy heavy penalties if those materials are not removed shortly after the accusation is leveled, school librarians are committing censorship with the belief that access in an altered form is superior to having to decide between removing materials or being charged as a felon. This is a logical decision to make, specifically because the laws as written do not allow for the accused person or materials to first be reviewed and a determination made about them before they are removed or returned. And there are very few librarias who are willing to stand on their principles and be covered in the media and the court of social media as peddlers of pornography to children. Even when it's patently ridiculous that a book with an illustration of a naked butt in it is pornographic, the law does not actually say that the librarians are allowed to say "this is ridiculous." It says the material has to be removed or the state will charge the librarian with a felony and force them to defend that charge in court. And, of course, the state only has to win once, and I doubt most public libraries have the pockets to defend their librarians repeatedly against repeated bullshit charges. It sucks to be a librarian in a place that has decided they intend to use the law against you and empower the most fanatical to impose their will on you with the backing of the state.

A county in Virginia made a proclamation to honor a Girl Scout receiving her Gold Award, the highest award a Girl Scout can receive, but county councillors decided to censor the purpose of the Gold Award project, which was to fight against the council and the school board's decisions to demand censorship of books. I suppose we have to give them point for noticing they were about to admit to complete hypocrisy, but in removing the reasons for the Gold Award, the councilor's also diminish the honor and the recognition that the girl should be receiving for having decided to fly the bird at the censors in her local government and actively work to sabotage their desired results.

Unsurprisingly, trying to restrict book access and other such things generally leads to the Streisand Effect.

( Yet more inside )

Last for tonight, in case anyone wondered whether or not Microsoft Excel is a programming language (it is), a person has created an RPG-style adventure in Mircosoft Excel, so you never need to use the boss key to make it look like you're doing work while you adeventure on company time.

And the use of communication cards to both communicate and to make a good three-line joke work well.

(Materials via adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)