Category: Censorship

Spinning balls …

This happened some time back, maybe a year or more. I subscribe to Climate Discussion Nexus, a Canadian outfit that covers Climate in detail. It’s host, Dr. John Robson, is a very good writer, crisp and often humorous. I really enjoy his work.

I am inclined to comment now and then when the spirit moves me, as you might guess. I did so one time on CDN, and my comment disappeared into the ether. Never having commented there before, they could not possibly know what an asshole I am, and so had no reason to ban me. I contacted them, politely, and asked what might have happened to the comment. I heard back directly from Robson. He had searched for my comment, asked to see it again by email, and suggested to me that my tone in contacting CDN did not indicate any troll-like traits. He simply did not know or understand why the comment did not post. I told him not to be concerned and also that my $8 (Canadian) monthly contribution would continue. “Whew!” he did not say.

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The light(bulb) goes on! (Extreme censorship at Amazon. com)

We have in our kitchen halogen lights under the cupboards that are burning out, five of eight now gone. I decided to replace them, and went to the local Ace Hardware. There I found a single GY6.35 replacement bulb packaged and priced at $6.99, meaning that we would pay $55.92 to replace all eight. I purchased one at that price, and then came home and checked it out on Amazon. There I was able to buy one dozen for $9.68 total.

Are they of the same quality? I cannot imagine why not, but even if not, say they last only three years instead of five, then I will have to repurchase them and again I will do so at Amazon.

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Censorship, real censorship

A friend of ours (since deceased) spearheaded an effort to construct an elaborate display that traveled around, including at the public library in Bozeman, Montana of “banned” books. I only recall two of them: Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison, and Fools Crow by James Welch, which was banned in the Laurel, Montana school district. (I can only think that calling attention to that book by banning it made it a very popular item to have for school kids.)

I tried to recall some of the other books on that display – there may have been as many as twenty. The Brave search engine lists Howl, by Alan Ginsberg, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Animal Farm (in Canada), by George Orwell, so maybe they were part of the display.

The problem is that none of these books were banned. How do I know this? The group that made the display had copies on hand! That means the books were published, had a press run, were distributed and sold. If that is banning, it’s a very lousy job of banning.

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Zounds! Cancelled by Facebook!

Let me say at the beginning here that I do not care that Facebook cancelled me. It is as if I was going with a girl and tired of her, but before I could dump her, she dumped me! I put myself in that position, however. Let me explain.

Prior to 2020, I was into Facebook, having reacquainted with many of my high school classmates. We had a class reunion in 2018, and I discovered, with only a maybe four exceptions, that I did not care for these people! I rather abruptly unfriended most of them, leaving me with only a handful of “friends,” including a former television journalist in Billings, Montana. I thought him very nice and patient with people, even if typical of journalists, quite shallow. I also had a few cousins online. That’s how I entered the year 2020.

Deep down, I did not like the approval-seeking I was doing on Facebook, putting up a post and then checking back to see if it got “likes”. I would occasionally put up something that would not garner approval:

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Hush, journalists! Michael Mann is on trial …

Have you ever seen one of these dramatic courtroom presentations where, upon leaving the courthouse, the lawyers and defendants are swarmed by journalists and cameras? I can’t be sure, but I do not think that happens in real life. Journalists are kept not on leashes, but rather choke chains. As Ben Bagdakian (1920-2016) made clear in his book , The Media Monopoly (1983), young journalists are trained to rein in their curiosity, to not get emotionally involved, to get a quote from both sides and move on. TV drama would have them off the leash looking for stories, challenging powerful people, and in general, being a pain in the ass to the comfortable … doing their job. Ain’t so. Ain’t done. I know this from my own life experiences … journalists do not know how to do the one thing that one would think was their calling … to search for truth.

There’s a trial going on now in Washington, DC, and I will bet, dear reader, that you’ve not heard a word about it. It is Michael Mann versus Mark Steyn in a defamation suit brought my Mann twelve years ago, now finally coming to trial. If you wonder how bad our justice system is, twelve years says everything. Steyn has tried to get this case to trial and Mann has delayed every step of the way, as the suit was not brought in search of justice, but rather to silence critics by example. Mann is supported by unseen forces behind this group – [Climate Science Legal Defense Fund].  The group is obviously a front for the wealthy and powerful people who are backing the climate change psyop and Mann (he called them “our closeted friends” in the Climategate emails), so that he has never paid one thin dime for his efforts to silence his critics.

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