Killing the Crocodile

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." - Ray Bradbury

Personally, I haven't liked Dr. Seuss since I discovered, while doing research into education, that his books were designed to be used as part of the look-say method of teaching reading.  Don't get me started on that.  In as much as I don't like this books, I don't believe any of them should be cancelled.  Especially over something as stupid as social justice.  

In fact, I spent many a happy hour as a child reading his books.  I already knew how to read, so no worries there.  They were just silly and fun.  And who doesn't love the Grinch?  It's an American icon.

Oh, wait, they didn't cancel that one.  Only a few of his books were cancelled.  So what's the big deal, right?  

Censorship.  

Cancelling books is today's method of burning them.  It's so much tidier.  None of that smoke and ash, don't ya know.  Burn them or cancel them, they're gone just the same.  Those six books of his will no longer be printed and will disappear digitally.  

Can you smell the smoke?

There are actually people celebrating this.  Writer people celebrating this.  Writers people who, in my opinion, should be the last people on Earth to celebrate censorship of any kind.  They can't be thinking that opening the door to this censorship might mean censorship for them down the road.  They're thinking... if there's thinking there at all... Oh, no, not me.  They'll never come for me.

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." - Winston Churchill

First or last on the menu, the crocodile comes for us all.  Unless he's stopped.  And don't fool yourself.  You don't stop this crocodile by throwing your fellow writers between you and him.  He won't be satiated by eating them.  He'll just keep coming and coming.  

They're trying to cancel To Kill a Mockingbird, too.  And Mark Twain's works.  No calls for burning. That would be bad.  Just calls for cancelling them.  Nothing to see here.  The smoke is colorless and odorless, and it's not even hot, but it kills just the same.  

Mein Kampf is still printed.  It was written by one of the worst people, if not the worst person in history.  Nobody's calling for that to be cancelled.  Hell, I could name a dozen books I wish would never have come into existence.  But you won't see me trying to get those out of libraries, etc.  Because it's not right.  Keep that shit around, if only to make sure you never forget that it exists.  

Every writer should be up in arms over this.  If you value what you do, kill the crocodile - don't help it.  How do you kill it?  Speak up.  Say 'no more of this', not on my watch.  Shine a light on its comings and goings so the world can kill it, too.  Don't allow censorship, not even a little bit - not even when it's something that you wouldn't read or allow your children to read.  Free speech includes the speech we don't like, too.  It's the only way that works.

Because in the end, it comes down to who will decide what stays and what gets cancelled.  And I guarantee it won't be me.  And it won't be you.  In the end, we'll all be screwed.

The Chaos Diaries Revisited

Things have gotten weird enough again that I figured maybe it was time to revisit The Chaos Diaries.  This time the chaos isn't just about the virus.

I finally got the paycheck my payjob mailed to me on 12/31 yesterday.  While I was at the bank, my BIPF (best in-person friend) told me they're getting inundated with phone calls from people missing the bank statements that were mailed last month.  In happier news, my nephew-in-law who's deployed in the Navy finally got his Christmas box last week.

Recently, I got an email from my credit card company saying that bills might be late this month due to the mail.  Nothing about whether card holders will be exempt from late fees due to not receiving their bills.  Derp.  I have no excuses.  I get my bill in the mail AND in my email.  And I pay it online.  For those people without that luxury, I hope they don't get screwed.

From what I hear, some country in Europe - Denmark, maybe - is moving ahead with 'virus passports'.  As in if you don't have a paper saying you were vaccinated, you won't be allowed to move around, go to stores, etc.  That's crazypants.  

I saw something on The Babylon Bee about Gavin Newsom promising to stop the lockdowns as soon as they find a cure for death.  If you're not familiar with The Bee, it's satire.  Unfortunately, sometimes the satire hits too close to the truth.

What isn't satire... An executive at PBS is on video saying all conservatives should be rounded up and their children put in re-education camps.  PBS shouldn't worry about the kids.  Most children have spent a large portion of their lives in re-education camps called public school.  And the ones that got missed by public school are now in colleges getting a more intense re-education.

As for rounding up us adults, bring it, asshole.  I know enough about the Holocaust to know I will never let myself be 'rounded up' for anything.

My go-to convenience store has gone masked-only.  I didn't notice the signs until I was on my way out of the store the other day.  Yesterday, as a gesture of cooperation (and because I didn't want to take any shit about it), I wore a mask inside.  As soon as I got out the door, I whipped that sucker off.  A man in a red pickup said something to me.  I didn't hear what he said but I waved and told him to have a nice day.  My next stop was the feed store.  As I was walking up to the doors, I heard someone say 'are you following me?'  It was the dude from the red pickup. He was smiling and joking, so it was all good.  He wasn't wearing a mask and neither was I.  (Because the feed store doesn't require one.)  Later, I was chatting with my second BIPF at the register and he stepped up to thank me for not going all mask-nazi on him.  :shrug:  It's a strange world we live in.

On reflection, he may have been flirting with me.  Again, strange world.

In an effort to stop patronizing companies that hate me, I moved my browser over to Brave.  I can't complain.  The only mildly irritating thing is it keeps trying to spellcheck my email and URLs when I plug them into boxes.  The squiggly red line is driving me nuts.  Unfortunately, I can't move out of Facebook entirely, because that's where I sell books and also where a lot of people I know are, but I am spending more time at MeWe.  As people shift over, it should become a better place to be.  I also can't ditch Google entirely because that's where this blog is located and my emails are through them.  But I'm using DuckDuckGo now as a search engine.  We do what we can.  Vote with your dollars and if it's free, vote with your patronage.  

I heard there are writers out there celebrating the censorship of conservatives.  (I don't know this from personal experience as I have squeegeed off those types from my social sphere.)  Writers should be the last people to celebrate any kind of censorship.  They come for me and you celebrate, but they'll be coming for you next.  Unless you're the kind of person who only writes what they tell you to write.  Then you're not a writer, you're a puppet.  

How are you doing in the chaos this time around?