News

New Hampshire bill seeks to mandate book rating system

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary News and tagged censorship education libraries New Hampshire on by

A bill before the New Hampshire legislature, Senate Bill 523, is a frontal attack on school libraries in the state and the vendors that provide books to them. The bill is sponsored by State Senator Kevin Avard. It’s the kind of lunacy you’d expect in Kansas or Texas, not New Hampshire.

It would set up a bounty system for bringing complaints against material which is allegedly “harmful to minors.” Anyone claiming to be aggrieved under the bill’s terms would be able to sue for damages. A person bringing a successful suit would be guaranteed a minimum payout of $1,000. What Avard is trying to set up isn’t just a way to remove inappropriate books but a way to incentivize gratuitous challenges.
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Obituary for a newspaper

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged New Hampshire news publishers on by

For the past six years, a newspaper called Carriage Towne News has arrived in my mailbox every week. The next one, scheduled to arrive on February 1, will be the last. The lead article in this week’s paper explains:

The Carriage Towne News — a free weekly newspaper dependent on small local ads and a wrapper for advertising circulars — will publish its final edition Thursday, Feb. 1. …
 
Financial support for the paper has seriously eroded in recent times as the critical revenue from advertising content dwindled while newsprint, production and mail distribution costs continued to increase.
 
Unfortunately, those factors combined to make it economically prohibitive to continue publication and direct marketing of the paper through mailed distribution to 26,000 southern New Hampshire households.

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Hugo nominees mysteriously declared ineligible

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary News and tagged censorship China conventions fandom science fiction on by

The detailed statistics for the 2023 Hugo Awards voting are finally out, and they’ve triggered a controversy. A number of nominees were declared ineligible without explanation.

Kevin Standlee, who has played important roles in running many fan conventions, noted:

An overwhelming majority of the members of WSFS who voted on the site of the 2023 Worldcon (at the 2021 Worldcon in DC) selected Chengdu, China as the host of the 2023 Worldcon. That meant that the members of WSFS who expressed an opinion accepted that the convention would be held under Chinese legal conditions. Furthermore, those people (including me) who suggested that there might be election irregularities were overridden, shouted down, fired from their convention positions, and told that they were evil and probably racist for even suggesting such a thing.

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Cancel culture goes mainstream

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged censorship education liberty on by

“One down. Two to go. This forced resignation of the president of @Penn is the bare minimum of what is required.”

That’s the kind of language you might expect from the Minister of Truth in a socialist dictatorship. It’s from Elise Stefanik, a Congresswoman from New York. The offense for which Stefanik and many others are seeking to remove three university presidents is the failure to regard advocacy of genocide unconditionally as harassment.
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