[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.

Under Federal law, we’re entitled to three free credits per year, one from each of the major credit reporting agencies. Do not use the site freecreditreport.com…in order to get your credit reports (which you might never get), they require a membership in whatever it is they sell. There’s a NY Times article on this unsavory outfit here.

The only place to go is AnnualCreditReport.com. No strings, you can collect your 3 free credit reports all at once, or space them out as you wish.

Meanwhile, it’s not a bad idea to know your FICO score, especially if you’re planning on a major purchase like a car or a house (if consumer credit becomes available again). When you get a free credit report, you’re offered the option of buying your credit score, which I usually do for around $8. I don’t know how long this will last, but Equifax, one of the major credit reporting agencies (the other two are TransUnion and Experian) is offering a free credit score and not in conjunction with your annual free credit report. To get it, follow this link.

[[Update: Sorry, the free FICO score was limited to 10000 people and they’ve already fufilled that so the offer has expired.]]

One place I shop for violin things is Johnson String Instrument in Newton, Mass. Good prices, extraordinarily helpful people who answer the phone and a fine selection. Plus, they have interesting little articles that string players might find interesting.

They also have monthly web coupons which I found useful when I bought a new case today. The coupons are on the inside cover of their catalog. In case you don’t already have a catalog, here’ are the coupon codes:

You can visit their website, or call 800-359-9351.

Sorry if you came by looking for the rest of our Death Valley pictures. I got sidetracked today by the task of finishing my taxes. I promise I’ll have ‘em up sometime tomorrow.

		The number of ways to file your taxes online grows every year, but old fogey that I am, I’m used to using TurboTax. If you are too, it might interest you to know you can use TurboTax Online Deluxe if you have an online savings account with State Farm Bank. You don’t have to keep much money in there to use that feature.

Roombas may not the best vacuums or floor washers in the world, but they are entertaining. The world’s most successful robot, it’s kind of amazing to watch them running around in circles, not falling off of steps and, finally, just how much dirt they suck up.

There are a bunch of Roomba owners will pre-clean their rooms (known as roomba-rizing), seeing them almost like family pets. We’re not quite at the level of fan-dom, but we do manage to run our Roomba and Scooba a couple of times per week.

So it was kind of cool to find that a kid-started, family-run company is making Roomba costumes:

Here’s what one looks like, ahem, unclothed:

Check out the Roomba costumes at myRoomBud.com

Unbelievable. You know Airborne…a teacher invented it…out of the blue people have told me to take it … fergashsakes, Costco sells it! Sorry to burst your bubble, but Airbusted is more like it. You can get all the sorry details at the Consumerist, linked below, along with info on how to claim your piece of the class-action pie. (I have to say though, it does kind of taste good, what with the ginger flavor and all.)

 False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit: How To Get Your Airborne Refund

Recycling paper…easy! Recycling plastic….piece of cake! Recycling glass…been doing it for years!

Well, what about computers, cell phones, televisions, other old electronics? This can be the most problematic. It’s very bad to send them to the landfill. They’ll never decompose and there are a lot of toxic chemicals in them whose effects will last for generations.

Many areas have free e-waste recycling days, usually sponsored by some civic-minded business or organization. For example, the nearby Ikea in Emeryville is taking e-waste today and tomorrow.

I ran across two online programs that make the process as simple as possible. You give them a little information, they tell you how much it’s probably worth, they even pay for the shipping and then you can get money in the form of credits in return.

greensight.com – They have a recycling program for Costco. For the old stuff that still has some value, they’ll give you a Costco gift card. For the really worthless old junk, they’ll still pay for the shipping.

sprintbuyback.com – If you have a Sprint or Nextel phone that has value, they’ll issue a Sprint/Nextel service credit on your bill. If it’s not something they can recondition for resale, they still accept ANY phone for recycling or donation.

ecost.com is a gadget/electronics/technology store. Their front page is visually noisy, but once you get past it, there are excellent prices on a good selection of items. This site doesn’t show up in Froogle/Google Products/Google Shopping or whatever they’re calling it these days, so I always make a trip here to check their prices. For window shopping, the countdown bargains pages are entertaining.

e c o s t . c o m

This is a truly fun Hong Kong gadget-y kind of website. All kinds of  funny/interesting/useful things priced cheaply and with free shipping, no less!

d e a l e x t r e m e . c o m

Ah, the granddaddy of internet shopping. Ecommerce site may come and go, but there will always be Amazon. There’s a reason, rather there are millions of reasons why this one endures. I can find just about anything there at a reasonable price and from a company I’ve grown to trust. And even if I don’t wind up buying it there, it’s great for researching products.

a m a z o n . c o m