Ambient Stupidity

Look what I found at my local CVS…

Now the only question is where should I put it in the apartment…

(BTW, that video was shot and uploaded using my Droid! Droid Rulez!!!)

Full Disclosure: I have been a customer of Amazon.com since 1997, am a current Amazon Prime Member, and am an Amazon Associate who in 2008 made $8.76 from cereal related products.

I was going to avoid this whole Amazon.com debate.  It seemed to be getting plenty of coverage, there were things changing minute by minute I wasn’t necessarily able to keep track of, and after I did my own research into it where I found there really wasn’t anything worthy of my time or effort on the matter.  That was Sunday.

This tweet came out on Monday linking to this story that had been written the day before.

This post was also made on Monday.

So let the buzzsaw begin…

The Accusation

So author Mark Probst wanted to know why his Young Adult novel with gay themes, The Filly, was stripped of its Amazon sales ranking.  He notified both Amazon and blogged about it.  His book wasn’t the only one.  In fact there were quite a few books that had their sales rankings removed that were by GLBT authors or had GLBT themes including:

• The Filly
• The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk
Rubyfruit Jungle
• Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America

And

• My Point…And I Do Have One

Now all the books listed above had their sales rankings removed.  If you click any of those links above, you will find yourself looking at exactly what I was looking at on Sunday.

I was looking at a product page where I could order the very book they were claiming the sales rankings had been removed from.

I bet you think I was mistaken, but I assure you I was not!  You see, even though the sales rankings are removed, Amazon still sold the books.  I could still find the books using the search bar.  I could still order the books.  So where is this censorship and book burning you ask???  There was none.

What Actually Happened

Where are the sales rankings normally you ask?  Well on a normal page you would find them as highlighted here in the red letters:

So the number above is that particular book’s sales ranking across ALL books.  Amazon also will provide sales rankings on books that are classified, usually by the publisher, further in their literature taxonomy.  So a book that may rank 1,000,000 in just Books can also rank 300 in the more specific Literature ——> Gay.  So these books were delisted from the genre lists.

You could still find them via a keyword search.

You could still order them and have them shipped to you.

Conspiracy Theories

Admittedly, Amazon has (of this post’s writing) not produced a solid reason why this happened other than it was a “glitch”.  They have in fact been working to reinstate the sales rankings for the books affected, including those above.  This of course has not stopped the Internet from bashing them incessantly or generating some theories:

Conspiracy Theory: GLBT Authors Self-Sacrifice

This theory is that the GLBT publishers got together and secretly tagged their books with the ADULT tag just prior to the Christian Easter Weekend.  This would do three things for them: 1) It would delay Amazon‘s response since it was a holiday weekend 2) It would allow them to once again lay blame on Right Wing Christians Groups for a wrong against them and 3) Hopefully cause a Steisand Effect because people would erroneously think the material was being censored, which in turn would boost the sales of their literature at a time when the money was much needed in this down economy

Debunked: Let’s face it, the GLBT community can’t organize for jack shit.  If they had the power to organize such an action then Prop 8 never would have passed in California.  They are way too fractured and lacking in a voice to pull this off both politically and on The Real World: Brooklyn.

Conspiracy Theory: Right Wing Christian Fundamentalists

In a move to further along the current fundamental Crusade against the “evils” of the GLBT community, Right Wing Christian Fundamentalist groups diverted teenagers from Good Friday services to stations set up in their churches around the country where they repented by marking GLBT material as “ADULT” or “OFFENSIVE”.  These God Squads would work through Holy Saturday into the wee hours of Easter Sunday when they would finally rejoice and collapse from exhaustion, leaving all the chocolate bunnies for the over 55 crowd and the GLBT community without any books to read.

Debunked: Amazon allows you to rate how many stars you give a product and write a review, but I have not been able to find a place where they allow you to mark an item as offensive or “ADULT”.  Additionally, if this was true, then there would have been a huge spike of diabetic related emergencies across the midwest.  The only increase was in the number of animal bites from rabbits and chicks, leaving the resolution of this theory in high doubt.

Conspiracy Theory: The Alien Theory

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, was abducted by aliens from the secret base in New Mexico who have allegiance to George W. Bush.  They put him through a mind altering procedure to make him think like Rush Limbaugh.  He then systematically weeded out any GLBT employee of Amazon on the coding/product/review teams and replaced them with mindless worker bees who simply tagged things they thought were GLBT related as “ADULT”.  He will eventually cocoon himself and emerge as a huge butterfly before releasing the Kindle 3 that will only download and read aloud The Book of Mormon.

Debunked: It’s not.  We’re still waiting on DNA samples from the lab taken from a glass of tea that was globbed with honey that Bezos had been drinking.  Homemade honey….

Conspiracy Theory: Hackers

It is possible that some hackers found an exploit in Amazon‘s system and decided to use it… sort of the same way that Twitter was wormed this past weekend by a 17 year old fellow New Yorker.  This exploit could have been done either externally or even possibly even internally by an employee unintentionally making a simple error, but only Amazon server logs will be able to reveal it after analysis.

Debunked: It isn’t debunked yet.  Do you have any idea what server logs for Amazon look like?  Yeah… they’re way big.  Whether it takes hours, days, or weeks though… the answer is there.

UPDATE: The New York Times, The LA Times and Wired are reporting that Amazon rep Drew Herdener has admitted it was an internal cataloging error that affected 57,000 titles, NOT just GLBT titles, and that they are fixing it.

In Conclusion

I understand what Amazon does for unknown authors and small presses.  It was Amazon that helped propel the smaller presses that publish GLBT materials to gain nationwide distribution.  I understand the importance of Amazon to these authors and publishers and that the loss of Amazon to them would mean the loss of exposure, distribution capability, and ultimately their livelihoods.  The thing is that for Amazon this is business.  Jeff Bezos is a smart and revolutionary businessman who has always been pro the “little guy”, and this change would indicate a dramatic shift in that thinking and undermining years of his own work. 

Censorship is a problem that we face.  There are plenty of examples of real censorship such as the case of Maureen Johnson‘s Bermudez Triangle being banned in Bartlesville Oklahoma as I made previous mention of here.  To falsely accuse Amazon of censorship is not only wrong but irresponsible, especially if you don’t have a basic understanding of the machinations of how it all works as MANY of these decriers have exhibited a severe lack of.

There’s nothing wrong with questioning a “policy” or a result of something that is unexpected and seemingly wrong.  In fact, as many of you may notice, I do so on a regular basis.  However before we start hurling accusations of impropriety and of acts that are against the very democratic core that we express these feelings under… we need to make sure we are properly educated in the matter.  Words cannot be irresponsibly thrown out there, and you need to own them.

If you’ve dropped the #AmazonFail on Twitter, if you’ve declared yourself as boycotting Amazon for their perceived transgression as baseless as it was, or if you’re an Amazon Associate who has sworn them off, then you go right ahead and follow up with your threats.  No, seriously, own what you have said for a change.  Even though Amazon has done nothing wrong you should keep your promises and your posturing… because you do not DESERVE the convenience, price savings, and intellectual freedom provided by Amazon.

Me?

I love Amazon… in fact I just got this in the mail Friday…

… and I’ll be using them for a long time to come…

Fresh off the Clearly, You’re Retarded episode last night, I’ve decided to relay this little story about my day yesterday because Poppy said it was interesting…

I got called to the Psych Courts for a crew with a patient waiting to see the “judge”.  Its important to understand that the “court” is really a conference room and the “judge” is really someone with a psychiatrist history and knowledge of the mental health code who gets appointed by the director of the region.  The patient was in the commitment process for failure to take his meds and he had an aggressive/violent history.  Needless to say, he was being escorted and was under physical restraints.  Normally, we just wheel the patient on the stretcher into the room and wait while the proceeding formalities take place and then return the patient while the paperwork gets processed to whatever their fate may be.

So when I get there the crew explains to me that the clerk had told them the judge wanted the patient unrestrained and seated at the conference table.  I spoke to the clerk myself, and he understood exactly what I was saying when I explained that was not the best idea and we should proceed as normal.  The judge however had his own ideas and came out to explain them to me.

Judge: I want the restraints removed and the patient seated at the table like a human being!

Me: I understand that is your request, however the patient has a violent history, has not been medicated, and is a flight risk to say the least.

Judge: I am the ruling authority here in my courtroom and I will decide what will and will not happen!

Me: Actually, you have no authority over me or my crew but I am more than willing to release the patient into your custody.  Just sign your name here and print it underneath.

This is when the fool did just that.  So I nodded to the officer who unrestrained the patient.  We helped the patient off the stretcher and into the courtroom.  The judge followed with the clerk and someone else who closed the door behind them but not before I heard the judge make a snide comment about, “That brute!”.  I motioned to the crew to stop making their stretcher and looked at the clock on the wall.  Four minutes after the door had closed the screaming began.

Me: So what do you feel like for lunch?

Officer: Huh?

Me: Lunch.  I think after all this aggravation the least I can do is buy you lunch.

This is when the court officers finally could be seen running down the hallway.  It took them another 15 seconds or so to get into the room.  When they finally called is back in the judge was against a wall cradling his arm.  On his right hand was the elliptical imprint of a mouth with teeth mark.

Judge: Take him back!

I looked down on the desk and saw the Commitment paperwork had still not been signed.  Rules are rules… right?

Me: Your going to need to sign that, and print your name underneath before I can do that.

I got the glare.  Begrudgingly he signed the paperwork, I called my crew in, and we once again got the patient onto the stretcher with the help of the officer we had brought along.  In the end though I felt bad even though the judge had been dismissive and ambiently stupid.  I gave him an ice pack, and let him go for the ride so he could get his rabies shots.  He’ll get the bill Monday.

The lesson to be learned… you can be as intelligent as Einstein or as dense as a log… but if you don’t have the wisdom as to when or when not to exercise your intelligence or admit the lack of it when a “brute” may have a better idea… then you are doomed.