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“‘ “I find the comparison between civil rights based on race and supposed new rights being granted for what amounts to deviant behavior to be really kind of ridiculous. There is no comparison. A black as a person does not by being black harm anyone. Gay rights is a collective delusion that’s being attempted. And the idea of ‘gay marriage’ — it’s hard to find a ridiculous enough comparison.’” — Orson Scott Card

The latest post-conference mishagosh comes to us courtesy of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), which gave this year’s Margaret A. Edwards Award to Orson Scott Card for his works, Ender’s Game (1985) and Ender’s Shadow.

If you know anything about Card’s views about homosexuality — or about the Edwards award,which “recognizes an author’s work in helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and in the world” — that’s like the Anti-Defamation League giving Bobby Fisher a lifetime achievement award.

In all fairness to the committee, if they had asked the general question “what do we know about Orson Scott Card” (and whether you think the committee should have done that is open for discussion; I say yes, that’s due diligence), it would have taken some effort to uncover Card’s virulent homophobia, and you’d almost have to be looking for it.

A Google search for Orson Scott Card (10 results per page) lists 9 neutral or positive sites about OSC. I had to get to get to the 10^th link to read a Salon article (by Donna Minkowitz, a lesbian, no less) in which the author notes on the first page, “But I’d somehow failed to ascertain that Card was a disgustingly outspoken homophobe.”

(Note: the spell-check in WordPress doesn’t even recognize “homophobe” as a word. Then again, it also doesn’t recognize “WordPress.”)

The real damage is in that bastion of impartiality, Wikipedia. Card’s Wikipedia article barely references his opinions about homosexuality, and only in an external link; to get a fuller story, you’d have to go to the Talk page and then look for it. You certainly won’t find Card’s own words on the topic, which include:

Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.

Dudes and dudettes, that’s hard-core! Even most “compassionate conservatives” don’t speak that directly, not even when they agree with Card.

But if you read this blog you know I have written that Wikipedia often seems more like a Secret Treehouse Club than everyone’s encyclopedia. Card’s Wikipedia page isn’t a biography, it’s an encomium by true believers who maintain fierce control over Card’s myth.

As for Bobby Fisher, his Wikipedia page references Fisher’s anti-Semitism. Despite all the babble on Card’s Talk page, if there’s a consistent rule about what can be said about an author, I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it is.

Besides, as someone said on one mailing list, short of saying gays should be trucked to death camps, homophobic comments by famous people don’t warrant sustained attention in the public sphere. This tsuris only occasioned a strong article in School Library Journal and mild back-pedaling from the awards committee, who said that they hadn’t researched Card prior to this award (I cringe when “information professionals” say things like that) and furthermore — ladies and gentlemen, prepare to hoist an eyebrow or two — “personal views aren’t part of the selection criteria.”

In terms of who we as a profession honor as an association — or in terms of any work effort — we need to make clear-eyed choices. We don’t get a lot of choices in our lifetime, really, not for awards, or books to read, or people to love. Card took up time and energy that could have been directed to someone else. It wasn’t intentional, but what’s done is done.

Oh well. Next year in Jerusalem.

If the award did any good, it is this: many more librarians know the truth about Orson Scott Card.

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Today's update brings one clog fixed... one to go!

My brand new Canon Pro 9000 printer had been misbehaving with a clogged Photo Magenta print head. I had been scouring the net for ideas about how to fix it. And I found one! Since the print head pops out on the Canons, I followed the suggested 'ammonia cure' on the Yahoo Canon printer board. And I am delighted to say It works!!!

I am totally amazed and indebted to this amazing fix for a clogged print head. The test pattern difference is shown in the image above... the before and after. I'd probably recommend trying the Windex and distilled water soaking before going to the ammonia. But if you're out of other options... it just might work.

I tried everything before trying this ammonia overnight soaking. I ran the cleaning cycle 8 times, I did the deep clean 2 times. I took out the print head and sprayed it with Windex at least three times. I tried soaking it in hot distilled water for 10 minutes... but nothing I did made one tiny bit of improvement.

I was skeptical after all these failures... but soaking it overnight in ammonia worked like a charm!! I also understand that soaking in Windex overnight works well too, and may be less harsh on the print head. That might be what I'll try next time.

I also think blowing out the ink from above, using a computer compressed air can is key in clearing out blockage. It's very easy to do with the straw attached and touching the pad where the ink cartridge usually sits.

So now my printer is back in business again... hooray! And when my printer goes down, my whole operation goes down.

Below is the technique I followed... in the event some poor Canon printer soul finds this message in a bottle drifiting on the seas of the internet.

jn

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From the Yahoo Canon Printer board:

I have had occurrences of the very sort of nozzle clogging that your nozzle check pattern is showing; as a matter of fact they have been far worse. I just got a used head that made your picture look nice and that head is now completely unclogged using the process that I am listing below .

Here is what I did for that head and have done before for other heads.

1. I took the cartridges out of the print head, and the printhead out of the machine.

2. I put pure ammonia (if the clog was not too bad, I sometimes use Windex or head cleaner) in the place where the cartridge sits in the color slot that was showing the streak pattern.

3. I placed distilled water in the other color slots to keep them moist.

4. I sat the print head on a lid that I have that is perfect for catching run off or soaking the bottom of the printhead.

5. I covered the print head and lid with a plastic bag to stop evaporation and left the head with the water and ammonia overnight (8 hours) to loosen up.

6. In the morning, I took compressed air and from the top side put the straw right over the fabric and gave the clogged slot about three good blasts until the whole length of underside of the bad color showed ink coming out of it.

7. I then rinse the whole bottom side with distilled water, use a lint free cloth to dry it off, reinstall the printhead, and I am back in business.

--------------------------------------------

Also, I've discovered the world's most in-depth online forum for solving printer problems!

http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/

This site has amazing information about inkjet printers of every sort. It's a real gold mine of information and I'm sure I'll be frequenting it's lists to learn how to keep my expensive inkjet printers running.

… FSU’s associate general counsel D. Michael Cramer asked that the student union’s policy be more in line with the university’s, which does not include sexual orientation, gender identity or expression and socio-economic status.

My bottom line is I don’t write about my former jobs unless I have positive things to say, but given the FSU-centricity of Tallahassee, this story is much broader than My Former Place Of Work (MFPOW). Yesterday (after a flurry of emails that were soon circulating city-wide) the Florida State University Student Union Board rejected a proposal from FSU’s general counsel, D. Michael Cramer, to remove protection for sexual orientation from the Student Union Board’s anti-discrimination policy.

At last week’s conference, Jan Ison quoted another librarian who once said libraries should avoid doing things that make them look stupid. Of all the things FSU had to worry about — including the budget crisis — this was a priority? Please, Cramer, you make FSU look stupid.

The Democrat covered this story — good for them! — and noted that the big school down the street (University of Florida at Gainesville, gallingly known as UF, as if there were only one, not eleven) had much stronger anti-discriminatory policies. Not noted in the story is that UF also offers its faculty domestic partner health benefits.

Giving up protections and benefits was part of the package deal of moving here, and MFPOW wasn’t worse than anywhere else in the immediate area. The state itself offers little protection (and is busy trying to Defend Marriage when it really needs to be defending public services and figuring out how to fix the budget and insurance crises).

State institutions that want to compete outside of Florida (you know… like with other ARL institutions) need to work around painfully backward state laws and policies — and these institutions are often attempting to provide equal rights and benefits in an environment that enables the D. Michael Cramers of the world to feel free to get up in front of students and propose removing protections from a nebbishly little student government policy. Doesn’t spell well for future reforms.

When locals go on and on about how “great” it is here, I need to start saying “Yes, but.” A little awareness wouldn’t hurt.

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… FSU’s associate general counsel D. Michael Cramer asked that the student union’s policy be more in line with the university’s, which does not include sexual orientation, gender identity or expression and socio-economic status.

My bottom line is I don’t write about my former jobs unless I have positive things to say, but given the FSU-centricity of Tallahassee, this story is much broader than My Former Place Of Work (MFPOW). Yesterday (after a flurry of emails that were soon circulating city-wide) the Florida State University Student Union Board rejected a proposal from FSU’s general counsel, D. Michael Cramer, to remove protection for sexual orientation from the Student Union Board’s anti-discrimination policy.

At last week’s conference, Jan Ison quoted another librarian who once said libraries should avoid doing things that make them look stupid. Of all the things FSU had to worry about — including the budget crisis — this was a priority? Please, Cramer, you make FSU look stupid.

The Democrat covered this story — good for them! — and noted that the big school down the street (University of Florida at Gainesville, gallingly known as UF, as if there were only one, not eleven) had much stronger anti-discriminatory policies. Not noted in the story is that UF also offers its faculty domestic partner health benefits.

Giving up protections and benefits was part of the package deal of moving here, and MFPOW wasn’t worse than anywhere else in the immediate area. The state itself offers little protection (and is busy trying to Defend Marriage when it really needs to be defending public services and figuring out how to fix the budget and insurance crises).

State institutions that want to compete outside of Florida (you know… like with other ARL institutions) need to work around painfully backward state laws and policies — and these institutions are often attempting to provide equal rights and benefits in an environment that enables the D. Michael Cramers of the world to feel free to get up in front of students and propose removing protections from a nebbishly little student government policy. Doesn’t spell well for future reforms.

When locals go on and on about how “great” it is here, I need to start saying “Yes, but.” A little awareness wouldn’t hurt.

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That’s the number of references to same-sex couples in the Census Bureau’s “Facts for Features” for Unmarried and Single Americans Week 2007 — or for 2006 or 2005, although this information was cited in the Facts for Features for 2004.

(The Facts for Features series is intended for media consumption, and “consist[s] of collections of statistics from the Census Bureau’s demographic and economic subject areas intended to commemorate anniversaries or observances or to provide background information for topics in the news.”)

It’s not terribly hard to find Census data sets that cite such same-sex information as gets reported (and of course, it’s surely underreported; I’m not convinced there are fewer gay people in Alabama and Utah, as the data suggest, but I guarantee you there are parts of the country where Sandy and I are Just Sisters when when passing through — not uncommon practice, either — and the residents may lie low, as well).

If you’d rather read a nicely-crunched assessment of this data, see this Census Bureau PowerPoint based on “American Community Survey Data,” which concludes:

Same-sex unmarried-partner households looked very similar to married-couple households except they had slightly more education and were less likely to have children in the household.

No wonder the gummint wants same-sex households edited out of the Official Story. It’s hard to get excited about the “defense of marriage” when the net impact of the Homosexual Agenda is to raise your property value.

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The Human Rights Campaign has launched A Legacy of Service Tour where gay veterans will talk about serving their country. If you’re in Orlando, note the appearances this Wednesday.

This is a timely moment for reconsidering “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” This morning NPR was a-buzz about the Army missing its recruitment quota the second month in a row. Recent news reports featured the misbehavior of substandard recruits allowed to enlist because we’re so desperate for warm bodies to fight an unpopular war.

Liberalize policies about gay military service, and one of two things will happen. Either more gay people will sign up for service, or they won’t. (Plus existing gay servicepeople won’t be tossed out.)

If more gay people sign up, then we can level or even raise the quality of recruits fighting this war. If they don’t sign up, then nothing changes except one stupid policy, and nothing is harmed — plus we bring our policies in line with our allies.

One of the arguments against eliminating the DOD’s anti-gay policies is that straight soldiers don’t want to work around gay soldiers. But they don’t have a choice, given that most of the members of the “Coalition of the Willing” allow gay soldiers to serve. Not only that, but they serve next to gay people anyway. They just don’t know it, or if they do know it, they mostly don’t care.

Furthermore, take the typical soldier and ask him or her: seriously, would you rather jump into a foxhole with a poorly-educated dimwit with a history of sociopathic behavior, or with someone of a different flavor of sexual orientation who, by the way, at that very moment is probably not staring at your ass (to use the common objection I heard twenty years ago) but thinking about saving his or hers — or even yours?

Even someone who feels compelled to say “I’ll take the dimwit” probably doesn’t mean it, at least not when the chips are down. When you’re serving in the military in any significant capacity — in peace or in war — you probably aren’t aware if the person next to you is gay, but in many cases, you definitely know if he’s a dimwit. A profession involving guns, bombs, tanks, and aircraft does not need slow studies or basket cases.

The campaign to defeat “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and allow gay Americans to serve with honor is also, in part, a campaign to stamp out dimwits and nut jobs. I was fortunate to serve with many smart people, but in the armed services, it only takes one person to make your day go from good to very, very bad. Whether or not you support the war in Iraq, take a moment to ask your legislator to change the military’s policy. We need every good soldier we can find.

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