Perhaps Amazon needs to tweak its algorithms

Like everyone, I use Amazon, and while I was actually looking for some books for my niece, I found that Amazon was recommending this as a children's book:

If you do a bit of investigating, this is part of an adult MM romance series, and most definitely not appropriate for children.

What a week.

While our President managed not to start any new firestorms, it doesn't seem like he has been able to douse the old ones quite yet.  His wiretapping allegations seem to be going nowhere, as he has yet to be able to provide any proof, and his proposed budget helps little more than the military.  That said and done, I will likely wrap up.  I have been keeping abreast of the world, but there is so much media out there that if I don't have a personal spin on it, I don't see much reason to rehash it here, though I have been doing a bit of that on FB.

Speaking of FB, I seem to have managed to get someone's attention by posting a picture of a tin that contained "Jesus Saves" jellybeans.  I thought it a bit bizarre which is why I posted it, but for some reason my post with a comment that said little more than I found it with all the jellybeans gone was taken as something derogatory to Christianity.  My reply was that jellybeans had as little to do with the crucifixion as Christmas trees have to do with the birth of Christ was not commented upon.

Facebook and the internet

As the opening credits of the Holy Grail scroll by, moose and all, I am writing this.  It took me some time to make the decision that this movie was one that would only moderately distract me as I tried to write my blog post.  That said, coconuts blaring, I will continue on with this morning's thoughts.  Actually, they are more of yesterdays, but after percolating a bit, they get written today, and as such become today's posting.  That said, it occurred to me today how Facebook has become the sharing medium of choice.  People jot down their thoughts, post their pictures, and share news stories there, while blogs have become something a bit more focused in regards to theme.  People decide their blog will be about "something" like their exercise regimen or cooking experiments, and focus the blog on those.  Mine is still a sort of hodgepodge, with really old posts showing drawings, while the newer ones mention poetry, and throughout it all there has been a bit of my opinion on the news of the day.  I have posted many photos of art over on FB that did not get shared here, and I know people tend to post family all over the place there, as well as news articles they find interesting.  Facebook has in a way taken the place of the half-filled, periodic blogs that people otherwise busy might once have had.  In addition, with the share feature offered by so many news sites, there is a fair amount of news there as well, so people really don't need to venture away from there.  It is as if Facebook has become the new AOL with the walled garden being decided upon by their friends rather than a corporation.  If you have a limited amount of time in a day, all you need to do now is log into FB, check your feed, and then you think "you know what you need to know" for the day.  The newsfeed on FB has become the web, though factor in a few favorites as well, and people don't really explore past that.

With the spate of "fake" news everywhere, and the fact that people don't seem to be able to differentiate between fake, satire, and unfavorable is a sad reflection of our society.  The fact that FB hasn't traditionally cared if "fake" news fills the newsfeed or not reflects the short-sightedness of its managers, and the naïveté of the same, in thinking that people aren't influenced by what they see online.

Eventually I think folks will repeat the past when they broke away from AOL and invigorated all those sites that didn't try to "curate" the web for you.  Perhaps they will discover that in allowing their friends to be the curators they have missed out on too much.

John Donne's "The Message"

The Message

SEND home my long stray’d eyes to me, 
Which, O! too long have dwelt on thee; 
Yet since there they have learn’d such ill,   
   Such forced fashions,
   And false passions, 
     That they be
     Made by thee 
Fit for no good sight, keep them still. 

Send home my harmless heart again, 
Which no unworthy thought could stain; 
Which if it be taught by thine
   To make jestings
   Of protestings,
     And break both
     Word and oath, 
Keep it, for then ’tis none of mine. 

Yet send me back my heart and eyes, 
That I may know, and see thy lies, 
And may laugh and joy, when thou
   Art in anguish
   And dost languish
     For some one
     That will none, 
Or prove as false as thou art now.

                                -Donne, John (2012-09-14). Delphi Complete Poetical Works of John Donne
                                   (Kindle Locations 710-717). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

I came across this over the weekend, and decided it was something I wanted to share, though I don't think spurning a lover is a poet is a good thing, since poems like this are the result.

Trump is at it again

The pattern has gotten incredibly obvious, though I am sure some will still refuse to see it.  While Trump had a moment of good press early in the week, by Friday his administration was mired in more Russian controversy, and Saturday Trump sent a flurry of tweets (Twitterstorm?) seeking to deflect attention away from his administration.  In this case, he got it into his mind that Obama had ordered wiretaps against him, and to judge by the headlines I have read so far, Obama is planning a coup or some such thing.  With luck, by Monday the news will be refocused on Russia, because at least one news story I saw also linked Trump's son-in-law into some of these meetings.  Maybe Trump really didn't know everyone around him was dealing with the Russians, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.  Trump is muckraking in order to deflect attention, and I really think Americans should have learned better by now.  One thing that the digital age does sort of ruin is the old ability of printed newspapers of burying stories inside the paper or even below the fold if they actually seem to merit attention, but not all the attention.  Since Trump tweeted it, the story will get attention, but the real story is not wiretaps, but the campaign contacts with Russia, and, with luck, the focus will return there quickly.  Bad press distresses Trump, so this really needs to keep moving forward.  There is a chance that Monday will bring more real news, but even then, the story with the Russians needs to play out and be investigated.  I don't even care if nothing is found, but there are enough questions to propriety that the truth is obfuscated, so a non-partisan investigation needs to be carried out.

Trigger Warnings

This topic is mostly because of a review I read for the book was Stolen Ink, but I don't recall if the review was on Amazon or Goodreads.  My understanding of a trigger warning is that you would normally put it in place if there is something traumatic that happens in a story, like rape, incest, domestic violence, abuse of some sort (drug, alcohol, or any of the physical that would fall under domestic violence), so that people sensitive to those issues know to avoid or are at least prepared when they read the work.  I have also seen authors specifically mention if something features intimate MM situations.

At the risk of sounding totally insensitive, and sometimes I am a bit blind to things, I am wondering if I am wrong with regards to what should be listed by an author as a trigger.  The review I am speaking of complains that the author of a MM urban fantasy/paranormal romance did not list as potential triggers the use of the phrase "spirit animal" and that two characters met in a bar and then went home together and had sex.  Neither of which seem to me to be something that would merit "trigger warnings" in my opinion because neither seem inherently likely to be traumatic.  The review mentions that the latter is just something she/he doesn't like, and she finds the former (the use of the phrase "spirit animal") to be offensive to native americans/first peoples, and that even though they are not used in reference to those people (it is used in reference to an elf's tattoo "companion"), she doesn't like the phrase, since it is appropriated from First Peoples' culture (and the writer gives no indication of being from that culture).  Is the reviewer just being sloppy in her terminology, am I being too literal?  I may have taken it too seriously, but I also think this is how something useful becomes something onerous.  I appreciate a warning that drug abuse or rape or something similarly unpleasant is in the storyline, but if such warnings are expected to cover everything potentially offensive to someone (rather than traumatic), then the blurb will be bloated to incomprehensibility, and the warnings will mean almost nothing.  Everyone has different dislikes, and perhaps a rephrasing of the review would be simplest, but I am just curious if I have totally misinterpreted what Trigger Warnings are actually for.  I mean if you are reading a book that is considered MM romance, and you don't like guys meeting and hooking up immediately after meeting at a bar, then it is probably the wrong genre to read anyway, at least in my experience.

Let me know if I am being insensitive, if the reviewer just chose the wrong phrase, if I have the proper concept of Trigger Warnings (or not).

[Cultural appropriation is a different matter altogether, but I think when artists and authors do it respectfully and it is something that fuels their growth or is an important part of a book, then it should be accepted.  Monet was inspired by Japanese woodcuts and Picasso by African tribal masks, and neither hid that inspiration.]

After all those words, my biggest issue is that I don't want something as potentially useful as those warnings to become just a list of what people have taken issue with because I think there is a chance it will limit an author's ability to be creative.  For the elf in question, his spirit animal was mentioned as a link to his people, so I don't see why the author should need to make up some new term for it, if such an understanding is already inherent in one available (and if the author had chosen "totem" as an alternative choice meaning much the same thing, but in my opinion a much more loaded word, then the reviewer would still have had an issue).  It is not a perfect correlation, but then it is urban fantasy, so that shouldn't be expected.  I guess I think authors, like artists (which authors are), deserve a great amount of freedom, and that readers should couch their expectations based on genre.  Many blurbs do mention common triggers, whether it be a reminder that it is an explicit MM tale or something a bit more serious like drug abuse or domestic violence, and I like that status quo, and I hope that my concept of what triggers are isn't totally fouled up.

Stopping now, before I write another several hundred words circling the same subject without making it any clearer.