librarypunk

080 - Moms for Liberty/Moms for Libraries

This week we’re talking about everyone’s favorite “grassroots” organization, Moms for Liberty. Justin is breaking out the cork board to show you where it’s all coming from. We also share our controversial takes on the Wikipedia redesign. 

 

Readings

• https://web.archive.org/web/20230117220154/https://www.momsforliberty.org/news/moms-for-liberty-partners-with-brave-books-to-donate-thousands-of-books-to-schools/ 
• https://bookriot.com/moms-for-libraries/ 
  • About the launch of Moms for Libraries.
  • Among the titles in Brave Books’s catalog are Elephants Are Not Birds, Little Lives Matter, and More Than Spots and Stripes — 100,000 copies of this anti-critical race theory book were given away on Martin Luther King Day this year. It’s clear what the “values” in said books are.
• https://newrepublic.com/article/169946/moms-for-libraries-public-schools
  • Moms for Libraries prompts supporters to purchase copies of books from a handful of small conservative publishers it’s chosen, such as Heroes of Liberty, which released a book in December valorizing Elon Musk. 
  • Also mentions Brave Books
• https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/10/moms-against-libraries/
  • “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” mentioned in this article. 
• https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/07/09/just-who-is-behind-moms-for-liberty-column/
  • Funding sources for Moms for Liberty unclear. 
  • Moms for Liberty incorporated as an Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(4) organization, a form that lends itself to dark money political shenanigans.
  • Moms for Liberty has formed three federal and one state political action committees, one of which is a SuperPAC able to accept unlimited donations
  • Moms for Liberty’s press is being handled by Calvary Strategies whose CEO is a former campaign manager and chief of staff to Sen. (then-Gov.) Rick Scott
  • Two of Moms for Liberty’s National Summit sponsors, the Leadership Institute and Heritage Foundation are critical members of the Council for National Policy
• https://www.wishtv.com/news/local-news/christian-childrens-author-kirk-cameron-alleges-racial-religious-discrimination-by-indypl/
  • Kirk Cameron demanding official partnership with the library as a program. 
  • Contrary to Cameron’s statement, Brave Books had rented a room for an event. And indeed, the Indianapolis event went ahead as planned in the rented room. Afterward, Brave Books celebrated by castigating other libraries, posting on Twitter, “No longer will Christians be silent,” and Fox News hosted Cameron, during which he threatened legal action against the library anyway, a victory lap over nothing
• https://www.mediamatters.org/critical-race-theory/unmasking-moms-liberty
• https://www.the74million.org/article/exclusive-moms-for-liberty-pays-21k-to-co-owned-by-founding-members-husband/
  • Moms for Liberty, one of the fastest-growing and most recognized conservative parent advocacy groups in the nation, paid $21,357 to a company owned by the husband of one of its founding members, campaign finance records show.
• https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/anti-lgbtq-activists-will-train-floridas-public-school-librarians-books-ban/ 
  • “In Brevard County alone, it ignored the five submissions made by the bipartisan local school board, including the nomination of a former elementary school assistant principal, the director of Eastern Florida State College’s tutoring centers, and the administrator of a local scholarship fund,” the aforementioned publication wrote.
  • Instead, the department chose a self-nominated individual named Michelle Beavers. Beavers heads the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a right-wing group that gained notoriety during the pandemic for attending and protesting school board meetings to oppose mask mandates and LGBTQ inclusivity in schools.
  • She herself advocated for Brevard County schools to ban the coming-of-age graphic novel This One Summer over its mention of lesbians and its crude teenage humor. She also supports revoking county school policies allowing parents to individually block their children’s access to library materials — Beavers prefers statewide bans on titles instead.
  • “These books violate the law, it’s a felony. So why would you try and still defend there [sic] existence by letting parents opt out?” she wrote to the Brevard County schools superintendent.

• • Who is Moms for Liberty?
    • Moms for Liberty has county-specific chapters across the country that target local school board meetings, school board members, administrators, and teachers. The group advocates to strip districts of protective COVID-19 measures and modify classroom curriculum to exclude the teaching of “critical race theory” (CRT) and sex education, all in the name of “parental rights.”
    • Origin in Florida, connected to mainstream Florida Republican politicians
    • Promoting anti-trans pseudoscience: “rapid-onset gender dysphoria.” From a paper in PLoS that was retracted, based on interviews with parents of transgender minors sourced from anti-trans sites. 
  • Major players
    • Moms for Liberty
      • https://www.momsforliberty.org/about/
      • Tiffany Justice
      • Tina Descovich
      • Marie Rogerson
      • Bridget Ziegler (not listed on the page anymore)
        •  But there was a third founder, Bridget Ziegler. She is still a school committee member and her husband, Christian Ziegler, is vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party and the owner of a political marketing firm.
        • Christian Ziegler owns Microtargeted Media, which Moms for Liberty spent $21,357 according to campaign finance disclosure
      • Connections and funding (from Tampa Bay Times article)
        • Where does funding come from
          • Clearly a Koch funded and fundamentalist funded org.
          • Claim to run on tshirt sales (laughable, ask anyone who sells tshirt merch)
        • Yet perhaps they’ve heard of the Council for National Policy. Two of Moms for Liberty’s National Summit sponsors, the Leadership Institute and Heritage Foundation are critical members of the Council for National Policy, a secretive network of right wing billionaires and Christian fundamentalist leaders that underwrites and coordinates right wing politics.
        •  Parents Defending Education is Koch-connected. The Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) claims credit for the havoc wreaked by anti-Critical Race Theory legislation. The Council for National Policy’s Leadership Institute commenced its own program to take over school boards. The Council for National Policy-connected Turning Point USA initiated a School Board Watch List for reporting “woke” school boards.
      • Michelle Beavers, nominated herself and appointed by DeSantis
        • https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/10/anti-lgbtq-activists-will-train-floridas-public-school-librarians-books-ban/ 
          • “In Brevard County alone, it ignored the five submissions made by the bipartisan local school board, including the nomination of a former elementary school assistant principal, the director of Eastern Florida State College’s tutoring centers, and the administrator of a local scholarship fund,” the aforementioned publication wrote.
          • Instead, the department chose a self-nominated individual named Michelle Beavers. Beavers heads the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a right-wing group that gained notoriety during the pandemic for attending and protesting school board meetings to oppose mask mandates and LGBTQ inclusivity in schools.
          • She herself advocated for Brevard County schools to ban the coming-of-age graphic novel This One Summer over its mention of lesbians and its crude teenage humor. She also supports revoking county school policies allowing parents to individually block their children’s access to library materials — Beavers prefers statewide bans on titles instead.
          • “These books violate the law, it’s a felony. So why would you try and still defend there [sic] existence by letting parents opt out?” she wrote to the Brevard County schools superintendent.
      • Mamas for DeSantis (promoted by Moms for Liberty) run by DeSantis’s wife.
        • The workgroup also included Jamie Merchant, a member of Mamas for DeSantis. The group’s goals include training parents to oppose CRT, gender ideology (the existence of trans people), and “social emotional learning” while also training candidates to take over local school boards.
        • The astroturfed group has received financing from two anti-LGBTQ conservative groups, the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA, Politico reported. It has been promoted by Moms for Liberty. On Mamas for DeSantis’ summer reading list, the group included a book called Crimes of the Educators, which called on citizens to end the American public school system.

• Moms for Liberty’s press is being handled by Calvary Strategies whose CEO is a former campaign manager and chief of staff to Sen. (then-Gov.) Rick Scott

• • • Moms for Libraries
      • Catherine Rahimian, who founded the Orange County California chapter of Moms for Liberty
        • Board member of the Gavel Project, “an Anti-Woke non-profit” which has sued schools to block masking and vaccine policies
      • Heroes of Liberty - Publisher they partner with that has a book about Elon Musk
        • And to help you, Heroes of Liberty are offering 15% off all of their products. Just use coupon code: MOMS4LIBERTY 

• From Press Release: BRAVE Books is offering a 10% off promo code “MOMSFORLIBERTY” on any purchase with another 10% kept in a donation fund to help the Moms for Liberty Foundation purchase more books for schools in the future.

• • • Brave Books
      • Staff https://bravebooks.us/pages/about-us 
        • Trent Talbot
        • Zach Bell
        • Lina Sawaqedy
        • Savannah Morello
        • Eric Presley
        • Steve Ingalls
        • Hannah Carlson
      • Kirk Cameron book came through them. 
        • News cycle was orchestrated. Program is called Brave Books Story Hour https://bravebooks.us/pages/bb-story-hour 
      • Other authors (Who’s Who of grifters and ghouls). Looks like they’re specifically chosen for name recognition. This whole operation is planned to be a culture war instrument. Figured it was just someone’s husband’s grift. 
        • Elizabeth Johnston (homeschool activist)
        • Ashley St. Clair (TPUSA anti-trans person until photographed with nazis)
        • Jack Posobiec (alt-right grifter)
        • Dan Crenshaw (TX Republican representative, eyepatch guy)
        • Dana Loesch (NRA spokesperson)
        • Graham Allen (Podcaster, TPUSA guy)
        • Missy Robertson (Duck Dynasty guy’s wife)
        • Trent Talbot (Brave Books President)
        • Mike Waltz (Florida Republican, soldier, replaced DeSantis’s seat)
        • Robby Starbuck (gusano grifter)
        • Bethany Hamilton (motivational speaker who got arm bit off by a shark)
        • Gen. Michael Flynn (Trump cabinet member)
        • Dinesh and Debbie D’Souza
        • Sheriff Mark Lamb (Border security grifter)
• Moms for Libraries
  • Methods of outreach 
    • Facebook group
    • Based in CA but basically synonymous and used interchangeably with Moms for Liberty, as a program of theirs rather than a separate organization. 
    • Closely tied to Brave Books. People buy books from them to have them donated to teachers and students directly. Sales money goes back to Moms for Libraries to fund more donations (allegedly). 
    • Donating directly to students rather than libraries. 
  • Agenda as self-described
    • Focus on restrictions on “public school libraries” (very deliberate phrasing, always includes the public part). Probably to conflate school libraries with public libraries so they can censor those as well in the name of school aged children. 
      • Tend to avoid talking about public libraries when on the defensive. (“If N.C. statutes require parental consent for sex education, why are we freely allowing sexually explicit materials in our public school libraries and classrooms?”) 
      • Probably also use Public School to differentiate from Charter Schools, home schooling
    • Pushes for early literacy and funding of libraries (for the moment)
    • Mixture of ideology. Wedging into liberal support until it shifts. TERF behavior. 
    • Focus on transparency language (identical to Gov. DeSantis anti DEI order). 
• Most local chapter members believe these are legitimate grassroots organizations. May not have lasting power when the people funding it lose interest. 
• Fights over school boards are nothing new, the homeschooling movement has been infiltrating public school boards for decades.
• Will also attempt to divert funds to charter schools. Moms for DeSantis explicitly against public education by promoting Crimes of the Educators.

079 - Public Domain 2023 feat. Nancy Sims

New Year New works in the Public Domain! This week we have Nancy Sims to talk about what’s entering the Public Domain in 2023. Of course we had to touch on AI authorship and copyright, Naruto the monkey, and a possible solution for regular weeding discourses. 

Readings

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2023/

https://vimeo.com/696206791 - Sherlock Holmes presentation by Nancy

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/29/canada-steals-cultural-works-from-the-public-by-extending-copyright-terms/
Chapter 2 of Jamie Boyle’s “Public Domain” book - https://www.thepublicdomain.org/download/ - especially pages 19-23 or so, but the rest of it is also really telling about some historical thinking on exclusive IP rights. (With all the caveats about “founding fathers” that have ever caveated.) 

Media mentioned

https://xkcd.com/294/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_(TV_series) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Ado_About_Nothing_(1993_film) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Own_Private_Idaho

 

078 - Accommodations and remote work feat. Adriana White

This week we’re joined by Adriana White to talk about school libraries, accommodations, and remote work. We also give the latest updates on Kirk Cameron’s book tour. Remember to be annoying and ask if that new job posted has a remote option!

https://adrianaluisawhite.wordpress.com/ 

https://twitter.com/adriana_edu 

Media mentioned

Job Accommodations Network

https://twitter.com/iww/status/1605600642872987652?s=20&t=wS2rP5ZIrMnmi3xbL6Lkww

Stella Young's TED TALK https://www.ted.com/talks/stella_young_i_m_not_your_inspiration_thank_you_very_much?language=en 

https://twitter.com/SecCardona/status/1604204972920385537?s=20&t=wS2rP5ZIrMnmi3xbL6Lkww 

Library Salaries List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YXCBN4gxetizJMfKWYcZWRjHHCntD42minrgiPqh-9Y/edit?usp=sharing

INALJ Remote: https://inalj.com/?page_id=56476 

Recommended Resources:

• Adaptive Umbrella workshop
• Accessibility in Your Library webinar
  • Research by J.J. Pionke
  • Understanding Disability to Support Library Workers – Journal of Library Administration 
• Invisible Disabilities and an Inclusive Library Workplace – LIS Mental Health
• Navigating the Academic Hiring Process with Disabilities – In the Library with the Lead Pipe
• Job Seeking and Daily Workforce Experiences of Autistic Librarians – Amelia Anderson, Old Dominion University
• Libraries are for everyone! Except if you’re autistic blog post

077 - Disability and Accommodations feat. Jess Schomberg

We're talking about accommodations again!

 

Jess’s linktree https://linktr.ee/schomj 

Media mentioned

https://litwinbooks.com/books/beyond-accommodation/ 

https://works.bepress.com/jessica-schomberg/28/ 

https://www.sinsinvalid.org/

https://www.uwindsor.ca/wgst/merrickpilling

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-83692-4?sap-outbound-id=DA70FE8AABF69428A26B0BFC99E4CAD1A574A9CE

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-90413-5

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469624891/no-right-to-be-idle/

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674972094

https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/

076 - Prison Information Access feat. Jessica Sylvia

This week we’re joined by Jessica Sylvia to talk about prisons as places of censorship, parole boards, and archival priorities for stories from the inside. 

https://twitter.com/Abolition_Jess

Media Mentioned

https://pen.org/prison-book-bans-protect-mass-incarceration/

https://scalawagmagazine.org/press-in-prison/ 

https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=16574 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_Litigation_Reform_Act

https://daily.jstor.org/far-from-folsom-prison-more-to-music-inside/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_Rape_Elimination_Act_of_2003

https://www.studyandstruggle.com/critical-conversations

https://www.empowermentave.com/ 

075 - Borges and the Library of Babel feat. R.E. Parrish

We’re talking with comic artist R.E. Parrish about Jorge Luis Borges and The Library of Babel. On the way we cover a Reddit question, information paradoxes, goth librarianship, and Twitter archiving. 

https://reparrishcomics.com/

https://www.etsy.com/shop/reparrishcomics

https://twitter.com/reparrishcomics 

Media Mentioned

The Library of Babel - Wikipedia 

https://libraryofbabel.info/About.html 

Infinite monkey theorem - Wikipedia 

The Total Library 

https://reparrishcomics.com/post/101029451973/writer-fights-1 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox

074 - The Carpentries feat. Dorothea Salo

Returning guest Dorothea Salo joins us to teach Justin about The Carpentries. 

Media Referenced

https://carpentries.org/

https://librarycarpentry.org/

https://datacarpentry.org/

https://twitter.com/thecarpentries

https://automatetheboringstuff.com/

073 - Data Cartels feat. Sarah Lamdan

We’ve got Sarah Lamdan on to talk about her new book Data Cartels: The Companies That Control and Monopolize Our Information! We talk about government contracting to third party data companies, legal loopholes, the connection to academic publishing and metrics, and the stranglehold the corporate duopoly has over access to US law by lawyers, citizens, and prisoners. Justin also advances his theory that academic journals are just podcasts. 

 

https://twitter.com/greenarchives1 

Data Cartels: The Companies That Control and Monopolize Our Information | Sarah Lamdan

Librarianship at the Crossroads of ICE Surveillance

S3 Ep2 – Knowledge Equity Lab

Media mentioned

Fact Sheet: New Records Provide Details on ICE’s Mass Use of LexisNexis Accurint to Surveil Immigrants - Community Resource Hub

Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil: 9780553418835 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books 

Algorithms of Oppression

https://twitter.com/JailLawSpeak

https://libraryjuiceacademy.com/shop/course/317-zotero-for-librarians/?attribute_pa_session=2023-03-mar

072 - F for Fake (1973)

Docudrama time! We’re watching F for Fake (1973), the world’s first breadtube essay. We discuss the nature of art, lies, forgeries, markets, and how bad editing is ableism. 

Readings

S3E5: Elmyr de Hory

F for Fake - Wikipedia

Chokepoint Capitalism | Cory Doctorow's craphound.com

071 - Health Communism feat. Beatrice Adler-Bolton

We’re talking with Beatrice Adler-Bolton from Death Panel and the author of Health Communism. We talk about accommodations, surplus populations, extraction, and communism. 

https://twitter.com/realLandsEnd 

https://www.versobooks.com/books/4081-health-communism

Readings

Health Communism (10/20/22) by Death Panel podcast  

Death Panel Podcast

Reddit Question

Man's Search for Meaning - Wikipedia 

Capitalism and Disability - Marta Russell 

Histories of the Transgender Child — University of Minnesota Press