SemiConscious Dot Org

Today, we changed over all the monthly “Staff Recommends” book displays at the library, and as the new Head of Public Services, it was my turn to create one. As usual for me, I had to try and ruffle as many feathers at my new job as possible, taking advantage of the upcoming National Banned Books Week to create a “Read These Books To Annoy People!” display. Unfortunately, we had very few of the really controversial titles in the 100 Most Challenged Books list; no Anarchist’s Cookbook, no New Joy of Gay Sex, no Last Exit, no Sex by Madonna. We didn’t even have the most challenged book of 2006 (a children’s book about two male zoo penguins who raise and hatch an egg, which apparently enrages religious dingbats convinced that reading it will turn their younguns into agents of the Homosexual Agenda.)

Alas, my “controversial” display turned out rather tame. Ooooh, A Wrinkle in Time, how rebellious.

I thought I might quench my unfulfilled urge to offend by printing up and plastering the library with Banned Books Week posters. Unfortunately, the ALA’s offerings were, predictably, both lame and not free. See, this is the kind of thinking that has convinced me not to bother rejoining ALA. The library advocacy organization is going to make cash-strapped libraries pay for promotional materials to get more people into said cash-strapped libraries? What genius thought that one up?

Eventually, I did find some cool, free posters at the American Booksellers Foundation. (They do also sell promotional material, but their free posters are far more effective than anything on the ALA site.)

These days, we tend to think of efforts to ban or censor books as almost comical, the ravings of blinkered bumpkins who think Harry Potter is an Agent of Satan. But in this post-Patriot Act world, censorship has a darker, more insidious dimension. After all, if you know that law enforcement agents might someday pore through your borrowing records without your knowledge, would you check out that copy of Steal This Book or the Anarchist’s Cookbook or that medical textbook on deadly airborne diseases or Mein Kampf for your history paper on World War II? Or would you be too scared, fearing that someone might later think that reading controversial material was tanatmount to agreeing with it?

Our current government, more than any in recent memory, survives by fostering a climate in which the vast majority of citizens are frightened, stupid, and easily manipulated. If self-censorship due to fear of punishment becomes the norm, then they’ve already won. In this climate, reading controversial books is nothing less than an act of civil disobedience.

See, this is what happens when I make the mistake of ignoring my RSS reader for a few days: I miss out on the latest censorship controversy. It seems that some librarians and schools are choosing not to stock the book that won the 2007 Newbery Medal (that’s an award for excellence in children’s literature, for you non-liberry types) because… the book contains the word “scrotum.” Yep, the Talibanization of America is now apparently so far advanced that using an anatomically correct, utterly non-sexy medical term to describe a body part induces fainting spells on the part of our self appointed Morality Police.

A few of the commenters at librarian.net suggested that the author deliberately threw the word “scrotum” into the book knowing that some weenies would object, and that the ensuing controversy would increase her book sales. If so, I have only two things to say: “Well done!” and “Where’s my checkbook?”

(Bonus censorship link: “Vagina Monologues” is now “Hoohaa Monologues.” Sweet.)

UPDATE: I smell a poll!

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Halli-freakin-leujah, DOPA is dead! This atrocious bill, passed in July by the House of Representatives, was an election year sop to suburban soccer moms scared of the Big, Bad Internets. In pursuit of the otherwise laudable goal of blocking online predators, this bill would have forced schools and libraries that receive federal E-Rate funding to block access to any website that allows the creation of a profile. In other words, millions of perfectly legal websites such as MySpace, Amazon, EBay, educational and research websites, discussion boards, social networking sites of all kinds, and practically every single blog in existence. And since further definition of what constitutes a blockable site would have been left wholly at the discretion of the FCC, it could easily have expanded. (For instance, most newspaper sites now require the creation of a profile featuring one’s name, email, and demographic information. Why not block them too?)

Remember, we’re not talking about blocking pornographic sites, which are already illegal for minors to access (and are covered under previous laws anyway.) We’re talking about blocking sites that are otherwise completely legal, and doing so, not based on the site’s content, but on its format. And putting a federal agency, consisting of unelected political appointees, in charge of deciding what should and shouldn’t be blocked. All this, from the “party of limited government.” What a joke.

When I heard about this incomprehensively idiotic bill back in August, I frothed at the mouth, as is my wont whenever news of greater than normal governmental stupidity reaches my ears. However, when friend and fellow librarian Chris pointed out that many of the bill’s sponsors were ejected from Congress in the Glorious Republican Rout of November 7th, I began to hope that the insanity would be averted. And yesterday, Chris sent me a link to an article noting that DOPA will indeed die on the vine, since the lack of Senate action last term means that it will have to be reintroduced this year, and several incoming Democratic committee heads are skeptical about its horribly overbroad nature.

I received several cool presents during the holiday season, but this entirely unexpected, tentative baby step back towards sanity on the part of our elected representatives may be the best one yet. My outlook on the universe has been measurably improved since November 7th. It’s so nice to finally have the adults in charge again.

Now, if we can just do something about Batshit Crazy Old Man John McCain and his War on Blogs…

As previously stated, I don’t pay nearly as much attention to library-related issues and news as I used to. Part of this is due to the fact that I now work in a private, school library instead of a public one, and am thus insulated from either dealing with the public or paying attention to issues that affect how the public is served. The other main reason is my firm belief that I simply can’t summon the energy to fake any interest in pointless, meaningless marketing terms that serve no purpose other than to voice a desperate wish (never to be fulfilled) on the part of librarians to appear hip.

But I digress. Every once in awhile, an issue comes along that manages to pierce even my mighty protective wall of self-interest, and as usual with these things, it was the always helpful Notorious BCK who brought it to my attention. The oh-so-appropriately named DOPA, the more cruel and idiotic inbred cousin to 2003’s CIPA, passed the US House on July 27th by a vote of 410-15. While CIPA forced libraries to install filters as a condition of retaining their E-Rate funding, DOPA goes even further, forcing libraries to block access to chat rooms and social networking sites such as blogs, MySpace, and Flickr. Further, it explicitly places the FCC in charge of screening and evaluating wholly lawful internet content.

Since the furor over the passage of this mindbendingly idiotic bill has been swift, widespread, and severe, I won’t bother rehashing it. (Click the links if you are actually unsure just what kind of Orwellian clusterfuck the House has just voted to foist upon us.) Besides, for my money, the ZenFormation Professional most succinctly summed up the entire debate, and in one sentence, no less:

Now this is some truly scary “let’s get those seniors and soccer moms all paranoid before the midterm elections” shit.

This atrocious bill has not yet become the law of the land; it still needs to pass the Senate before that happens. However, lest any of you out there are clinging to the desperate hope that the Senate might conceivably exercise a modicum of sanity that the House so clearly lacks, please keep in mind that the committee in charge of regulating the internet is run by this guy.

Well, it appears that this putative “Library Blog” is well on its way to becoming a “What Music is Aaron Listening to Today, as if Anyone Cares Blog.” Truth be told, I haven’t been paying much attention to library issues recently, but a post on BCK’s blog brought to my attention new developments regarding our old friend, the USA Patriot Act. (Specifically, the provision of said act most pertinent to libraries, Section 215.)

Section 215 allows law enforcement officials to view a library patron’s book borrowing and internet browsing records by issuing something called a National Security Letter (NSL), a type of warrant that requires no judicial oversight. Moreover, the NSL comes with a built-in gag order, so that library staff who’ve been issued one can’t reveal to anybody that the cops have ever been snooping around the library.

Recently, some librarians have decided to fight back. A group in Connecticut that was issued a NSL for library records filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the built-in gag order, since it ironically prevented those same librarians from having any part in the then-ongoing debate in Congress over whether to reauthorize the Patriot Act. A judge lifted the gag order, but the government fought it in court. By the time the government finally relented and allowed the gag order to be lifted, debate in Congress on the USAPA was already over, a fact the librarians complained about bitterly:

“Free public libraries exist in this country to promote democracy by allowing the public to inform itself on the issues of the day. The idea that the government can secretly investigate what the public is informing itself about is chilling.”

Christian noted with irony that the gag order was lifted only after Congress voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

“The fact that I can speak now is a little like being permitted to call the fire department only after a building has burned to the ground,” he said.

In other Patriot Act-related news, the librarians in my current environs of Seattle have passed a resolution calling for the resignation or impeachment of DubYa over the USAPA and a host of other issues. (We all know this happy event has a snowball’s chance in hell of happening while his own party controls all three branches of government, but hey, a boy can dream.) And the number of anti-Patriot Act resolutions passed nationally has recently topped 400, including five statewide resolutions.

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration’s fans in the right-wing chattering classes have pounced on librarians and the ALA over the flap. To the people who equate any criticism of DubYa or his policies as traitors to America, the entire library profession now constitutes a veritable Fifth Column of America-haters.

Back in 2003, when this issue first made national headlines, it was the National Review’s Rich Lowry who lead the smear campaign, excoriating librarians over their opposition to Section 215 (and also throwing in a few other conservative myths, such as the idea that librarians have intentionally turned libraries into de facto homeless shelters and porno stores. He also joked that we should all be killed.) This year, the administration’s main water carrier on this issue is internment camp apologist Michelle Malkin, who refers to ALA opponents of Bush policies as “moonbats” and “Bush-deranged bigots” and suggests that we’ve been “breathing too much photocopier fluid.”

Who would’ve thought that little ol’ librarians could engender so much vitriol from flame-throwing reactionary pundits? In my opinion, it’s a badge of honor. I eagerly await the Ann Coulter column lamenting the fact that Timothy McVeigh didn’t set off his bombs at the ALA convention.

I’ve obviously been out of the loop way out here on the Left Coast, but apparently my home state is at the epicenter of the latest blogosphere furor over freedom of speech. It seems that a Maine-based blogger was criticizing the state’s Department of Tourism over the shoddy, half-assed campaign they were running to drum up interest in tourism, the state’s only number one industry. Since taxpayer money is used to fund these advertising campaigns, it’s perfectly proper for a taxpayer and citizen of the state to critique how effectively his government is spending his money.

Well, apparently not everyone saw it that way, because the advertising firm handling the campaign, Warren Kremer Paino Advertising, filed a multimillion dollar defamation suit against the blogger in a ham-fisted attempt to shut him up.

Never let it be said that the blogosphere doesn’t defend their own, however. WKPA’s Big Brother tactics produced an immediate reaction around the internets, which eventually crossed into the mainstream media and contributed to a tidal wave of horrendous publicity for the firm. Now a state legislator is calling for an investigation of the firm’s tactics and the immediate suspension of their contract with the state. Take that, corporate thugs!

My immediate (and lingering) question was: what the hell has happened to my home state when ridiculous, First Amendment-stifling suits like this are filed in the first place? I mean, I’ve been gone for awhile, but Mainers weren’t generally a vindictive, litigious bunch when I lived there. Quite the opposite, in fact. Re-reading the story, however, provided me with a clue:

State Rep. Stephen Bowen (R-Rockport) has asked the Baldacci administration to suspend its contract with a New York ad agency responsible for the state’s tourism advertising. (italics mine)

Ah, now it all makes sense.