The Crazy Years

SCANALYZER The Happening World
1869

What ho! P. G. Wodehouse is latest to fall victim to the “sensitivity readers”.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/jeeves-and-wooster-stories-censored-to-avoid-offending-modern-readers/ar-AA19TIam

Original passages in the comic novels have been purged or reworked for new editions issued by Penguin Random House.

Trigger warnings have also been added to revised editions telling would-be Wodehouse readers that his themes and characters may be “outdated”.

One warning states that the writer’s prose has been altered because it was judged to be “unacceptable” by Penguin, a publishing house which enlists the services of sensitivity readers.

The disclaimer printed on the opening pages of the 2023 reissue of Thank you, Jeeves states: “Please be aware that this book was published in the 1930s and contains language, themes and characterisations which you may find outdated.

“In the present edition we have sought to edit, minimally, words that we regard as unacceptable to present-day readers.”

The warning adds that the changes “do not affect the story” of the novel, which is the first full-length work to feature the famed comic creations of idle gentleman Bertie Wooster and his resourceful valet Reginald Jeeves, a pair portrayed by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry in a 1990s ITV adaptation.

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It is understood that trustees of the writer’s literary estate control the bulk of the copyrights for Wodehouse, who lived from 1881 to 1975, and became noted as a prolific author of more than 90 books, a body of work which is often hailed as the funniest in the English language.

The story does not indicate whether the copyright holder approved of the changes or if their contract with the publisher allows the publisher to make them without approval. Some of the earlier examples of woke Bowdlerisation were approved by the estates of their authors. It’s going to be important for authors who will their copyrights to an estate, foundation, or trust include an unbreakable covenant that requires any publication of their work to be in its original form, perhaps with a poison pill providing that violation causes the work to be immediately placed in the public domain.

I wonder how many people are going to find themselves re-reading Wodehouse in these new editions and remarking, “Gee, they don’t seem as funny as when I first read them years ago.”

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1870

Presumably the price of earlier unexpurgated editions will go up in the used book market, since it is quite likely that the kind of person who wants to read Wodehouse wants to read real Wodehouse rather than a contemporary knock-off. The impact on book prices would be an interesting project for an economics student to investigate.

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1871

A chunk of them are out of copyright, at least in the US. Alas, it is never that simple when the government giraffes [1] stick their necks in:

[1] Doing Freedom Fiction: Lipidleggin'

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1872

Which could be a way to avoid royalties, just change a few words without approval

Because today’s readers can only handle predigested woke pablum?

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1873

This would be a provision in the contract between the executor of the literary estate and a publisher to whom the copyright was assigned. If the publisher modified the work without permission of the estate (or even better, modified it at all), rights would immediately revert to the estate which would be free to find another publisher. What I was suggesting was that the author also could specify that if the estate modified the work, it would be contributed to the public domain. This would prevent what happened, for example, to the Dr Seuss books when the Geisel estate authorised the publisher to remove some works from the market and modify others.

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1874

sciam_2023-04-16
(Click on image to add your vote to the poll.)

Is the wisdom of the crowd correct in this case? Click below to reveal spoiler.

Yes. On 2023-04-07, “Scientific” American published an opinion piece by one Eden McLean titled “Fascism’s History Offers Lessons about Today’s Attacks on Education” containing the quote and going on to say “Similarly, DeSantis’s calls to censor content under the pretense of returning lessons to ‘the facts’ ignore the findings of the people qualified to articulate those “facts” unless they support the desired narrative.”

But then, I suppose that since Scientific “American” has been German-owned since 1986, they speak with some authority on the subject of fascism.

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1875
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1876

The Brecon Beacons are to be renamed over concerns that the word “beacon” is out of step with the fight against climate change.

The national park will now be officially referred to as the “Bannau Brycheiniog” National Park, granting the landscape a Welsh name, and steering clear of any associations with historical signal fires.

Officials said the symbol of a flaming beacon emitting carbon “does not fit with the ethos” of the national park as an eco-friendly organisation.

However, on Sunday night, a senior Conservative source attacked the decision as “pure virtue signalling” that would “do nothing to actually help the environment”.

The park aims to reach net zero in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. Catherine Mealing-Jones, the chief executive of Brecon Beacons National Park, said: “We’re an environmental organisation. We’re trying to cut carbon and push to net zero. So, having a carbon burning beacon just isn’t a good look.”

There is no definitive historical evidence of warning beacons ever being lit on the peaks.

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1877

In nearby Fayetteville, the district’s public schools embarked on a five-year “equity plan” funded and designed by Walmart-funded groups, including a DEI “research institute” at the University of Arkansas. School leaders attended trainings on the “six tenets of critical race theory,” learned that “systemic inequality = trauma,” were drilled on the harmful effects of “microaggressions,” and sat through PowerPoints on “intersectionality.”

The district also implemented a “restorative justice” program—designed to combat the allegedly “disproportionate” discipline of black students—that discouraged teachers from breaking up fights and instructed them to sit on the floor with students to “dispel any sense of hierarchy.”

This report is based on thousands of pages of documents obtained through public records requests submitted by families in Bentonville and Fayetteville. It reveals how the world’s largest retailer is transforming schools in its hometown through grants, nonprofits, and corporate outreach, laundering its ideology as a kind of noblesse oblige.

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1878

Perhaps these families could perform a “specs-change” operation on the local off-the-Wall Mart. They have the economic power to change it from a for-profit to an not-intentional non-profit. Some such undertaking would be highly salutary for all concerned.
ADDENDUM: They might also do a daily round of SF/LA -style shopping. Just walk out with basket fulls of unpaid merchandise without paying. Good for the goose…

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1879
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1880

Ah yes, “California youth”. Some of them (i.e. the ones not covering their faces with ski masks) look suspiciously like adults to me…

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1881

Obviously ARCO needs to add additional staff to its stores to meet the demand.

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1882

The students — 11-year-olds at an expensive private school in the U.K. managed by the prestigious Girls’ Day School Trust — were reportedly displeased after the teacher addressed them with a “good afternoon, girls,” at the beginning of a lesson.

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1883

And herein we see the crazies really ARE running the sanitarium.

?Just when can we expect to see school vouchers AND a private school that teaches real gender ID, the basics of civics, the falseness of many current “curriculum subjects” and general good behavior. Wish I was a bazillionaire so I could fund such schools.

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1884

So much of what passes for “current events” (or should I say “current year events”) does seem the product of an alien intelligence that can’t quite construct a narrative that any remotely rational being would consider credible. It’s sort of like “the simulation” may be trying to maximize “the entertainment value” but doesn’t quite get what the word “entertainment” really means.

Which gives me a premise for a Kilgore Trout novel:

The author of The Simulation is GPT4.

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1885
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1886

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/apr/18/joe-biden-hike-payments-good-credit-homebuyers-sub/

The fee changes will go into effect May 1 as part of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s push for affordable housing, and they will affect mortgages originating at private banks across the country. The federally backed home mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will enact the loan-level price adjustments, or LLPAs.

Mortgage industry specialists say homebuyers with credit scores of 680 or higher will pay, for example, about $40 per month more on a home loan of $400,000. Homebuyers who make down payments of 15% to 20% will get socked with the largest fees.

The new fees will apply only to Americans buying houses or refinancing after May 1.

Brilliant—they’ve invented a way to directly tax low time preference. Tax something, and you get less of it. Subsidise it, and you get more.

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1887

The offending text can be found buried in an Appendix of the proposed new registry agreement. Using the “redline” version of the proposed agreement (which is useful for quickly seeing what has changed compared with the current agreement), the critical changes can be found in Section 2.7 of Appendix 8, on pages 147-148. (the blue text represents new language) Below is a screenshot of that section:

icann_2023-04-20

Note the passage (emphasis added):

(5) to ensure compliance with applicable law, government rules or regulations, or pursuant to any legal order or subpoena of any government, administrative or governmental authority, or court of competent jurisdiction

Read the whole thing.

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1888

Finally—video chat for birds!

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