AmazonFail: The Morning After

The morning brings us:

Amazon's assertion that it was all just a glitch.

My response? Computers do what you tell them to. This is a glitch that involved human error, homophobic human error. Amazon needs to issue a clear statement that what happened was against policy, is being corrected, is being investigated and that they enjoy serving a broad spectrum of customers, including those interested in gay and lesbian topics. Others agree.

Assertions that the whole thing might be a result of trolling, not dissimilar to the initial set of events that lead to StrikeThrough.

Could be. This does nothing to change that Amazon handed it badly and needs to issue some apologies/statements as noted above.

I also take issue with the assertion that trolling is some sort of public service meant to demonstrate flaws in assumed trust relationships. It's one more form of Internet bullying and harassment.

A fabulous piece in AfterEllen that deserved to be read about the representation of queer characters in media. It speaks to something I make a lot of noise about at panels on fanfiction and it's nice to be hearing it from other quarters.

Annoyance that people got up in arms about this because obviously it wasn't going to turn out to be as nefarious as it seemed.

Public outrage is the Stick of Efficiency. Accidental bias is still bias and still creates a problem. This matter getting public attention in a manner that was largely civilized was useful. If it hadn't gone down this way, authors affects would still be trying to sort this out with Amazon a month from now, as demonstrated by several cases of books that were affected by this nonsense as early as February.

Frustration that the petition didn't adequately address the range of stuff affected, including bisexual and trans content. I agree. It's also the petition everyone is signing. What to do? Competing petitions = bad plan.

sundries: media edition

Patty and I have started watching Merlin. It's pretty terrible. It's also pretty inexplicable. The chemistry is amazing and weird (Merlin/Arthur yes, but Guin/Morgana like woah too). Inexplicable is really the only word. I get why people write porn about it, but I don't get why anyone is watching is beyond trying, desperately, to figure out why it exists. Oh, hey, look, random Eve Myles!

Argh, a week without Kings. It's not that good, but it's like nothing else out there and I've found myself missing it.

Doctor Who -- Planet of the Dead -- ( cut so you won't whine at me )

Wacked out dream last night about Australia and raising funds to attend a one week acting/directing course in Sydney that Luhrmann was teaching. Buh? Was set in this weird dream universe version of Sydney and NIDA that I have. But the weirdest part was when I flew down to Sydney just for a day, because I had to (for reasons I can no longer recall), and I was fine dropping $1,500 on the ticket to do it until I realized, after getting there, it was just a one way ticket and I needed $2,322 to get back. bodlon had to come rescue me, and got subjected to one of my long pothos-induced wails about my creative destiny and everything I'm not. Oh! And when I first got to Sydney there was a teenager selling hand-crafted white leather bracelets on the dream!road by the dream!airport and I told her I was broke and wished her good luck. It was the middle of the night and she beamed at me; I had only noticed her because a woman on a cellphone walking towards me had been mean to her. Odd dream that left me oddly out of sorts.

I am finishing work and then heading home I think to write a Jack/Ianto/Andy PWP I just got hit with. Very random.

I see wank coming down the pike in TW fandom (thanks for the heads up redstapler) and wonder of wonders, it's not about me for a fucking change.