|
From: "PUBYAC: PUBlic librarians serving Young Adults and
Children" <pubyac@prairienet.org>
To: "PUBYAC: PUBlic librarians serving Young Adults and Children"
<pubyac@prairienet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 11:02 PM
Subject: PUBYAC digest 429
PUBYAC Digest 429
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Nobody Else Needs to Know
by Jamie Weaver <jweaver@dupagels.lib.il.us>
2) Sorcerer's apprentice stumper
by Selma Levi <slevi@mail.pratt.lib.md.us>
3) Stumper: Suzie Sneakers
by "Fredda Williams" <freddawilliams@hotmail.com>
4) FC: Progressive Review tells of battle with filtering company
by "Don Wood" <dwood@ala.org>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jamie Weaver <jweaver@dupagels.lib.il.us>
To: "'PUBYAC'" <pubyac@prairienet.org>
Subject: Nobody Else Needs to Know
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 14:48:00 CDT
Thank you all for your help. My patron is very pleased. You are wonderful.
Jamie Lyn Weaver
Geneva Public Library
127 James Street
Geneva ll. 60134
jweaver@dupagels.lib.il.us
------------------------------
From: Selma Levi <slevi@mail.pratt.lib.md.us>
To: PUBYAC@prairienet.org
Subject: Sorcerer's apprentice stumper
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 14:48:18 CDT
Hi, A patron is trying to track down a variant of the Sorcerer's
Apprentice which has a monkey as the troublemaking apprentice. She
actually has a thimble with the picture of a monkey holding a wand and
what looks like a magic lantern/(Camera?) with a turkey, dog and cat
looking on...She wants to identify the scene and was sure it was from a
fable, but an exhaustive examination of Aesop and La Fontaine has turned
up nothing. Someone else suggested the Sorcerer's Apprentice, so we
are
trying that route. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Please
reply
to me directly and I'll inform the group if we have any success. Thanks
in advance!
Selma K. Levi
slevi@epfl2.epflbalto.org
voice # 410-396-5402
------------------------------
From: "Fredda Williams" <freddawilliams@hotmail.com>
To: pubyac@prairienet.org
Subject: Stumper: Suzie Sneakers
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 14:48:45 CDT
Y'all are so good at solving stumpers (40 of you knew that my buffalo hunt
stumper was "Bless the Beasts and Children") that I'm hoping you
can help
again.
This request came to our ILL Dept. from another library. The patron
read
this book in the 1960's. She thinks the name of the book is
"Suzie's
Sneakers" or maybe that's just the name of the character. The
little girl
is afraid to walk anywhere - beach, mud puddles - without her sneakers.
This is all we have to go on. We have searched all the usual
bibliographies
with no success. If anyone remembers this book, please reply to me at
freddawilliams@hotmail.com.
Thanks,
Fredda
Fredda Williams
Children's Services Manager
Knox County Public Library System
freddawilliams@hotmail.com
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
------------------------------
From: "Don Wood" <dwood@ala.org>
Subject: FC: Progressive Review tells of battle with filtering company
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 14:49:04 CDT
[Apparently a Progressive Review reader in the government found that =
N2H2's=20
Bess software -- installed on a federal office computer -- blocked the=20
publication. N2H2 eventually backed down. So much for N2H2 manually=20
reviewing all sites added to its blacklist, right? --Declan]
*********
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 23:03:47 -0700
To: declan@well.com
From: Progressive Review <ssmith@igc.org>
Subject: a filter story with a happy ending
thought you might be interested in the following that ran recently in the
review:
sam smith
|||||||||
LOCAL HERO
WE ARE WITHHOLDING his name for his protection, but thanks to a diligent
federal employee the Progressive Review is now not only safe reading for
officials of the Small Business Administration but has been removed from =
the
blacklist of the corporate censors N2H2. The action also followed a fairly
strongly worded article in the Review yesterday that pointed out the
libelous nature of N2H2's censorship by its filtering program, Bess.
N2H2 had informed the employee that the Review contained "vulgar or =
obscene
language. We have categorized it as PROFANITY." It was signed,
"The N2H2
Website Review Team." The employee responded with a letter:
"Dear Review Team: This is a general news and political commentary
site. I
would appreciate an example of the 'vulgar and obscene' language expressed
therein (in context). Thank you."
Today the employee forwarded the following message from N2H2: "After
reviewing this site, we have decided that it does not meet our filtering
category requirements. We have modified the status of this site in our
database. The site will accessible after tonight's server update. We do
appreciate your feedback. Please let us know if you find any other sites =
you
think may be incorrectly rated by
Bess. Thanks."
Earlier, officials of the SBA had denied that the whole site was being =
blocked.
Incidentally, a reader points out that corporate censors can sometimes be
short-circuited by using the numerical equivalent for a particular site. =
For
example, instead of going to http://prorev.com
go to http://207.67.198.190
EARLIER STORY:
US GOVERNMENT AGENCY
DECLARES REVIEW OBSCENE
AS PREVIOUS REPORTED, the Progressive Review has been censored by the =
Small
Business Administration. Following earlier correspondence with the agency,
we received an e-mail on March 21 assuring us that "we have removed the
block" on the SBA computer filtering program.
The letter, from Lawrence Barrett, chief information officer, also =
claimed:
"We do not block individual sites. We use a commercial software package
=
that
blocks sites by category . . . Evidently something on the site triggered =
one
of the parameters in one of the categories. However, that doesn't mean =
that
the entire site is inappropriate for workplace viewing."
On April 7, however, an SBA employee sent us a copy of the following
message, received when he inquired as to why the Review had been censored:
"This site contains vulgar or obscene language. We have categorized it
as
PROFANITY. Your server is configured to filter this category of content, =
so
the site is not accessible. We do appreciate your feedback. Please let us
know if you find any other sites you think may be incorrectly rated by =
Bess.
Thanks - The N2H2 Website Review Team reviewme@n2h2.com
While the filtering company is entitled, under the First Amendment, to its
own opinion about the Review, it is not entitled to assert that the Review
is obscene or profane based on a purportedly objective standard which is
patently false and then to widely disseminate this patently false =
statement
in a reckless manner. The latter is called libel and is actionable. It is
also not permitted to conspire with the government to prevent undesired =
news
and views from reaching federal officials. The First Amendment is not =
there
just so citizens can talk freely among themselves. It is also there to
prevent the government from choosing which citizens and press it will =
listen
to and which it will suppress.
As for obscenity, a search of one million words on our site found the word
"fuck" used less than twenty times, including two times by police
=
officers,
once in a state court decision, once in a letter to the editor, once in =
the
lyrics of Grammy winner Eminem, once in a quote from James Baker and once =
in
one from Hillary Clinton. Your editor also bragged about having been the
only writer to get the word "fuck" into the eminently respectable
Illustrated London News during its entire 150 year history.
The notion that the Small Business Administration or something called the
N2N2 Website Review Team should consider themselves qualified to judge the
literary merit of the Review is ludicrous enough. But what is even more
astounding is that on the very day that the SBA employee received the
message above, another agency of the federal government, the Federal
Communications Commission, was spewing out obscenities in the name of
explaining, in best bureaucratic and legally sustainable fashion, exactly
what indecency was. According to Declan McCullagh in Wired, the FCC =
produced
the following examples:
- Indecent: "Soon she was fondling my Peter Paul and Zagnuts, and I
knew =
it
wouldn't be long before I blew my Milk Duds clear to Mars and gave her a
taste of the old Milky Way..."
- Not indecent: "Dick suggests maybe getting a mega-Dick to help out,
but
you know, you remember the time the King ate mega-Dick under the
table..."
- Indecent: "Well, it was a nice big fart. I'm feeling very gaseous at
=
this
point."
- Not indecent: "The hell I did, I drove motherfucker, oh. Oh."
- Indecent: "Could you take the phone and rub it on your Chia Pet? Oh,
let
me make sure nobody is around ... Now was that really your little
beaver?"
- Not indecent: "Oops, fucked that one up."
- Indecent: "Sit on my face and tell me that you love me. I'll sit on
your
face and tell you I love you too."
- Not indecent: "American wives all across the country have confessed
to
using erotic aids to spice up their sex life and ... thousands of women =
say
they fantasize while having sex with their husbands."
Beyond questions of constitutionality, the FCC guide illustrates both the
absurdity and futility of robotic bureaucrats sitting around trying to
decide what is appropriate for free adults to read and hear. Such people =
are
among the most dangerous in a democracy because they automate repression
using the most obscene standard of all: their own ignorance. Besides, as
Lennie Bruce said, "If you can't say fuck, you can't say fuck the =
government."
* * * * * * * * * *
THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
1312 18th St NW (5th Floor)
Washington DC 20036
202-835-0770 Fax: 202-835-0779
news@prorev.com
Editor: Sam Smith
INDEX : http://prorev.com
RECENT UNDERNEWS : http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
TODAY'S HEADLINES: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm
For a free trial subscription to both our bi-monthly hard copy edition
and our regular e-mail updates send your e-mail and terrestrial
address
to news@prorev.com
To order "Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual"
(WW Norton, New York, London):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=3D0393316270/progressiverevieA/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact.
To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
End of PUBYAC Digest 429
************************
|