Gary McGath

About Gary McGath

I am a freelance technical writer in Plaistow, NH.

The speech police   Recently updated !

This entry was posted in Censorship and tagged censorship freedom on by

Several states have set up hotlines where people can report legal, constitutionally protected speech to the government. There is no indication — so far — that people are being prosecuted for exercising their First Amendment rights, but a call from the cops saying you’ve been named in a “hate incident” is intimidating enough.

In Oregon, someone contacted a hotline run by the Oregon Department of Justice and reported a neighbor for having an Israeli flag on his door. The hotline operator treated the bigot’s complaint as a report of a valid “bias incident” and the bigot as a “victim.” The operator said the caller could get rewarded with money from the state’s Crime Victim Compensation Program, even though there was no crime.
(more…)

Is an era of free speech ending?   Recently updated !

This entry was posted in Writing on by

In his first days back in office, Donald Trump is launching a campaign against freedom of speech. He has declared that MSNBC “shouldn’t have the right to broadcast” and called for the revocation of CBS’s broadcast license (even though there is no license to revoke at the network level). His extension on the TikTok ban sounded good at first, but he has suggested that its future presence in the USA may be contingent on its turning over 50% ownership to the United States (which seems to mean the government but isn’t fully clear). (Update: Recent reports indicate he’s shifted to wanting a consortium of US companies to acquire a majority stake, which at least wouldn’t be American socialism.)

We need to remember that current levels of freedom of speech in the United States haven’t always prevailed. It was only around 1960 to 1970 that the Supreme Court recognized their present broad status.
(more…)

Stan Laurel in Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged music silent movies on by

Stan Laurel was a well-known silent film actor before he teamed up with Oliver Hardy. I’ve uploaded his 1925 film, Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde, to YouTube with my accompaniment. The two-reel comedy plays off two earlier Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde films, both released in 1920. In this version, Laurel’s character turns into a prankster rather than a real menace. He escapes from the angry crowd by returning to Jekyll’s lab and drinking the reversing potion, but his supply is limited.
(more…)

Peak insanity day   Recently updated !

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged politics Trump on by

Today insanity peaks in the US as we come to coronation — I mean inauguration — day. It should take no more than an hour to get the necessary people together and administer the oath of office, but then people might think the president is a mere chief executive rather than a monarch. (Though these days monarchs usually have less power than the president of the US. So do the chief executives of most relatively free countries.) The imperial presidency is a distinctively American feature, having more in common with authoritarian states like Russia and China.
(more…)

What does the TikTok ban mean?

This entry was posted in Censorship and tagged censorship China Internet TikTok on by

Biden signed a bill banning access to an Internet service. The Supreme Court has upheld the ban, ruling in effect that claiming “national security” overrides the First Amendment. What happens next isn’t clear, but the sloppy news reports I’ve seen indicate that it could be worse than I thought. The law doesn’t do much directly to ByteDance, which is a foreign company. It’s really a ban on what businesses in the USA can do.

CNN’s report is typically sloppy and alarming in what it suggests.
(more…)

A strange experience on Bluesky

This entry was posted in Personal and tagged Bluesky Internet on by

I maintain the @filknews account on Bluesky, which is a manually maintained mirror of the one on Mastodon. It includes reports of upcoming conventions, online filksings, and other things of interest to filkers. This morning I got an email saying:

A Bluesky account you control has been assessed as a spammy, fake, or inauthentic account. Your account was reviewed by Bluesky content moderators and was found to be in violation of our Community Guidelines. As a result, your account has been taken down.
 
As a reminder, Bluesky requires that users not use Bluesky to do harm to others, including spamming, phishing or otherwise using technical means to disrupt the Bluesky experience for other users.

(more…)

Let’s bring back blogrolls

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged blogs Internet writing on by

Blogrolls used to be a standard feature of many, if not most, blogs. A blogroll is a simple thing: a list in a sidebar or footer of links to like-minded or interesting blogs. They’re a way for related blogs to be mutually supporting. I’ve added one to the sidebar of this site, and it will grow in the future.

Blogrolls were popular until Google modified its ranking algorithm to downgrade their links. Maybe they had a good reason; it’s easy to set up a bunch of dummy blogs linking to each other to boost their search rank. But even if they don’t improve a blog’s Google rank, the links are worth posting as an alternative to the search engines. Readers will find interesting blogs and add their RSS or Atom feeds to a feed reader, letting them keep up with information on their favorite topics or from their favorite people. They will in turn have links to other interesting blogs. It isn’t mandatory to reciprocate when others add you to their blogrolls, but it’s considered courteous. (Hint to anyone I’ve listed.)
(more…)

The Mark of Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks 2

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged music silent movies on by

My latest silent film upload with my accompaniment is the 1920 The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks. It’s one of the most libertarian films of the silent era, presenting a masked hero who fights against oppressive rulers in Spanish California. He wears a mask, appears when he is most needed, and has a secret identity as a rich but timid caballero. It’s obvious that he was part of the inspiration for Batman. The film was Fairbanks’ first role starring as an action hero.

As usual, the accompaniment is my improvised music, played on a Roland EX-50. For this movie, I wanted to sound a bit Mexican, so I did some research. It led to a wonderful discovery: the Spanish scale, which oddly enough is also the Jewish scale. The common source is the Sephardi Jews of the Middle Ages. I started noodling in that scale and, olé! It’s a tricky scale to use when creating harmonies; there’s no proper dominant chord. With some practice, I was able to weave between major, minor, and Spanish modes. Also, I tried to sound like a guitar in some scenes, as if I were a storyteller accompanying myself.
(more…)

The “Paradox of Tolerance” swindle 1

This entry was posted in Censorship Commentary and tagged censorship liberty philosophy on by

“Paradox of Tolerance” is a favorite slogan of censorship advocates. Most often they drop the words in a discussion without elaboration to give the impression they’ve said something profound. Some will mention its connection to Karl Popper. Few will cite his words, since they’re actually opposed to censorship.

The words in question are from a footnote in The Open Society and Its Enemies. The footnote is a bit unclear; Popper was adding a passing thought, not a polished commentary. Here are the words:
(more…)

Marvel abets Chinese censorship

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged censorship China Disney Marvel MCU on by

The ruler of the world’s second most powerful country feels so insecure that he has to ban mentions of Winnie the Pooh because some people think there’s a resemblance. It would be laughable except for the real-world consequences. I’m sure none of the panels at the Chengdu Worldcon discussed Milne’s character. You also aren’t allowed to discuss it in an online game called Marvel Rivals. The use of a long list of words and phrases is flagged as inappropriate in game chat. Among the phrases Marvel won’t let you use are “Winnie the Pooh,” “Pooh,” “Tiananmen,” “1989,” and “Free Taiwan.” Ironically, Disney, which owns Marvel, also owns the animated version of Winnie the Pooh. So Disney has acquiesced in censoring the mention of its own property.
(more…)