Nearly too long for email: My postings on libraries, archives, and pop culture; good, positive, and depressing news; LGBTQ+ people under attack, attempted control of public information, and beyond
Good afternoon. This newsletter will focus on my recent blog postings, plus recent news of the past month, since my last newsletter, about IMLS, information distortion, mass deportation, and much more
Hello everyone! I started putting this newsletter together earlier this month and I finished it today. Due to the amount of time which goes into putting together each newsletter, I decided that newsletters which focus on current issues will only be released monthly, rather than biweekly, which would give me enough time to write them and gather information. With that, let me get started on this newsletter, which focuses on current events, with content about archives, libraries, history, and related topics added in where appropriate. Although the civil unrest in L.A. and crackdown on those protesting there is a major news topic right now, it will covered in the next newsletter about current events.
I’ll begin by highlighting some posts which I’ve published on my own blogs in the last few months. This begins with posts on Pop Culture Library Review. Apart from posts about recently added titles for February, March, April, or May either featuring librarian characters or library scenes, like those in Sweet Blue Flowers (a wonderful series), Dear Brother (a classic anime I continue to recommend), Common Side Effects, K-On!, Marimite / Maria Watches Over Us, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty, The Kiss Bet (a comic), and Paradise I also wrote about:
the role of the library in Tearmoon Empire
examined three official fanbooks for Ascendance of a Bookworm (centers on a woman who was a college librarian in her former life and is reincarnated as a sickly girl named Myne who wants to promote literacy, knowledge, and change society)
talked about the mysterious librarian named Beatrice in Re:Zero
examined the power of fictional school libraries as related to learning, romance, and/or knowledge within various series (like Super Cub, Metallic Rouge, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated)
reassessed Doctor Oldham, the 56-year-old librarian-of-sorts in Gargantia (I’ve written about this librarian for a while)
talked about the sisters of the Kokoro Library and the vitality of rural libraries
I also, recently, published a post abut mystery, murder, intrigue, and Trent the librarian in the sci-fi thriller series Paradise and the importance of representation, connecting it to what’s going on now (and the stress librarians are under, including the firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and Shira Perlmutter), depictions in Black to the Future (sort of), The Truman Show, Justice League, Happy Tree Friends, and the Dewey Decimal System itself, among other insights.
On my other blog, Wading Through the Cultural Stacks, which examines fictional depictions of archives and archivists, and related issues, I shared Susan Tucker’s interview with me a while back, the mix of themes in the Doctor Aphra comics, whether it comes to memory erasure, Imperial propaganda, moral ambiguity, murder, and a lesbian disaster character (Aphra herself), and examining the 92-page Kimari’s Journal scrapbook and the emotionally raw impact of unread emails from a “frozen” laptop in one of my favorite animated series, A Place Further Than the Universe. Apart from that, there were postings on the aforementioned WordPress blog about the following:
Brainiac, manufactured memories, mind control, and Kryptonite in My Adventures with Superman (coming back for a new season maybe this year)
record deletion and Count Dooku's manipulation of lackluster archival security in Tales of the Jedi (a very interesting study which hasn't gotten enough attention, considering the archival ramifications)
revolution, death, records, cover-ups, conspiracies, and beyond in Andor (it came out just in time for the second/final season of Andor)
Yuu, Touko, reference rooms, digitization, and keeping secrets in the Bloom Into You manga (by Nio Nakatani)
That brings me to a completely different topic: resistance and positive news since my last newsletter on this subject on May 8th. There’s certainly some positive news. For one, the IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) gained a reprieve from the efforts to dismantle this key agency, in terms of a temporary restraining order, although Keith E. Sonderling is still technically the head of the agency for the time being and the proposed budget going through Congress would defund the agency. Otherwise, there’s:
Goldman Sachs shareholders voting overwhelmingly to "reject two anti-DEI proposals" (which shows that not all of Corporate America is on the train against initiatives which promote inclusion, diversity, and equity)
Dyke March New York City banning Zionists despite some pushback (although there's disagreement about this decision)
Ohio parents pushing back against attacks on trans youth
Missouri residents fighting against anti-trans legislation
a bill in Alabama to politicize the archives board failing
various groups coming together to condemn the unjust firing of Library of Congress Carla Hayden and urging congressional intervention
possible split between the orange one and the Muskrat over the regime's signature bill, even causing Tesla stock to slump again
Harvard agreeing to transfer early photos of enslaved people to the International African American Museum in South Carolina
Te Awe Library in New Zealand replacing the Dewey Decimal System (good!) "with a system rooted in Māori tradition," with "sections of knowledge, activity, and thought" based on the Te Ao Māori classification system, which reflects the Māori gods
study ordered by Utah Republicans finding, unsurprisingly, that "gender-affirming care benefits trans youth"
almost all of the "nearly 400 books that the U.S. Naval Academy removed from its library" (i.e. a book ban/book purge) are back on the shelves (prior to this the Pentagon ordered the military to review all library books for "DEI issues, conduct ‘merit-based’ admissions to service academies")
Connecticut House approving a "bill placing limits on library e-book contracts"
There have been many threats to the populace by the regime, especially when it comes to control of information, such as the firing of the Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter by the orange one (and she has sued to keep her job) as part of an effort to take over the Library of Congress, the State Department wanting to review social media accounts of all applicants for U.S. visas (so they can find something to justify deporting them, like anyone who has pro-Palestinian views or is even slightly critical of Israel), reported mass collection of private information of Americans in coordination with Palantir (and justified by claims they are only wanting to "eliminate information silos and streamline data collection" across U.S. government agencies) and out-of-control RFK Jr. declaring that he may ban government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals undoubtedly in an effort to control their findings, all while he limited who can get the new COVID-19 vaccine and stopped funding the bird flu vaccine.
There was recently a request by the regime to "double a homeland security fund to pay off confidential informants" to penetrate any organization they target, undoubtedly in conjunction with social media "monitoring" and use of A.I. to "predict and prevent" crimes (putting everyone in the crosshairs of these zealots) all while almost completely decimating so-called U.S. "soft-power" and emphasizing hard power and/or military threats with use of force, instead. The latter is illegal under international law, with Article II of the U.N. Charter saying all member states "shall refrain…from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state" and goes against the second article, at the very least, of the Kellogg-Briand Pact which states that "settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature…shall never be sought except by pacific means."
At the same time, there have been other efforts to control public perceptions:
fake citations in an official government report (likely created with A.I. programs, i.e. A.I. hallucinations created out of stolen data)
claims especially by the regime and many others that the grisly murders in Colorado were motivated by someone (Elias Rodriguez) who was anti-Jewish while analysis of what he said in chatlogs hints that he only "hated Israel and its policies, [but] he never focused on or indeed said much of anything about Jewish people," while hating many other groups
attacking DEI policies as "racist" and "woke" when dismantling them is actually an effort to benefit White men (this link implies this)
making a lot of noise while the administration is leaving behind less "documentation…than any previous US president" as AP reports
Putting aside the man who literally burned books about Jewish history, Black history, and LGBTQ+ topics in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the impact of tariffs on the Ottawa Public Library, there's the troubling dismissal of the entire U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation. This was condemned by many professional organizations, like the Society of American Archivists (and undoubtedly others), calling this alarming, concerning, illegal, and abrupt. My former employer, the National Security Archive, described it on Bluesky as “troubling.” It is much more than that. This is an effort to control information. With the entire committee vacant, this makes it almost impossible to review "records, advise...make...recommendations to the Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, concerning the Foreign Relations of the United States documentary series…[or] monitor the overall compilation and editorial process of the series and advise…on all aspects of the preparation and declassification of the series."
Additionally, the regime is moving forward with mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, with the U.S. Supreme Court allowing "roughly 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela" to be at-risk of deportation, with their legal status revoked, while allowing U.S. government officials to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for "some 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants living and working in the US." Undoubtedly this will lead to more terror for immigrants and ensnare Americans writ-large, as the right to a fair hearing (due process under law) is under threat, the GEO Group is excited about mass deportation, and book bans continue, like in South Carolina, the latter which is largely due to by one parent named Elizabeth "Ivie" Szalai.
All the while, attacks on LGBTQ+ people, within the U.S., continue, which should be considered human rights abuses as Spencer Macnaughton of Uncloseted Media posited. Such attacks include the following:
a lesbian teen attacked at a McDonald's in Illinois
a judge appointed by the orange one striking down "EEOC protections for trans workers"
the Supreme Court ruling in a 6-3 decision that threatening trans people (putting their health and safety at risk) online is okay under the First Amendment in a victory for transphobes like Laurel Libby who once basically defended neo-Nazis (she was censured by the Maine legislature and her speaking or voting rights in the Maine state house were barred until she apologized but she refused to even do that minor action, of course)
U.S. Army ordering transgender soldiers' records to be changed to their "birth sex" which in essence erases them as people
a rash of Pride flag vandalism across Ohio which some say "points to shifting trend in anti-LGBTQ+ violence"
This makes it no surprise that more transgender Americans are arming themselves, with the queer gun rights group, Pink Pistols saying "over 20 local chapters have been created or reactivated" since November of last year.
Apart from all of this, there are reports that increasing military spending by NATO countries (as the orange one and his acolytes want) would increase emissions, and that the richest ten percent of people across the Earth are responsible for two-thirds of global warning since 1990! That includes people like the Muskrat.
To close out this newsletter, I'd like to highlight some good/more positive news apart from what I’ve noted in the above text:
Mel 'n Nem Farms is "tackling food insecurity among marginalized families by giving them hands-on access to agriculture and a chance to reconnect with the land" in Bowie, Maryland
a posting which reviewed seven findings from an analysis of LGBTQ+ bars in the U.S., something which was sorely needed (hopefully they follow up with this in future reports)
efforts to recover deleted TSA data (specifically complaints from travelers) are ongoing, with groups like the Data Liberation Project
Trans Journalists Association and MuckRock partnering to document the impact of anti-trans federal action, with the filing of over 190 freedom of information requests to gather information from states and the federal government, with state agencies more responsive than the latter
That’s all for this newsletter. This is a little shorter only because I tried to limit the number of links to 75 rather than 100. It was hard, but I stayed right within the limits here, and I’m glad I did so, so this newsletter wasn’t too long. See you all next time, with the next newsletter about animation and pop culture.
- Burkely