Friday, August 22, 2025

We shouldn’t focus on ‘how bad slavery was’ says Trump. What’s next?; The Guardian, August 22, 2025

 , The Guardian; We shouldn’t focus on ‘how bad slavery was’ says Trump. What’s next?

"The attack on museums, like the assault on education, is meant to convince us that the truth doesn’t matter, that there is no truth, that the wisest course is to blindly accept and repeat whatever lies an authoritarian government chooses to tell.

There’s some disagreement about who first said: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Some claim it was Winston Churchill, others attribute it to George Santayana. But does anyone doubt its veracity?

Perhaps the most nightmarish explanation is that our current administration actually wants us to repeat the most loathsome events of our common past – and to be assured that every act of brutality will disappear from our collective consciousness. There’s a terrifying kind of freedom in knowing that our most odious deeds will be erased from our historical memory, that what we do now will have no consequences – indeed, no reality – in the years to come.

According to the “historically accurate” museum exhibits and history books of the future, there will have been no slavery, there was no discrimination, there were no massacres of our Indigenous population. There was never a time when hard-working, law-abiding immigrant families were separated, when yet more children were stolen from their parents, when, according to the current estimate, 80,000 people – most of them entirely innocent – were imprisoned, when thousands more were kidnapped off the streets and deported from a country they had labored so hard to benefit. And none of this will be mentioned, none of this can be said or written on a wall text, lest we allow the unpatriotic ideologues to make America look bad."

Thursday, August 21, 2025

Canadian father and son named as major 'copyright pirates' jailed 5 years unless they give up their secrets; National Post, August 21, 2025

 Adrian Humphreys, National Post; Canadian father and son named as major 'copyright pirates' jailed 5 years unless they give up their secrets

 "Two Ontario men accused of being the scofflaw pirates behind years of large-scale digital streaming of copyrighted movies and TV have been sentenced to five years in prison — not for piracy, but for contempt of court — unless they reveal passwords and accounts.


Some of the biggest entertainment media companies on the continent — Bell, Rogers, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Universal, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. — spent years chasing the digital pirates behind a bootleg service known as Smoothstreams, which was available globally from five user-friendly online platforms offering a vast collection of movies, TV and live sports since at least 2018.

Lawyers, private investigators, and technology specialists for the corporate giants began their hunt seven years ago, launching what is described as a “sophisticated, extensive, and resource and time-intensive investigation.”...

Ever since, Antonio Macciacchera, 73, of Woodbridge, Ont., and his son, Marshall Macciacchera, of Barrie, Ont., have been in a legal grapple, defying the might of global media heavyweights."

Cornhusker copyright? Getting the facts on the name of Nebraska's new ICE detention facility; KETV, August 20, 2025

  

Waverle Monroe, KETV; Cornhusker copyright? Getting the facts on the name of Nebraska's new ICE detention facility


[Kip Currier: How crass and unnecessarily demeaning it is for ICE to use the name Cornhusker Clink to refer to a detention facility. This administration, unsurprisingly given its past actions, continues to be more focused on alliterative branding and merchandising opportunities (recall Alligator Alcatraz) than modeling professionalism in the ways it communicates a commitment to treating all detainees with dignity and respect.]


[Excerpt]

"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security dubbed the new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility as the "Cornhusker Clink." 

You can't hear the word Cornhusker without thinking of the University of Nebraska.

Many on social media questioned the legality of using the name Cornhusker for the facility. Now KETV is helping you get the facts."

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Victory! Ninth Circuit Limits Intrusive DMCA Subpoenas; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), August 18, 2025

 TORI NOBLE, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Victory! Ninth Circuit Limits Intrusive DMCA Subpoenas

"Fortunately, Section 512(h) has an important limitation that protects users.  Over two decades ago, several federal appeals courts ruled that Section 512(h) subpoenas cannot be issued to ISPs. Now, in In re Internet Subscribers of Cox Communications, LLC, the Ninth Circuit agreed, as EFF urged it to in our amicus brief."

‘Deeply concerning’: reading for fun in the US has fallen by 40%, new study says; The Guardian, August 20, 2025

, The Guardian ; ‘Deeply concerning’: reading for fun in the US has fallen by 40%, new study says

"“Reading has historically been a low-barrier, high-impact way to engage creatively and improve quality of life,” Sonke said. “When we lose one of the simplest tools in our public health toolkit, it’s a serious loss.”

While all groups saw a decline, there were bigger drops among certain groups such as Black Americans, people with lower incomes or education levels, and those in rural areas. More women than men also continue to read for fun.

Daisy Fancourt, study co-author, said: “Potentially the people who could benefit the most for their health – so people from disadvantaged groups – are actually benefiting the least.”

The study also showed that those who read for pleasure have tended to spend even more time reading than before and that the number of those who read with their children hasn’t changed.

“Our digital culture is certainly part of the story,” Sonke said of explanations to the figures. “But there are also structural issues – limited access to reading materials, economic insecurity and a national decline in leisure time. If you’re working multiple jobs or dealing with transportation barriers in a rural area, a trip to the library may just not be feasible.”

Last year in the US, sales of physical books rose slightly after two years of declines. Adult fiction was the main driver, with Kristin Hannah’s The Women leading the pack.

The literacy level in the US is estimated to be about 79%, which ranks as 36th globally."

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Trump Wants Universities to Show Him the Money, or No Deal; The New York Times, August 19, 2025

Michael C. BenderAlan Blinder and , The New York Times; Trump Wants Universities to Show Him the Money, or No Deal

 "Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s methods to extortion."

Trump, 79, Tells Smithsonian to Stop Saying ‘How Bad Slavery Was’; The Daily Beast, August 19, 2025

 , The Daily Beast; Trump, 79, Tells Smithsonian to Stop Saying ‘How Bad Slavery Was’

"POTUS posted a bizarre screed on Tuesday about museums in Washington, claiming the Smithsonian Institution is “OUT OF CONTROL” and is fixated on the shortcomings of yesteryear, like documenting the horrors of slavery.

“The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE,’” he wrote on Truth Social. “Everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been—Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”...

The president’s complaints did not go unnoticed by lawmakers. California congresswoman and Congressional Black Caucus Whip Sydney Kamlager-Dove retweeted Trump’s message with her own, which stated: “Slavery WAS bad, Donald. It’s absurd that this even needs to be said.”

“We don’t whitewash history,” she continued, “we learn from it.” Before adding: “You keep trying to rewrite the past—@TheBlackCaucus won’t let you get away with it.""

Oklahoma testing some incoming teachers to spot ‘radical leftist ideology’; The Hill, August 19, 2025

LEXI LONAS COCHRAN, The Hill ; Oklahoma testing some incoming teachers to spot ‘radical leftist ideology’


[Kip Currier: This is chillingly wild stuff -- administering viewpoint exams to "blue state" applicants who want to become teachers in Oklahoma. Like something out of Lois Lowry's 1993 dystopian novel The Giver.]


[Excerpt]

"A new test will be administered to out-of-state teachers coming to Oklahoma from blue states in a move the state superintendent said is meant to root out “radical leftist ideology” from classrooms.  

The test, set to be administered by conservative educational platform PragerU, will be required for the teachers to receive an Oklahoma certification." 

Let’s Not Erase the History of Medical Ethics; The Hastings Center for Bioethics, August 18, 2025

Barron H. Lerner , The Hastings Center for Bioethics; Let’s Not Erase the History of Medical Ethics

"I must admit that when contributing a chapter to a new book on the history of medical ethics, I was uncomfortable with what some of my coauthors believed was the only ethical way to write history: to serve social justice. That is, history not only needed to portray past injustices to vulnerable groups but also to aim toward ameliorating the modern versions of these wrongs.  

But with the news that the Trump administration is planning to delete historical information that “disparages” Americans from National Park Service exhibits and the Smithsonian museums, I am rethinking my position. If there is one thing that characterizes good history, it is transparency. Even if one objects to the intense focus on acknowledging diversity, equity, and inclusion over the past several years, erasing what you may not agree with is not the answer. Our book, Do Less Harm: Ethical Questions for Health Historians, shows the virtue and importance of telling stories that conventional history has often left out.

That the book had a social justice angle was not surprising. The two coeditors, historians of medicine Courtney Thompson and Kylie Smith, as well as many of the other contributors, have for years been doing scholarship exploring the pervasiveness of racism, sexism, and ableism in the history of medicine. The Black Lives Matter movement, which accelerated after the murder of George Floyd in June 2020, led medical centers across the country to reexamine their own racist behaviors when it came to patients, research subjects, and even their own students and employees. Conversations about these and related topics energized those of us who were writing chapters.

Still, I remained uncertain that good history of medicine had to focus on these topics or, for that matter, on connecting these past abuses to similar events potentially occurring within medicine today. After all, wasn’t there a place for good history that wasn’t so overtly political—for example, telling the stories and ethical conundrums associated with famous medical figures, the discovery of specific diseases, the introduction of novel treatments, and the details of cutting-edge experiments?  

But the increasing threats by the current administration to National Park Service and Smithsonian exhibitions are causing alarms throughout the world of history. In an executive order issued in March, President Trump said he seeks to challenge “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.” And in a recent letter to leaders at the Smithsonian, he stated that the institution should “celebrate American exceptionalism” and “remove divisive or partisan narratives.” To effect these changes, Trump has asked employees of the various sites to identify material they believe may be objectionable—and possibly removed or rewritten. What are some of the revisions being advocated?

One exhibit in Trump’s crosshairs, on the brutality of slavery, is housed at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. A topic within that exhibit discusses how the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act required states to return enslaved individuals who had escaped. Similarly, concerns have been raised about an exhibit at Louisiana’s Cane River Creole National Park that describes the public whipping of escaped slaves and gives the names of the enslavers who carried out the beatings. If Trump has his way, these exhibits may be removed.

Potential changes do not only apply to issues of racism. For example, officials at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina have called into question a plaque about the dangers that power plants and cars cause to plants and animals. At North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore, an employee has raised concerns about a sign noting the danger of rising seas to wild horses.

The most worrisome thing about the potential removal of this information is its whitewashing of history. Even if one disagrees with specific claims, the best way to refute them is to provide counterarguments, not to “disappear” the contradictory statements. What’s the point of history if the parts of it that you don’t like can just be removed?

These threats to historical knowledge led me to reread many of my colleagues’ contributions to Do Less Harm. In his chapter “Centering the Margins,” historian Antoine Johnson describes much of the history of medicine as the “three D’s”: doctors, drugs, and diseases. While these topics are clearly important, focusing on them highlights the discoveries and innovations largely made by white male doctors. But who gets to say that this information is what should constitute the history of medicine? Aren’t the experiences of women and minorities, whether patients or health professionals, equally part of that history? By looking at the history of medicine through a lens of social justice, the potentially invisible stories come to light. One told by historian Ayah Nuriddin, in her chapter “Silences and Violences,” is that of National Negro Health Week, a grassroots initiative in the early 20th century that merged public health and racial justice efforts. This type of story is missing from traditional histories of medicine because, for too long, no one went looking for them.

Another largely absent topic in medical history is the treatment of psychiatric illness among Black patients. When Kylie Smith researched it, she found that psychiatrists caring for these individuals often created false dichotomies about emotional and psychological issues between Black and white patients. Such beliefs, she writes, “created and justified systems that segregated Black patients from white ones, alienated them from their families, and forced them to perform hard labor under the guise of therapy.” Perhaps this conclusion might be the sort that the Trump administration would rather not hear in its emphasis on the “grandeur of the American landscape.” But, again, excluding certain arguments from your accounts because you disagree with them prevents good history—finding facts, crafting arguments and revisiting previous scholarship—from happening.

Sometimes invisibility is right in front of our eyes. Several chapters in the book focus on museums that house medical specimens, usually “abnormal” body parts obtained decades or centuries ago for display to medical audiences as well as the general public. It took a social justice approach to history to start asking questions about these exhibits. Who were the people, so dehumanized in these displays, whose limbs and brains we now see? Is there any chance they gave consent to show their body parts? What are the ethical duties of museums that house medical specimens? Surely medical history should not only be concerned with these specimens, but also the lives of the individuals who have been partially preserved.

Finally, the most invisible group of all in medicine might be disabled people, who constitute roughly a quarter of the population. Even though such individuals are frequently under medical care, medicine has been interested in them only as examples of diseases or conditions. But who were and are these people? It is often hard to know. As historian Katrina Jirik writes in her chapter, “Disability, Archives and Museums,” “the voices of disabled people are missing from the archival record, muted, silenced by the voices of prominent actors.” Yet once you go looking for them, they are a rich part of medical history.

So, do I now think that all history must pursue social justice? I’m still not sure, but to the degree that it forces us to confront our complicated past, and to do so by finding previously unavailable information, it is a very important tool. The alternative—a sanitized version of history told with cherry-picked sources—isn’t really history at all.

Barron H. Lerner, professor of medicine and population health at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, is the author of “The Good Doctor: A Father, A Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics.” He is a Hastings Center fellow. X: @barronlerner"

Marines investigating social media post that appears to mock potential recruit; Task & Purpose, August 18, 2025

  , Task & Purpose; Marines investigating social media post that appears to mock potential recruit


[Kip Currier: This is a really interesting story on several levels. I wouldn't have necessarily expected the Marine Corps to take such a strong stance against what is clearly an example of cyberbullying, given the Corps' reputation as the nation's elite fighting force. It's encouraging to see such an unequivocal response against bullying. When you consider the challenges that most military branches have had with meeting recruitment goals in recent years (see here and here), though, it makes practical sense that this kind of social media bullying would be viewed as counter-productive, as well as unethical.

Given Pete Hegseth's stated intent to instill "warrior culture" and both Hegseth and Trump 2.0's "war on wokeness", which I can imagine them arguing this stance against bullying would exemplify, it will be interesting to see if Hegseth comments on this incident or overrides the statement by Captain Hardin (see below).]

[Excerpt]

"Marine Corps officials are investigating whether a Marine derided a poolee on social media for not completing the Corps’ Delayed Entry Program, which allows potential recruits to prepare to ship out to boot camp. (Civilians in the Delayed Entry Program for the Marine Corps are colloquially referred to as “poolees.”)

An image shared on the unofficial Marine subreddit page appears to be a screenshot of an Instagram post showing a picture of a young man standing in front of a wall with the Marine Corps’ Eagle, Globe and Anchor emblem with the word “Quitter” superimposed over him.

Underneath the picture is a description about how the Marine Corps is not for the “weak minded,” and how the Delayed Entry Program is meant to “get rid of the weak and to help others who want it grow to their full potential.”

The post, which appeared over the weekend, “did not reflect the values and standards” of the Marine Corps and included language that “was inconsistent with the supportive and professional environment we strive to maintain,” said Capt. John Hardin, director of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island Communication Strategy and Operations Office.

“We are investigating the incident thoroughly and taking appropriate action to ensure that our recruiting personnel uphold the highest standards of conduct,” Hardin said in a statement to Task & Purpose."

Congress’s Knowledge at Risk: The Constitutional Stakes in the Perlmutter Case; The National Law Review, August 18, 2025

Jim W. Ko of The Sedona Conference, The National Law Review; Congress’s Knowledge at Risk: The Constitutional Stakes in the Perlmutter Case

"Do all federal employees “serve at the pleasure of the President”? That question, usually tucked away in the margins of constitutional law, now sits at the center of one of the most consequential disputes of our time.

When President Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, the Director of the U.S. Copyright Office (formally the Register of Copyrights),1 the move appeared—at first glance—to be the straightforward exercise of presidential authority. After all, presidents hire and fire their own officers; the Librarian of Congress is a presidential appointee; and the Copyright Office sits within the Library.

But a closer look reveals that this case is not about ordinary personnel management. It is about whether the President can extend his reach into Congress’s own library, and in so doing, compromise both the constitutional separation of powers and the First Amendment’s guarantee against viewpoint discrimination."

CHATBOT CHEATING IN ETHICS CLASS; Christianity Today, August 18, 2025

, Christianity Today; CHATBOT CHEATING IN ETHICS CLASS

"The ethical and practical problems are legion: copyright disputesecological effectsa possible economic bubble, and plain deceit. Still, for an undergraduate on a deadline, the appeal is obvious."

Monday, August 18, 2025

The Guardian view on the Alaska summit: there must be no more gifts to Vladimir Putin, Editorial; The Guardian, August 17, 2025

Editorial; The Guardian view on the Alaska summit: there must be no more gifts to Vladimir Putin

"Ukraine must remain in control of the future of its own territory, and the use of force must not be rewarded by the summary redrawing of borders. With enormous bravery and skill, and at immense cost, Ukraine has resisted an illegal invasion for more than three years. There must be no sellout."

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Resignation and betrayal: What handing Donbas to Putin would mean for Ukraine; BBC, August 17, 2025

Joel Gunter, BBC ; Resignation and betrayal: What handing Donbas to Putin would mean for Ukraine

"For Ukrainians, polling shows security guarantees are an absolutely vital part of any potential agreement on territory or anything else.

"People in Ukraine will accept various forms of security guarantees," said Anton Grushchetsky, the director of Kyiv's International Institute for Sociology, "but they require them."

For Yevhen Tkachov, the emergency worker in Kramatorsk, exchange of territory could only be considered with "real guarantees, not just written promises".

"Only then, more or less, I am in favour of giving Donbas to Russia," he said. "If the British Royal Navy is stationed in the port of Odesa, then I agree."

As various paths to peace are floated and discussed, sometimes in the deal-making style preferred by President Trump, there is a risk of losing sight of the real people involved – people who have already lived through a decade of war and who may stand to lose even more now in exchange for peace.

Donbas was a place full of Ukrainians from all different walks of life, said Vitalii Dribnytsia, a Ukrainian historian. "We are not just talking about culture, about politics, about demographics, we are talking about people," he said.

Donetsk might not have the cultural reputation of somewhere like Odesa, Mr Drinytsia said. But it was Ukraine. "And any corner of Ukraine, regardless of whether it has some great cultural significance or not, is Ukraine," he said."

Ukrainian mood hardens as MPs insist country should not be forced to surrender; The Guardian, August 17, 2025

 in Kyiv and  , The Guardian; Ukrainian mood hardens as MPs insist country should not be forced to surrender


[Kip Currier: For anyone who thinks Ukraine should just capitulate to Putin and Trump's pressure to give up its sovereign territory and its peoples, realize what that means: 

all. Ukrainians. in. those. territories. will. now. be. living. under. Russian. totalitarian. rule. 

Period. Full stop.

Ask yourself, too, if you're an American, if you'd be willing to just acquiesce to pressure and surrender a half dozen U.S. states to an authoritarian invader.

Moreover, giving up those states to Russia is no guarantee that Russia won't later use those newly acquired regions as footholds to again attack Ukraine and try to take over the entire country. As an 8/17/25 BBC article reports:

Zelensky has consistently said Ukraine would not hand over the Donbas in exchange for peace. And confidence in Russia to abide by any such arrangement – rather than simply use the annexed land for future attacks – is low.  

For that and other reasons, about 75% of Ukrainians object to any formal cessation of land to Russia, according to polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgv1pdkll8o

 

That's what a despotic abductor of Ukrainian children, a bomber of hospitals, and indicted war criminal like Putin is likely to do.

And for anyone who is a marginalized person in those territories, such as LGBTQ+ persons, your very life may be at risk if Russia takes control of those lands. (See here and here and here.]


[Excerpt]

"A string of Ukrainian politicians and public figures condemned the idea of handing over unoccupied land to Russia for peace on Sunday, arguing that their country had not been defeated and should not be forced into a surrender.

The hardening of the mood came at the end of a weekend where there was first ridicule and disgust in Ukraine at the red-carpet treatment of Vladimir Putin by Donald Trump at their summit in Alaska, followed by frustration as it appeared that Trump was siding with the Russian leader.

Trump reportedly told European leaders that he believed a peace deal could be negotiated if Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to give up the areas of the Donbas region that the Russian invaders have not been able to seize in more than three years of fighting.

Halyna Yanchenko, an independent member of Ukraine’s parliament, said the suggestion that Ukraine should “simply surrender new territories without a fight – just because Putin wants it – is absurd from the very start”.

The MP, an anti-corruption activist previously part of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, said hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians would be affected by Putin’s proposal, initially favoured by Trump after Friday’s Alaska summit.

Official estimates are that 255,000 people still live in the 3,500 square miles (9,000 sq km) of Donetsk province that Russia has been unable to seize in its three-and-a-half-year invasion, which includes the industrial cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. The Donbas also comprises Luhansk province, which is almost totally occupied by Russia.

Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion the population of Donetsk was 1.9 million, so the number of people with property and other connections to the area wanted by Russia is higher. “So when someone brings up the idea of ‘trading territory’, we must understand that in practice it is trading people,” Yanchenko said...

Cartoons and memes circulated widely online over the weekend with a particular focus on the sight of US soldiers kneeling to straighten out the red carpet in Alaska for the Russian president.

“Dishonored,” wrote Serhii Sternenko, a Ukrainian drone fundraiser, on X, comparing the image to soldiers raising the US flag at Iwo Jima towards the end of the second world war.

Maksym Palenko, a cartoonist, drew a picture of a glum-looking Trump with his trademark red tie spooling out beneath him and turning into a carpet on which a laughing Putin was standing. It reflected shots of Putin smiling as he was sitting in Trump’s limousine while it was setting off.

“We do not deserve to surrender and we are not in a position to surrender,” said Oleksiy Goncharenko, an MP with the opposition European Solidarity party. “This part of Donetsk is a fortress and Putin has tried and failed to take it for 11 years. Now he wants to take it through diplomatic tricks and manoeuvres.”"

Saturday, August 16, 2025

‘State-driven censorship’: new wave of book bans hits Florida school districts; The Guardian, August 16, 2025

, The Guardian ; ‘State-driven censorship’: new wave of book bans hits Florida school districts

"A new wave of book bans has hit Florida school districts, with hundreds of titles being pulled from library and classroom shelves as the school year kicks off.

The Republican-dominated state, which has already had the highest rate of book bans nationwide this year, is continuing to censor reading materials in schools, bowing to external pressures in an effort to avoid conflict and government retaliation.

“This is an ideological campaign to erase LGBTQ+ lives and any honest discussion of sex, stripping libraries of resources and stories,” William Johnson, the director of PEN America’s Florida office, told the Guardian.

“If censorship keeps spreading, silence won’t save us. Floridians must speak out now.”

Book bans have been rising at a rapid rate across the US since 2021, but this latest wave comes after increased pressure from the state board of education in Florida.

The board issued a harsh warning to the Hillsborough county school district in May, saying that if they didn’t remove “pornographic” titles from their library, formal legal action could ensue. More than 600 books were pulled as a result, and the process was expected to cost the district $350,000.

The books taken off the school shelves included The Diary of Anne Frank and What Girls Are Made of by Elana K Arnold. None of them were under formal review by the district, and they hadn’t been flagged by local parents as potentially inappropriate. Parents with children in the school system even had the opportunity to opt their children out of a particular reading, without removing them from the class for everyone.

PEN called the board of education’s mass removal in Hillsborough county a “state-driven censorship”, and concluded “it is a calculated effort to consolidate power through fear, to bypass legal precedent, and to silence diverse voices in Florida’s public schools,” in their press release.

Fearing similar retribution, nine surrounding school districts have taken proactive measures, pulling books which they are worried could cause similar controversy. This includes Columbia, Escambia, Orange and Osceola, who have followed suit and quietly complied, probably to avoid similar state retaliation.

“Censorship advocates are playing a long game, and making Hillsborough county public schools bend the knee is a huge win for them,” said Rachel Doyle, who goes by “Reads with Rachel” on social media.

Doyle has two children in the Hillsborough school district system and is frustrated that they are being used as political pawns. She feels that her voice has been erased by far-right groups like Moms for Liberty and that parental rights groups do not have her kids’ best interests in mind.

“I do not want or need a special interest group or a ‘concerned citizen’ opting out for me,” Doyle said. “Once Florida becomes a place where this is the norm entirely, other states will follow.”

In Escambia county, one of the nine school districts that have taken books off their library shelves after the Hillsborough removal campaign, 400 titles have been removed without review. These include I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, a satirical anti-war novel centered around a prisoner of war in Dresden after the Allied bombings in the second world war.

What is happening in Florida is part of a broader, nationwide censorship drive fueled by conservative backlash against teachings about race, gender and diversity.

Unsurprisingly, red states on average have seen higher instances of banned reading materials, with Florida accounting for 4,561 cases of prohibited titles this year, spanning 33 school districts.

These bans often target authors of color, female writers and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Books that educate about any of these experiences, or that document historical periods, are the recipients of frequent censorship attacks.

Rob Sanders, the author of several acclaimed children’s books like Ruby Rose and Peaceful Fights for Equal Rights, and a former Hillsborough county educator, has seen many challenges to his books in Florida and beyond.

“If we eliminate every book that tells a story that is different than the life experiences of an individual or a family, there will be no books left in the library,” Sanders said.

“As an author, the best thing I can do for children is to keep writing books that tell the truth and that celebrate the wonderful diversity in our world.”

Trump’s Shameful “Summit” Was Even Worse Than We Thought; The Bulwark, August 16, 2025

 TIM MILLER , The Bulwark; Trump’s Shameful “Summit” Was Even Worse Than We Thought

"Tim Miller takes on how the Trump-Putin Alaska summit went from what seemed to be an empty nothing-burger to a grotesque betrayal as it’s now being reported Trump pushed Putin’s demands onto Zelenskyy that Ukraine give up Donetsk and Luhansk."

Margaret Boden, Philosopher of Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 88; The New York Times, August 14, 2025

  , The New York Times; Margaret Boden, Philosopher of Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 88

"As a philosopher of AI, Professor Boden was often asked if she thought that robots would, or could, take over society.

“The truth is that they certainly won’t want to,” she wrote in Aeon magazine in 2018.

Why? Because robots, unlike humans, don’t care.

“A computer’s ‘goals,’” she wrote, “are empty of feeling.”"

Why Trump’s Latest Reality TV Show Is a Flop; The Daily Beast, August 16, 2025

 , The Daily Beast; Why Trump’s Latest Reality TV Show Is a Flop

"It is important to note that while Trump threatened to get tough on Russia if it did not go along with peace plans, what Trump really did was the opposite. He gave Putin a huge win by inviting him to the U.S. He literally rolled out the red carpet for a mass murderer, ending Putin’s well-deserved isolation from the U.S. and the international community. Trump spoke not of penalties for Russia but of future economic deals the two nations could celebrate. In other words, once again, Trump got fully played by Putin.

That is because Putin has realized all along that Trump was just a reality TV star playing at being president. The Russian thereby understands how to give Trump what he wants and therefore how to get what he seeks from Trump. He granted Trump just enough of a victory for the cameras while also sending an unmistakable message to those who really understand the game that is being played that Trump is weak, a stooge, a transitory character Putin will use and ultimately move on from.

There was a pathos to the whole event because if you watched closely, particularly during the closing press conference, it appeared Trump understood this as well. He was low-energy. He seemed defeated. He was going through the motions."

Trump’s Attempt to Make Museums Submit Feels Familiar; The New York Times, August 15, 2025

 , The New York Times; Trump’s Attempt to Make Museums Submit Feels Familiar

"Five years ago, many institutions in the United States tried, with varying degrees of seriousness and skill, to come to terms with our country’s legacy of racism. A backlash to this reckoning helped propel Donald Trump back into the White House, where he has taken a whole-of-government approach to wiping out the idea that America has anything to apologize for. As part of this campaign, the administration seeks to force our national museums to conform to its triumphalist version of history.

In March, Trump signed an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” criticizing versions of history that foster “a sense of national shame.” Museums and monuments, it said, should celebrate America’s “extraordinary heritage” and inculcate national pride. This week, the administration announced that it was reviewing displays at eight national museums — including the Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Smithsonian American Art Museum — and giving them 120 days to bring their content in line with Trump’s vision.

We’re already seeing glimpses of what that looks like. Last month, the National Museum of American History removed references to Trump’s impeachments from an exhibit on the American presidency. Those references were restored last week, but with changes: The exhibit no longer says that Trump made “false statements” about the 2020 election or that he encouraged the mob on Jan. 6...

For Pawel Machcewicz, founding director of the Museum of the Second World War, it’s been unsettling to see American museums subject to the sort of political intimidation he experienced in Poland...

Standing up to his government was costly. Machcewicz said he was subject to two separate criminal investigations, and for a time he left the country...

But for now, Machcewicz has the peace that comes from doing the right thing. “If I had capitulated, I would have been a completely frustrated man, because I would feel like someone who has betrayed himself,” he said. It’s a message that those who are tempted to try to appease this administration, at our museums or anywhere else, might remember."