Pop culture, reviews, despicable nominees, fighting back, libraries and archives under siege, NARA's use of A.I., and beyond
This newsletter will examine the incoming administration's agenda, George Washington as a slaveowning tyrant, history, genealogy, climate change, LGBTQ+ people, animation, anime, Syria, and much more
Hello everyone. I’m going to begin my newsletter by noting some new blogposts I’ve published since my last newsletter went out on November 10th. This includes a post about the story of three Packard women and their cruel husbands on Packed with Packards, and various posts on Pop Culture Library Review. The latter included the intersection of romance, webcomics, and power of libraries; the connection of research, knowledge, and zoologists in fictional libraries; and a witch, a cat/vampire, and a magical library in the webcomic Morgana and Oz. Earlier this month I also published articles about: shyness, soulmates, romance, and speaking through library books in The 100 Girlfriends; and holograms, electronic records, and warfare in Star Wars Resistance, to give two examples, along with my post on recently added titles (with libraries and librarians) for November. The latter included multiple episodes of Arte (one of my favorite series as it focuses on a young girl in Renaissance-era Italy who tries to become a painter), Spice and Wolf, and Wicked (there’s a whole library dance/song scene!). There was also an article examining library scenes in The Dragon Prince, which will soon be airing its final season, along with a post about holographic maps, clones, and archivy themes in Star Wars: Clone Wars.
On Wading Through the Cultural Stacks, there were posts on multiple topics. This included a discussion of classification, secrets, and centrality of records in Star Trek: Lower Decks, and bullet cases, and a SD card, in El Cazador de la Bruja. I made comparisons to archivy themes in other animated series like Ace Attorney [anime], Star Wars: The Bad Batch [Western animation], Star Wars Resistance [Western animation], Totally Spies! [Western animation], A Place Further Than the Universe [anime], and Cleopatra in Space [Western animation], and films like The Pelican Brief and Spies in Disguise. I also wrote about archivy themes in Velma. The latter included cold case files, police evidence rooms, historical societies, and clues which were not as hidden. I compared some of the themes expressed in that mediocre animated series to Ren Hazuki, who believes her mother’s diary is “lost” which informs her opposing school idols (basically school singers/musicians) in Love Live! Superstar!!. The diary is later found by one of the protagonists and she realizes that her mother loved it after all. I further examined archivy themes in Ace Attorney and The Watermelon Woman. More recently I wrote about archivy themes in Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated. With that, let me move to pertinent issues.
The people the orange man has picked are odious types, whether Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security, Susie Wiles as White House Chief of Staff, Lee Zeldin as EPA administrator, Elise Stefanik as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Michael Waltz as National Security Advisor, and Stephen Miller as Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy. Rubio influenced much of the first administration of the orange one on Latin America, has previously called for “hydraulic fracturing [i.e. fracking] to boost the nation’s energy output”, praised ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft (and said they shouldn’t be regulated); wants a border crackdown and refugees vetted; and supports a border wall, tougher sanctions on Iran, and permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq to “fight” ISIS. He is strongly anti-China, anti-Iran, and pro-Israel, and wants to reopen Gitmo! If approved, he will be assisted by Waltz, who is very hawkish toward China, and Mike Huckabee, who has been nominated as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Huckabee will apparently be in charge of Middle East peace negotiations, but considering his strong pro-Israel stand which opposes Palestinian statehood and encourages more illegal settlements in the West Bank (while denying the reality that Israel is illegally occupying Arab land), there will undoubtedly be no peace that he will bring to the region, at all.
As for Noem, she has strongly opposed reproductive rights, supported offshore oil drilling, and supported the Muslim travel ban. Likely she will support Tom Homan, as the nominated border czar, in the planned mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. Otherwise, Robert Lighthizer, a known protectionist and skeptic of free trade, and someone who had a key role in the U.S. trade war with China, is being asked to run the U.S. Office of Trade Representative. One article I read noted that Representatives Richard Neal and Ron Wyden are wary of Lighthizer’s “more aggressive second-term agenda, which many economists warn could spike inflation and threaten the American economy’s leading role among world nations.” Representative Jake Auchincloss, in another quote from the article, said Lighthizer’s policies are a “recipe for higher prices and inflation.” He will be at home with the other warmongers (Stefanik, Waltz, Rubio, Hegseth, Ratcliffe, Huckabee, Noem, and Gabbard) who have been nominated.
Wiles is a political consultant who worked on the 2016 campaign for the orange one and other campaigns. Zeldin previously opposed the Paris Climate Agreement and objected to the count of electoral votes for Arizona and Pennsylvania in 2021 (i.e. part of the “Big Lie”), and has previously opposed federal environmental roles, wanted to remove automotive standards, and voted against a measure to “stop oil companies from price gouging.” Additionally, Stefanik has strongly supported Israel and accused the U.N. of anti-Semitism because the organization criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza and treatment of Palestinians who live in the West Bank and opposed illegal settlement expansion. She’s even called for a “complete reassessment” of U.S. funding of the United Nations and supports blocking U.S. support for the United Nations Relief Works Agency (which is the U.S. is already doing). Miller, on the other hand, is an extremist and strongly anti-immigrant, putting together the Muslim travel ban and the policy separating undocumented children from their parents.
Ultimately, people need to ask their Senators to vote against Rubio, Noem, Zeldin, Stefanik, Waltz, Miller, Huckabee, Lighthizer, and any of the other nominees who have been proposed, who need Senate confirmation. The same can be said for others, like: Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, Dan Scavino for deputy chief of staff, James Blair and Taylor Budowich as deputy chief of staff, Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, William McGinley as White House counsel, John Ratcliffe as CIA director, and Steve Witkoff as special envoy to the Middle East. Gabbard is known for being Islamophobic and homophobic but anti-interventionist and pro-Israel. Scavino, Blair and Budowich are veteran close aides to the orange one. Hegseth is a proto-fascist Fox News host who once defended treatment of inmates at Gitmo and has been accused of sexual assault (which is far too common in the military despite many efforts). McGinley is a lawyer who has represented the GOP in the past. Ratcliffe has misrepresented his involvement in anti-terrorism cases, lied about FBI charges against Hillary Clinton, supported the Muslim ban, and is strongly anti-China. Witkoff is a real estate investor and landlord. Not only are none these people suited for their jobs, but they would cause ruin and chaos wherever they go. And this isn’t even counting the Muskrat and Vivek Ramaswamy who claim they will bring “government efficiency” to D.C., which is just as terrifying.
So far, Matt Gaetz, who was nominated for Attorney General, was replaced by Pam Bondi, due the fact that Gaetz had been accused of sexual relationships with minors and sex trafficking (resulting in multiple investigations) and sexual harassment. He also stated he didn’t care about COVID-19 measures, supported a White supremacist conspiracy theory, and even called for the FBI to be defunded. He isn’t guaranteed to get his seat back since he resigned from Congress and will have to run again for the position. Bondi is a loyalist to the orange one, will reportedly “refocus” the DOJ on “fighting crime” and not going after Republicans for crimes (basically). Beyond that, there’s more in what some have called a “madcap” administration, like Doug Burgum, nominated for Secretary of the Interior, who wants to drill for more oil and natural gas on federal lands. I have to strongly disagree with what one newsletter I had (no longer) read on, and off, which claimed that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was perhaps “one of the few good for Americans appointments”, claiming he could discipline the food system and Big Pharma, removing “harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, drugs and food additives” damaging people’s health.
Whether RFK is a threat to Corporate America or not, and putting aside his seemingly anti-interventionist beliefs and corporate criticism, he has falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism (they do not), shared misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines (and vaccines in general), questioned election integrity, and gave rise to the 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa, among other clearly anti-scientific beliefs. On the whole, he would be disastrous for this country’s public health and its citizenry for many reasons. Other terrible nominees include well-known fundraiser for the orange one (Howard Lutnick) as Commerce Secretary, a lobbyist who supported the Muslim ban (Sean Duffy) as Transportation Secretary, a business executive and former wrestling performer accused of sexual abuse (Linda McMahon) as Education Secretary to dismantle the Department of Education [she was embraced by the far-right Moms for Liberty group], a CEO of a fracking company (Chris Wright) as Energy Secretary, and a hedge fund manager (Scott Bessent) as Treasury Secretary. The team of the orange one is saying that “no dissent among Republicans will be tolerated” under the new administration.
There are varying views on the proposed policies of the new administration, with some saying that getting out of the Paris Climate accord won’t matter and others saying the environmental assault has begun. I’ve read the leaked dossier on Rubio published by Ken Klippenstein (he previously published a dossier on Vance) which calls him, at one point, a “neocon and interventionist.” Another article, in the same newsletter, wonders whether the orange one will purge the military or not. A further article criticizes Biden and Harris for putting aside their rhetoric saying the orange one is a fascist (he is). There were other articles about reactions to the orange one winning (and Harris losing), a call for the LGBTQ+ movement to have “new leadership and a pragmatic approach that responds to the shifting realities of American politics,” the split between the legacy and alternative media, and examination of the fact (and reality) that trans people should not be blamed for Harris’s loss. Politico also had a piece about the reported actions the orange one will take in his first week on education, energy, climate, foreign policy, healthcare, immigration, labor, legal (pardoning all the January 6 rioters), technology, and trade.
Some relied upon exit polls showing rise in support among White voters, Latine voters, White male voters, Black male voters, Latine women voters, young voters (aged 18-29), and voters above age 45. While you could analyze this, I tend to distrust polls like this, with Wired even noting back in 2020 how exit polls have sampling bias, and noting their issues. I don’t believe these polls can be trusted on their own, as they definitely could be slanted in one way or another. However, some are taking from polls, like this, that people in this country do not trust Black women, and wonder if people are really being allies to Black people or not, and have stated that some White people are lying to them!
Others wrote about ten things to do if the orange one wins (which he did), rejection of school vouchers by voters (I noted this in my last newsletter), what the orange man becoming President again means for Black women, the future of public health under the orange one, Pete Hegseth’s plan to so-called ‘overhaul’ the U.S. military (i.e. a mass purge of those not termed “loyal”), and how his election is not an aberration. Beyond those who claimed that him being elected was a way for voters to “thumb their nose” at the status quo, noted the fracturing of shared reality, or said that the Democratic Party resembles the Social Democratic Party of the Weimar Republic, there were some more sobering takes on what will happen:
repeal of Biden climate policies which “could cost [the] US billions”
remove “inefficient” parts of government, in a group led by Vivek Ramaswamy and the Muskrat (a presidential advisory commission named “Department of Government Efficiency”*), likely including proposed cuts to Social Security,** Medicare, and other useful social programs. It is unlikely any cuts to the bloated military will ever be proposed
tariffs and immigration limits to supposedly “protect workers” (it will do the opposite, in more ways than one), with companies using the tariffs as an excuse to raise prices, as one site noted
deregulation to benefit huge businesses and benefit foolhardy colonization of Mars, by Musk’s SpaceX, ruining yet another planet
undermine existing checks and balances with authoritarianism
continue endless wars and destruction in Middle East, even if he is able to end the war in Ukraine (highly unlikely)
make the drug war cartel violence in Mexico even worse (despite the best efforts of Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum to fight drug trafficking)
attack the First Amendment itself (as he has previously done)
declare that the U.S. will never follow the Geneva Conventions and any international laws of war, as Hegseth has stated
promote Christian
nationalismfascism in his own way, especially after the cases brought against him by Jack Smith were dismissedmass deportation of undocumented immigrants (if this happens, it will undoubtedly wreak havoc on the economy, along with new tariffs)
mass firing of federal workers (even if held up in court battles, it could cause much of the federal government cease to function for people’s benefit)
*It is based on Argentina’s Ministry of Deregulation and State Transformation which pushes deregulation, “reform”, and reported “modernization” under the government of far right-wing Javier Milei. It is also said to be a duplication of the existing Government Accountability Office (GAO)
**As noted here, by 2035, benefits will decrease 15% (at present rates), but Social Security itself will not disappear, its just that the full cost of benefits cannot be paid to recipients, but only 85-86% of what people are allocated.
The wild and dangerous claims by the orange one to abolish birthright citizenship, would put many Americans at risk, not just those who are undocumented, and it would require “amending or reinterpreting the 14th Amendment” (specifically the citizenship clause). As Mother Jones reported, in an article, noting the plan to overturn this right, this clause was meant, originally, to “nullify the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision…[and] it defined citizenship and enshrined the long-standing doctrine of jus solis (“right of soil”)—meaning citizenship by place of birth—in constitutional law.”
On the other hand, despite the above, and many other horrible things he will attempt during his time in office, he does not have a popular mandate. He did not win the majority of the national popular vote. Reporting by the Cook Political Report vote tracker showed that he only won about 2.3 million votes more than Harris, and still over 75 million voted for her. Also, Democrats did well in state house races, and all the electoral officials the orange picked have to resign before taking their roles, meaning those seats will be open for elections.
Others noted their determination to: “survive my country’s descent into fascism” like writer Molly Ostertag and continue sharing valuable arts and the stories behind it to “energize and help people in some way.” Some sounded alarm about a bill threatening nonprofits, named H.R. 9495. If the latter is approved then it will make it possible for the Secretary of Treasury to deem any non-profit as a terrorist organization if they so choose, without providing evidence. To read more about this, see posts on Nonprofit Law Blog, Independent Sector, Nonprofit Association of Washington, Common Dreams, Council on Foundations, Hyper Allergic, and Slate. It is a bill that should be stopped at any cost.
Since Project 2025 will undoubtedly be the agenda of the orange one’s incoming administration, I did a search in the official plan for the project, entitled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise”, for terms like “national archives” and “nara” and found National Archives sites cited 14 times. There’s also a number of points related to records:
Eliminating reported prohibitions on CBP [Customs and Border Control] from publishing “detailed border security and enforcement data not impacting intelligence, interdiction, and investigative operations, methods, or sources” (page 139) [this will open door to more anti-immigrant propaganda]
clearing personnel files and records of those claimed to be “falsely accused” by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of “whipping migrants” and issue a “formal apology on behalf of DHS and CBP” (page 139) [see more about this here, here, and here] (with this, we will probably never see the report on the 2021 CBP report on this reported whipping)
USCIS still needing “access to all relevant national security and law enforcement databases in the same vein as any other agency in the intelligence space” (page 146)
calls for tighter definitions and more specificity for classified information needing protection, including more stringent policies to affect reduction in number of classifications (pages 222-223) [could be used to crack down on FOIA requests]
using technology like services/tools for managing ‘Big Data’, A.I., expanding use of commercial cloud services, and needing people with varied skill sets to meet the “ability to meet the electronic records era’s classification and declassification demands and serve an incoming Administration’s goals” (pages 223) [notably NARA is already doing this, terrifyingly]
“5G/6G data transmission and network interoperability” (page 227)
Remove “nonbinary” sex category from data collection of U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and issue a new order “that will collect data directly relevant to OCR’s statutory enforcement authority” (page 331) [this record loss will be bad for nonbinary, and all, people]
Ensuring parents have “full access” to the records of their children, including “any school health records” (pages 333, 346) [this may lead to more abuse and cutting down on children’s freedom to their own thoughts]
“At the same time, Congress should also consider equipping parents with a private right of action” (i.e. parent’s '“bill of rights”) (page 343) [again, this will lead to more abuse, undoubtedly]
“Ensure that information provided by the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), a data and statistical organization, is data-neutral” (page 368)
“EPA should embrace so-called citizen science and deputize the public to subject the agency’s science to greater scrutiny, especially in areas of data analysis, identification of scientific flaws, and research misconduct” (page 437) [not good! opens the door to climate denialism to enter the EPA]
Requiring/mandating “accurate and reliable statistical data about abortion, abortion survivors, and abortion-related maternal deaths” (page 455) obviously to find those who do abortions, to persecute them
Mandating the CDC end, immediately, “collection of data on gender identity” (page 455) (also not good; again this data loss will hurt queer people, and all people in general)
Calls for the end of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission collecting EEO-1 data on employment statistics “based on race/ethnicity, which data can then be used to support a charge of discrimination” (page 582) (this will hurt those who are not White and White people at the same time!)
NWS fully privatizing its weather forecasting since it “provides data the private companies use” and should gather data instead (page 675) (this would be an utter disaster and weaken people’s trust in weather prediction)
Data collected by National Hurricane Center and the National Environmental Satellite Service “should be presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate” (page 675) (i.e. they can’t say that human-caused climate change is the issue)
Moving or removing “overly intrusive questions or less crucial data” from Census programs entirely (page 680) [this data loss would hurt the census as a whole and possibly lead to a loss of confidence on census-taking, as they could define anything as “intrusive” or “less crucial”]
When it comes to the National Archives, recall what Rolling Stone reported in 2022, which is still relevant now and will LIKELY happen:
…Trump has told close associates that he wants to gut the nonpartisan historical agency, which the former president believes is full of anti-MAGA subversives…Trump has said he plans to make it a priority if he wins a second term, the sources say. In some of these conversations, the former president has referenced specific officials — all installed during Democratic administrations — who he’d want to immediately “get rid of” and have replaced with pliable loyalists. One of these sources says that it was clear from the conversation that someone in Trump’s orbit had been slipping him names or lists of potential targets. In other instances, the ex-president has also casually solicited recommendations for conservatives to install at the National Archives and Records Administration, including for the top post of archivist. At least one Trump confidant threw out John Solomon, a Trump ally and conservative journalist, as an apparently serious suggestion, one of the people with knowledge of this matter says…On Wednesday, Trump was in Miami, Florida, delivering his address to a Hispanic Leadership Conference convened by the America First Policy Institute. During his speech, the former president took repeated swipes at the Archives, claiming that the agency, which [was then]…led by 30-year NARA veteran and acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall, is a “radical left-run” entity. Coincidentally, Caputo said he happened to be with Trump at that speech, and was messaging Rolling Stone right at the very moment that Trump told attendees the National Archives is “woke and broken”…The rhetoric from [Stephen] Miller accompanying the filing, however, shows how conservative activists are trying to paint the Archives as a den of partisan, deep staters bent on destroying Trump…a handful of Trump loyalists have begun to hammer out a 2024 agenda for the former president’s hoped-for second term. The centerpiece of that agenda reportedly includes an ambitious proposal to crack down on career civil service employees and remove protections that had previously insulated them from political interference…And as MAGA heavyweights have plot against the federal bureaucracy generally and the Archives in particular, rank and file Trump supporters have responded to the rhetoric with…threats.
Also, NARA is already leaning into some of the recommendations for Project 2025, as I noted earlier. I got an email, which is available in PDF form here, since I’m on the Citizen Archivist program (I’ve done some transcribing) entitled “AI and the Revolutionary War Pension Files” in which NARA boasts that “through a partnership with FamilySearch, AI extracted text for all 2,322,137 pages of the Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, ca. 1800 - ca. 1912 is now available in the National Archives Catalog…FamilySearch used 30,000 pages of pensions transcribed by our Citizen Archivists to teach their AI language model how to transcribe this 19th Century cursive writing. The Partner Contributed transcriptions generated by their AI language model for the entire series will now be available as Extracted Text in the National Archives Catalog.” They further note in a glowing way:
This is part of the problem with A.I. It has to be fixed by others and results in errors. I’ve heard that the Library of Congress is doing the same with subject heading results, horrifying librarians such as Melissa Adler (worried about impending defunding of the Library of Congress), Leigh Anne Focareta (says human catalogers are essential), Tea Rex, Carol Tilley (says cataloging needs humans), Sarah Humphreys (says data is not faultless), David William, Anne Pho (rightly saying inaccurate cataloging hurts marginalized people), and others like Erica Friedman. Erik Fodner noted that “ICCNs and ISBNs extracted from ebooks at around 85% accuracy, but subject headings, genre, and dates were only generated accurately at or under 50%,” citing a somewhat glowing article in a Library of Congress publication, noting testing of A.I. models. Some responded with worry about the mess it would create, and called it problematic, awful, inaccurate, deeply disappointing, catastrophic for archives, and risky to nature of knowledge itself. All in all, it is a terrible path forward, and people should inform the Library of Congress that they are going down the wrong path.
If this isn’t bad enough, there’s plans for WMATA to eliminate a route (C8) which allows researchers to come to NARA’s College Park location, also known as Archives II. This is a location which holds permanent federal textual records from civilian agencies, “Army unit records dating from WW1…Navy unit records dating from WW2…still pictures…electronic records…cartographic and architectural holdings…motion picture, sound, and video records…JFK Assassination Records…[and] Berlin Documents Center microfilm,” among much more. The Diamondback reported that this new bus network reportedly addresses “inequities and increases access to opportunities for underserved communities,” a clear lie, as this route would help increase said opportunities, even if other routes do what is stated. This route eliminate will hurt NARA, as nearly 30,000 researchers visit every year. Deputy archivist of the United States William Bosanko, College Park Mayor Fazlul Kabir, and the College Park City Council all oppose removing the route. Instead, according to the article, WMATA “will direct riders to two new routes — the M42 and M44 routes,” but neither seems to hit NARA’s location. In feedback about the changes, many riders expressed “concerns about losing service to key areas covered by the existing C8 route” which is not addressed by other routes. This is all despite the fact that route itself brings WMATA over 350,000 a year, if I’m reading the chart on page 263 of the fiscal year 2025 budget correctly. The M44 route seems to be the replacement, but I don’t see it shown there. I recommend contacting WMATA or calling the agency at 202-637-1328, protesting this unnecessary change.
Apart from this, there was a call to get relevant information about Gaetz while he was being nominated for Attorney General. Even as that fell through, as he left, it does remain a question as to whether the report will ever be released or if it has been buried permanently. I think it should be released anyhow. There was also a good article in Forbes about safeguarding against a data purge by the next administration, with efforts to preserve climate and environmental data, along with other data preservation efforts. I am also glad to see some documents that I requested related to FamilySearch are on the Internet Archive here, here, here, and here. There were further articles on Black preservation in South Florida, oral histories of the American South, and different approaches to records management, to name a few articles.
This brings me to libraries. There was a report from EveryLibrary about Project 2025 and “its consequences for libraries,” along with part 1 of the report here, and a statement on Project 2025, the defacto agenda of the orange man’s administration. Otherwise, there were articles about:
Amanda Jones’ book That Librarian (about her fight against book bans)
Summary motions filed in the Tango book banning case
Teaching patrons how to spot celebrity impostors
The reasons librarians should oppose A.I.
Advocates fearing a national book ban under unified GOP government (a justified fear to be honest) [it will likely be challenged legally]
On the latter bullet, Project 2025 (which I cited earlier) document complains about people “alter[ing] beloved books” (p. 19) and says families should be able to use IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) money to buy “textbooks” for their children (p. 349) [big yikes]. Even the report’s forward, written by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts talks about “drag queens and pornography invading…school libraries” (p. 1), declares that those promoting the latter should be classified as “registered sex offenders” (!) (p. 5) and states that public libraries and public health agencies, and other cultural institutions, are only as “independent” from reported “public accountability as elected officials and voters permit” (they want to harass people) (p. 8). This reminds me of what Uncloseted Media wrote recently: 57% of LGBTQ+ youth surveyed have “experienced at least one negative or rejecting experience from a parent, making the holidays isolating for many queer people.” The incoming administration will undoubtedly make these experiences worse and lead to more abuse.
I was very disappointed to see the Internet Archive (IA) withdraw their case against the major publishers, ending the Hachette v. Internet Archive case. With this action, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling which “upheld a Manhattan federal court's decision that found the Archive in violation of copyright law and granted a permanent injunction” remains in effect. Perhaps the IA did not like the prospects of appealing to the Supreme Court, or their finances are running out and they can’t pay for a continued legal battle. The Association of American Publishers is already declaring victory, with the organization’s CEO, Maria A. Pallante, saying that the ruling “leaves no room for arguments that ‘controlled digital lending’ is anything more than infringement.” It will have terrible ripple effects for libraries. As Publisher’s Weekly described it, “AAP reps celebrated what they characterized as a complete legal victory” as did the International Publishers Association, as noted here. In any case, I find this decision by IA extremely cowardly and it makes me lose a lot of respect for them, to be perfectly honest. They should have appealed it. Even so, music labels are also suing IA “over the Archive's preservation of 78rpm records,” with many musicians supporting the organization/digital library. Will IA fold on that case too? It is entirely possible, sadly, with the aforementioned cowardly action.
I would like to briefly shift gears to highlight my newest blog, and effort, entitled Hope to Be Home: Ray Hermann's Service in southern Korea. Some may wonder why I am working on this now. The reason is simple. I am moving my content away from Ancestry.com and deciding to take ownership of it myself. I plan to do the same for other subjects, but I’m starting with this, almost as a test case. I do plan on ending that blog, ultimately, with one post on each set of diary pages, in short-posts, and possibly compiling all of that in a book to self-publish.
In terms of other genealogy topics, some wrote about where to find information beyond looking on Ancestry and FamilySearch, while others talked about organizing your family history research, Black Civil War veterans in Washington state, Leoncia Lasalle’s slave narrative from Moca, Puerto Rico in 1945; Norwegian genealogy, transmigration, and emigration; and courtship.
This brings me to the plethora of articles about history, including on:
Christine Jorgensen and the “Birth of Trans Bathroom Panic”
California’s approach to Black reparations which “shifts toward land access, ownership and stewardship”
The earliest known ‘country’ recording uncovered, which reveals that the singer is a Black man, saying a lot about the genre itself
Robin Blackburn’s “sweeping history of slavery and freedom in the 19th century,” including of the Reconstruction period
What the Reconstruction period “still has to teach us”
Surely there were a rash of other articles, but of the more poignant ones focused on how George Washington was a tyrant. In the article, published in Time, Karin Wulf wrote that while Washington’s military leadership and restraint as a president can be instructive in some instances, he ruled over 600 people, as an enslaver, “actively, aggressively, and persistently [seeking]…wealth through tyrannizing others,” with his role as a slaveowner shaping his entire career:
…the very months in the autumn of 1796 when he was crafting and delivering this famous disquisition on a government of liberty, he was aggressively tracking down an enslaved woman who had run for her freedom…Ona Judge, a woman who had been born as a slave at Mount Vernon and was serving them in Philadelphia during his presidency, fled from slavery and the Washingtons…[he] was…writing to his agent with instructions to track down Judge and “to sieze [sic], and put her on board a Vessel bound immediately to this place, or to Alexandria which I should like better.” It didn’t work, and Judge made her way to New Hampshire, where she lived until she died in 1848…in Washington’s will, he freed just one person immediately on his death (William Lee), and more than 100 others only on his wife’s death…The remaining majority…[were] enslaved at Mount Vernon and his other properties…we cannot see Washington’s work as a commander or as President without its relationship to slavery…His world was made by, and bound by, the centrality of slavery.
This connects, in some ways, to an article in Politico, by Alex Hinton, back in December 2021 on how Black activists accusing the U.S. of genocide 70 years ago should have been taken seriously. I am also reminded of articles about how the failures of the 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty “set the stage for today’s anti-racist uprisings” (written in 2020), the role of Congo’s uranium in the bomb used in Hiroshima and Israeli nuclear weapons, Black Americans who were killed for exercising their right to vote, and why people should teach graphic history.
I’d like to pivot once again, this time to climate change and environmentalism. My colleagues at the National Security Archive had a great post, a collaboration between Claire Dorfman and Rachel Santarsiero, about U.S. tacit and indirect approval of the Camisea natural gas pipeline in Peru, despite concerns about the pipeline’s environmental and social impacts. I’m glad they are doing more articles like this! There were other articles about: the impact of fossil fuel emissions known by big oil seventy years ago, the demand for EVs leading to the destruction of uncontacted Indigenous people, the threat of the new administration removing the contract giving the U.S. Postal Service an all-electric vehicle fleet, Coca Cola deciding to water-down commitments to make their packaging more sustainable, how a “smelly seaweed could fuel cars” (named sargassum), and plastics lobbyists making up the biggest group at key U.N. treaty talks, ensuring they will be weak and ineffectual (basically).
Others wrote about climate change governance going forward, the toxic trade “in electrical waste,” data sets showing that “world leaders will miss key targets to keep average global temperatures from rising,” the victims of climate death, the basis for using the Green New Deal to change the climate policies of the orange man’s administration, inside the secret world of “the firm hooked on fossil fuels”: McKinsey, and how the military industrial complex is fueling the climate catastrophe, to name a few of the many articles out there.
The loss of Kamala Harris and the victory of the reactionaries has put LGBTQ+ people in a terrible position and rightly made many terrified, since reactionaries feel emboldened more than ever before, regardless of the dumbass queer people who voted for the orange one (wouldn’t they know better?). The latter shows how anyone can be pulled into the anti-immigrant, anti-queer propaganda of the orange man, including queer people. Some have proposed mutual aid for trans people, while others are stockpiling medicine and making “plans to move [including to Canada] after Trump’s win” including one person interviewed even having a plan to kayak to Canada if things get so bad.
In other news, Kira Deshler of Paging Dr. Lesbian, whose Substack I have featured in this newsletter for years, has some good posts about Cher’s lesbian character in Silkwood and an interview with Alexandra Swarens about her film The Holiday Club, to name two posts. Deshler also stated that the series Agatha All Along “is a major moment for sapphic fandom.” There was good news in terms of anime, such as the announcement that the yuri manga The Moon on a Rainy Night is getting an adaptation, as is There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover Unless (coming in summer 2025), and a visual for Bang Dream Ave Mujica, the sequel to BanG Dream! It's MyGo!!!!!, which will premiere on January 2nd.
There are also reports that Reiji Miyajima, known for the manga Girlfriend, Girlfriend, will launch a new series, while the PreCure franchise will launch the You and Idol Precure♪ series, the premiere date of which is not known, likely because it is still in production. There was also a review of a chapter examining “some of the problems with the methodologies used in sex therapy, and the clinical study of sexuality,” along with posts on being aromantic in romantic relationships, the issue of most asexual characters being men, the upcoming premiere of Andor which has LGBTQ+ characters (specifically two lesbians: Vel Sartha and Cinta Kaz), and aromantic representation in Heartstopper.
Earlier last month, it was reported that an episode of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, which focused on a trans character (Brooklyn) facing discrimination (i.e. transphobia), was not aired because of the results of the U.S. presidential election. However, it was later reported that the episode had been on a hold for over a year, but it was unclear if the episode would be released. This uncertainty led to criticism from crew members, animators, storyboarders, fans, and from creators like Matt Braly and Dana Terrace, who created Amphibia and The Owl House, two popular animated Disney series. In any case, it is still cowardice by Disney and they should just release the episode already!
Earlier this year, Polygon released its “Best of 2024” article (which links to other articles), noting they were wowed by the Western animation Arcane, but also listed Iwájú, My Adventures with Superman, The Legend of Vox Machina, Twilight of the Gods, X-Men ’97, and Bluey season 3, among their other top TV series for the year. This included anime such as Dragon Ball Daima, Kaiju No. 8, Ranma 1/2, The Apothecary Diaries, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Hashira training arc, A Sign of Affection, Dan Da Dan, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, and Delicious in Dungeon. While I haven’t watched all of these, I can wholeheartedly agree with what they are saying about Arcane, My Adventures with Superman, Ranma 1/2, The Apothecary Diaries, X-Men ‘97, and Delicious in Dungeon. They even had a list of top 10 anime for this year, including some I enjoy as well: Girls Band Cry, The Apothecary Diaries, Delicious in Dungeon, and Metallic Rouge (I had mixed feelings about this one). Apart from Inside Out 2, Mars Express, The Wild Robot, Look Back, Robot Dreams, Flow, and Hundreds of Beavers, none of the other movies that Polygon listed in their top movies for this year are animated. All the others are live-action, which says a lot about them.
Otherwise, in terms of anime, there were articles on Disney locking down major anime exclusives for 2025, showing it is further getting into the anime business. It was reported many years ago that there was an agreement between Hulu and Funimation, as noted in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and various Hulu press releases (see here, here, and here), while Disney did the same, expanding their partnerships, as noted over the years by Game Rant, The Hollywood Reporter (see here and here), Comic Book, Animation Magazine, Slash Film, and other outlets here. However, as Justin Sevakis wrote in November 2017, while “the agreements that are combined with home video rights usually cover…five to seven years,” standalone streaming licenses usually “start with a short but reasonable term -- maybe a year or two -- but then automatically renew without either the streaming service or the licensor…doing anything,” but there is a provision allowing either party “to terminate the license at any time after that initial term is over,” meaning that “after the first year or two, the anime could come down off the site at any time, with no warning.” I had this happen with Space Dandy, as I just checked and it had been removed from Disney+. It was among many others set to be removed in August, so I’m not hallucinating this! I can’t confirm whether all of those listed were removed or not.
Apart from some recommending the space anime Planetes, CBR had an article about other great sci-fi anime like Dandadan, including: Kaiju No. 8 (haven’t watched), The Tatami Galaxy (haven’t watched), Solo Leveling (haven’t watched), Tiger & Bunny (haven’t watched), Steins; Gate (haven’t watched), Gurren Lagann (haven’t watched), Fooly Cooly (haven’t watched), Space Dandy (watched four or five episodes), Cowboy Bebop (watched in full), and Undead Unluck (haven’t watched). The same site also had a list of the “best forgotten” anime from the 1990s including Teknoman, Record of the Lodoss War, Gundam Wing, Bubblegum Crisis, Sorcerer Hunters, Slayers, You're Under Arrest, Martian Successor Nadesico, Flame of Recca, and Outlaw Star. The only one of the above I have seen is You're Under Arrest. More my speed was a list of the best anime couples, on CBR. I haven’t see every series featured, so I can’t know all the couples, but I agree with them on Masaki & Hiromu in Welcome Home, Marcille & Falin in Delicious in Dungeon, and Maomao and Jinshi in The Apothecary Diaries. I do know Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask but from the original 1990s series, not Sailor Moon Cosmos.
Otherwise, I enjoyed reading the latest yuri network news from Okazu (see here, here, here, here, and here) including anime news, new yuri manga (including adaptions from light novels), and other updates. The latter includes the update that the final two episodes of Whisper Me a Love Song will finally be aired later this year! This series has had a lot of documented production issues, and while I do think it should have a second season, I would also like these episodes to air. There is the related news that GKIDS acquired the North American distribution rights for Naoko Yamada’s films, A Silent Voice (2016) and Liz and the Blue Bird (2018). While A Silent Voice will “return to theaters nationwide on…December 15 and Monday, December 16” according to Animation Magazine. I’m not sure if the same will be for Liz and the Blue Bird, but presumably it will return to theaters too, although the date is not stated in the article.
Netflix is having yet another content purge this month, including, according to Collider, various animations such as: season 1 of Battle Kitty, seasons 1-8 of Voltron: Legendary Defender, interactive films/specials (Carmen Sandiego: To Steal or Not to Steal, Spirit Riding Free: Ride Along Adventure, Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout, The Boss Baby: Get That Baby!, Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile, Captain Underpants Epic Choice-o-Rama, Cat Burglar, Johnny Test's Ultimate Meatloaf Quest, The Last Kids on Earth: Happy Apocalypse to You, and We Lost Our Human) and films (Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, Trolls). On Voltron, the official account stated that "discussions are ongoing. When we know, you'll know." It is not known how Aury Wellington, the developer of Spirit Riding Free responded to this news (she is likely disappointed), Paul Layzell, creator of Battle Kitty, said, or the creator of Carmen Sandiego Duane Capizzi. Some have said on social media that the end of Netflix is happening because they are purging their own creations, expressing anger over the removal of Battle Kitty, or understanding why Voltron is leaving (DreamWorks owns it). All in all, this content purge is awful and should be yet another reason to cancel your subscriptions to Netflix in protest of this decision.
There was positive news about the new/upcoming Carmen Sandiego game, the Animation Guild reaching a tentative agreement with AMPTP, WGA reaching a new deal for writers including first-ever protections for children’s animation writers, Echo Wu discussing the origins of the demon-fighting teen named Jentry Chau in Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld, and Arcane creator Christian Linke acknowledging some fan feelings over the uneven pace of the show’s second season, saying they “need to listen and learn from it.” He noted that they wanted to things “a little differently” than they did in the first season and that they had to make cuts, including a lesbian sex scene between protagonists Violet “Vi” and Caitlyn Kiramman, so the show didn’t have a more mature rating.
Otherwise, I’m glad to see that Pantheon is airing on Netflix (it began streaming there in November 22nd), which hopefully will give it a second life after it was unceremoniously removed from HIDIVE and AMC+ back in January 2023 (I remember it vividly and once called it a “rad series” in this very newsletter). The second season already began airing on Amazon’s Prime Video in Australia and New Zealand in October 2023. I’d love to watch it again! I also quoted a review saying it is an adult animation with "themes of humanity, death, and conspiracies" and described the series as an “animesque show.” At the same time, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was cancelled on Netflix. This series, with anime style, was one of my favorite series to watch last year.
I’d like to switch gears once again, this time to Palestine, Gaza, genocide, and the regional conflict. First of all, after everything that has happened since the beginning of the war in early October of last year, the ICC made the right decision to charge Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yaov Gallant with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians. Of course, the court also charged Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, also known as Deif, with crimes against humanity and war crimes, likely an effort to look impartial. The latter did not work. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán decided to defy the ICC, even though its decision “requires court members to detain Israeli PM if he enters their country.” On the other hand, he would be arrested if he went to Spain, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Canada, Turkey, South Africa and Portugal or any other state that is party to Rome Statute, according to The Guardian'‘s reporting.
Others reported on related issues, like the failed bid in the U.S. Senate to halt U.S. military sales to Israel, Gazans wanting the orange man to keep his promises (he won’t), Israeli tanks firing on Lebanese towns late last month, examination of Netanyahu’s undeclared war objectives in Gaza, and argument that Joe Biden’s main moral failure was related to Israel not pardoning Hunter Biden. I liked reading an analysis of how Phillip K. Dick portrays Israeli settler-colonialists positively in his book, Martian Time-Slip, and the comparison to how this was done differently by another writer to be more positive toward Palestinians, to care through more of an anticolonial message than Dick’s writing.
Otherwise, there were articles about workplace retaliation against those who expressed solidarity with Palestine, how the U.N.’s failure to “dismantle the colonial order foreclosed the application of the Genocide Convention to Israel, South Africa, and the United States,” and defining what genocide means. In more positive news, the University of Maryland was legally forced to allow a vigil for Gaza (they had previously denied it in an obvious violation of the First Amendment right to free assembly) and France’s Macron called for a ban on arms sales to Israel, something which the U.S. president cannot care to do. There was also a good article on the myths and realities of the ICC.
With that, I come to a related topic: what is happening in Syria. Simply put, the rebels engaged in a lightning fast offensive between November 27 and December 8th, known as Operation Deterrence of Aggression, allowing them to capture the Syrian capital (Damascus). This resulted in Bashar al-Assad fleeing the country and taking up asylum in Russia. Some people are celebrating this as a end of brutality and dictatorship, while calling for accountability and justice. Even if that is correct, Syria is in for a lot of hurt going forward. BBC News noted that Assad was a “vocal supporter of the Palestinians and…Hezbollah.” CNN reported that the U.S. met with the allied Syrian Democratic Forces (which holds, as one article noted, “about a quarter of Syria’s territory in many oil-rich regions”) to reassess the U.S. military’s role in the country (over 900 troops are reported there), but that there is not a serious discussion to de-list the militant Sunni organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (also known as HTS). It is among those groups which seized Damascus. All the while, and disturbingly, Israel threatens to continue offensives into the country in the future, including keeping a “buffer zone” (i.e. illegally occupying land in Syria, apart from the illegally occupied Golan Heights). To make matters worse, the Israelis have advanced tanks a stone’s throw away from Damascus and have bombed sites within the country, as has the U.S., reportedly against ISIS targets within the country.
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Those groups which seized power claim they are working to “restore order” and respect state institutions of “the free Syrian state,” with their Islamist Syrian Salvation Government (they will comprise the interim government), despite the internal fragmentation of these groups. The fact that they were victorious is due to the fact that security forces did not support Assad anymore, allowing the reported “rebels” to capture Damascus. If they had acted differently, this wouldn’t have happened. The departure of Assad is a clear boon for the Zionist government of Israel, the U.S., and other Western countries, along with Turkey (who was told about the offensive weeks ago) as they can exploit the region even more. It will make things even more dire for Palestinians; weaken the Axis of Resistance consisting of Iran, Hezbollah, Syria (formerly), Iraqi groups, the Houthis in Yemen, and Palestinian groups, standing against the U.S., Israel, and ISIS; and make it even more chaotic for Syrians, especially if different groups continue vying for control, turning it into yet another “round of bloodletting” as one writer put it. There may also be privatization of public assets (there have been calls to introduce “market liberalization”) and non-secular rule, since the groups which were part of this offensive are all Islamic fundamentalist. AP admitted this, writing “the insurgency that swept President Bashar Assad out of power is rooted in Islamist jihadi fighters”! The Library of Congress says, in their country report on Syria in the late 1980s, the following:
Arab-Israeli conflict remained paramount foreign policy concern, Syrian objective being to secure withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territories, to restore sovereignty over Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, and to ensure full political self-determination for Palestinians. In attempting to resolve Arab-Israeli issue, Syria seeks unilateral strategic and military parity with Israel to negotiate from position of strength…Most large-scale industry owned by state…Assad [Bashar al-Assad’s father] has provided Syria with a period of uncommon stability, all the more remarkable when viewed against the backdrop of the nation's postindependence history of political turbulence….Syrians share a vision of a pan-Arab entity —the unification of all Arab brethren throughout the region…It was uncertain if any successor could overcome the conflicts that were sure to surface after Assad or could maintain the nation's pace of development.
More recently, the CIA World Factbook said that Bashar al-Assad was “approved as president by popular referendum in 2000” and noted that in 2007, his “second term as president was again approved in a referendum” and noted that the country’s government, with foreign aid, “continued to periodically regain opposition-held territory until 2020, when Turkish firepower halted a regime advance and forced a stalemate between regime and opposition forces.” A recent addition to the page said that “Syrian Islamist rebels captured the capital city Damascus in a quick offensive strike and overthrew…[Assad]…The former president and his family fled by plane to Moscow where they were granted political asylum. The al-ASAD regime had ruled Syria for over 50 years including 30 years his father Hafez al-ASAD was president.”
The current Constitution, which was passed by referendum in February 2012, is Arabist and secular, with the economy based on “developing public and private economic activity through economic and social plans aiming at increasing the national income…[and] economic policy…aim[ed] at meeting the basic needs of individuals and society through the achievement of economic growth and social justice,” along with other measures, including that “natural resources, facilities, institutions and public utilities shall be publicly owned.” However it, in some ways, provides the foundation for a fundamentalist government, which the “rebels” will undoubtedly use when they draft a new constitution next year:
The religion of the President of the Republic is Islam; Islamic jurisprudence shall be a major source of legislation. The State shall respect all religions, and ensure the freedom to perform all the rituals that do not prejudice public order; The personal status of religious communities shall be protected and respected. The official language of the state is Arabic.
There had been calls to change the latter, including “proposed the dropping of religion as criteria for electing a president” and states that “Islamic sharia [will not be] the basis for law” but the Syrian opposition did not accept it when the Russian delegation proposed it in 2017. The reactions to these events in Syria should also tell you everything: the leaders of Afghanistan (the Taliban), France, Canada, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, U.S., Ukraine, Germany, and Yemen were praiseworthy, as was the European Union and U.N. special envoy for Syria (Geir Pedersen) while Iran, Iraq, Jordan, India, Russia, Sahrawi Republic, and South Africa were not. In fact, the latter expressed “grave concern following the offensive attack on the Governorate of Aleppo and Idlib in the Syrian Arab Republic…[and] grave concern at the offensive attack in Aleppo and Idlib by Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN Security Council, and a coalition of foreign mercenaries.”
Even, curiously, Hamas and Islamic Jihad were praiseworthy of the recent actions in Syria, perhaps because they know the government will become fundamentalist. It remains to be seen what the orange one will do with this, especially since he has said “this is not our fight. Let it play out. Do not get involved” (this same CNN article speculates that he “may have to quickly decide whether to maintain a deployment of hundreds of US troops in Syria to fight any resurgence of ISIS”) while Gabbard herself has stated that he is “fully committed…to bring about an end to wars.” Her claim which is somewhat in question as some have pointed out. Others have said that the orange man may find ways of working with Islamist Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the nominal new leader of Syria, “to gain leverage against Iran and Russia.” Another article I came across said that Israel had bombed Syria 480 times in recent days, primarily targeting reported chemical weapons stockpiles and long-range missiles so that extremists don’t get them, including destroying the country’s navy. Basically, they are flexing their military might to threaten the transitional government, and tell it to ally itself with Israel or else it will be bad for them.
There are some other subjects I’d like to cover in the rest of newsletter, including scientific researchers worrying about their jobs under the orange man, the public life of Noam Chomsky, the conclusion that Americans were either “ignorant of the consequences of what their vote would support” when it came to Palestinian genocide or knew that “their vote would further the Jewish Israeli genocide of Palestinians” (which is more sinister and dark if true), U.S. imperialism and Ukraine and questions whether the orange one will actually end wars, how South Korean protesters thwarted “more than…a coup attempt,” and a Wisconsin judge ripping apart Scott Walker’s anti-union law.
Others wrote about the trillions in federal waste that could actually be targeted in the Pentagon and wasteful tax breaks rather than removing “veteran’s health benefits, Pell grants, Head Start…the Bureau of Prisons…[and] National Institutes of Health,” as has been proposed. The latter notes waste that could be cut by removing or fixing “tax breaks for private retirement plans…exclusion of capital gains at death…Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs)…tax deductions for charitable gifts…reduced rates on dividends and long-term capital gains…Home mortgage interest deduction…[and] qualified business income deduction.” Otherwise, there were articles about the misogyny of the new/incoming administration and the importance of teachers and public education. In what I found to be not much of a surprise, a Bloomberg columnist, James Stavridis (who happens to be the vice-chair of the Carlyle Group and former U.S. Navy admiral) was ringing his hands over the possible loss of a U.S. military base in Diego Garcia (which shouldn’t be there at all, by the way).
With that, I come to the last part of the newsletter about illustration. Molly Ostertag, who I have mentioned in previous newsletters, had illustrations of public domain Sherlock Holmes stories, such as “The Final Problem” (part 1), “The Blanched Soldier,” “The Blue Carbuncle” (part 1, part 2, part 3), and “Christmas Eve, 1890” (part 1, part 2), to name a few. These are always well-done, I must say, and I enjoy reading what she has to offer. The Nib, for their part, had illustrations on deforestation, creative processing, gaslighting, and art for the sheer joy of it (rather than for monetary gain).
That’s all for this newsletter. Until next time!
- Burkely