I’ve put up a seasonal silent film with my accompaniment: Le Rêve de Noël, a short 1900 film from Georges Méliès. Just a bit of holiday fun with assorted Christmas scenes. The viewing speed is slowed down a bit from the Internet Archive version which I downloaded; even so, it’s barely over five minutes with start and end titles.
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Folk tales are inherently changeable. Look through their history and you’ll find many versions. Some of them are horrible by today’s standards. Modern writers have made startling reversals on traditional stories. In Cecilia Eng’s song “Red as Blood,” Snow White is a vampire. (Pale white skin, lips red as blood…) I’ve written previously about Warner Brothers’ “Coal Black.” The problems arise when an adaptation isn’t what it claims to be and when it’s clearly designed by committee. That’s what Disney’s new version of Snow White is shaping up to be.
The story can be traced back to Pentamerone, published in 1634, and probably has roots in older stories. It took a more familiar form in the Grimms’ story “Schneewittchen” (Snow Drop). In these stories, the heroine is seven years old when she flees the queen and is poisoned into a coma. The queen in “Schneewittchen” succeeds only on the third attempt, which says something about the seven-year-old’s continued gullibility. She is put into a glass coffin, which grows along with her until she is awakened as an adult. The Grimms’ version is more gruesome than today’s usual versions. The queen orders the huntsman to bring back Snow Drop’s lungs and liver. As in the Disney version, he doesn’t kill her and brings back an animal’s organs — which the queen proceeds to eat. At the end, the queen is forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes till she dies.
My latest album, Beacons in the Darkness, is now available on Bandcamp. It’s a living-room album, and I make no great claims for my vocal abilities, so payment is optional. It’s the songs themselves which I think have some interest. The title track, a secular solstice song, is one of my best songs, and it’s on the album in both English and German. 
You can find my other albums, likewise on a payment-optional basis, at garymcgath.bandcamp.com.
In Newspeak, freedom is slavery. In Trumpspeak, freedom of speech is censorship.
Brendan Carr, whom Trump wants to head the FCC, has declared his intent to “smash the censorship cartel” using the agency’s power. According to the Washington Times, “He is threatening the platforms with revocation of their federally granted immunity against content-based lawsuits.” He’s presumably referring to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, one of the few parts to survive legal challenges. It says that in general operators of websites that allow public posting of commentary can’t be held liable for what third parties post. Without it, website operators would have to keep a quick finger on the “Delete” button to keep potentially defamatory comments from showing up. They’d need to err on the side of caution. Many sites would probably find it easiest to eliminate the comments section.
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I’m enjoying Bluesky quite a lot. Here’s my profile, in case you’re on Bluesky and want to follow me. With few exceptions, I limit my posts there to music, silent film, and an occasional bit of humor or trivia. I intentionally avoid most political discussion, because I like to relax there. But Bluesky has developed the inevitable echo chambers, and I avoid following accounts that veer into hostility and mockery.
Bluesky offers lots of moderation tools at the personal level. You can use the content filters and the optional Bluesky moderation service, which are found under the Moderation category of your settings. Remember that any system-wide moderation system will make mistakes, blocking harmless material or letting disgusting stuff through. Having user-controlled moderation frees the staff to deal with the worst offenders, as opposed to content that others just find annoying.
Users can create moderation lists. These are lists of users which others can use to mute or block accounts that the list creator thinks are best avoided. That’s helpful but has its risks. You can use a moderation list selectively, for confirmation that someone else thinks certain users are nuisances. You can block or mute the whole list, but then you’re delegating your decision to someone else.
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I’ve uploaded Georges Méliès’ 1899 film Cendrillon (Cinderella) with my accompaniment to YouTube. It’s the earlier film version of Cinderella and one of the first movies to employ cross-fading.
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The FIRE website discusses a “hate speech” policy being considered by a Wisconsin school district. It’s outrageous even among current attempts to stifle speech. Here’s the draft policy for the Baraboo school district, so you don’t have to take FIRE’s word for it.
It starts with the favorite lie of censorship advocates: “Hate speech is not protected speech.” It invents an exception to the First Amendment out of whole cloth.
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To answer an accusation, you have to know what it means. If the words have no fixed meaning, no argument can show that it’s false. Certain words in the culture of the left serve this purpose. They allow irrefutable accusations — irrefutable because they mean whatever the accuser wants them to. Denying the accusation or defending someone else against it can even become evidence of guilt. Words are supposed to be the tools of thought, but these words are designed to make thought impossible.
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Gertie the Dinosaur, released by Winsor McCay in 1914, featured the first animated character with a personality. Presented here with my accompaniment.
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I believe in paying for what I get. Various websites get my financial support when I think they’ve earned it. I’ve complained regularly on this blog about the news media, but Vox is more concerned with facts and objectivity than most, so it seemed worth a paid subscription. However, when I went to sign up, I was pointed at the terms of use, a document of 12,081 words. That’s long enough to be a novelette by the Hugo Awards’ definition.
Agreeing to terms of service without knowing exactly what they say can have serious consequences. By signing up for Disney Plus, you waive your right to file a wrongful-death lawsuit, or at least so their lawyers claim. Disney later backed off in that particular case, but it was a one-time exception in the face of heavy publicity.
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