The Owl and the Pussy-cat Sail the Censorship Sea

Free-lance writers have become aware that in the present political climate not everyone is welcome to submit work to publishers. Is being marginalized, racialized, POC, trans or disabled now a pre-requisite? Would an author like Edward Lear get anywhere today?

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

   In a leaky rainbow boat,

They took some honey and manuscripts

  Wrapped up like a package of hope.

The Owl looked up to the stars above

  And sang to a small guitar, 

"Oh stories and novels and lyrics and verse,

  What wonderful stories you are,

      You are,

What wonderful stories you are."

Pussy said to the owl "you elegant fowl,

  How charmingly sweet is your song,

Oh let us be published, too long we've been silenced

  by people who say we think Wrong." 

So they sailed away for a year and a day

  To the land where the Wrong-Tree grows,

And there in the wood a publisher stood

  And sternly wrinkled their nose,

      Their nose,

They sternly wrinkled their nose.

"Dear They, are you willing to read without killing

   The words of our cat-and-owl tale?"

"I'm not," said Them, "and your allyship's wrong,

   So back whence you came you must sail."

So they sailed away and self--published next day,

  Writing in freedom from fear,

Uncensored at last on the edge of the sands

  They danced with their pens in their hands,

      Their hands,

They danced with their pens in their hands.

Libraries abandon Freedom To Read, embrace Freedom To Ban

The Little Madhouse on the Prairie

How ironic that, as Freedom To Read Week winds up in Canada, and Read Across America Day is being celebrated in the U.S., libraries are celebrating by censoring children's literature. Even old favourites like Laura Ingalls Wilder aren't immune: because some groups didn't like her “portrayals of Native Americans” the American Library Association removed her name in 2018 from its lifetime achievement award list.

Meanwhile, there have been calls to “Burn Babar” (that terrible racist white-supremacist elephant), and six Dr. Seuss titles have just been de-published by their own publisher, Dr. Seuss Enterprises. The six books in question “align with Orientalism”, says the company. Whatever Orientalism may be, we know censorship when we see it, and see it selectively applied: “... because the majority of characters in Dr. Seuss books are White, his works ... center Whiteness and White supremacy”, says the publisher, without clarifying whether books with black characters center Black supremacy, and align with Occidentalism. 

Dr. Seuss books are language-teaching, literacy-inducing open-hearted comic rhymes of tolerance and universalism, presenting these things decades before the present “equity” movement of social justice warriors had even got started. 

Now, Horton Hears a “Who on Earth is running the libraries these days?” Certainly not anyone who values freedom of speech. Once banned, Will the Cat In the Hat Ever Come Back? 

Jab-berwockying our way around the pandemic

There's a lot of jabbering going on about the various COVID vaccines, in the sense both of  jabber on all sides, and of feeling threatened by a Jabberwocky monster of a vaccine -- "Jabberwocky" as in Lewis Carroll's entertaining poem within his Through the Looking-Glass, 1871. For some folks, this Jab is a beast to avoid.

Some people don't trust vaccines, never get 'flu shots and don't intend to get a corona jab -- at which point some commentators accuse them of being mass murderers. What the accusers need to remember is that we have certain Constitutional rights in this country, such as the right to Security of the Person and the right to Freedom of Speech -- meaning freedom to discuss scientific information, opinions around health, and personal choices. 

Not all vaccines are equal in character, efficacy, or safety. The COVID ones were designed in a hurry. It is the job of media to convey information about them to the lay person who wishes to decide as an individual whether to receive what is really something of a shot in the dark. Disconcertingly, the magazine of one prominant seniors' organization has attacked other media outlets for presenting all aspects of the debate and the science.

The word "vaccine" comes from "vacca", cow, because the original smallpox vaccine came from bovine (cow) viruses, and subsequent disease vaccines kept the same name. Similarly, the word inoculate means to inject the bud (or "eye", hence "ocular") of a virus into the body of a patient. How surprising is it that some people are leery of this impregnation, this invasion by a separate body? A jabberwock-ic threat indeed, to those who value "security of the person". What could be more personal than other people putting things into your body? What, if you didn't invite it, more like an assault?

It's enough to make some folks "frumious" -- to quote Carroll again -- and pretty "mimsy" about "galumphing" off to any clinic.

Some people think anything is preferable to a chance of catching this cruel sinister COVID virus, and they are perfectly entitled to think that. They have good reasons for their position. What they should not do (often with the best of healthcare-provider intentions) is bully and chivvy others into thinking the same, if others decide differently.

We have freedom to marry whom we like, smoke what we like, we have voting rights, reproductive rights, medically assisted dying rights and so on … but surely the most fundamental of all is the right to dominion over our own bodies. The final decision about what goes into them, is ours.

Seniors' organizations are particularly keen on chivvying seniors into taking the COVID jab. Don't bother your little grey heads with all that anti-science vaccine hesitancy, they're saying. But actually the science is all over the place as regards vaccine research, and plenty of seniors are quite capable of doing their own research.

This is the "Boomer" generation, practised fact-finders, the folks who invented critical thinking, doing-your-own-thing and not necessarily believing what "the establishment" says. We're still the same cussed folks we've always been, who think the concept of bodily integrity is important. 

Right now we only have slithy and uffish people waving "vorpal swords" (needles?) at us, but when the law starts to corrode our right to move freely about, to keep jobs and housing and go to the theatre without a "Vaccination Passport" -- then another kind of "shot" will be heard -- the one sent across the bow of anti-choice. Herd immunity may or may not be a possibility, but being herded is a definite hazard, and one which many will frumiously resist. 

Canada Wins Gold at Apology Olympics

Canada's Prime Minister likes to deeply regret the shallowness of previous regrets about the national shame of Apology Deficit Disorder.

Justin Trudeau, the most apologetic prime minister in Canadian history, is currently sorry for making another official national holiday -- and then taking a holiday on it ("Reconcilation Day"). Previously he apologized for not recusing himself from discussions about a government contract, which followed fast on the heels of his previous Seasonal Apology to Indigenous People.

“Apology Deficit Disorder is a hangover from our nation's colonial past,” he feels. “Past apologies have not been sufficiently inclusive, diverse and equitable.” He deeply regrets the hurt this has caused the un-mollified, whoever they may be, and hopes his honeyed words will inclusively sweeten the mood of diverse future voters.

“That's simply not enough,” reply critics representing whichever group isn't accepting whatever apology he's making this time.

The Prime Minister of the country that apologizes for winning Gold at the Olympics because it's not Silver, is aiming for first place in the International Apology Olympics. Having been beaten last year by Norway in the race for a seat at the UN Security Council (sorry, Norway), Prime Minister Trudeau is seeking a seat on the International Apology Council.

In pursuit of that goal, Canada tearfully acknowledges genocide against any group under-targeted by the Regretability Movement. Trudeau pledges to set up an Emergency Grovelling Fund to ensure future access of all identity groups to Equal Apology Opportunities, which he acknowledges were not properly provided by those previous Prime Ministers whose statues are now being justifiably knocked down.

“I'm sorry, eh?” he says in an effort to preclude that happening to any future statue of himself.

Premiers, mayors, military leaders and national charities join the Prime Minister in Canada's ongoing National Apology Fest.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/italian-canadians-to-get-formal-apology-for-treatment-during-second-world-war/ar-BB1fESTJ?ocid=spartandhp

(https://globalnews.ca/news/7173115/justin-trudeau-we-charity/)

https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/a-timeline-of-official-apologies-from-the-federal-government (1988-2019)

When Toys Rn't Us

The National Toy Council, in the interests of intersectionalist diversity, is excited to present new versions of the bad old favourites among kids' toys. Your kids are struggling with COVID lock-down? Never mind access to nature, the arts, heritage or broad ideas, these new introductions by our foremost brands will steer them right:

DISABLED DAISIE -- to replace the plastic-looking, unrealistically fit and insultingly able Barbie. Disabled Daisie comes complete with a wheelchair and adorable miniature hearing aids. A whole rainbow of skin shades will be available (we Ban the Blonde).

TRANS-TRACI. Another choice for today's inclusive girl and boy and everything in between.

We also introduce the HOMELESS DOLLS' DOLL HOUSE -- complete with tiny security cameras over the front door, mini-Naloxone kits, and floor mats in every room, wall to wall -- for dolls experiencing homelessness, this is shelter from 10 pm to 7 am.

In the TEDDY BEAR department, all from now on will be members of the species Ursus americanus (Black Bear). Rupert the white bear will revert to the brown colour he originally had in 1936, before an editor at the Rupert Annual turned him white to match illustrations in 1973, in what is now suspected to have been a white supremacist plot.

THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULDN'T -- a toy based on the beloved book, re-visioned for the child with PTSD, autism, anxiety, ADHD, non-binary neuro-atypical variation and other conditions which prevent him/her from accomplishing things.

THE LITTLE QUEERMAN -- companion to The Little Mermaid -- the two sold at fabulous discounts as a double set.

OLD MACDONALD'S FARM SET -- complete with palatial housing for migrant workers, signage acknowledging aboriginal lands, and a built-in sound track of indigenous songs sung to animals to thank them for being brutally slaughtered. Includes new breeds such as reindeer, alligators, ocelots, flamingos, camels, deep sea sponges and other alternative sources of protein.

SCRABBLE, UPDATED -- the un-racialized version has completely updated Rules, which ban hundreds of words deemed offensive to minorities, the marginalized and BIPOC.

MONOPOLY, UPDATED -- historical first-world white-privilege place-names have been changed to contemporary indigenous unpronounceable ones from pre-literate eras. Markers such as the bowler hat and iron have been replaced by African art, and dice have built-in speakers for youth who experience challenges with counting to six.

CLUE, UPDATED -- Now in an exciting new HAVEN'T A CLUE form, the well-loved characters have been given charming new intersectional non-binary names and titles, such as Coach Plum, Inclusion Consultant Mustard, We/Them Peacock, Scarlet and Green, and Anonymous Boddy. Rooms where the murder might have taken place are now the Media Room, Home Office, Yoga Studio and Sauna, and weapons include objects that increase agency for the powerless, such as incense stick, bear spray, poisoned pen, COVID mask soaked in hydrochloric acid, and Ideological Looks That Could Kill. 

The Ladybird Books series of picture books has been replaced with Bi-Bird Books, a manga series of thrilling identitarian tales about the oppressed, for today's right-minded kids.

The same young reformed-reader will enjoy our new "Burn Babar" virtual bonfire set, and the youth-sized shredder available to dispose of all those racist White-centered Dr. Seuss books you want to get rid of.

The Toy Council knows that children learn through play to navigate the world, and with the gift of imagination-shaping toys we steer them toward research-based Correct Thinking.

Grandma's Doll House is no longer in stock

Freedom to Read Week is when we choose what to read, but who chooses what gets published?

How ironic is it, that in the push for "diversity and inclusivity" in publishing, targeted inclusion of particular author-groups creates less diversity? Have we merely changed the books we choose to ban?

Freedom To Read Week is more important as ever. It's wonderful to meet new characters on the pages of books and listen in on what they say to each other.

Who are they though? Which characters currently populate the new releases? Editorial policies are favouring some themes over others and some author identities over others, and while we are free to read whatever we want, book and periodical editors increasingly limit what's on offer.

A typical note on a publisher's submissions page will say: “We seek writing which challenges bigotry ... we showcase literature from de-centered voices.” One even asserts that “we reserve the right to de-platform writers if they have broken our non-discrimination values”.

De-platforming a writer means de-platforming the right of readers to choose to read that writer. In the scramble to exclude authors deemed overly privileged and insufficiently “racialized”, diversity in literature is being reduced. 

Readers' “freedom to read” only makes sense in tandem with authors' freedom to choose their subject matter, and with the likelihood of their finding editors who accept their perspectives. Otherwise literature is being distorted by publishers' fear of seeming to neglect “identity” causes. The situation is not surprising, of course, as no business can afford to be accused of mis-gendering or racism, but even a slight whiff of correctness lets an evil genie out of the bottle. Who has the right to correct the thought of others? It is not the role of cultural industries to be multi-departmental re-education camps.

No author wants to be condemned for standing on the wrong side of black, indigenous and BIPOC issues, and that opens the door to self-censorship. The pressure to self-censor in the interest of popularity, meaning in the interest of being accepted for publication, is a more subtle brake on intellectual freedom than were the overt forms of censorship which librarians and publishers fought against in the past.

Fashions in opinion change under the pressure of issues in every era. We in Canada claim our Constitutional right to read freely, but it's also worth considering who determines the availability of the material we wish freely to choose. 

Saving the Middle Class

So the middle class wants to be saved. Okay, maybe we'll save you, but don't think you can carry on as before. No more of this “middle” stuff. If you want to survive, get out there on the extremes.

You say you're being squeezed by over-taxation, de-platforming and ideological hostility toward moderation, but there's such a thing as too much moderation. You must declare your allegiance: do you support the obscenely wealthy one percent, or the downtrodden impoverished ninety-nine percent? Are you the privileged, or do you have allyship with the de-centred marginalized? With People of Colour, or People of Whiteness? Whiteness is not skin shade, it's attitude. Moderate attitudes are mere fronts for micro-aggression. You professional classes of middle income, with your house-and-garden values, 

private transport, old-fashioned art galleries, interest in wildlife conservation and obsession with grammar are just stealing stuff from Other Races. (What do you mean, “allyship” is not a word? See: that just proves it.)

So, expect macro-aggression in response. The time for the middle class is over. There's no middle way, no “golden mean”. “POC” does not include the colour gold.

We might save you, Middle Class, but not to be as you were: the worst example of colonialist obsessions with taste. You will be saved through re-education camps. Where will these camps be located? Everywhere: in government, civic bureaucracies, schools and universities, unions, professional associations, arts organizations ...

What did you say? These are middle class products of colonial times? Fine, but don't think that you can just turn inward and save them, clinging to old errors based on individual ideas freely expressed in a free press. That's just hiding behind privileged supremacist history. That's just an able-ist way to trigger others. Forget history; it shouldn't happen. Too much historical understanding just gets in the way. Focus on Identity, not history -- but not your identity. Ours. You know the one: the one not in the middle.