Tag Archives: Civil Liberties

Thank You For Inspiring Me

1 Feb

A new February, a new Black History Month, and a new chance to reflect on some of the century’s most inspiring artists and intellectuals:

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s Beloved is ghostly, strange and mysterious, and remains one of my all-time favorite books.  Using the novel as a canvas to push the boundaries of a mother’s love, she inspires me to explore the unexplored and ask forbidden questions!
Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill

I weep that Lauryn Hill’s one gift to the world is her lone album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill!  But I also deeply admire her resolve to remain centered on the things that are truly important to her, instead of being swayed by the lure of the limelight.  She inspires me to be courageous and to listen to my heart.
Chuck D

Chuck D

I’m inspired by so many early hip-hop artists, from KRS-One to Salt-N-Pepa to De La Soul.  But Chuck D is and always will be my very favorite.   Although Public Enemy’s militant image came under attack after its 1988 release of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Chuck D’s raps remained relentlessly honest, courageous and insurgent.  He inspires me to speak up instead of choosing silence.
bell hooks

bell hooks

Teaching to Transgress might be one of the most important books I’ll ever read.  When I picked it up, I’d been wrestling with the decision to become an academic or a civil servant.  bell hooks has written that “education is the practice of freedom,” and she inspires me to transgress the boundaries of conventional education and practice what is closest to my heart.
Malcolm X

Malcolm X

I felt confused when I first read The Autobiography of Malcolm X a few years ago.   I didn’t fully understand his criticism and rejection of my (white) culture.  But these days I think I understand his message a little bit better, and can see that what he rejected was the practice of assimilation.  Malcolm X was a great hero and tragic martyr; he inspires me to claim a radical, subjective identity for myself.
Spike Lee

Spike Lee

Spike Lee has given us some of the most complex and thought-provoking films of the past quarter century: Bamboozled, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, When the Levees Broke. And as much as I love all of these movies, my favorite scene of all is the boxing girl during the opening credits of Do the Right Thing! Spike Lee inspires me to be a strong woman.

Who inspires you?

WSJ Pooh-Poohs Banned Books Week

29 Sep

Banned Books Week is here!  My library is celebrating with our Intellectual Freedom Festival (which, interestingly enough, involves very few books).

The Wall Street Journal is celebrating in its own special way, with an editorial by Mitchell Muncy about why he thinks Banned Books Week is, well, silly.  He argues that books don’t really get “banned” in the U.S., they are merely challenged by concerned parents who want to guide their children’s reading tastes in unruly public schools.

But books have been censored by the U.S. government — within the last century, even — and continue to be banned by governments all over the world.  By celebrating the freedom to read and calling attention to the fact that books have been and will continue to be challenged and banned, we keep this issue at the forefront of American consciousness and prevent it from happening more often than it does.

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The ACLU Brings It On, Facebook!

16 Sep

I don’t think it’s any secret that I love Facebook, and lots of other social networking sites where you reveal highly personal information about yourself to complete strangers (goodreads, twitter, flickr, delicious, the last fm, etc. . .)

OK, but that being said. . . there are SERIOUSLY some online privacy questions that we’ve never had to grapple with before, and hey — I’m up for some grappling!

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which I also love, is taking on Facebook in a huge campaign to raise awareness about their sketchy privacy practices. Check out the ACLU’s awesome fb quiz to learn more!

“White-Washing” Young Adult Book Covers

5 Aug

Liar CoverBloomsbury Children’s Books, USA, recently made the unfortunate decision to put this white girl on the cover of a book that is about a black protagonist “with nappy hair which she wears natural and short.”  Their PR department claims they made this choice because the narrator is a compulsive liar who may have been lying about her race, but that’s silly — they obviously did it to make the cover more appealing (i.e. marketable) to white kids.   Justine Larbalestier, who is the author of Liar, was very unhappy with her publisher’s choice, and she is my new hero for her thoughtful & impassioned response to the controversy.

School Library Journal reports on a similar scandal involving the cover of Urusla Le Guin’s book, Powers, “released with a white model on the cover despite the protagonist’s Himalayan ancestry.”

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Tennesse Schools Unblock LGBTQ Websites

17 Jun

In May, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee filed suit against the Knox County and Metro Nashville school district for blocking lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer websites.  Two weeks later, on June 3rd, the school districts announced that they would stop filtering the websites of gay-friendly advocacy groups such as the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).  You can read the full article about the decision here.

A lot of schools and libraries filter their Internet to block explicit sexual or violent content.  In fact, post Children’s Online Protection Act (COPA) / and Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) legislation, many public libraries are required to use Internet filtering software if they want to receive funding from the federal E-Rate program.

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Electronic Health Records & Your Privacy

13 May

So this is what I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks instead of posting to my blog…  I’m trying to graduate from Library School (just two semesters left — halfway there!), and this is one of the projects I was working on this semester in my Information Policy class.

If you want to read about Obama, Britney Spears, Admiral John Poindexter, and the Department of Defense’s creepy plan to collect all kinds of data on you and then mine that data to predict whether or not you’re a terrorist, this is the article for you!  OK, so that’s kind of unfair — I really only mention Obama and Britney Spears in passing.  But I’m hoping its still an informative and entertaining piece on important things happening with your electronic health records RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE.

I am too bedraggled and brain-frozen right now to do any cool “click here to cut to the rest of the article” things, so for the time being it will just be a PDF: Your Liberty and Your Health: Protecting Electronic Health Records on the Nationwide Health Information Network.

More to come in the next few days:  a lovingly-written paper on Critical Information Literacy in Public Libraries (an issue near and dear to my heart), and a rundown of the Iowa Library Association’s Technology Petting Zoo, which is happening this Friday.

(*edit: my brain is working much better today.  Full text available below:)

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Position Paper: Amazon 1-Click Patent

18 Apr

(This Position Paper is written from the point of view of an Amazon.com employee or strategist.  It was written for the “Information Policy” course at the University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science .)

“Amazon.com is under significant pressure to abandon its patent on “1-Click” online shopping technology. The service enables online customers to enter their billing and shipping information just once so that on subsequent visits to the website all it takes is a single mouse-click to make a purchase from the website.

“Critics believe that the 1-Click patent significantly impairs open software development and will cripple future innovations in e-Commerce. However, patents such as 1-Click also serve as incentives for businesses who wish to invest in new technologies that will transform e-Commerce for the better.

“The Amazon.com Chief Information Officer firmly believes that Amazon.com should continue to enforce its 1-Click patent, as this system substantiates a true innovation in e-Commerce.

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Position Paper: Video Surveillance at Ivy Walls University

18 Apr

(This Position Paper is written from the point of view of the Information Department at the hypothetical “Ivy Walls University.”  It was written for the “Information Policy” course at the University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science. )

“University Administration is considering the implementation of video surveillance in the library to alleviate parent and librarian concerns that students are using library computers to access Social Networking Sites (SNS). Some parents think that SNS are a safety threat as well as a poor use of tuition dollars. Librarians have concerns about recreational computer use, too; at times they intervene on behalf of students who want to study when no other computers are available, and librarians feel that some students who use computers recreationally are rude or verbally abusive in these situations.

“Video surveillance in the library could encourage students to limit their recreational activities and to behave more appropriately towards library personnel and other students. However, cameras might also be viewed as overly invasive and could ultimately limit or even censor students’ information-seeking activities.

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Position Paper: GLBT Internet Use and Filtering in Public Libraries

18 Apr

(This Position Paper is written from the point of view of a hypothetical public library  It was written for the “Information Policy” course at the University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science. )

“The library has received complaints that adult library patrons are using library computers to access websites with lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) themes, and that these websites are pornographic or at least unsuitable for children to see.  Concerned patrons have requested increased filtering on library computers.

“After looking into these complaints, the library staff has concluded that the library computer area does indeed have a strong LGBT presence.  However, the websites in question are neither explicitly sexual nor obscene.  They relate to activities and issues such as gay-friendly ocean cruises and LGBT housing options.

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