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American Martyr.
The Sebastian-esque piece above is a pyrograph by American artist Robert Sherer. Pyrographs—pictures burned onto wood—aren’t very common here but are a fixture of craft classes at US summer camps. Sherer adopts the medium to subvert the wholesome orthodoxies of American life, that side of America which persistently stigmatises minorities as “other”, and to [...]

Gays are being attacked – but we’re holding hands, heads held high

Philip Pullman ranked second on US banned books list

Sometimes petitions work. A few weeks ago one such was launched by computer scientist John Graham-Cumming on the UK government website requesting a public apology for the terrible treatment accorded mathematician and wartime codebreaker Alan Turing in 1952. Turing was prosecuted after admitting a gay affair to police investigating another matter and given the choice [...]

Today is Outer Alliance Pride Day so let’s begin with a statement:
As a member of the Outer Alliance, I advocate for queer speculative fiction and those who create, publish and support it, whatever their sexual orientation and gender identity. I make sure this is reflected in my actions and my work.
Various members of the Outer [...]

How Amazon’s remote deletion of e-books from the Kindle paves the way for book-banning’s digital future

I was a Space Age boy. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in Project Mercury’s Friendship 7 a month before I was born, and growing up in the 1960s it was impossible to be unaware of the NASA missions. The first encyclopaedia I was given in 1967 had a whole chapter [...]

It was forty years ago, on the night of the 27th and morning of the 28th of June, 1969, that patrons of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village rioted after one police raid too many. You can read about it in detail on an unusually thorough (caveat lector) Wikipedia page. Violence, harassment and suspicion is [...]

Ave Pan by the amazing J Allen St John. Via.
In the spirit of basic human generosity I try not to be too anti-Christian here, especially when so many churchgoers these days feel themselves rather beleaguered; after centuries persecuting much of the world, the world has finally pushed them back and it hurts the poor things. [...]

Ed Jansen writes to let me know that the latest edition of his web magazine, Passage, is now online. Once again, most of the features listed below are in Dutch but that doesn’t exclude all visitors here. David Britton has been recommending Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones to me so I guess I’ll be reading [...]

Johann Hari: Dear God, stop brainwashing children | Worship is forced on 99 per cent of children without even asking what they think.

I haven’t been using Twitter for very long and until today hadn’t seen the way it can spur people to action with incredible speed. Among my circle of people it was Neil Gaiman who set things rolling with a link to this post by author Mark R Probst which describes how Amazon.com have been quietly [...]

Personal web data to be stored for a year | A policeman’s job is only easy in a police state. Time for everyone to start using Tor.

Continuing an occasional series.
The poster at the top left is the unused Ministry of Information design created to maintain Britain’s resolve after war had been declared in September 1939. This simple slogan struck a chord recently among Britons sick of the climate of fear, security theatre and authoritarian coercion which, deliberately or not, appears to [...]

‘Sir, are you queer?’ | Fear of upsetting parents and faith groups is deterring teachers from tackling homophobia.

Malevolent voices that despise our freedoms | Not terrorists; the government. Philip Pullman on recent iniquities.

William Burroughs’ Control Virus is alive and well and ready to flourish in New Zealand on February 28 where new copyright laws will force ISPs to take down material as a result of accusation only, no proof required. 16,000 people have signed a petition against this at the Creative Freedom Foundation site.
Update: Internet copyright law [...]

Meet the new freedom fighters | “A coalition from left and right determined to uphold our hard-won civil liberties and rights.”

Brian Eno: The well of freedom is running dry | Your shiny New Labour police state awaits.

The HAL Project.
January flew by in a blizzard of work so posting here tended to rely more on pictures than words. As usual the things I’ve been designing will be unveiled when they’re closer to being published or released but for now here’s some new or not-so-new items worthy of note.
• The HAL Project screensaver. [...]