Signing Off

I have determined that the Web is too tempting a distraction for me as I strive to become more present to my physical surroundings, and in particular opportunities to make more human connections. Consequently it is my intention not to go online for the forseeable future (say, at least a year). If anyone wishes to reach me, they can email me at my Yahoo! address (same username as this blog), and they will receive an auto-response including alternate contact information.

My Friend Joe Szimhart Has Written a Novel

Looks interesting.

http://www.aperturepress.net/books/mushroom-satori

Girl in Movement by Eva Kollisch

I'm adding this book to my Powell Partner Bookshelf. I saw a review of it several years ago in the magazine Against the Current, but only got around to reading it more recently. I've also posted a comment which you can read on  Powell's page for it. It's the coming-of-age memoir of a woman involved in the early Forties in Max Schachtman's Workers Party.

The Joke That "Spoiler Alerts" Have Become

Have you noticed how it seems that these days, when someone on radio or TV says "spoiler alert," they immediately follow that phrase with a spoiler? Do they not understand that most people don't have their hands perpetually on the radio, and will need more than a split second to turn it off to avoid hearing something?

Done in this absurd way, a so-called spoiler alert might more accurately be called a "spoiler taunt," as in, Don't want to learn the ending before reading the book? Screw you -- I'm telling you anyway!

Disability Program Hides True Unemployment Level

The latest This American Life is devoted to an examination of why beneficiaries of the Social Security Disability program have exploded over the past couple decades. It turns out that, in large measure, this is how states have offloaded the cost of supporting people for whom capitalism can't actually provide living-wage employment by transferring them from state-financed welfare programs to the federal Social Security system. While this keeps these people from starving or becoming homeless, it has the big disadvantage of not doing anything to assist them in getting out of poverty -- at the same time it erases them from unemployment statistics by no longer counting them as "looking for work."

Bound and Gagged: pornography and the politics of fantasy in America, by Laura Kipnis

That story about Iceland reminded me of a great book I read several years ago, before I started my Powell Partner Bookshelf. I've added it now.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780802115843?p_isbn&PID=35751

Stop Iceland from Banning Internet "Violent Pornography"

As recently reported on FetLife, the government of Iceland is considering a ban on online "violent pornography," in the name of protecting children from its putative harm, of course. You can read the UK Guardian article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/16/iceland-online-pornography.

And here's what I've written the Prime Minister of Iceland at postur@for.stjr.is:

Dear Minister:

I am greatly concerned by the news that you are considering a law to ban Internet "violent pornography" in the name of protecting children.

In the first place, contrary to your statements, there is no consensus among researchers about this alleged harm. Consider, for instance, this statement by US scholars: http://www.ncac.org/media/related/20011205~USA~Letter_to_AAP_Concerning_Media_Violence_Statements.cfm.

In the second place, this is unquestionably an issue of free expression. Efforts to "protect" children with computer algorithms have had notoriously imprecise results -- including, for instance, the censoring of any and all gay-positive material -- so the only way to implement such a law would be to use human screeners, guaranteeing that those screeners' biases would come into play. Even terms like "violent" or "hateful" are construed in very different ways by different people. What one woman may call misogynistic, another finds arousing.

Thirdly, this goes beyond the desire of lone individuals to view erotica on their computers. Many people network online on the basis of shared erotic interests, such as BDSM (bondage and discipline/dominance and submission/sadomasochism). I belong to one such network based in the US. I am appalled at the thought that Icelanders with similar interests would become unable to find one another if this proposed law went into effect.

With a view to protecting their civil rights, I am determined that if this legislation is adopted, I will not buy any products from Iceland.