Satire: literary or dramatic form in which human or individual vices, follies or abuses are examined, using burlesque, irony, parody, humour and caricature, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform. Stories, verses, dialogues for the Satirocene Age from Vancouver Island, Canada. (Posted by F. Jardine or guests)
Wednesday 3 March 2021
The Owl and the Pussy-cat Sail the Censorship Sea
Tuesday 2 March 2021
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?
Monday 1 March 2021
Jab-berwockying our way around the pandemic
Saturday 27 February 2021
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/)
Thursday 25 February 2021
When Toys Rn't Us
Wednesday 17 February 2021
Freedom to Read Week is when we choose what to read, but who chooses what gets published?
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.
Friday 12 February 2021
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,
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.
This story is reproduced from LITERARY YARD, www.literaryyard.com, 2024/02/10 It's a common fairy-tale theme -- imprisonment in a tower ...
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"Lionized" by the literary establishment during his/her own time, many a once-popular author is now denounced for racism, sexism, ...
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'Twas the night before Christmas … In each bedroom and hall the seniors were stirring, insomniacs all, support hose was hung by the chim...
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Handicaps are not failures, and we all have some -- physical, social, educational, circumstantial. They may even signal prowess (the...