Friday fragments

In preparation for painting and redecorating 1 of our guest rooms, yesterday I (mostly) cleared off my big desk and listed it for sale online.  

I sat at this desk 5 days a week for several years when I used to work from home full-time.  But now the large desk is just in the way.  I bought a small mirrored chest to store the items from the desk that I will still need, like envelopes, stamps, tape, paper clips, sharpies, checkbook, and return address labels.  You get the point.  While sorting the stuff in the desk I took the opportunity to throw away a bunch of old papers and a few computer CDs.  I'm really trying to pair down and hide the office stuff so this room can just be a guest room.

There was a forecast for several inches of snow yesterday and in anticipation of that, the schools and even the state government was closed.  First it rained, then we had about 30 minutes of sleet, and then the temperature went down and it finally started snowing around 2:30.  It was my scheduled day off so the weather had no real impact on my plans for the day.  Spouse & I met our friend Steven for lunch, since Spouse was off and Steven works nearby.  We ended up getting about 6 inches of snow.

Yesterday I made some delicious homemade soup.  Here are the ingredients:

• 1 can Great Northern beans
• 1 can navy beans
• 1 can garbanzo bean (or chick peas)
• 1 large container of chicken stock
• 1 bag of frozen "soup vegetables"
• 1 container of cubed ham
• 1 sprig of fresh rosemary

I combine all the ingredients into a stock pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer and after about 10 minutes I remove the rosemary and turn off the heat.  It is so easy and so delicious!

Earlier I wrote about Blogger's announcement that it would begin censoring blogs for nudity.  Fortunately, enough blog writers complained that Blogger has decided not to implement their new policy. The banner message read "This week, we announced a change to Blogger’s porn policy stating that blogs that distributed sexually explicit images or graphic nudity would be made private.
We’ve received lots of feedback about making a policy change that impacts longstanding blogs, and about the negative impact this could have on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities.  We appreciate the feedback. Instead of making this change, we will be maintaining our existing policies."  Needless to say I am very happy about this, not because I depend on Blogger for porn, but because Blogger began as an uncensored platform and I believe it should remain so.

Censorship

So I log into Blogger yesterday or today (I forget which) and happen to see this notice at the top of the dashboard about a change to blog content beginning in late March.  I clicked on the link and read the notice.  Blogs that contain nudity that isn't considered 'artistic' or 'educational' will have to either remove that content or Blogger will make the blog private.  

I guess it remains to be seen how 'artistic' is defined.  I mean, I find almost all nudity to be artistic.

The interesting thing is that some blog writers received the notice via email, indicating their blog would likely be affected.  I did not get the email, so I'm assuming mine is not affected, but I'm really not sure.  My blog does not contain nude genitalia so I do not have content advisory that other blogs do.  Maybe that has something to do with it.  But my blog definitely does have nudity, so I'm not sure if nudity without showing genitalia is 'artistic' or not.

But I must say that I find all of this disappointing and bothersome.  YouTube and Facebook have always censored content and prohibited nudity.  I believe a big part of Blogger's popularity has been the fact that it did NOT censor content.  Blogger writers have been able to say and post whatever they want, be it 'artistic', 'educational', titillating, or smutty.  Its the very reason why we're HERE and not on Facebook and YouTube.

If blogs are forced to go 'private', how does a blog writer invite readers to the newly private blog?  How does a reader ask to be invited to a private blog?

I guess the other option is for blog writers to change platforms.  But whose to say that WordPress and other blog platforms won't follow suit?

I'm really not sure what to think about this whole situation, but I definitely feel disappointed that Blogger has decided to censor blog content.