Tom’s been making great progress on his Airstream. What he’s been doing is removing the oxidation that’s built up over the years. Believe it or not, he’s hasn’t started the polishing phase yet.

[possibly resolved - updated below]

Amazing and disgusting news this weekend as it was revealed how homophobia has crept into Amazon’s book-selling practices. I’m sure you’re aware of Amazon’s book-ranking feature. Think of it as a mega-bestseller list. Whether a book has a book-ranking even determines whether you can find it using an Amazon search for books on a subject! It’s been discovered that, since at least February, Amazon has removed books with lesbian or gay subjects or themes from the book-rankings.

The list of books banned from the rankings is astounding. Here are a few that caught my eye:

• Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
• Maurice by E.M. Forster
• Unfriendly Fire by Nathaniel Frank (an exploration of gays in the military from a policy perspective – it has sold more copies than the Twilight books)
• A Boys Own Story by Edmund White
• The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
• Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

What makes it even worse is that currently, when you type “homosexuality” in the Amazon search box, the number one result is a book on preventing homosexuality in children!

I’ve tried emailing Amazon but all I get is a robotic response. Getting the attention of a human at this internet behemoth is next to impossible if you want to question their business practices.

One of the more satisfying ways for internet users to express outrage is the creation of a Google Bomb. The most famous of these was when the number one Google result for “failure” was “George Bush”. 

Now we have one that’s been started which equates “Amazon Rank” to the practice of censorship. Please support this grass-roots action by clicking on the following link, which will take you to the full definition of “Amazon Rank”:

The consumer website, Consumerist, has a good round-up of the story thus far. (Consumerist is owned by Consumers Union, which, in turn, publishes Consumer Reports).

http://consumerist.com/5209209/gay-and-lesbian-books-lose-amazon-sales-rank-for-some-reason

update: There are a couple of developing ideas what happened at Amazon short of a massive religious right-wing conspiracy. First, a hacker named weez might be at fault for some mischief. The jury’s still out on whether he could have actually pulled off what he claims to have done. Second, a programmer on the French Amazon website might have caused the problem, a massive glitch. If’ we’ve been trolled, I’ll gladly say so, but still unexplained are why this has been happening for months and why some authors got emails from Amazon saying they were subject to this new “policy”.

another update 5.30pm PDT: Amazon has sent out a slew of emails blaming the situation on “an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error”. I’ve checked the books I listed above and some of the are indeed back in the book rankings. Not yet all, but it seems that Amazon heard the outrage and they are trying to fix things. Kudos to them and hoorah for us.

If you’re a fan of the incredible Maysles documentary, Grey Gardens – Criterion Collection’ target=_blank>Grey Gardens – Criterion Collection’ target=_blank>Grey Gardens, check out this fascinating interview with the woman who bought the Beale mansion in 1979.

Sally Quinn on Owning the Beale Mansion

Four years ago, right about this time of year, I started keeping chickens. Here are the very first three, Donell, Chantal, and Blondelle (who’s crashed out on the fish wrap). I knew they’d be entertaining and useful (as in eggs, fertilizer and bug control), but it’s always been surprising how personable they can be.

There’s a photographer down south who’s been similarly smitten and he has a picture blog of his chicks day-by-day. He’s on day 9. Check it out…very cute. (Depending on your outlook, the names are pretty funny too.)

THREE CHICKS A DAY

A couple of years ago, another very talented blogger did pen and ink drawings weekly of her little peeper. Also worth a look:

LITTLE CHICKEN GROWING UP!

Tom’s been doing his research, waited for the parts and pieces to be delivered, and started what is going to be the long process of cleaning Arthur. First, he has to remove 46 years of oxidation on the aluminum skin. (The polishing comes later.) After half an hour, the difference is already pretty striking.