Pop culture reviews, archival concepts, libraries and librarians under stress, genealogical importance, stolen history, LGBTQ people, animation galore, worker rights, and more!

This second newsletter of 2023 will focus on a variety of topics, including archives, libraries, genealogy, history, LGBTQ topics, animation, and unions

This is using BLS data as of Aug. 2021. It is unfortunate that while librarians have multiple occupational entries, archivists are lumped into another category. It is a devaluation of archivists by the BLS, and it is shameful. While the data is somewhat dated now, the current breakdown of the archival field by race/ethnicity is similar.

Hello everyone and happy Black History Month! I’ve been relatively prolific since my last newsletter in January. I published my first article on Unredacted about declassified U.S. intelligence documents which describe Taliban history with the illicit narcotics trade. I have articles, in the process, about use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus used by U.S. forces in Iraq, the Nisour Square Massacre by Blackwater, and many other topics! Otherwise, I wrote about the faulty argument that the National Archives should remain neutral, my ancestor’s role in the slave trade, library tourism in Italy (in a guest post for Reel Librarians), fictional librarians who sleep at the information desk, and revisiting the librarians in Archie’s Weird Mysteries. I also published a post in Pop Culture Maniacs about LGBTQ representation in animation in 2022, along with reviews of Star Wars: The Bad Batch [a series], D4DJ [a series], The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder Season 2, My Dad the Bounty Hunter [a series], Velma [a series], and Sword Art Online Progressive: Scherzo of Deep Night [a film]. I’ve also been reprinting my newsletters on Internet Archive, which includes my last newsletter, and will include my newsletters from 2022, as well as reprinting, on WordPress, some articles I wrote last year, either about characters with disabilities, girls with guns anime, the indie animation boom, and many other topics.

With that, I’ll continue onward, beginning with archival topics. That starts with my article about how Lapis Lazuli in Steven Universe went from being trapped in a mirror (i.e. as an archival artifact) to a Gem warrior. Also archivy, but covering other issues, is my post about classified records, archives, and fictional depictions for Issues & Advocacy. Otherwise, there were articles on designing digital discovery and access systems for archival description, Latine collections at archives and special collections housed at public libraries, abbreviating military ranks in archival descriptions, story about sheriff in Louisiana who has been “destroying records of deputies’ alleged misconduct for years”, the Maryland AG Anthony Brown seeking to preserve “massive set of sexual assault evidence”, documents that reveal breakdowns and abuses in a “rogue system of global diplomacy” by volunteer diplomats known as honorary consuls, and what is known about U.S.-backed zero units in Afghanistan.

Otherwise, my colleagues, on Undredacted, had posts about a national FOIA portal, whether NARA should “ask living former Presidents and VPs to search Personal Holdings for Classified Info”, and other topics, while there were postings by my other colleagues about Jupiter Missiles and the Clinton administration policy on Russia (also see here). Furthermore, others, who are not my colleagues at NSA, many of which are subject-matter experts, focused on digital archiving by Kenyans, the benefits of digitization, a call for a special issue on new archival professionals and records management, the difference between digitization and digital preservation, and a collection of key internal government documents related to the former administration’s Zero Tolerance policy. Margot Note, an archival consultant wrote about use of archives, value of archival labor, archival arrangement principles, tips for archivists to advocate for themselves, and more. There were further posts about embracing local opportunities for getting involved in the archival field, a letter to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) on archival representation, a discussion about “archival history and colonial afterlives”, and conservation and the Koussevitzsky Collection at Library of Congress (LOC).

Other articles focused on the ramifications of Twitter’s “imminent collapse” as causing a vast array of “records of recent human history” to be lost, an article arguing that U.S. archives won’t be complete even with “returning Trump's stole records”, the first known map of the night sky uncovered on Medieval parchment, prominent civil rights attorney Al Gerhardstein donating papers to University of Cincinnati, the uncommon path of working at business archives, the performing arts COVID-19 response collection at LOC, the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (otherwise known as DAACS), and the case of the mysterious Mississauga Public Utility Commission records. There were further tweets about the disconnect between voices we want to collect and those actually being collected, and some having difficulty in envisioning records management work as “inherently emotional”.

That brings me to the topic of libraries. Oddly enough, the corporate-friendly Human Rights Campaign even condemned a plan to ban books from school and public libraries by the Montana House of Representatives. This is not the only time the HRC has commented on such bans, however, as a search on their website pulls up over 100 results. Otherwise, and more pertinent to this month, I’ve been published various posts this month about Black librarians, including one that examined 10 Black librarians and another examining two Black reel librarians. Apart from all of this were articles about the stress that librarianship finds itself under, getting rid of imposter syndrome and finding your worth, tackling trauma among frontline workers, including librarians, how librarians are crucial disaster recovery centers, the secret lives of books, and Amazon banning the download of Kindle Unlimited titles via USB, an obvious attempt to control their intellectual property even more.

There were further articles about the role of public libraries, librarians using TikTok to meet younger readers where they are, a claim that a “key” to reducing violence and crime is “bolstering public libraries” (this seems like something that would put too much pressure on these public institutions, when other public policies could solve/mitigate crime and violence instead), the problems with transformative agreements intended on making the scholarly record “open and available to anyone”, and the fight over St. Tammany library books escalating “to include law enforcement”. There were additional posts about auditing diversity in library collections, the White House record library in LOC, Congressional reactions to assassination of JFK in bound Congressional Record, detaching self-worth and productivity in library school, a radioactive waste primer, and community conversation within libraries.

There were additional articles about LOC acquiring a rare codex from Central Mexico, the federal government investigating when a Texas superintendent ordered school librarians to “remove LGBTQ books”, ready reference materials at Law Library of Congress, the dangerous books too dangerous to read, Girls Who Code founder speaking out against school book bans, free digital tools that could make library school easier, the difference between the Dewey Decimal System and Library of Congress Classification system. Apart from authors pushing back against publishers attacking libraries, it is a bit disturbing that Girls Who Code is openly partnering with Raytheon. The group was rightly criticized for working with a company that makes weapons of war, and has also received money from United Technologies, partnered with Walmart, Bank of America, MetLife, and News Corp, as noted last year. Their current website STILL lists Raytheon as a financial partner, along with Xandr, AT&T, Dell Technologies, Morgan Stanley, and many others. So much for CBS News calling them the “next generation” of coders.

With that, I pivot to an entirely different subject: genealogy. There are articles about the best online family tree programs, locating a parish origin in Ireland, Irish castles, writing a person’s father into history, 10 facts about formation of the Irish Free State, and the process of tracing one’s family history, but most interesting were articles about the National Personnel Record Center fire of 1973, success in finding a death record, understanding patterns found in death records, and Greg Melville telling America's history through “its cemeteries”. I also liked reading about funny census answers, researching Irish traveler ancestors, genealogy magazines offering great tops to aid research, and Nathan Dylan Goodwin having “a series based around Forensic genealogy [and] another series he delves in further and uses additional genealogy and forensic sources to help solve some police cases.”

Other than that, there were posts about the importance and value of Black genealogy, changing name of Family History Centers (run by the Mormons), ways to save money on genealogy, 36 bodies uncovered in unmarked colonial graves and DNA revealing their stories, how to preserve family history and discard what isn’t important, the largest ever family tree of humanity, the importance of remembering our abolitionist ancestors (if we have any), and various articles in Genealogy journal. The latter had articles about Chamorro Roots Genealogy Project which “evolved from a personal family project into a CHamoru peoples’ project with a database containing over 344,000 names and globally accessible over the internet”, and shadow history of “one Chinese family’s multigenerational transnational migrations”.

With that, I move onto the topic of history. ProPublica has a series about the biggest museums in the U.S. failing to “return Native American human remains”, refusing any sort of repatriation. There was also criticism of what the January 6 report is missing, the story of the Clotilda slave ship’s survivors to be told in a new museum in Mobile, Alabama, archaeological artifacts seized in Spain, how one word can change a perspective (noting how calling something a “riot” can be different from calling it a “massacre”) and the limits of existing LOC classifications, Nigeria demanding National Museums Scotland return “its looted treasures”, and the U.S. repatriating an artifact to the Palestinian Authority for the first time. Others talked about how skeleton of man who dreaded “becoming a museum exhibit will finally be removed from display” in British museum, the Mississippi Attorney General claiming they purged “taint” of racism from felon disenfranchisement law in 1968, the story of a person who “grew up in a Black Liberationist Commune”, and the unlikely story of the 1960s revival of “Delta Blues Giant Son House”.

Just as important were articles on contributions of Black Richmonders, the likely failure of DeSantis’ college coup, the Black widows' struggle for Civil War pensions, and 50 years at Cook County Hospital “prov[ing] that abortion is healthcare.” In addition, there were articles about unlearning the colonial gaze in Southeast Asian art, a person who became a scholar of Black girl fantasy books, unlearning the Whiteness in academic art history, and why myths about Plymouth dominate the American imagination. There were further articles of interest, either about the true story behind Plymouth Rock, linguistic landscapes using signs and symbols to translate cities, legal contradictions for the enslaved in 18th century Mexico, how a dam paved the way for the National Park Service, and Mercy Otis Warren as the “Secret Muse of the Bill of Rights” by anonymously publishing Observations on the new Constitution in 1788, arguing in an anti-federalist fashion that that “the new constitution left too much room for human error, corruption and greed…[and] urged states to reject or postpone hearings on ratification.”

Other than that, it was interesting to read about the role of Thomas Paine during the American revolutionary period, the common law origins of the Fourth Amendment, federalist treaties that reshaped the Western frontier, the boundary dispute over Alaska’s borders, the role/importance of Black archaeology, celebrating LGBTQ+ women’ s history, the role of the Soviet-influenced U.S. left in WWII, and land claims cases of Indigenous nations in New York from the 1950s to 1990s. Also of note were articles about Black women on the home front in WWII, and a new study showing that medieval women using birthing belts.

Changing the subject again, I’d like to talk about environmentalism and the climate. For one, there was an article in late December 2022 about how over half of the world’s so-called “energy transition minerals” sit on indigenous lands. Others noted how oil and spills have “always gone hand in hand”, women in the skilled solar workforce, a false choice between food and solar energy, description of a story about “tribalism, technology, ingenuity and…a planet-load of rubbish” entitled City of Rust, likely violent opposition to Lula’s goals for the Amazon, the role of climate change in Christmastime winter storms of 2022, and a laughable article claiming that Margaret Thatcher was a “climate leader”. Otherwise, there were some interesting illustrations about the ecologists of Houston, the reported “healing” of the ozone layer, there were articles about a water war brewing over the “dwindling Colorado River”, recent updates to U.K. and U.S. environmental law, a scientist who fled a deadly wildlife then returned to study how it happened, and wildfires in Colorado growing “more unpredictable” but officials ignored warnings of what was coming.

Just as valuable were articles on the fight of the salmon people, the Yakama Nation, which has a “fishing season on the Columbia River”; how the history of DDT indicates that government agencies are partially responsible for current skepticism about science, LaTosha Brown on “tilling the soil for political progress”; the false and dangerous myth of “the tragedy of the commons”, and the EPA investigating Mississippi for civil rights violations over the Jackson water crisis. Others asked whether carbon offsets are doing anything at all, noted how Black Southern food isn’t “killing us”, how natural disasters create “voting crises”, and a specific butterfly as the first U.S. insect “wiped out by humans”.

I’m changing the subject again, this time to LGBTQ+ people and related topics. That starts with articles about sapphic historical fiction, queer trans women rappers, the first Pakistani lesbian movie (Bheetar), first edition of Ann Bannon’s I Am a Woman (a LGBTQ novel from 1959), a 1877 play concerning male crossdressing (The Coming Woman), and a 1958 novel by Ann Aldrich entitled We, Too, Must Love (reportedly written “for young lesbians”). Otherwise, some talked about what polyamorous means, the painful side of such relationships, a non-binary gender journey, trans bodies after Roe v. Wade, challenges of telling femme Black queer stories, Patti Smith and coolness in “lesbian bars of the 80s”, building the trans gaze, queer masculinity, the ghostly nature of queer reading, queer Islam identity, the value of queer Korean representation, and the investment model in asexual relationships.

Otherwise, there were articles about the importance of asexuality to author Alice Oseman (who wrote Heartstopper), seeing asexual themes in Casablanca, asexuality and personal style, what asexual representation can fix, Lizzo noting she doesn’t believe in monogamy, exploring outdated modern queer slang, celebrating queerness, the difference between bisexual and pansexual, defining solo polyamory, the best lesbian and queer TV shows on Netflix, trans refugees and moral panics, and eight new queer Indigenous books. There were further articles about a variety of subjects, including Tokyo set to recognize same-sex partnerships (of all places, considering same-sex marriage is still not recognized across Japan), a queer kiss being cut from Wakanda Forever (also see here), the gap between fantasy and reality, the history and cultural significance of The Last Cheerleader in film and television (one of my favorite parts of the film, because it is so absurd, is when the protagonist’s parents and friends think she is a lesbian because she is a vegetarian), 100 best lesbian/queer/bisexual movies, and Willow seemingly providing a “lesbian Disney princess”.

Other than all of this, there were articles on celebration of queer love and pride in Harlem, queer community in Connecticut, books on queer autistic experiences, LGBTQ+ films on Netflix with lesbian, bisexual, and trans characters, recent anti-trans legislation, and disabled queer people left behind as queer spaces return to “normal”. One of the unsurprising pieces of news was the New York Times doubling down on its defense of transphobic articles, after publishing a piece defending the awful J.K. Rowling, and after letters here and here calling for changes. More likely than not, this paper of record will not change. Personally, until there are substantive changes in this letter which address this issue, I won’t patronage the New York Times and no links to their articles will be included in this newsletter.

Moving on, I’ll be talking about anime, then Western animation. In the world of anime, there were posts about how Pokemon’s gender variance caught the “hearts of a generation”, anime’s glass ceiling keeping women out of the director’s chair, answering whether cuts at HBO Max and Netflix will affect the anime industry, Spy x Family among those series nominated for a Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, and the powerfulness of the recent episode The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady aka MagicRevo, a yuri anime series currently airing (soon to come are other yuri series). Others noted the best lesbian anime series to watch in 2023 (other than from MagicRevo, there’s are some of note such as Revolutionary Girl Utena, Bloom Into You, and Sweet Blue Flowers), a review noting possible yuri themes in Black Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall, mentions of the supposed “best anime” of 2023 (the only one I would watch is Spy x Family Season 2), the manga Dear Brother being officially out of print, and an overview of exoticizing of nebulously “Western” culture in anime.

I liked reading about Inu-Oh and the “magic of gender expression”, the insecurity in life validated by Bayonetta 3, the best anime in 2022 (I have seen only a few like Bocchi the Rock!, Spy x Family, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War -Ultra Romantic-, The Orbital Children, Healer Girl, Do It Yourself!!, Lycoris Recoil, Tokyo Mew Mew New, Komi Can’t Communicate season 2, but not ones like Sasaki and Miyano), most anticipated anime of Winter 2023 (the only one I agree with here is MagicRevo), as well as articles about scary anime tsundere characters, little-known coming of age anime, and Lycoris Recoil fans being drawn to Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. Also of interest is the seeming second season of Lycoris Recoil which was just announced, the series Hoshikuzu Telepath getting a TV anime adaptation, Love Live Superstar getting a third season, and additional posts about anime set by the sea, embracing diversity, or with no plot advancement or resolution.

Other than all of that, Yuricon began to be held online at the beginning of this year, Yuri is My Job! got more promos before its premiere on April 6, while there were posts on gender defiant anime characters, Korean anime characters, loud anime characters, the best josei anime which embraced cliches, the best dancing anime of all time, a reported new anime focused on Rose of Versailles, the beautiful masculinity of Mob Psycho 100, and the uphill battle of disability representation in anime and manga, as noted in a review of one anime series. There were other articles about trans characters in anime (noting crossdressing protagonist in Ouran High School Host Club and trans stories in Hourou Musuko/Wandering Son), without a mention of the trans character in the Maria Watches Over Us OVA named Alice, Banana Fish and real world racial politics of 1980s America, anime recommendations of fall 2022 (the only ones here I’ve watched are Bocchi the Rock!, Do It Yourself!!, and My Master Has No Tail), HIDIVE adding Kiniro films to their streaming service, Sailor Moon Cosmos anime film revealing theme song, another magical girl series getting an anime, and a Japanese streaming service shutting down on March 31.

With that, I’d like to talk about some news in the realm of Western animation. First and foremost, it has been tentatively announced that Hailey’s On It! will be airing on June 9, 2023, but not fully confirmed. Otherwise, there were tweets about how some indie projects don’t pay their artists (and saying it sets a bad standard), thread about how a journey as an artist and storyteller will be different and that it is okay, shows like Legend of Korra (of those listed, I’ve only watched Adventure Time, Over the Garden Wall, Steven Universe, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, RWBY [currently airing, with the opening to the recent season shown above], The Dragon Prince, and Avatar: The Last Airbender), a review of My Dad the Bounty Hunter, and Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos snidely defending the streaming service cancelling shows, even those which are popular, claiming falsely that they never cancel a successful show as Inside Job and Dead End: Paranormal Park would fall into the category of a successful show. It was interesting to see an interview with Iyanu: Child of Wonder producers Saxton Moore and David Steward II, and threads noting upcoming series of note, like the currently airing Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Iyanu, and Hailey’s On It, and others such as Kiff, Primos, Cookies and Milk, Invincible Fight Girl, Battu, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, and BFFS!, as well as various indie series in development, and Black animated series like Iwaju, Master, Kizazi Moto Generation Fire, and Obi to name a few.

Just as important is the continued development of the Lackadaisy film, mental health and trauma themes in Undone, the upcoming release of Nimona film this summer, the unfortunate cancelling of the rad series Pantheon, praise of Star Trek: Lower Decks, an upcoming mature animation by Canelo Álvarez, how Princess Bubblegum is the real villain in Adventure Time, Netflix series better on a rewatch (mentions Bee and Puppycat and Inside Job), and a review of Wendell and Wild. I also liked reading the list said to list the “40 best” queer animated shows, as I’ve watched a good chunk of them, the dark future ahead for animators, untold truth of Cartoon Network, a review of the comic Legend of Korra: Patterns in Time, and questions about whether the Hulu revival of Futurama will incorporate more love interests for Bender.

All of this brings me to the topic of unions and worker rights. For one, Crunchyroll snubbing a meeting with a union rep, while Bandai Namco sued a former workers and accused them of embezzlement, Amazon laid off Comixology staff, Starbucks workers are fighting against union busting, dancers pushing for better contracts were fired in New Zealand, and negotiations between trade unions representing Disney workers and the conglomerate have stalled. Meanwhile, French unions are protesting changes to the country’s pension policies, while those in Japan are calling for higher wages, Tunisian unions are protesting over economic woes, local unions in Buffalo New York are “worried about Bills stadium work going to out-of-town contractors, workers”, and unions in Europe are slamming plans for minimum service levels during strikes. Of course, this isn’t all that is going on out there, but these are some of the main stories I found when searching for this subject.

There are some articles which don’t fit nicely into any other part of this newsletter. Some wrote about how the game Tomb Raider Reloaded has been “ruined by ads and microtransactions” and how the criminal system in the U.S. is basically a plea bargaining system as around 94% “of felony convictions at the state level and about 97 percent at the federal level are the result of plea bargains”, with prosecutors among the “most powerful players in the criminal justice system…often rely[ing] on police and sheriffs as key witnesses”. The latter I mentioned in my review of Velma, saying that the plot only hints at the above link, which is a report assembled by the Marshall Project in November 2020. Other than all that, there were posts on topics such as toxic ageism, black and white morality in Wednesday, common misconceptions about Japan and Japanese people, the constitutional case for “demolishing the debt ceiling”, the hidden form of domestic violence, the influence of Instagram on pop culture, experiences Black students with disabilities have in schools, a seeming “political violence” problem in the U.S., Biden's Taiwan rhetoric risking “antagonizing China for no gain”, and period poverty as a public health crisis often ignored.

There were further articles on the limitations of superheroes in their ability to change the world, a report on development of laws on abortion and related topics from 1945 onward in eleven countries, answering questions about Canada and the monarchy, what it means to be an artist, shattering misperceptions of Blacks and clinical trials, how the pandemic is not over, the majority of Americans lacking a college degree and why so many employers require one, the reality of digital redlining, Google Alphabet ads funding disinformation, the problematic spying of bosses on so-called “quiet quitters”, and why there is more to hummingbirds than what meets the eye.

Last but not least are illustrations in The Nib. Some focused on the continual operation of GITMO, the legacy of Shirley Chisholm, historical fiction, the backbone of the food industry, the myth of Asian automation, life before smartphones, the facts of vaccines, to name a few of note. More recent illustrations from Blobby and Friends include focus on being kind to your children, staying safe, sexism in jobs and who they are supposedly “best” for, problem with child abuse (i.e. spanking children), absurd cost of therapy, and anime / what is considered “real” art.

That’s all for this newsletter. Until next time! Hopefully, sometime in early March, if all goes well.

- Burkely